Her mind was a chaotic storm, too many thoughts swirling around, nothing landing for proper attention.
No, wait, that wasn’t true.
She wished they’d had more time, too. And different circumstances.
“Wake up, Luke,” she said softly. “Please.”
There was no hope at all that he’d hear her—much less respond. But his eyes fluttered—and then opened.
Glowing yellow eyes locked on her face with surprising focus.
“Hi.” She cleared her throat as her voice cracked. “You’re safe now.”
Luke’s stare moved around until he seemed to give up on the whole sight thing. And then he said something she was never going to forget.
“Am safe . . . because am with you.”
Rio stayed at Luke’s bedside for . . . well, she wasn’t exactly sure how long. It turned out that the quarters had a bathroom behind a partition in one corner, and from time to time, she would get up and refill a glass of water for him, making sure that when he roused, she was there to help him lift his head to take a sip. He had refused to eat the bread and cheese that Mayhem had brought and put on the table with all the handwritten spreadsheets. And Luke didn’t seem to be resting when he wasn’t conscious—it was more that he passed out and came to in a cycle that could hardly be considered peaceful.
It reminded her of Kane.
Speaking of the other burn patient, Apex, along with Mayhem, was just outside, standing against the locked door by the Executioner’s cold body—
Luke made a noise in the back of his throat as if he were coughing, and she bent down closer to him. She had spent a lot of the time staring at his face, tracing the planes and angles of his cheekbones, his jaw, his brow, with her eyes. It seemed incredibly intimate to look at him like that, without him being aware she was doing so, as if they were separated by a crowd and she was off in a darkened corner, admiring him.
Speculating about his life was unavoidable, and she wondered how he had ended up here, in the drug trade, in a place that had its own pseudo police force. Who were his parents? Where had he grown up?
What would he do after this era in his life was done?
Assuming that his end in this business was not a grave.
Then again, the only way out for him was death. People as deep into the trade as he was didn’t make it out of this alive. And they were killed in brutal ways.
She thought of the Charger in that alley, the driver shot. And then she remembered the dead guy by the fire escape.
And finally, the hired hitman in that apartment—although who could have seen that big dog coming?
Oh, and then there was the Executioner, who she’d shot.
No, Luke was not going to live long enough to retire: He was just one more cog in the machine that had killed not only Rio’s brother, but her whole family.
“I should hate you,” she whispered to Luke.
She should hate him for selling the very drugs that had ruined not merely Luis, but her mother and her father. Because that was the thing about illegal narcotics. You didn’t have to do them to get lost in them.
Sometimes, it just took a son doing the using, and dying because of it, to take down an entire family.
Unable to stay still, she stood up off the mattress and walked around. Her aimless wander took her over to the folding table, and as she looked at the columns of numbers and dollar signs, it was a relief to focus on something else.
This was invaluable evidence, she thought. The question was how to get it out—
The phone. She had that phone.
Glancing back at Luke, she made sure he was still asleep. Then she took the unit out of her pocket. Of course it was locked, but it was an iPhone, so she swiped up from the bottom.
And accessed the camera.
Turning off the ringer switch, to make sure there were no sounds, she pulled some of the ledgers toward her and faced them right side up. The first picture she took was blurry because her hand was shaking. She tried again. Better.
Sitting herself down, she snapped photographs of each page in each stack, trying to get as much in the shot as possible. After she was finished, she moved on to some of the loose papers, which covered things like staffing the production rooms and schedules for the guards. And then there were order forms for bulk food.
“You have to feed everyone,” she murmured. “Of course you do.”
Flour. Sugar. Canned goods.
An abrupt image of the kitchen from The Shining came to mind, Wendy and Danny Torrance being led by Dick Hallorann through the dry storage room, huge cans of vegetables, boxes of cereal, and jugs of sauces lining shelves.