“I know,” she said, pulling out a Clorox wipe and running it down the length of her bloody camping saw. “I wouldn’t, either.”
It took half a dozen strokes to get the blade clean, then one last pinch at a stubborn spot of blood. Take care of your tools, and they’ll take care of you, her father used to say. It was still true.
We should get going, Seabass said with a glance.
Reagan nodded, rolling up the saw and stuffing it in her pocket. As she followed him out of the town house and through the backyard, they didn’t realize they were trampling over Zion’s small tomato garden. “So where to next?” she asked. “Black House, or this guy Zigarowski?”
Seabass shot her a look. It wasn’t even a question.
31
“You do realize,” Waggs began, “whatever you tell me, I’m taking it straight to Zig.”
“I assumed you would,” Nola said from the back seat. “So. Black House. Do you know it or not, Ms. Waggs?”
Ms. Waggs? Waggs turned in her seat, staring at Nola, whose face was lit by the glow of the iPad. It was the first time Waggs realized just how young Nola was. Sure, she had knives in her eyes like she’d lived three lifetimes. But she was still in her twenties. A child, scribbling at a notepad in her lap.
“Are you coloring?” Waggs asked.
“Nice corsage.”
Waggs pulled the corsage off her wrist. “This, I’ll have you know, is an ironic and spectacular tenth-level inside joke that you can’t possibly—”
“I ruined your date. That wasn’t my goal. I came about Black House.”
“No. I need to say my speech. I’ve been practicing it in my head. And it starts with me telling you—I don’t like you, Nola. And y’know why I don’t like you? Because I’ve seen what you do to my friend. You’re like the number thirteen—or a lightning rod: you attract bad things,” Waggs explained. “For me, it’s like going to the chiropractor. I sit all day so I give them my money twice a week. Anyway, a few years back, my chiropractor taught me about trigger points.
“Mine is at B48—this little spot at the center of the gluteal muscles in my buttocks. A literal pain in my ass,” Waggs said. “I can be having a good day, one of those ones that starts with the security guy with the Travolta cleft chin smiling my way—but if you pushed my B48, electric bolts would shoot up my spine and right there, my whole day would turn into a river of shit,” Waggs explained. “My B48, Nola. That’s what you are to Ziggy. A lightning rod. A trigger point.”
“Are you done?”
“I’m not. I want to make sure you fully appreciate the true intricacies of my B48 metaphor. Ziggy spent the past two years rebuilding his life, moving on from your last visit. And he actually did it . . . new house, new job . . . even put up new-agey wind chimes on his front porch, which is the middle-age equivalent of Buddhist enlightenment. Then you show up and—” She pantomimed tearing a sheet of paper in half, then tearing it again, to shreds. “I’m not letting you do it, Nola. You don’t get to ruin his—” Waggs cut herself off. “Are you bleeding?”
Nola didn’t answer, using her shirt to hide the wound that had opened by her collarbone. Some blood had seeped through the bandage.
“Cat scratch,” Nola replied. “Tell me about Black House, and I’ll—”
“I’ve never even heard of Black House!”
“Now you’re lying,” Nola said flatly, her head down, again drawing on her notepad. “I found your account, Ms. Waggs. On the Black House app.”
Waggs went silent, glancing out the back window. Across the garage, a lone security guard was making his rounds. It made Waggs think: Do we have actual guards in the garage? I thought it was just security cams?