Page 28 of A Friend in the Glass

“He’s dead.”

“That wasn’t my question, Sam.”

“He was… Christ, I don’t know. He wasn’t my boyfriend. We didn’t even have sex. But he was sweet, and he—I don’t know.” Sam struggled, working his jaw. “I cared about him. He wasn’t cut out for the Army, but he worked damn hard, and if he’d lived, yeah, maybe.” He pushed the tray away again. “Does that help with your line of reasoning?”

Rufus shrugged. “You don’t need to keep it a secret.”

“And now you know. Can we talk about something important now? Like what we’re going to do about this mess?”

Wryly, Rufus suggested, “Run away to Nebraska?”

“Wouldn’t that be a dream. Lew’s a lot of things, but he doesn’t make empty threats. If he says he’s going to come after us, he’s going to come after us. We need to figure out how we’re going to handle it when he does.” With a grunt, Sam gathered their trash. “What are we going to do now?”

“I think we should try to find out if Del was telling the truth about not yet being in the city when Shareed died. At least it’d narrow our focus a bit.”

“Right,” Sam said. “Here we go.”

Chapter Fourteen

The books piled onto the sale carts outside the front doors of The Strand had always been Rufus’s favorites to dig through. He’d long ago figured out that those books, and their extremely niche subject matter, were typically hard sells with the general public, and so for very little investment, Rufus could learn a lot. And sure, he could learn the exact same things for free at the library, but sometimes picking through the once lovingly used, now abandoned, books felt sort of like he was saving them from the certain fate of ending up in a dumpster.

Rufus knew he was actually projecting his own feelings of inadequacy, his own fears of worthlessness—surely he’d have had a better childhood if he were lovable—and he knew it wasn’t healthy behavior, but he couldn’t help anthropomorphizing used books. After all, titles likeMathematical Fractals in Everyday Life,History of Irish Ballads,New York Ghost Stories, and101 Gays of the Nineteenth Centuryhad been some of his best friends—his only friends—before meeting Jake.

Before meeting Sam.

Rufus glanced up from his phone to study Sam seated across the table, the empty taco tray still between them. Sam had comeinto his life like a wrecking ball, to borrow from Miley Cyrus, and Rufus had found in him a friend. Someone who had cared about his well-being, had wanted to spend free time with him, talk with him, and Rufus had wanted to do the very same in return. Even with the somewhat rocky evolution of their relationship, and the fact that they were now romantically involved, which came with all-new complexities and complications, it didn’t negate how they’d begun, didn’t negate that Sam had believed Rufus when he’d needed it the most.

Rufus didn’t understand their situation, would have given his left nut to pretend Shareed and Lew and Del Jolly and Colonel Bridges didn’t exist so he could go home and curl up in bed with the most eclectic book in his collection, but Sam needed support.

Sam needed someone to believe him.

Rufus had a real friend now, and his real friend needed him.

“Conasauga Solutions definitely has a private plane,” Rufus said, looking back down at the Facebook business page open on his phone. He swiped through photos with corporate jargon descriptions before stopping on one of the plane parked on a tarmac with half a dozen rich-looking people standing beside its staircase. He pinched the screen to zoom in. “I’m hoping to find some sort of identification. You can pop that into a website that tracks private planes, you know.”

“Even if he’s telling the truth, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t behind what happened to Shareed. He can make a phone call from a plane just like anywhere else.”

Rufus glanced up a second time. “Can I do this before you dash my hope like a kid’s popped balloon at a birthday party?”

Sam rolled his eyes.

Rufus returned to previously posted photos on the business page before coming across a different plane photograph thatgave off “Welcome to the Company” vibes. The picture was a wide shot that included the tail numbers. “Oh! Found it. Let’s see if this bad boy took a recent trip.” Rufus opened a new browser page of a radar website and inputted the numbers. “This plane flew out of Maryland Wednesday—yesterday—and landed in New York a few minutes before nine in the morning.”

He offered Sam the phone and pointed to the radar map covered in dozens of tiny planes. Underneath was a dropdown box of details relating to the tail number. “Before you ask, if Del got off the plane in the city, immediately caught a cab, and if the Morning Commute Gods were on his side, he definitely could have reached Shareed’s hotel before she’d intended to meet you. But I want to stress he’d be cutting it extremely close.”

For a silent moment, Sam studied the phone. “Or Lew could have done it for him.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Is there any way to see who was on the plane with him?”

Rufus shook his head. “No. They could have had Elvis onboard for all we know.”

“So this doesn’t tell us anything one way or another.”

Rufus took his phone back. “It tells us whensomeof Conasauga’s staff arrived, at least. It’s better than nothing.”

“I guess.” Sam glanced around the taqueria, checked his phone, and frowned. “When is your appointment again?”

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