Page 40 of Thief of Night
“What are you doing?” she asked, even though it was pretty obvious.
“Please,” he said, as his gaze met hers. “Get in.”
She sighed and slid into the passenger side, onto a buttery leather seat softer than her bed.
He touched the keyless controls and the car purred to life. Charlie glancedback at the house, waiting for someone to do something. Driving off in the Porsche was so blatant that it almost couldn’t be called stealing, except for the part where Red was taking something that didn’t belong to him.
No one chased them down the driveway. Red pressed a clicker clipped to the visor and behind them, the garage door began to swing closed. He slid through the gears on the shift, his foot heavy on the pedal. A few minutes later, they were on 91 and speeding home. The acceleration on the car was ridiculous.
Red glared at the road. “Before you say anything, understand this: Adeline wants me to steal his life and I’m not going to do it.”
Charlie watched him, his muscles clenched, his eyes smoldering like coals.
“I know what you’re going to say,” he continued. “That Ialreadystole his life.”
Charlie shook her head. “I’d never say that.”
“Fiona’s not my grandmother,” he told her. “And Adeline isn’t thinking clearly. She just wants Remy back. Everyone loved Remy.”
You’re going to have to see yourself as the kind of man who is welcome in any room,said the asshole on the radio, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Red didn’t see himself as welcome at all.You don’t have to disappear all the time,she’d told him, and he’d been ready for her to take it back.
What did it mean to live in the margins of life? To be unused to taking up space in the world? To be bound to someone who could control you, make you do whatever they wanted, and ignore your needs if they were inconvenient.
Remy could never have loved someone like you.
“Not me,” Charlie said.
He glanced at her strangely.
She yawned. “I never met Remy Carver and I don’t give a shit about him. And if I had known him, I doubt I would have liked him any better than you think he’d have liked me.”
Red’s head jerked toward her so abruptly that she was afraid he’d swerve off the road. When he looked back at the traffic, his expression was skeptical, as though he wanted to argue her point but wasn’t sure how.
Since he was planning on her being dead soon anyway, there was absolutely no reason to hold back. “For what it’s worth, I know you loved him and you were tied to him and all that, but I’m not sure you liked him either.”
Red shivered as though someone had walked over his grave.
16TheLusitaniaand theTitanic
That night, she decided to take Balthazar up on his offer and directed Red to drive to his place in Holyoke. She hadn’t mentioned the papers Balthazar had given her the last time that they’d met and hoped Balthazar wouldn’t bring them up. Getting that missing piece of Red’s shadow felt more imperative than ever. If he had his memories back, they would be on the same side again.
But for now, at least she could learn how to be a better gloamist.
Balthazar Blades lived in a converted brick firehouse that overlooked the canal in Holyoke. The place had a parking lot, absolutely no lawn, and, if you didn’t know better, you might think it was abandoned.
Balthazar seemed to like it. He’d even stenciled the words “GO AWAY” on his door.
Ignoring the sign, she banged several times. When no one answered, she turned to Red.
“Can you…?” she asked.
He reached out a hand toward the lock, his fingers turning to smoke, and then a shadow fell across the wood. A moment later, he flinched back.
“Onyx,” he said. “There’s a strip of it in the baseboard too.”
“I guess it’s me, then,” she said and fished her lockpicks out of her bag.
She had the first pick in when Balthazar opened the door. “You,” he accused.
