Trust Me, I'm Trouble Read online

  She stops to sniffle. So far, I’m not really hearing anything I can help with.

  “I’m sorry that happened, Mrs. Antolini, but I’m not sure I—”

  “It’s not that I think he’s innocent. I’m not that naive.” She wrings the rapidly disintegrating tissue in her manicured hands. “But I know my husband, Ms. Dupree. I know he’d never have done something like this on his own. They put him up to it.”

  “ ‘They’ who?”

  “The New World Initiative. It’s a cult my husband joined just over a year ago.”

  Well, that’s interesting. I remember now where I heard the name Antolini before. Mike has CNN on twenty-four seven, and I remember overhearing a story about Mr. Antolini’s arrest. I don’t recall the embezzlement angle, but I did hear the New World Initiative mentioned. I noted it at the time, because NWI is a leadership and personal development organization that St. Agatha’s sponsors an internship with. Then I get why Mrs. Antolini is coming to me.

  “You want me to take them down,” I say, crossing my arms.

  “I want justice,” she says quietly.

  And don’t I know what that feels like. When Tyler died, I wanted to tear the world down. It didn’t help at all that the man who pulled the trigger was behind bars. I wanted justice. But there is no such thing as justice when you’ve lost someone. Mrs. Antolini just hasn’t figured that out yet.

  “Fair warning: I only ruin people when I can prove they deserve it.”

  “They deserve it. They used my husband to get money for themselves. All you have to do is find it and you’ll learn the truth.”

  “Find the money?”

  “No,” she says. “The blue fairy.”

  “The blue fairy.”

  I hear the words on repeat as I sit in the chapel of Holy Mother of God Church during my study hall period. I claim matters of spiritual pursuit, but I’m pretty sure Mr. Ulrich doesn’t buy my piety. Luckily for me, the academy bylaws don’t allow him to turn me down. It’s one of the benefits of going to a private Catholic school with its very own campus church. There are disadvantages as well, but right now I’m not complaining. I slouch in the straight-backed wooden pew and prop my ankles on the top of the bench in front of me. Not the most humble of postures perhaps, but I’m not exactly a god-fearing person. God has far bigger fish to fry than me.

  To explain the blue fairy, I have to take you back to the bad old days seven months ago when I took down a Ukrainian mob boss to save about a hundred girls from his human-trafficking ring. It’s a long story that started with my dad, Chicago’s second-best grifter, contracting his forgery skills to Petrov, the Ukrainian mob boss, for a significant sum of money. During the job, my dad found out that the forged documents he was making were being used to smuggle Ukrainian girls into the country. So he tipped off the FBI (enter Mike Ramirez), and subsequently got himself kidnapped.

  But my dad is nothing if not a planner. He knew he was gambling with more than his life trying to save those girls, so he hid a series of clues to keep me safe should anything happen to him. It mostly worked. Well, it helped. Okay, it was a terrible idea, and he should have known it wouldn’t stop me.

  Anyway, the first clue came with a gun. My mother’s gun. On the gun was an inscription: PER A.N.M., LA MIA FATA TURCHINA. For Alessandra Nereza Moretti, my blue fairy. At the time, I had no idea my mom owned a gun. I still don’t know where it came from, why she had it, or why she hadn’t taken it with her when she walked out on us eight years ago. But Alessandra Nereza Moretti was undoubtedly my mother, and the thing in my hand was inarguably a gun, and whoever called her “my blue fairy” was definitely not my dad. I gave the gun to Sam, and as far as I know, he still has it.

  In any case, Mrs. Antolini’s mentioning a blue fairy can’t be a coincidence. Coincidences don’t exist. Somehow the New World Initiative is connected to my mother. The question is, what is the blue fairy and what truth is it going to show me if I find it? That the New World Initiative is a cult? That Mr. Antolini was manipulated into stealing the money? Or that my mother was somehow involved?

  Mrs. Antolini was marvelously unhelpful in providing intel. She had no idea what the blue fairy was—only that the two men in suits who questioned her about it wouldn’t tell her anything else. She couldn’t even tell me what agency the men worked for. Which means that the people looking for the blue fairy are likely not legit lawmen. If they were, they’d have identified themselves.

  “Julep Dupree?”

  A young girl of ambiguous Asian descent is standing in the row in front of me. She looks about twelve, and she must be a recent transfer student, because I’ve never met her before. She does look familiar, though, so I must have seen her wandering around campus.

  “Excellent day for devotion,” I say, gesturing for her to take a seat. “How can I be of service?”

  Skipping study hall is not my only motive for hanging out in the chapel. After Dean Porter—St. Aggie’s dean of students and my personal nemesis—nearly busted me outside the music room last semester, I realized I needed a place on campus to meet potential clients where Porter couldn’t go. Then I found out a couple of months back that, per the strict orders of the school’s president, Sister Rasmussen, the dean doesn’t police the chapel. I’m not sure if that’s Sister Rasmussen’s way of protecting the sanctity of the church or the secrets of one Julep Dupree, but I’ll take it.

  My visitor stares at me for five full seconds without saying anything. I raise an eyebrow and start to tell her she should take a picture, it would last longer, but she moves before I do, taking the seat I’d indicated and staring straight ahead. It’ll make conversation awkward, but I have a feeling that the conversation is going to be awkward anyway.

  “I’m Lily,” she says. Simple enough introduction, but the way she says it is weird—assertive, angry. This girl has some kind of baggage.

  “What can I do for you, Lily?”

  She lowers her gaze to her lap, her glossy black hair swishing over her secrets before I can tease them out.

  “Do you have a job for me?” I prompt.

  “No,” she says forcefully.

  “Then what do you want?” I’m too amused to be annoyed. “You came to me, remember?”

  “I—” She stops and glances over her shoulder at me. “I want to…work for you.”

  I laugh. “You want to what?”

  “I need a job,” she says.

  I roll my eyes at this outrageous lie. She’s clearly well cared for—designer haircut, perfect makeup, professionally pressed St. Aggie’s uniform. She needs a job like she needs a makeover. Which is to say, she doesn’t.

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “I don’t hire liars.”

  “Aren’t you a professional liar?”

  “Good point,” I admit. “Still.”

  “Okay, I don’t need a job.” She turns in the pew to face me. “I want a job. Not just a job. I want to work for you.”

  “You can’t join me like you would a country club. I’m not hiring.”

  “I was a research assistant for one of my teachers at my previous school. I type fast, I don’t charge, and I make a mean caramel macchiato. Can Murphy Donovan make a caramel macchiato?”

  “I don’t have an espresso machine.”

  “I can throw in an espresso machine.”

  “I have no need for an espresso machine.” I stare at her, trying to figure her out. Why is she doing this? “Are you trying to piss off your parents or something?”

  She’s silent for several moments before she answers.

  “No,” she says, finally. “I’m trying to learn.”

  “Learn what? How to pick locks? Spy on people?”

  She’s quiet again, thinking. If she doesn’t give me an answer I like, this conversation is officially over.

  “I’m trying to figure out who I am,” she says softly, the suffering in her voice so apparent that I wince. I know too well what that feels like—not just the pain, but not being able to
hide it.

  I have no idea what the right thing here is. Giving her what she’s asking for isn’t necessarily a kindness. I grift partly to keep myself afloat and partly because I don’t know who I am without it. But I’m under no illusions that it’s a good thing to be doing. Sure, I use it to help people now. Since everything went down with the mob, I’m on the Captain America side of the law (well, mostly). But I’m still not really a great person. No one, least of all me, thinks I’m a good influence on young girls.

  Lily must sense that she’s losing me, because she says, “I’m looking for the Julep Dupree who saved a hundred girls from a life worse than death. Is that person still around?”

  Fabulous. One act of brainless idealism, and I am never going to live it down.

  I size her up again. The last time I trusted a classmate, he ratted me out to a mob boss. The last time I trusted a barista, he arrested my best friend and then me. You could say I’m a little gun-shy in the trust department these days. But I have a hard time believing she’s duplicitous. I’m practically gagging on the waves of innocence rolling off her. She couldn’t be an FBI agent, and I can’t imagine her in league with someone like Petrov.

  And then her lower lip wobbles, ever so slightly, and she immediately firms up her features. The show of resolve is what breaks me. What can I say? I’m a fixer.

  “One-week trial,” I say, shaking my head at myself. I can’t believe I’m doing this. “If it turns out you’re a spy, I will sic my enforcer on you. And yes, she bites. Give me your phone.”

  Lily hands me her phone, and I type my number into her contacts app.

  “When should I start?”

  “Right now,” I say, switching from her contacts to the Web browser and pulling up the page for New World Initiative. I hand back her phone. “You’d better be right about that caramel macchiato.”

  She turns to go, glancing at me once before walking out. I settle back into my angst. I wish she hadn’t brought up the Ukrainians. I wish I hadn’t been thinking about all of it before she even showed up. I have too hard a time stuffing it all away after it comes popping out. The weight of it all presses down harder on me here. I lost so much more than I saved that day. Tyler. Sam. My dad. Not to mention Ralph, who I still haven’t managed to track down despite all my and Murphy’s searching.

  I just want to go back to what it was like before all this started happening.

  Amen to that. I light a candle on my way out.

  • • •

  After school, Dani takes me to the firing range in Des Plaines. Dani and I have been going regularly since January, so it’s a familiar route. I spend this particular trip lost in thought.

  I usually talk Dani’s ear off during the drive, getting her criminal-underworld insight on cases, keeping her updated on the Ukrainian girls, and, in general, telling her about my day. She’s a great listener. Not so much a sharer, unless she’s giving me the smackdown for being stupid. Like last March when I was struggling with my anger over Tyler’s death and daring the world to try to take me down. She said I didn’t have to suffer to earn forgiveness. But maybe I just suffer either way….

  “You did your job. You saved me from Petrov. Your promise to my dad is done, but you’re still here. And you still think it’s your job to protect me. Just so we’re clear, I never asked you to.”

  “You are right. You did not ask. But I was not doing it for you.”

  “Dani—”

  “Enough. It is your life to risk as you want. Just as it is my life to risk in your place.”

  “What are you thinking?” she asks, breaking into my memories.

  “Work,” I say, more lie than truth. No need to rehash the many ways in which I’ve been an idiot. So I fill her in on the particulars of the NWI job instead. Well, most of the particulars.

  “And your new associate has found information on the New World Initiative?”

  “As much as can be found without joining up,” I say, thinking back to the two-page report, typed and double-spaced, that Lily had emailed me that afternoon.

  “You are considering joining a cult?” Dani doesn’t sound thrilled.

  “It’s not really a cult. Or at least, not openly. It’s a leadership organization. Businesspeople pay to attend a series of leadership workshops that supposedly help them turn their mediocre lives into satisfied, happy ones. They advance to higher levels, bringing in new members to earn rewards and greater status.”

  “It sounds like a cult.”

  “It’s more like a pyramid scheme. It promises a big reward it never intends to deliver.”

  “Which is?” Dani backs into a parking spot next to the firing range just as the horizon turns a dusky rose. I open my door and step out, stroking the hood of Dani’s Chevelle as I walk to the sidewalk. This car and I go way back.

  “That’s what worries me,” I say. “What kind of ‘reward’ would convince someone with no priors to commit something as severe as grand larceny? Antolini had to know he’d get caught.”

  Dani holds the door to the range open for me. Steve the gun-desk guy smiles at us. He’s seen us enough times now to recognize our faces.

  I fork over my fake ID and Firearm Owner’s ID without his asking. Dani, he never ID’s. Possibly her black coat and perpetual glare are ID enough for Steve. They’d be enough for me to make her as a mob enforcer. And no one who wants continual use of his fingers cards a mob enforcer.

  We pay our rental fees, grab safety gear, and head to the firing range. It’s busy, but not so busy that we have to wait for a booth. I lay the Beretta I always rent on the table so I can adjust my safety glasses before loading the gun. The glasses are too big and constantly slide down my nose. Dani never seems to have that problem. Somehow she looks just as lethal wearing plastic glasses and headphones as she does without.

  She waits as I inspect the gun and load it. She’s a stickler for proper procedure. Always point the gun downrange. Always assume the gun is loaded. No coffee on the shooting line. Blah. Too many rules. But both she and Mike insisted I learn how to shoot in case another Petrov tries to use me as a body shield—which is hardly likely given that I turn down the dangerous cases these days, but as it’s probably the only thing they agree on, I took a note.

  “There is something you are not telling me,” Dani says over the dull roar of the other shooters. She’s leaning against the wall of the booth, her arms crossed, looking relaxed. She always seems most at ease when there’s a gun in the room.

  I fire a few rounds into the distant target. It’s hard to tell from the booth, but I may have managed a reliable group. It’s down by the lower left quadrant of the target, but it’s a group.

  “Move your right foot back,” Dani says, her expression shrewd and assessing. “Lean more over your left.”

  Dani didn’t exactly volunteer to teach me. She prefers to keep me completely separate from her day job as hired muscle for whatever criminal syndicate happens to be shorthanded. Training me in the fine art of killing people is too close to that part of her life for comfort, I guess. But I insisted. Mike gave me exactly one (totally unnecessary) driving lesson during which I nearly booted him from the car for stomping on an imaginary brake pedal on the passenger-side floor every time I rounded a corner. I figured that subjecting myself to his teaching style while I was in possession of a loaded weapon was not the best way to stay out of prison.

  Besides, I like being around Dani. She doesn’t push me to be something I’m not. She doesn’t judge me, as long as I’m not acting stupid. And she doesn’t need protecting. I can just be with her. No expectations, no apologies, no guilt. She is to me what a gun is to her—I’m most at ease when she’s in the room.

  She arches an eyebrow, still waiting for me to spill my secrets. I adjust my stance and my aim. “I’ll tell you later,” I say, because hell if I’m shouting about my mom issues at the top of my lungs.

  I take a few more shots, but they end up hitting the same place on the target. Dani leans forwar
d and fixes my grip on the gun, her movements patient but firm, her fingers warm against mine.

  “Holding it like this feels clunky,” I say.

  “It applies rearward pressure to counteract the forward pressure of your shooting hand. Try again.”

  I do as told, and this time my shots end up in the lower right quadrant of the target.

  Dani sighs, which I see more than hear, and comes over to stand behind me. She wraps her arms around me, placing her hands over mine on the gun. She still has to shout despite her mouth being right next to my ear, but that’s not as weird as the chill that zips down my spine at the thought of her mouth being that close to my ear. Earth to Julep—you’re supposed to be paying attention.

  “You are working too hard to align the sights. You won’t have time to do that in a fight anyway. Focus on the front sight. Now take a breath and let it out halfway. Squeeze the trigger slowly so the movement does not change your aim….”

  Bull’s-eye.

  She hesitates, and then steps back. The sudden absence of her body heat makes the ambient air that swirls in feel colder than before.

  As much as I prefer Dani’s company, I don’t actually get her. I’m a grifter. I can usually read people like a shopping list left abandoned in a grocery cart. But Dani’s more like The Brothers Karamazov, the nineteenth-century Russian novel Mrs. Springfield bludgeoned us with last semester—all intricate imagery that’s a bitch to decipher. I’m sure it’s because my knowledge of her life is patchy at best. She won’t tell me about her present, and I get only rare glimpses of her past. She keeps too much hidden, like why she goes out of her way to help me.

  I freeze my position and fire off another three rounds. All of them end up just to the right of center.

  “Better,” she says.