They don’t make clothes like this anymore, Nora. She’d said that the first time we met, when she was spinning in that red skirt of hers with the gold swirls. It had flared out around her like magic, like she was the flick of flame before an inferno, and I hadn’t been able to breathe around how much I wanted her to be something in my future.
Just like right now. She’s my present and my future, with our only weapon tucked into deceptive layers of cotton and tulle. She’s already thinking this through to freedom, and it’s the spark of hope I need.
I nod the slightest bit to let her know I get it. One edge of her mouth quirks up so her dimple flashes, just for a second.
Asset #1: Lighter
— 5 —
The Iris of It All
When I met her, I didn’t fall for Iris Moulton like a ton of bricks.
No, I actually tripped over her, like she was a ton of bricks.
One weekend last year, I’d been running some files downtown for Lee, and I wasn’t looking where I was going. Next thing I know, I’m falling ass over ankles, the papers are everywhere, and this girl, this freckled brunette who looks like she’s cosplaying a Hitchcock movie, is tangled up with me.
It was the perfect meet-cute, except when you’re a girl who likes other girls, there’s this little additional dance, because what if she doesn’t? So you’re not looking for red flags like a girl does with a guy—you’re looking for rainbow ones.
I thought we were going to be friends. And we were, at first. But I told myself that’s all we could be. After everything with Wes . . . I told myself I couldn’t. Not until I figured out how to explain everything in a way that didn’t ruin everything. And I was pretty sure that was impossible, so basically, I was looking at a life of celibacy and misery and hiding.
Then there was Iris, with her poofy fifties sundresses and her wicker purse shaped like a frog and that fixation on fire that would be creepy if you didn’t know she wanted to be an arson investigator.
It took months. She slow-rolled a kind of subtle romantic warfare I didn’t even see coming, and then one day, I was on a date with her before I even realized what was happening. It was a whole Mr. Darcy/Elizabeth Bennet I was in the middle before I knew I’d begun sort of thing, where I was Darcy and she was Elizabeth, and I do not have the gravitas or snobbery to pull a Darcy, let me tell you. But apparently, I had the Darcy cluelessness, because we were halfway through dinner before I realized it was maybe a date. Partly because I kept telling myself it couldn’t be a date.
And I wasn’t completely sure until she turned to me on our way home, halfway through the crosswalk on the empty street, and just stopped. Her hand slipped around my waist and her hip brushed against mine like she belonged there, and it felt like she did, in every vital part of me. The last thing I saw before her lips met mine was the WALK light illuminated in her eyes, and she kissed me like I was prickly, like I was already understood, like I was worth it.
It had been sparkly. I hadn’t even realized you could feel sparkly. I thought it was strictly a sequin-and-glitter-and-precious-gemstone thing, but then all of a sudden Iris Moulton kissed me and proved me wrong, and it was just sparkles lighting up my darkness everywhere.
I didn’t fall for Iris like a ton of bricks.
I fell like I was a star and she was the end of the world. A cataclysmic crash of two people, never to be the same. Never getting back up.
Not unless we were doing it together.
— 6 —
9:24 a.m. （12 minutes captive）
1 lighter, no plan
“What’s this?”
Gray Cap’s pulled the bank bag from Iris’s purse. He unzips it, inspects the thick wad of cash, and then looks at her.
“It’s money we raised for the animal shelter,” I say quickly. His attention slides from her to me, and the relief knocks inside my ribs like that silly, ornate bee door knocker Lee put on our front door. “We had a fundraiser. Take it. There’s almost three thousand dollars.”
He laughs, and it’s a sound I know, just like the gun is a sight I know. It’s curling in its cruelty and condescension. Designed to snake around me and make me feel even smaller than the gun does.
But I’m past the fear now. It’s not gone, but it’s not useful. I can only do useful right now.
“Handing over the big bucks, huh?”
The more he talks, the more I learn. So I should keep him talking. “It’s what we’ve got.”
He tosses the open bag on the table, and the money skitters out, fanning across the polished surface. “It’s not what I want.”