Page 58 of Cunning Lies
Then I stop. An ache flickers in my throat, the world spinning around me. After a few moments, Uncle Jay lets out a long sigh.
“He’s on vacation, isn’t he?” he asks.
That’s what we used to say about my parents. They didn’t die; they’re on vacation. A permanent one. Sometimes, it made me feel better, like they could come back one day. But that never happened. They’re gone, and now, Patrick is gone too.
My stomach sinks. “I’m sorry,” I wheeze. There’s silence on the other end, and that breaks my heart more than anything. Uncle Jay has taken care of Patrick since he was a baby. He may not have been the best father, but he did everything he could for both of us.
I don’t know if I’ll miss Patrick. At times, we hated each other. But I ache for Uncle Jay. Patrick is his blood. I can’t imagine a loss like that.
“Do you have time to catch a movie today?” he asks, his voice emotionless. A trip to the movies was what we did every year for Patrick’s birthday. No matter where we were, there was always a movie theater and a crappy action movie to go see.
“Of course,” I say.
My posture sinks. I don’t know if Patrick deserved to die like Kenzo thinks he did, but I know Uncle Jay doesn’t deserve this pain. Losing a child must be like losing a part of yourself.
Now I’m all Uncle Jay has.
“Be careful, Vi,” Uncle Jay says mournfully. “If your husband hurts you, I don’t know what I’ll do. We need to work. Not this vacation bullshit.” He adjusts his grip on the phone, muttering curse words to himself, then he clears his throat. “We need to be smart. If not, we’ll be next. And I’m not going to let the Endo-kai be the end of us.”
I swallow a dry gulp. I can tell Uncle Jay what he needs to knowright now,so that he can deliver the information about the GHF to our client, but I don’t tell him anything. I want this conversation to be over before I become a sobbing, guilty wreck.
“Okay,” I mumble. “A movie.”
“See you soon,” he whispers.
CHAPTER18
VI
After a crappy movie,Uncle Jay and I get ice cream. His partial pinky twitches the whole time, like he’s shivering in anxiety but trying not to let it show. Still, Uncle Jay refuses to talk about Patrick. Tears shimmer in his eye, and his fists tighten at the mere mention of my husband, but we pretend like everything is normal. Patrick is on ‘vacation,’ just like my mom and dad.
Night comes, and I’m back at the penthouse when Kenzo returns. I’m in jeans and a cream button-up sweater, and Kenzo is still in his white dress shirt and slacks. His sleeves are rolled up, revealing his colorful skin—another fish fighting the waves. He drinks me in from head to toe, and my chest seizes under his gaze.
“You look fancy,” he jokes.
I cross my arms. “A sweater is fancy?”
“Fancy for this, yeah.”
He grabs my hand, and we take his car, but no matter how many times I ask where we’re going or what we’re doing, Kenzo yells, “It’s a surprise!” Then he turns up the music so loud that I can’t talk, and we drive down the 15. Lights flash to the sides of us—themed casinos, cheap hotels, seedy nightclubs, all of them bright and hypnotizing—until they fade into darkness and it’s pitch black desert. Cacti and Joshua trees hover in the shadows. The car’s headlights are our only guide.
Finally, Kenzo lowers the volume of the radio.
“This song is called ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love.’ Bad Company. You know this one?” he asks. He hums along to the lyrics, and I smile, wondering if he’s somehow implying that it’s our song. I must be staring a little too hard, because he reaches over and pinches my arm. “It just fits us, right?”
My shoulders sink. “You want to make love?” I ask. “That’s not you.”
“Baby, you don’t know all of me yet,” he winks. “Just listen.”
I listen to the lyrics, but my mind is so buzzed with anticipation that I can’t focus, even though I like the guitar portion of the song. It’s somehow hard and soft at the same time, just like Kenzo. He’s got such different sides to him: harsh, and easygoing. Completely controlling, and protective.
Maybe the song does fit in a way.
Forty-five minutes later, we take the ramp to another highway, and nerves twist in my stomach. I bite my bottom lip and Kenzo stretches his arm over the back of my seat, his fingers tickling my neck.
We pull onto a gravel road. The wheels crunch over the rocks, then there’s a slab of pavement, and he parks there. A few yards away, there’s a big centerpiece, surrounded by cement. A firepit, maybe.
Kenzo pops the trunk and gets out. He slings black garbage bags in his hands, carrying them over to that concrete circle. I reach to help him with the cargo, but he stops me.
