“Okay. What’s the address?”
“I’ll text it to you.”
“Do me a favor, Little One. Share your location.” His tone is more accommodating than ever. He’s calculating, homing in on the glimmer of a nice guy. I can be that type of manipulative. Show kindness then strike. “We’ll visit the lab together,” Victor offers.
Still too benevolent for the likes of him.
I sigh, appreciating the fact that he’s not his usual demanding self. “I need to do this forme.”
“Exactly what are you bloody trying to do, Lux?” Victor hisses. “You havemygun.”
Swallowing my emotions, I set my jaw. “Oh, there you are. The Victor I know. Listen, I’m sorry for not asking. Don’t be mad at me.”
“Rubbish, Little One, I could never. Stop being rash. Do you bloody hear me? Stay with me and tell me precisely where you are.” He reverts to that calming motivational demeanor, which in retrospect, wouldn’t have challenged me to open up to him in the past.
Victor’s possessive.
Tyrannical.
I sigh and tell him the address. I’m heading for the Bronx.
“Okay, I’m getting on the lift at your apartment. I’ll need time to get there. Find a coffee shop, sit tight until I’ve called you.”
“Okay,” I sigh, dropping a shoulder against the bus pole, mindlessly glaring at the bus map.I’ll try.
After a few minutes of waiting for Victor, the past inundates my mind. My friggen brain has played tricks on me since Momma’s death.
Cold sweats.
Icy adrenaline.
I’m missing pieces of the past, or rather that of a certain age. I can’t fucking recallsomething.
Something big.
Something tragic.
But I’ve known enough tragedy to last a lifetime since stumbling upon my momma’s dead body. God, how much more can I bear?
I know Victor will be livid, but I slowly walk across the street.
“Vic won’t give Uncle Charles the benefit of the doubt. I have his gun. I can do this . . .”
After sliding my hand around a stop sign and meandering about it for a little while longer, my next stop is a row of garages. Momma and I had come here way back when. I can’t even remember how old I was. She was dropping something off. I try to determine which tan garage door belongs to Charles’s lab. I’d given Victor the address but not the unit number. I hesitate.
“Which one?” I grumble.
As if perfectly orchestrated, one of the garage doors creeps upward about two townhomes down.
I bite my fingernail, hoping Victor will hurry.
As the garage door opens, I take inCharlesfrom top to bottom. I need to distance myself and my connection from him, so I can get to the bottom of this without tainting my own decisions. So, I definitely cannot visualize him as Uncle Red.
Charles’s the opposite to my father’s style of penny loafers, corduroys, and checkered shirts. Charles wears navy slacks, a button-up, and handsewn loafers.
The once handsome man I may have calledDada few times now has a face distorted and shiny from a fire.
I look back down the street, but an Oldsmobile has just turned the corner. No sign of Victor.