Page 101 of Savage Lover

“Convenient,” I say.

“What do you care?” Edwards mutters, glaring at Seb and me. “You’re not cops. Who the fuck are you, anyway?”

“I’m the guy who’s not gonna kill you tonight,” I tell him. “You’re welcome.”

Kicking his gun further out of reach, I nod to Seb and we head back to the SUV.

As we climb inside, Seb says, “Did you know who he was talking about? This Brodie guy?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “I know who that is.”

I saw a picture of him pinning a medal on Logan Schultz.

23

CAMILLE

I’m robbing a bank today.

It seems completely unreal. Standing in my tiny, dingy kitchen, everything looks so prosaic and familiar that I can’t imagine myself doing anything but the normal activities of cooking, cleaning, or working in the auto bay.

Yet tonight, I move from (mostly) law-abiding citizen to full-out criminal.

Nero and I have our plan in place. I know what I’m supposed to do.

Yet I can’t help focusing on the thousand ways it could all go wrong. If I forget a single part of it. If I make just one mistake . . .

No. That can’t happen.

I try to picture my Dad, the very first time he showed me how to take apart an engine and put it back together again.

These are complicated machines. You’ve got to be like a machine yourself. There’s no room for mistakes.

The plan is one big engine. I’ve got to be methodical and accurate like never before.

I’m painfully tense, during the first part of the day. I remind Vic that he has a shift at the Stop n’ Shop after school. I make sure he remembers to grab his lunch bag out of the fridge. I bring my Dad breakfast in bed. I swap out a pair of brake pads down in the shop. Then I make lunch for my Dad. This time, he’s able to come sit at the table to eat with me.

“Are you alright, mija?” he says. “You look pale. Are you getting sick?”

“Of course not,” I say. “You know I never get sick.”

“Yes you do,” he says, smiling sadly. “You just never complain about it.”

“I’ve got to go out tonight, Dad,” I tell him. “Vic’s at work—will you be okay here alone?”

“Absolutely,” he says. “You don’t have to baby me, sweetheart. I’m getting better all the time. I’ll be back downstairs working soon enough.”

Seeing as he can barely hobble around the apartment, I doubt that very much. But I’m glad he’s feeling optimistic.

“You call me if you need anything,” I tell him.

“I’ll be fine. I’m gonna watch Once Upon A Time in Hollywood tonight—it’s playing on Showtime. Now that’s a movie with gorgeous cars. Tarantino loves a classic car. I read he used two thousand of them, just to fill up the streets in the background. You remember what Brad Pitt drives in that movie?”

“I dunno.” My Dad and Vic and I all went to see the movie in a theater. We were mesmerized, all the way through. Not just by the cars—by the way it sucked us into 1969, like we were living every minute of it. “Oh, wait!” I say. “Was it a Cadillac?”

“You got it!” Dad says, grinning. “A ‘66 DeVille. The same car Tarantino used in Reservoir Dogs.”

“How do you know that?”

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