Snake Eyes, page 11
It was time.
I collected Ghost, feeling her twitch under the throttle as I rolled her to the line, the both of us eager and hungry to get underway. I pulled on the helmet and zipped up the leather racing suit, wrapping myself in the illusion of protection. At the speeds we’d be going, no leather suit would save me if I hit a street sign, or another car, or a semi. Don’t think about that. I flexed my gloved hands on the handlebars, making leather creak.
Focus.
I pulled Ghost up beside Liam and his GSX-R. No helmet, no leathers. He was either insane or believed himself immortal. I suspected he might be both.
“I win this, I win the bike,” I told him, raising my voice through the helmet and the burbling engines.
His white teeth flashed. “If that’s what you truly want.”
The starter stood between us, arms raised. I flipped my visor down, hugged Ghost’s fuel tank, and watched the rev needle tick on idle. Despite the late hour, the traffic wasn’t as light as I’d hoped. Farther on, as we looped through Santa Monica, the streets would be busier, but the roads were wider, making it easier to maneuver at speed. This was insane, dangerous, but I only had to do it once.
My heart thudded hard, pumping a heady concoction of excitement and fear through my veins. In a few minutes, it would all be over, one way or another.
The starter dropped his arms. Ghost shot off the line like a bullet from a gun. Her engine howled, and I smelled baked dirt and blood, but I couldn’t process what was real and what was a memory. The racing line took shape in my head, streaming through the slow-moving traffic like a river of optimal speed—just like luck. Instincts tried to pull me into the sight where I could be sure I’d carve through the streets and win, but I blinked and discarded the urge, doubling down on the bike’s power. The shift indicator winked red. I shifted up, pulling more power from Ghost’s thundering heart. The street snapped and thrashed, passing beneath Ghost’s tires too quickly to think about. Instinct guided me now. My whole life funneled to the racing line and the bike.
An intersection loomed. I dipped my toes, changing down the gears, and leaned Ghost left, coming in tight and hot with my knee down, brushing dust off the road surface. Liam cut off my line in a blur, braking late and shooting ahead, almost kissing my front wheel on his way out.
Ghost jerked, her rear tire slid out, and the icy grip of fear clutched my heart. No, damn him. This was my race. I snatched control back before Ghost could break free and focused on Liam’s tail, now a few yards ahead. Ghost was on him, riding his slipstream just like before, when he’d hit a manhole. I couldn’t think about that, or the hundreds of things that could go wrong, or how in a blink, I could lose everything.
Liam pulled ahead. His GSX-R screamed, finding power where there shouldn’t have been any left inside his riddle of a bike.
Make it right.
Ghost had more to give. I flicked her out and slingshot past Liam, then anchored up hard and took the next right intersection, cornering like Ghost was on rails. Goddammit, I had this. The race was mine. The relic was mine. I was fucking made for this!
A semitrailer pulled forward like a wall of steel. It swung out wide to take the turn. Kari’s scream sliced through my elation. Fire licked across my face. Panic stopped my heart. No, no… the memory wasn’t real, but the semi was.
I kicked Ghost to the right, traveling too fast, freewheeling out of control. The semi’s horn blared, but I was already past. Headlights flooded my vision. I yanked the bike left and hit a loose patch of dirt. Ghost wobbled, threatening to buck me off. Too fast… But I had her.
Ahead, colors bloomed in the night. The finish line. Liam was close, too close, breathing down my neck. I opened the throttle, powering out of Ghost’s wobble, and hooked the tires into the road, launching the bike forward with everything she had. Her engine roared, her metal heart beat. Resurrected by Dav, she was everything Kari had built her to be, and more.
We shot across the line.
I won.
Leaning on the brakes, I brought Ghost to a burbling halt. I won! People pushed in. Hands slapped me on the back and shoulders. They cheered and whooped, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t won for them. Sitting up, I scanned for Liam and spotted him by the side of the road, smiling that endless smile, as if he’d never had a doubt. He pointed up.
I tracked the line of his finger. A floodlight exploded above, too bright, too big. The light swept over the crowd. A heli.
“Cops!” I barked.
The crowd erupted.
I spun Ghost around, brought her alongside Liam, and shouted, “I won!”
“You did,” he acknowledged with a sedate nod.
“Your wheels are mine.”
“There’s more to racin’ than winning.”
Police sirens wailed. The heli’s searchlight skimmed across the cars and people. There wasn’t time for a chat. We had to leave, but if I let him out of my sight, there was every chance I’d never see him or the bike again.
“Don’t preach to me about racing. I’ve lived it. I’ve lost everything to it. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Don’t I?” He looked up just as the searchlight fell over us, bleaching all the color from his face and making his eyes glow. “Run.”
“I’m not running anywhere without that bike!” The heli’s downdraft buffeted us, whipping Liam’s hair around his face. “Follow me!” I shouted. “We can shake ’em.”
The powerful searchlight hollowed out his cheeks and darkened his eyes, bleaching human from his features and turning him into something other. In the next second, the strangeness of his features vanished. He nodded, and hunkering down behind our tiny windshields, we raced away from the chaos. The heli stuck high above, singling us out and forcing me to drop into a nearby storm drain that movies loved to feature. The heli stayed on us, even as we dipped and swerved and raced on. Emerging near Marina Del Rey, Liam shot ahead and peeled off, taking a sharp left, heading back into the city. The heli banked, following him.
“Dammit…” The cops wouldn’t likely catch Liam, but neither would I.
With the sky above clear and no cops on the ground, I doubled back through the streets into familiar territory and parked Ghost down a tight little side street wedged between a Starbucks and a real estate agent’s office not far from Dav’s shop. I stripped off the leathers, folded them up, and tucked them under some flattened cardboard boxes. I’d be back to collect both the bike and the leathers once the heat had cooled off.
Sauntering onto the street, I tucked my hands into my pockets and acted like it was perfectly normal for a young woman to be walking down the street in sweats without a coat or bag in the middle of the night.
I thought I’d gotten away with it until car tires crunched behind me and a blip-blip announced a cop car.
Detective Benson was behind the wheel of his unmarked cruiser. He rolled to a halt so Riley could climb out and peel her jacket back, exposing her badge and sidearm, as though I needed a reminder of who she was and what she stood for.
“Been riding any illegally modified motorbikes, Archer?”
I was about two blocks from Dav’s shop, but there wasn’t anything Dav could do. I was on my own.
“Just out for a walk.”
“Uh-huh. And you weren’t at the illegal race fifteen minutes ago?”
“Are you harassing me, Detective Riley?”
“No, but I would like you to get in the car so we can talk somewhere more comfortable.”
She said that like I had a choice, which we both knew I didn’t if I wanted to keep the heat off Dav. I climbed in and smiled sweetly at Benson’s leering face in the rearview mirror. Every minute I was with them was another mile Liam had under his tires. By dawn, he’d be halfway to Vegas. I’d won the bike. I had earned it. That bike was mine, even if I had to track him into the desert to get it. But I couldn’t do any of that until I’d ditched my new fan club.
“How long is this going to take?”
Benson made a long, drawn-out hissing sound. “Could be a while. I hear the rest of our team busted nine cars at the race. The tin-crusher is gonna be busy if any one of those cars is running even a hint of illegal mods. But you wouldn’t know anything about that?”
“No.” I plastered on an innocent smile over the anxious twist of nerves. “I wouldn’t.”
Chapter Fourteen
They put me in one of the more comfortable interview rooms with a view of the bullpen so I could watch the department staff through the blinds while Riley wasted my time and hers.
She finally showed up, dumped a file on the otherwise empty table, and offered me coffee.
“Sure.”
“It’s that machine crap, but it’ll fill a hole.” She started pressing buttons and shoving coffee pods into a machine. “It’s the damnedest thing…”
“What is?” I peeked at the file but couldn’t see much more than a few color prints of various cars.
“We had footage of you and a white male we’re very interested in.”
“You did, huh?” By the fact she hadn’t yet arrested me, I could assume something somewhere had gone wrong for her and right for me. “This white male, what’s he done?”
“Racked up enough traffic violations to embarrass traffic division and flouted about fifty state laws.”
“Oh.” I figured Liam didn’t care much for the law. Or for getting caught.
“When we tried to clean up the footage, the file corrupted.”
“Ouch. That’s unlucky.”
She handed over the steaming cup of coffee and sat at the interview table, gesturing for me to do the same.
So if she didn’t have any evidence that I was involved in the meet, why was I even here, sharing coffee with a cop?
“You got out,” she said, regarding me with a measure of professional indifference that made her difficult to read. She wasn’t much older than me—maybe early thirties—but she carried herself like someone who had aged more than her years. Detective Riley had seen some things in her career, and her gut instinct was firing off all kinds of warnings about me. She wasn’t about to let me or Dav slip through her fingers. Riley was good at her job.
“I got out of what exactly?”
“Out of racing. I looked you up. The Archer girls. Some minor offenses. You were tight with Davin Carino, but you haven’t been seen with Carino’s crew for a while. After your sister’s death, you got out. So what happened?”
I didn’t have to answer any of her questions, but I also didn’t want to piss her off. I didn’t need the cops gunning for me.
“Maybe I just took a break. Change of scenery.”
Tired of waiting for me to offer up more information, she shoved the file across the table and leaned back. “The ADD profiles two types of racers.”
I flipped open the file and was confronted with pictures of mangled cars and corpses. I shut the file again and shoved it back. “What is this? Are you trying to save me, Riley? I’m a big girl. I make my own grown-up decisions.” She knew I didn’t need saving. It was everyone else who needed saving… from me.
“There are the lucky racers. They usually scare themselves a few months in and give up once money gets tight. And then there are the serious racers. It’s not a hobby to them, it’s a drug. They can’t stop. After a near miss or when cash gets tight, they might take a break, but they always go back. They race hard, they push hard, looking for more speed, chasing the thrill. Those racers end up wrapped ’round a tree.” She leaned forward and opened the file. “You were lucky. You got out.”
“You have no idea.”
She caught the irony in my tone and frowned. “You own a casino now, right?”
Where was this going? The casino had nothing to do with my past as a racer. That life didn’t touch this one. “If you’re about to ask me to rat out Davin, don’t bother.”
That summoned a smile to her lips. “No, I’m not that naïve.”
“So why am I here? Why the little chat?”
“I’m not your enemy. I’m just trying to keep people safe. Carino has a business and a tight crew who generally abide by the law. I’d hate to see your return jeopardize that.”
“Wait, are you trying to protect Davin from me?” Maybe she wasn’t as clueless as I’d thought.
Her expression cooled. “People die around you, Archer. Don’t think it hasn’t gone unnoticed. If you care about those people, maybe you should reconsider returning to racing?”
The same words Black had spoken. Stunned, I lost my voice. And I was not doing this right now with an LAPD detective who didn’t know when to keep her nose out of other people’s business. “Thanks for that chat.” I stood. “Let’s get our nails and hair done together sometime.”
“Your casino made the news recently, didn’t it? Tech guy got hit by a car—”
“I’m done.” I headed for the door.
“Trouble follows you, Archer,” Riley called after me.
I left the PD and didn’t slow until I’d walked a block. I had better things to do than listen to cops preach at me when they had no idea what I was dealing with. I’d heard it all before. I heard it every day in my head. Riley was wasting her time.
With no better ideas than to track Liam to the last place I’d seen him, I caught a late bus out to the marina and walked along its fringes, my thoughts whirring.
“People die around you.”
Jesus, did she think I hadn’t noticed?
“Make it right.”
Sure. I’d get right on that, Black, right after I was done being his and Siobhan’s fetch-and-carry girl.
I stopped at the edge of a restaurant parking lot and gazed out at the boats bobbing against their moorings. Rigging softly clanged. From the restaurant, conversations peppered with laughter ebbed and flowed on a warm breeze. After the noise of the race, the chaos from the last few weeks, and the bustle of the PD, this quiet marina seemed alien. Or perhaps it was me who didn’t belong in this innocent reality.
The distinctive burble of a bike engine upset the peace. I watched the bike and rider pull into the lot and instantly recognized Liam. He hadn’t gone far after all.
He rolled to a stop beside me, kicked the stand down, planted his feet, and cut the engine. Hot metal ticked as it cooled.
He removed his helmet and raked his fingers through his floppy hair. “We had a deal.”
“I thought you’d be halfway to Vegas by now.”
“You have a choice to make,” he said, his accent turning the words melodic. He straightened his back and spread his hands on the GSX-R’s fuel tank, soaking up its heat. “The person you were, not the one you want to be, would choose wrongly.”
I bit back a string of denials and faced ahead, looking over the yachts and fishing boats.
Liam’s next words were barely more than a whisper. “And around and around it goes. There are forces at work far greater than a sister’s love. The Agents of Fate can only do so much.”
Shock and a sharp edge of fear at being found out stilled me. I slowly turned to look him over. He didn’t look unusual. Just another racer, another guy in the crowd. But maybe that was the point. Beneath that veneer, there was nothing normal about Liam.
He looked back at me, his expression calm. He appeared young, but his eyes had a depth to them. Black had spoken about reality coming undone and the relics being the key to stitching it all back up again. Liam was a lot more than a rider. “In another time,” he said, “another place, as another person, you would have given anything to bring back the sister you killed. But you can’t fix your past, only your future.”
“You sound like Theo Black.”
Liam chuckled. “He and I go way back.”
“Is he the good guy or the bad guy in all of this?”
“Depends on your perspective.”
“Your perspective?”
“I’m just along for the ride.”
“And what are you in all of this?” I asked. My vision blurred, drifting at the edges. The events of the night were catching up with me. I rubbed the ball of my thumb against my eye to clear the sudden weight of tiredness.
“I am the catalyst. The choice. The decision. Your future’s past.”
“You’re as helpful as Black, is what you are.”
Another chuckle. “I like you, Jazmine Archer. Make it right, eh?”
The restaurant door clattered open behind me. A couple stumbled out into the night, staggering down the steps. The woman’s sudden laugh, bright and loud, shattered the marina’s quiet. When I turned back to Liam, the GSX-R stood leaning on its stand without its rider, Liam vanished from sight.
Chapter Fifteen
I cut the GSX-R’s engine as soon as the workshop doors had clattered closed, swung my leg off the bike, and took a few uneasy steps backward.
I’d followed Dav on Ghost, the entire time wondering if the motorbike I controlled was somehow sentient. Maybe Liam had vanished, or maybe he was the bike?
Beneath the workshop’s intense lighting, the GSX-R’s paintwork almost glowed, like it had at the marina. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Colors ran together, edges frayed, as though something not quite there was trying to break out, something that had been hidden out of sight—waiting.
Ghost’s engine cut off. Dav dismounted and joined me beside the unassuming-looking GSX-R. He admired the relic, making an obvious effort not to look at me. He hadn’t congratulated me on the win. I’d expected a reaction of some kind. Not this smothering silence.
“Well?” I asked, popping open the collar of my jacket and yanking down the zipper. It was late at night, or early in the morning, I wasn’t sure which; the streets had been dark and quiet on the ride home, but the night was clinging on. The future was waiting. So was Kari.
“Did you call her?” Dav asked, the question calm and flat, but his tone didn’t fool me. The quiet he carried around him had a heavy edge to it, like the pregnant pause before a summer storm breaks.
