Minders

CHAPTER 22

WEEK 3

The invitation was printed on washcloths.

Wee Willy Productions proudly presents:

The Fourth of July

A Midweek Drunktacular

At: The Old Baths

Dress: To Impress While Wet

Bring: Cheer, Beer, No Fear

Ford had never been to the Old Turkish Baths before, and he was impressed by the entrance. Thick pillars of rose marble topped with griffins flanked a set of brass doors, nine feet tall with spikes poking outward.

“They took off the doorknobs when the rulers came in so they could bathe in peace,” Willy explained when Ford was inside. “Impossible to get the door open without slicing your arm off. Neat, huh?”

Willy was wearing a white boater hat, a white linen shirt open over a white tank top, white shorts, and white loafers. He looked ridiculous, Sadie heard Ford think, but she also picked up a twinge of jealousy at how new everything was.

“Yeah, neat,” Ford agreed.

The baths weren’t as fancy inside as they were outside, although Ford’s eye directed Sadie to a half-hidden mural on the ceiling that suggested they once had been.

Mason would like that, she heard him think, and he reached for his phone.

Sadie gritted her teeth. This is a party. On a holiday. You’re not supposed to spend it texting your boss.

Of course, Mason had quickly become more like a friend than a boss. Very quickly. Objectively Sadie thought it was fine, but there was still something about their relationship that made her… uneasy.

She was glad for Ford to have a friend, or she was neutral since her job was to observe, not judge, but she wished Ford would be more careful. More reserved. He was so thirsty for affection, so hungry to be appreciated that she feared he might trust the wrong person or make bad decisions that would haunt him.

He and Mason talked the entire time they looked at places, and that was another thing that annoyed Sadie. The constant conversation made it harder for her to hear Ford’s thoughts, and those she could hear mostly consisted of things like Mason’s so great and I need to show this to Mason.

Maybe you should get matching outfits, she suggested. Or a Mason’s #1 Fan foam hand.

Like two days earlier when they’d been on the third floor of the former Petite Trianon Theater, checking out a gilded frieze that ran along the balcony. Mason had said, “So this is really your hobby? I’m not sure your job can be your hobby.”

Ford had shrugged off Mason’s comment, cantilevering himself off the side with a rope secured to the balcony railing. “I like finding things that have been lost and rescuing them.”

Mason handed him a pink tab to mark the part of the frieze they wanted to take. “Sounds like you have a guilty conscience.”

How could Mason know that? Sadie wondered uneasily. Miranda had said the same thing, and she’d been right, but Miranda was… Miranda.

For a moment Ford’s hearing got muffled and the sound of his breathing was louder in her ears. Then everything was back to normal, and Ford said, “Why would you say that?”

“It’s been my experience that people who feel the need to rescue others generally have some guilt they’re working through.”

Bright splashes of yellow, blue, and brown made a blurry image of James and Ford and Cali grinning at a motel pool. The dots became smaller, the image more distinct, and Sadie caught the sticky feeling of humiliation, saw a bed with a pair of red and blue flowered swim trunks on the end of it. Cali, tangled in its blue comforter and obviously naked, turning to look at the door and saying in a voice a little too loud, “Ford, I thought you’d left?” Ford backing out of their motel room, not even realizing he’d dropped the milkshake he was bringing her—strawberry, her favorite—until it was dried and tacky on his hand, still staring at it when James came bounding out in his red and blue floral swim trunks and did a cannonball into the pool, the three of them laughing together like nothing ever happened.

Abruptly the image vanished into blankness and Ford was saying to Mason, “My brother wanted to rescue everyone, be a hero, and he never felt guilty about anything in his life.”

Sadie was thunderstruck. James had slept with Cali, and Ford had known about it. Knew about it.

But not consciously. He’d repressed it, using mental alchemy to sublimate it into a single sensation: the sweet-tacky feeling of dried milkshake on his hand. The memory acted as the source text for the emotion, the sensation persisting even though—or maybe precisely because—Ford refused to acknowledge the event that caused it.

It was a thrilling discovery about how his mind worked, but also puzzling. Why won’t you admit that James wasn’t always the great guy everyone says? she wanted to ask him. He’s dead. Who are you protecting from the truth?

Mason looked apologetic. “I could be wrong. Would it take some of the sting out if I said I have a lot of experience with guilt myself? Nothing like being the only survivor of a car crash on the first day of your family’s vacation to give you a pretty good dose of the GCs.”

“Guilty consciences.” Ford nodded. “That must have been—”

“Yeah.” Mason cut him off.

Ford steered back to safer topics. “Does that mean you think you’re rescuing me?” It was designed to change the subject, but it wasn’t an idle question. He tried to lighten it by adding, “Because you’re not really what I picture in my rescue fantasies.”

What do you picture? Sadie asked, genuinely curious. After all the time she’d spent in his mind, she actually didn’t know the answer.

“Let’s make a deal,” Mason suggested. “I won’t try to rescue you, you don’t try to rescue me.”

“Sure,” Ford said, shaking on it. “Deal.”

Mason handed Ford another pink marking tab. “You used the past tense about your brother.”

“He’s dead. Murdered. A little more than four months ago.” Ford hoisted himself back over the railing. The blankness that followed the memory of Cali and James spread in his mind, taking on mass, becoming milky.

“That’s tough. Grieving is hard, and four months is recent. Was he a good brother?”

Without thinking, Ford said, “Everyone loved James.” Through the milky whiteness Sadie saw dots forming the image of a rope, taut now, held in a black-gloved hand. “He was perfect.” He picked up one of the toolboxes and started for the stairs.

Mason grabbed the other toolbox. “Perfect. Wow.” He said it with admiration, not contempt. “What was that like?”

The image in Ford’s mind evolved. The fingers of the black-gloved hand opened and the rope slipped away, swallowed up by the whiteness. “Great,” Ford answered. The whiteness vanished, his mind cleared, and his gaze raked the interior of the theater. “It was great.”

Sadie felt Mason’s eyes on him, but all he said was “Looks like we’ve tagged the whole building to take with us. I should probably just buy the place.”

Show-off, Sadie thought.

“Right,” Ford snickered, stopping when he saw Mason had his phone out. “Are you serious? You can buy a building on your phone?”

Mason laughed. “No, but I can find out who owns it, what else they have, get a feeling for what they’d take for it.”

Sadie could tell Ford was impressed. He was thinking about it, about what it would be like to have that kind of money, when Mason loped toward him, holding out his phone. “Place is owned by MRP. Know anything about them?”

Mr. P, Ford said to himself, rephrasing it slightly, and Sadie felt his pulse pick up. “I might know something. Do they own anything else?”

You’re jumping to conclusions, Sadie cautioned him. MRP could be someone’s initials. A development company. A real estate trust.

“They own about twenty buildings, all in City Center,” Mason reported. “Mostly derelict theaters and factories. I’m surprised I’ve never heard of MRP with holdings like that. They must keep a very low profile. I’ll forward you the list.”

The phrase “very low profile” echoed from Ford’s mind to Sadie’s. Or MRP could be the Pharmacist, she admitted. But why would an invisible criminal mastermind want a bunch of abandoned buildings?

The Old Turkish Baths were number fourteen on the list. Willy’s party was in full swing now, and several hundred people filled the main floor. Sadie heard Ford wondering if the Pharmacist might be one of them, when his eyes stopped on a beige cowboy hat in the middle of the dance floor.

Bucky? their minds asked in unison.

Sadie felt Ford’s heart rate pick up as he navigated across the dance floor toward the hat. The crowd got denser as he got closer, and when the DJ started a new song everyone threw their hands in the air, blocking his view.

His eyes flicked back and forth over the heads of the dancers, and out of his peripheral vision Sadie caught sight of the hat alongside them. To the left, she shouted, and Ford turned and spotted it, almost as though he’d heard. He dove through the crowd, grabbing for it.

“Hey, what do you think—” The frosted blonde who was wearing it swung toward Ford, indignant. Her outraged expression softened when she saw who it was. “Mr. Ice!” Kansas squealed, leaning close to give him a kiss on the lips that turned a little sloppy.

You’re getting lipstick on you, Sadie warned him. Kind of a lot, and not really your color.

When he finally pulled himself free he said, “Hi, Kansas. Nice hat.”

“Thanks.” She giggled. “Willy gave it to me. It’s a little big, but that just means I have to make my hair bigger.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure.” She winked at him. “But don’t ask me to take anything else off. Willy’ll get jealous.” She flipped the hat off in one neat move and handed it to Ford.

Sadie wondered if she’d practiced that.

He peered inside, and Sadie held her breath. After less than four seconds Sadie heard him think that it definitely wasn’t Bucky’s, but she had no idea why and could tell he didn’t either. It was just a gut instinct. Disappointed, he handed the hat back to Kansas and ducked away before she could kiss him again.

You could be wrong, Sadie pointed out. The gut is not the most reliable organ for thinking.

Grabbing a handful of napkins, he made a beeline for the first mirror he spotted to wipe Kansas’s lipstick off his face. Four napkins and five minutes later he was checking to make sure he’d gotten it all when Sadie heard him ask himself why. There was no girl whose feelings he had to worry about. If he came home with lipstick all over him it wouldn’t matter.

His eyes shifted to the reflection of the crowd behind him, everyone laughing and dancing. Maybe he should just go. If he left now he’d be home in time to watch the fireworks on the roof with Lulu. If he could convince her to go up there. With Copernicus.

You are not going to spend the fourth of July with your dog, Sadie heard him reprimand himself. Have some self-respect. You are going to stay at this party and have a good time.

You forgot to say “or else,” Sadie told him.

He stared hard at his reflection in the mirror, turned slightly to one side, and said aloud, “You are Mr. Irresistible,” so sarcastically that Sadie almost choked laughing. He did it again on the other side, sounding more bored than sarcastic. The third time he started with his chin lowered to his chest and raised his face slowly to meet his own eyes, saying in a cheesy television announcer voice, “You are Mr. Irresistib—”

The words died. Sadie’s breath caught. All of a sudden she wasn’t watching him look at himself, she was looking at him. Really looking at him, their eyes meeting, hers and his.

It shouldn’t have been possible, but it happened. She felt it, felt him. Felt his gaze holding hers. Felt him look at her, into her. Felt him see her the way she’d longed to be seen without knowing it, with intensity and interest and surprise, as if he’d found something he’d been seeking for a long time. He smiled at her and she smiled back, and her body lit up with the thrill of their connection.

Not bad, she heard him think. Before she could agree his hand came up to rub the shadow of stubble he’d let grow on his chin and he said aloud, serious now, “Pretty irresistible.”

Sadie’s cheeks burned with mortification. He hadn’t been looking at her or through her or for her. He’d been looking at himself. Smiling at himself. Of course. She shook herself. How could she have been so stupid? God, she was embarrassing. At least he would never find out, since they would never meet.

There was some comfort in that. In knowing they would never see each other across a crowded room, at a party, at the mall. Never bump into one another and have a moment of recognition, never have a casual conversation, share a coffee, accidentally let their knees brush. She would never turn at a movie and see him laughing in the seat next to hers, never watch his lids lower so his lashes touched his cheek in the moment just before a kiss. Never be seen by him at all.

She swallowed back a knot in her throat. Yes, that’s a real relief. He ate Meatballz for dinner and liked to punch walls and cheated at poker—at least she assumed he cheated, because she still couldn’t figure out how he’d guessed all those hands her first day with him. She wouldn’t even know what to say to him if they met.

“Hey, Ice,” Willy’s voice bellowed, and turning from the mirror—finally—Ford saw him beckoning from a bar set up at the edge of the dance floor. “Get over here. You look thirsty.”

When Ford joined him Willy gestured with a bottle of beer over the heads of his guests. “Isn’t this something?”

“It sure is,” Ford agreed. “How did you find this place?”

“Linc put me onto it,” Willy said. He signaled the bartender for two beers, then leaned against the bar and faced Ford, his expression serious. “Heard about your dustup the other night. Don’t worry, he’s not coming, parties aren’t really his thing anymore.” The bartender set the beers in front of Willy, and he pushed one toward Ford. “But you might want to keep out of his way. Don’t know what you did, but he’s a little loony about it.”

“I just—”

Willy put up his hands. “Don’t know and don’t want to know.”

“Got it,” Ford said, taking a sip of beer. It was cold and tasted good to Sadie. “What happened to him? He used to want to be a priest.”

Willy took a swig of beer. “Way I see it, there’s two parts to being a priest. Part where you save souls. And part where you give out punishment.” His eyebrows went up suggestively. “Who’s to say which part appeals most to Linc?”

Sadie watched Ford’s mind flip through images of Linc from childhood. Linc breaking up a fight between strangers at a dance, Linc persuading James not to steal the principal’s car. Sadie heard him thinking that none of it went with what Willy was saying, but neither did the angry guy who’d sworn to kill him. Ford shook his head. “I don’t understand why you all do it.”

“Do what?” Willy was looking out at his guests.

“Work for him. For the Pharmacist.”

Everything about Willy changed. He pulled himself up to his full height and turned to face Ford. He would have looked terrifying if his eyes hadn’t seemed so afraid. “Don’t say that name,” he whispered, his gaze darting left and right.

“Why don’t you and Linc go against him? The two of you, with all your friends, could overthrow him.”

“Takes a lot of trust, what you’re saying, Little Ice. The right incentive can make a man do strange things.”

“But you’ve been friends forever. You must trust Linc.”

“Your brother did,” Willy said with a sad smile. “James trusted Linc. Told him what he was planning. Trusted Bucky too.”

Sadie felt Ford’s heart skip a beat. “What are you saying?”

Willy looked at him hard. “Only that old friends are one thing, survival is another. You do what you got to in order to take care of what you love.”

Ford said, “I think the Pharmacist killed James.”

Willy cleared his throat. “This is no kind of talk for a party, Little Ice.”

“You’re right,” Ford agreed, and Sadie heard him thinking that if Willy knew more he’d tell him. “Did you propose to Kansas yet?” he asked.

Willy grinned. “This weekend.”

“She’s a catch,” Ford congratulated him.

“How’s your girl?” Willy asked.

“We broke up.”

Willy made a wide gesture with his beer bottle over the dance floor. “Lots of good fishing here,” he said.

Ford took a sip of beer, and Sadie heard a regular, flat countdown like a launch sequence so she knew it was coming when Ford said, “Speaking of girls, which of you do I have to thank for putting Plum in touch with me?”

Willy put up his hands. “Not me. Doubt it was Lincoln either.”

Ford frowned into his beer bottle. “Why do you say that?”

Willy picked up a cocktail napkin, held it in front of him, and recited as if reading from a paper, “I swear no matter what happens I will not put Plum in touch with Ford.” He dropped the napkin and looked at Ford. “Your brother made us all sign it.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Sadie saw Ford trying to fit this in with other puzzle pieces and having trouble.

“Nope, that’s the for-real deal,” Willy said. “Paper with a solemn oath on it. I got it somewhere. Never know what might be valuable one day.”

“Why would James do that?” Ford asked.

“There are rumors that you’re very well, you know”—Willy paused—“endowed. Maybe he was jealous.”

Kansas came over and wrapped her arms around Willy’s neck as he said that. She planted an enormous lipstick mark on his cheek, gave them both a mischievous look, and said, “I knew you two were talking dirty.”

Sadie felt a sharp prickle of impatience course through Ford at the interruption. “Jealousy wasn’t really James’s style,” he said.

“Could be he still felt guilty about that day on the ice,” Willy offered. “Trying to protect you.”

Sadie’s ears perked up.

“The day with the beer can?” Kansas asked, smiling. To Ford she said, “Willy told me all about it.”

Sadie’s breath caught in her throat, and she thought about the shack on the lake, the pile of beer cans. The voice telling James to stay away. Normally that would have triggered a river of images in Ford’s mind, but now there was nothing.

Willy nodded. “I still tear up laughing when I think about the hand with the glove coming out of the ice—”

“And Linc screaming like a little girl,” Kansas said. “That’s the part I can’t believe.”

Sadie thought, Not nothing. Whiteness again. Still, placid. Boundless. Endless.

Inescapable. Sadie felt Ford’s heart rate tick up. His breathing grew shallow, panicked, and his thoughts got choppy, There’s no way out, I’m trapped, hel—

A bright strobe flashed in his mind, and the memory vanished.

Ford said, “What did he have to feel guilty about? I was the one who messed up.”

Willy gave him a perplexed look. “I wouldn’t say that.”

Ask him why not, Sadie urged. Ask him to tell you what he remembers. Better yet, you tell the story. Everyone tell it. With lots of details. She felt like she had the first day of Syncopy, when she’d been desperate for them to say Ford’s name.

As if the bright light were an eraser, Ford’s mind bounced back to the moment just before Willy mentioned the cabin. He said, “There aren’t really rumors about me being well endowed.”

Also like that first day, Sadie wanted to strangle someone.

Fingernails teased the back of Ford’s neck, giving Sadie goose bumps, and a familiar voice at his ear said warmly, “I’m afraid there are.”

Ford turned and looked at Cali. Sadie was hit with a wave of desire, followed almost immediately by anger, settling into a wary mix of the two. “Hey,” he said.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Cali told him, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

That tipped the scale slightly toward anger. “That’s me. Predictable,” he said sarcastically. “Stuck in the past. Not moving forward.”

“Maybe,” Cali said, her hand coming to rest on his chest. “Maybe that makes you reliable.”

Sadie couldn’t tell if it was Cali’s words or his reactions that were confusing him, but his mind felt like it was being sloshed around.

Cali was wearing a new perfume, which he registered negatively as cheap daisies, but she was also wearing a skimpy bikini top, which he registered positively as small.

“You look good,” he said, wondering when Willy and Kansas had disappeared.

About a minute ago, Sadie told him. Between “hey” and when you got lost looking at her boobs.

“You too,” Cali said. She touched a finger to the stubble on his cheek. “I leave you for a few days and you grow a beard?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Too busy to shave? Intriguing,” she said.

Sadie heard Ford think She’s jealous and felt his moderate surge of pleasure. Of which, since she was supposed to be objective, she could neither approve nor think was immature. “How’s it going?” Ford asked Cali.

She let her finger rest in the indentation at the base of his neck. “It’s only been a week since we’ve talked.”

Given the way Ford’s pulse picked up and his body tightened, Sadie thought there should be rules about how close people could stand a week after a breakup. Finger-on-the-collarbone seemed a bit too close. “Feels longer,” he said.

“Yeah.”

Her gaze moved from her finger, up over his chin to his lips, and then met his eyes.

Sadie heard a clarinet give an experimental blast. Ford’s eyes held hard to Cali’s. “What’s going on here?” he asked, taking the words right out of Sadie’s mouth.

Cali exhaled deeply, and Sadie saw her chest rise and fall in Ford’s peripheral vision. “We’ve spent every Fourth of July together since we were sixteen,” she said. “It doesn’t seem right to stop now.” She took a step forward so her thigh was between his. “Does it?”

Ford’s body thrummed like a taut vessel, sending reverberations through Sadie. “When you say ‘spend Fourth of July together,’ you mean—”

“I want you.” Cali pressed her cleavage against his chest. “No strings.”

Ford’s mind was spinning and his throat felt tight. “No strings,” he repeated hoarsely.

I know the no-strings thing sounds good, Sadie told him, but statistically it’s very hard to put into practice. People who get back together with their exes in less than a year generally find themselves in the same—

“None.” Cali ran her fingers down his arms, setting off a jingle of bells. “Just two people looking for…” Her voice trailed off.

Trouble, Sadie finished for her. Heartache. Arguing.

Ford still hadn’t touched her, hadn’t grabbed her, pulled her in to him, the way Sadie knew his mind was begging him to. The restraint seemed to be twisting the sinews tighter, eking out a slightly higher note from the saxophone, a more discordant shimmer from the drums.

His mouth came within a hairbreadth of hers, but still he didn’t touch her. “Looking for what?”

Sadie felt the heat of Cali’s body, the warmth of her breath on his cheek. “Kiss me,” Cali begged. “Please.”

I know that seems tempting, Sadie acknowledged objectively, but the best thing for you to do right now would be to just turn and walk—

He bent and brushed his lips gently against her, and a steaming wave of passion tore through Sadie, knocking her backward.