SATISH
“We need a minute.” AnnaSophia’s response to Satish’s tap on the bathroom door carried the muffled quality of someone speaking underwater.
Satish hesitated. Was she crying? God knew she had reason. He cleared his throat. “Maverick and I are going to the garage.”
“Fine.” Her flat tone vibrated with pain and terminated further talk.
He motioned Maverick off the bed and said, “Back in about ten minutes.”
“Fine.”
“You okay?” Satish’s fingertips tingled. Stuff it, Patel.
Silence—clanging like the dead-end conversations he and Mère started once a day.
“My mom gives me the silent treatment all the time,” Maverick whispered. “The one thing that works is giving her an hour alone.”
But AnnaSophia’s not alone. Satish stepped into the hall. “Quiet. Her little boy’s asleep.”
Inside the garage, they went straight to the Bronco. “Another reason I don’t do drugs,” Maverick volunteered. “I can’t make the payments on my wheels and get high.”
Satish popped the hood. “What about dealing? That’d give you a few extra centavos.”
Maverick snorted. “You must think I’m a total fuck-up.”
“Damn.” Satish stopped his search for baggies and vials and anything that didn’t belong in the engine. He smacked his forehead. “The thought did flit through my head.”
“Yeah, I can see why. Believe it or not, I don’t take a lotta risks. Coming into a ritzy place like this … with a hot, gorgeous babe?” He shakes his head. “That’s the biggest chance I’ve ever took. Muling …” He shrugged. “I figure I wouldn’t live long enough for regrets.”
Satish slammed the hood. Maverick would never find the cure for cancer, but if AnnaSophia didn’t extract a pound of flesh, he might learn enough from this experience to do something worthwhile with his life.
“Don’t s’pose you know a lawyer—a good one? One who’d give me a break on his fee? I’ve got some money saved. I’d rather spend the rest of my life with my mom than go to prison.”
Satish stood from removing the first hubcap.
“I get you’re a friend of Lexi’s mom. You don’t want to help me, I understand.” No whining, no opening his palms, no hint of expectation in the statement.
“All depends on Mrs. Romanov.”
“Well, there you go. I’m fucked twenty ways to hell.” He placed an index finger against his temple and pulled the imaginary trigger.
“She had a lot of troubles a couple of years ago.” Satish moved to another tire.
“Lexi told me about her dad—after we climbed in bed. Said some real creepy shit. If she’d told me at Leather’s—or on the way home …” He cleared his throat. “My dad walkin’ out isn’t like her dad gettin’ murdered—and for sure nothing like what happened to her afterwards. But I remember I thought my heart had shriveled up and died for a long time after he left.”
Satish stood and faced the kid, searching for averted eyes, lip licking, or other signs of manipulation. “You might say that to Mrs. Romanov.”
“Nah. She’d think I was playing her. Which, don’t get me wrong, I’d do in a heartbeat.”
“Honesty can get you in trouble, you know.” Unsure if it was the gin speaking, Satish looked away and refocused his gaze on the kid’s guileless eyes. “You end up talking to the cops, you might want to think about what you say.”
Maverick frowned. “Don’t I have the right to remain silent?”
“You do. And think about that before you say anything without a lawyer.”
“Thanks.” Maverick brought his hand up for a fist bump but dropped it at his side without completing the gesture.
For the next ten minutes, Satish shut up and hunted under seats and floor mats, behind mirrors and padding on the doors, inside the glove box and overhead lights. He lifted and sifted and probed everywhere his fingers could reach. His cynicism didn’t melt, but it didn’t inflate. He closed the tailgate and wiped his hands.
“Clean,” he announced before he threw Maverick a test. “What about Alexandra? Was she smoking or popping pills or snorting coke around you?”
“I didn’t see her, but I’d say she’d had something—uppers, maybe, before she hit Leather’s. She was flyin’. Dumb me, I thought she was having a good time. Now … I think—” He shrugged. “I think she was trying to forget. Her dad was a real weird dude.”
An understatement. Satish said, “Weren’t you surprised she didn’t have wheels?”
“Said hers was in the shop. Said she Ubered from her house to Leather’s.”
“What else? Anything you can tell me may work in your favor with Mrs. Romanov.”
The kid shook his head. “Nothin’. She yakked all the way from the club. Never took a breath. I figured it was nerves. I thought about marching into her house, having a good time in her bed, sneaking out before her mom woke up—and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.”