Page 40 of Warped

“Perhaps. There’s also a chance he’s just going to think Harvey was with the people shooting up the front of the property, and not bother to look into his identity any further.”

“So the people shooting had nothing to do with you?”

He shook his head. “No. Nothing. Like I said, we were checking the place out, and the next thing we know, we’re hearing gunfire, so I used the opportunity as a distraction.”

“Do you have any idea who was doing the shooting?”

“I was hoping you’d know.”

I chewed my lower lip. “I had to go in to court the day when I saw you on the street. It was about me testifying against my father. The people who shot up Tony’s house might have been aiming for me.”

He nodded. “That’s certainly a possibility. Though I’m sure someone like Tony has plenty of enemies.”

He was right, of course, but my gut told me my father was behind this. That meant I had two sets of people on my tail again—Tony and my father’s men. Unless they decided I’d been killed in the shooting. That was the best possible outcome in my view, though they wouldn’t believe anything without a body.

“Tony’s going to have noticed me missing by now,” I said. “I wonder if Nicole will have told him who I left with, or if she’ll try to protect me for once.”

“I have no idea. I don’t know your sister at all.”

“Considering her past actions, I’m guessing she’d hand me straight over to Tony if she could.”

X nodded, not disagreeing with me.

“What do you want to do now?” he asked.

The main thing concerning me was that I’d be called as witness at any moment, and right now no one had a way of getting hold of me. If I suddenly went AWOL, the trial would be thrown out of court.

“I need to get in touch with the detective on my father’s case and tell him how to contact me.”

“You still want to testify?”

“I have to. That’s what all of this has been about. After what he did, I’d rather die than have that fucking bastard walk free.”

“Okay, we can do that.”

“Afterward,” I continued, “can we get something to eat? I’m starving.”

He chuckled and kissed me again. “Worked up an appetite.”

I held back a smile. “Something like that.”

We left Harvey’s apartment, and X drove Harvey’s car downtown to the station where I knew the detective in charge of my father’s case was based.

“You should wait here,” I told X.

His eyes narrowed slightly. “I’d rather come with you.”

It still felt like a miracle that I was able to sit here, speaking with him, touching him. I’d never believed I would see him again, and though the X who sat next to me now was still him, he was changed by the accident—softer, not as coldhearted. He said he was getting snippets of his memory back now, that being with me was helping him remember things, but part of me wondered if I wanted him to remember. Maybe I preferred this version of X, even if the thing he’d said to me still scared the crap out of me.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for any cops to link the two of us. They know my background, and might put two and two together.”

He frowned slightly. “They think I’m someone else. I had a fake ID on me when they found me.”

“It doesn’t matter. They still must have thought your story was suspicious. You were found with a gunshot wound and two stab wounds, you have no memory, and no one steps forward to claim you. That’s got to send some warning flags up in their minds. I think it would be better if they didn’t connect us.”

I felt as though I hadn’t thought this through properly. At least at Tony’s, I wasn’t jeopardizing my main reason for staying alive. Now I was worried I’d end up doing something to screw things up.

He nodded. “Okay, but if you need anything, just call me. I have Harvey’s cell phone, and I bought another disposable cell phone this morning before we came to get you from Tony’s place. You can give them the number for the disposable cell to call you on.”

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