Ann Aguirre - Mortal Danger

Damn. Apparently, when I’d worried that the deal seemed good to be true, I was on target. Yet if I hadn’t, my parents would’ve claimed my body from the morgue, and I wouldn’t even be here. So the complications and risks were better than the alternative.

“Because…?”

“If they shift the equilibrium enough, your fate changes and you cease to be a factor in play. If that happens, you lose value as an asset, and Wedderburn puts you to work.”

I thought about that. “So … whatever you were supposed to accomplish, it’s not happening, because this girl died?”

He nodded.

“And you’re trapped because you have no way to repay the favors. That could happen to me, huh?”

“It could,” he admitted. “There’s no way to be sure what events are pivotal in your personal timeline. You’ve heard about the butterfly effect?”

“I’ve read about chaos theory, and I probably qualify as a strange attractor.” It was a weak joke at best, but my heart caught at his smile. “I think I see where you’re going with this. Basically, there’s no way to be sure I’ll retain my worth as a catalyst.”

“I’m sorry, Edie. I wish I could guarantee your safety.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds, as if bracing for intense pain.

I immediately wanted that look off his face. “Hey, it’s okay. At least you’re honest.”

Or is he? There was no way for me to verify any of this … unless …

“What’s your last name?” I hated myself a little for asking.

“Riley. Do you intend to check me out?”

“Do you blame me? Your story might be sympathy bait.”

“I don’t. Feel free to look it up. You can use my phone if yours doesn’t have Internet. The scandal with my dad was pretty well publicized.”

Mentally I did the math as I took his cell. If he was twenty, it would’ve all happened nine years back. So I specified the date in the search bar, along with “Riley Ponzi scheme” and the phone spat back a bunch of links. I picked one at random and read a summary of what he’d just told me.

“Is your mom all right?”

“She’s in and out of programs, they never stick. She misses being a socialite but she doesn’t have the money to support the lifestyle. So she goes back to using to cope.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. Working for Wedderburn, Mawer & Graf has its perks.” Judging by the sardonic twist of his mouth, this was more verbal propaganda.

So I played along. “Like what?”

“The house in Colorado. And they don’t mind if I take college classes as long as I keep up with my workload.”

“Which right now is only me.”

I thought about the cabin he’d brought me to, back at the start of the summer. At least they paid well for him to afford a place with a view like that. He was pretty young to own property, and his favors had only included the car, not wealth.

“True. Lucky me.” He was smiling, but I wondered how far I could trust him.

Kian might be playing a long game, building rapport for reasons that would become clear only after he sprang the trap. After all, that was what I planned to do with the Teflon crew, so I couldn’t believe the warmth I saw reflected in his green eyes. On one hand, he had saved my life, but a girl was dead because of him. Though I wanted to, I couldn’t trust him.

“Do you talk to your mom much?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I can’t be around her when she’s using. But I pay for rehab when she chooses to go. Once a year, she has a ‘breakthrough,’ makes a bunch of promises about how it’ll be different, and we start the cycle all over again.”

“That sucks.” Possibly the least insightful response ever offered.

“Yeah.”

“Is it possible for me to tour Wedderburn, Mawer & Graf?” I asked, mostly because I regretted prying, and it was the first topic that sprang to mind.

“Sure. Why?”

“Knowledge is power.”

He studied me for a few seconds, then nodded. “I’ll talk to my boss and set it up. Just … be prepared. If he permits you to access more than the public areas, you’ll see some … strange things.”

“I can hardly wait.” The reply was pure bravado. I couldn’t let him see how nervous I was, or the fact that I was in way over my head.

After that, we finished our food—it was really good—and he drove me home. I was wary of getting too deep before I had a handle on what I’d learned. Kian tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. The more I learned about him, the more torn I was. Part of me thought that with so much tragedy in his past, he just couldn’t be as simple and straightforward as he pretended. It made me feel like he had to be playing me. He cast a few looks in my direction, but I couldn’t meet his gaze. Instead I stared out the window at the passing buildings. Once he reached for my hand, but I pulled back and flattened it on my knee. His breath caught, a whisper of sound I barely heard against the rush of the vents.

Smooth, Edie. You hurt his feelings.

By the time he pulled up in front of the brownstone, tension quivered in the air between. I hardly knew what to say. Finally, I managed, “Thanks for dinner.”

“I’ll call you.” He didn’t ask for a kiss or suggest we go out again. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at me.

The distance came from me, but crazily, I didn’t like it. Sitting here wouldn’t solve anything, so I offered a jerky nod and climbed out. It took all of my resolve not to look back, but as I climbed the steps to the entryway, the Mustang roared off. Then I did spin around, watching the red car weave into traffic and turn the corner a block down.

Sorry, Kian.

I plodded upstairs. My dad was home, but my mom wasn’t. He still had on his tweed jacket, which made him look like a professor, and maybe that was the point. He glanced up from the journal he was reading and asked, “How was your day?”

“Fine. I had an early dinner, so I’m getting started on my homework.”

“Good idea.”

That concluded the parental talk for the day. He went back to his article as I headed for my room. I did try to focus on the assigned reading, but certain aspects of Kian’s story gnawed at me. Guilt plucked at me because I’d definitely cooled off toward the end, communicating my reservations unmistakably. With a muttered curse, I threw down my World History book and opened my laptop. I pulled it across my lap and opened the browser.

First I searched for information about his father, just in case his phone had been tampered with, but I came up with the same results. Albert J. Riley’s house of cards tumbled today. After defrauding hundreds of investors, the self-styled financial genius died at his Pennsylvania home. In a double tragedy … I read on, confirming that Kian had, in fact, lost his sister that day. Riley is survived by his wife, Vanessa, and his son, Kian.

But this wasn’t enough to put my mind at ease, so I input “local girl suicide” plus the town name and the story came up, short and to the point. Tanya Jackson of Cross Point, Pennsylvania, took her life today. She had a history of mental instability and she overdosed on her mother’s prescription medication. EMTs attempted to revive her, but ultimately failed, and she was pronounced dead on her arrival at Cross Point Memorial Hospital. It seemed … bizarre that whatever Kian was meant to achieve, it had been tied inextricably to one teenage girl. What if I screwed up my timeline unintentionally?

You’ll end up enslaved to Wedderburn, too.

That sent a shiver down my spine. Well, at least now I had proof that Kian hadn’t made it all up to engage my sympathies. Reassuring, even as I suspected there was something off about the whole thing. I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that he had, in fact, wanted Tanya dead. Maybe that was his wish, not for her to fall in love with him. I had no idea if murder could be one of the favors; he’d said it was limited only by imagination and the company didn’t seem to value human life very much.