The Number on the Back

Chapter 6:

Kael was already on the phone before I could say anything else.

"Rook. I need a plate run." He had the photo in one hand and the phone at his ear, and his voice had gone flat and hard, the way it did in the parking lot. "Gray sedan. I can't read the plate off the photo but I got a partial. First three. Maybe four."

I stood there with Lily on my hip and watched him listen. His jaw moved.

"Yeah. Now." Pause. "No. Not tonight. Now now."

Lily put her hand on my cheek. "Mama. Home?"

"Soon, baby."

"Home now."

"Soon."

Kael turned around. Looked at me. Then at Lily. His face changed — not a lot, not soft, but something in it shifted. The knife went back on the table.

"Give me a minute," he said into the phone. He hung up. Put it in his pocket. Walked over.

"Hey," he said to Lily.

She looked at him.

"Your mama's gonna take you home in a minute. But first I need you to do something for me."

"What?" Lily said.

"I need you to look at this dog."

He held up her drawing.

"This is the best dog in the whole world," Kael said. "And I've seen a lot of dogs. I'm an expert."

Lily thought about it. Then she pointed at the drawing. "Dinosaur."

"That's what I said."

"You said dog."

"I said dinosaur."

She laughed. Actually laughed. Put her whole face into it.

I had to look at the wall again.

Kael stood up.

"Rook's got a guy," he said. "Used to work federal. Runs plates out of a shop in the east end. He's fast."

"How fast?"

"Faster than the cops."

I set Lily down on the rug with her crayons. She picked up the purple one.

"So," I said. "We wait."

"We wait."

"How long?"

"Five minutes. Maybe ten."

"I don't have ten minutes. I have a two-year-old and a shift at two."

"You're not going to work."

"Excuse me?"

Kael looked at me. That flat look. "You got a guy in a black car watching you. You think I'm letting you walk into that diner?"

"I think you don't get to decide that."

"I know I don't." He said it easy. "That's why I'm not deciding. I'm telling you what I think. Then you decide. But before you decide, you should know something."

"What?"

"That black car out front of Rita's today?" He nodded at the photo still in his hand. "That's not the first time. Rita called me last week. There was a car then too. Same description. She didn't tell you because she didn't want to scare you."

My mouth went dry.

"Last week?"

"Last week. Tuesday."

"Kael."

"I'm not gonna lie to you and say it's nothing. It's not nothing."

I sat down on the arm of the couch because my legs needed a minute.

"Who is it," I said.

"I don't know yet."

"What do they want?"

"I don't know yet."

"Are they gonna — " I stopped. Couldn't say it out loud.

Kael crouched down in front of me. Not on the floor. Down to my eye level. Like I was a person and not a problem.

"Hey," he said. "Look at me."

I looked at him.

"Nobody's getting near her," he said. "Nobody's getting near you. Whatever this is, it's not gonna touch you. Not while I'm breathing."

"That's a big promise."

"Yeah."

"What if you can't keep it?"

His jaw moved.

"Then I'll die keeping it," he said. "And that's not me being romantic. That's just the math."

I looked at him for a long time.

"You're too much," I said.

"Yeah."

"You're aware of that."

"Yeah."

"You say 'yeah' too much."

"Yeah."

I almost laughed. I caught it. It was close.

---

The phone buzzed.

Kael had it out before the second buzz.

"Talk."

He listened. His face did something. Then he walked away. Toward the door. Out into the hallway.

I could hear his voice but not the words. Low. Fast. Then quiet.

Lily looked up at me. "Mama?"

"Just a minute, baby."

I got up.

I walked to the doorway. Kael was at the end of the hall with his back to me.

He hung up. Turned around.

"Well?" I said.

He walked over. Slow. Like he was thinking about something.

He held up the photo.

"Plate's a dead end," he said. "Rented. Shell company in Delaware. Went out of business two years ago. Registered to nobody."

"Nobody?"

"Nobody real. Just a mailbox and a name that doesn't come up anywhere."

"So it's a ghost."

"It's a ghost."

I leaned against the doorframe.

"But," Kael said.

"But."

"Rook's guy said something else."

"What."

"There's a number written on the back of the photo."

I looked at the photo in his hand.

"I saw it," I said. "You saw it. It's the photographer's number. Webb's number."

"That's what I thought." Kael's jaw moved. "I had Webb's number in my phone for six years. That's not it."

The floor got very quiet.

"Then whose is it?" I said.

"Rook's guy put a trace on it. It's a burner. Disposable. No name attached. But the number was bought at a truck stop two states over. Same week you ran."

I put my hand on the wall.

"Somebody gave Webb that number," I said.

"Or Webb wrote down somebody else's number on the back of the only picture he ever took of you running." Kael looked at me. "I want to call it."

"Kael."

"I want to call it and see who picks up."

"Kael, that's insane. If someone's watching me, if someone's been following me, you call them and they know you know — "

"Then they know I know."

"That's not a good thing."

"It's better than not knowing who's watching you."

I looked at him. At the photo. At my daughter sitting on the floor of a biker president's secret room, coloring a purple dinosaur.

"Fine," I said.

Kael blinked.

"Fine?" he said.

"Call it. But I'm standing right here when you do. And if it's a wrong number, I'm gonna laugh at you."

Kael pulled out his phone.

"What if it's not a wrong number?" he said.

"Then I won't laugh."

He put it on speaker. Held it up between us.

Dialed.

It rang three times.

Then a click.

And a woman's voice.

"Who's this?" she said. Not friendly. Not scared. Just flat.

Kael's eyes didn't move from mine.

"Who's this?" he said back.

"I asked first."

Kael's jaw tightened.

"This number was on the back of a photograph," he said. "The photograph was taken three years ago at a gas station in the middle of the night. The photograph was of a woman and a little girl."

Silence.

"Hello?" Kael said.

"Who are you to that woman?" the voice said.

Kael looked at me.

I looked at him.

And then the voice on the phone said something that made my knees give out.

"Tell her I'm sorry," the woman said. "Tell her I'm sorry and tell her he's looking for her and he's not alone."

And she hung up.

Kael lowered the phone.

The room was so quiet I could hear Lily's crayon on the paper.

Then Lily said, "Mama, why you crying?"

And I realized I was.

Chapter 6 Ends.