She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,151

clearly going through a rough patch, and I blame myself for that. I gave you more freedom than I probably should have. I thought you could handle it, but I was clearly wrong.”

“Who are the people in the white coats?”

“You said that on the phone. I assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Do they pay you, too? They do, don’t they? They pay you to keep an eye on me. To keep me on a leash.”

“Move back into your apartment, Jack. Stay here in Pittsburgh. Let me find you some help, someone to talk to…in confidence. A professional. You’ve seen so much death, more than anyone should ever deal with in a lifetime, in a hundred lifetimes. It’s eating at you. If you’d rather, we can enroll you in a program somewhere. Someplace quiet. Someplace where you can work through all of this and put your life back on track.”

“You need to give me my money.”

“I can’t watch you die.”

“Then don’t.”

I hadn’t realized how loud our voices had gotten until we both stopped speaking. The two of us stared at each other for a good long while, then Matteo finally reached into his breast pocket, pulled out an ATM card, and slid it across the table to me. “If I thought forcing you into a program would help, I would do that. I would find a way to do that. But you need to want to get better, and it’s obvious you don’t. I really hope someday you do. When you’re ready, call Tess. You don’t need to talk to me if you don’t want to, but call Tess. Even if it’s just to let her know you’re okay every once in a while. You should call Will, too. He graduated last month, twelfth in his class. I think he’s going to work with his father. He’d like to hear from you.”

I scooped up the ATM card and shoved it into the pocket of my jeans. I left Matteo sitting there at his conference table, his eyes burning into my back.

There was an SUV double parked behind my Jeep.

It wasn’t white.

The SUV blocking my Jeep was black, a Cadillac Escalade with windows tinted to the point of being opaque sitting high up on sparkling chrome rims. As I approached, three men stepped out. I recognized the driver—Reid Migliore. I hadn’t seen him since our freshman year of high school, but it was him for sure. I didn’t know if he graduated, but I knew who he worked for.

Reid kicked at a small rut in the blacktop with the toe of his boot and looked up at me. “He wants to see you.”

“I don’t give a shit what he wants.”

“He says you will. Says it’s about the girl.”

“What girl?”

“He said you’d probably say that. He told me to tell you, the girl. Your girl.”

“How’d you find me?”

Reid nodded at a boy in a Steelers sweatshirt and cap riding a bike in circles where Brownsville met Kirkland. “We’ve got eyes.”

“Is he dealing?”

He didn’t look much older than twelve or thirteen.

Reid didn’t answer. Instead, he climbed back into the Escalade. “Get in. I’ll give you a ride. You’ve got shotgun.”

“What about my Jeep?”

“Our boy will watch it for you. It’s safe here.”

The other two got into the back.

I stood there for a moment, swore under my breath, and got in behind them.

Tess watched us from the small window in Matteo’s reception area.

I half expected them to put a hood over my head like the first time I went to see Stella at her house, but they didn’t. A Pirates game played softly on the radio—four to one, Pittsburgh—nobody spoke. We took Brownsville to Beck’s Run, then made a right on Carson, following the river with the city shrinking behind us. We passed Homestead, Ravine Street, and crossed the Monongahela River right before Whitaker. We came over a hill, and a giant monstrosity of metal loomed over us. There are several abandoned steel mills in and around Pittsburgh. The one in front of us was known as Carrie Furnace, shuttered in 1978. At the entrance, another black Escalade blocked half the road with two men leaning against the hood. Reid nodded at them as we turned and drove past toward the towering, rust-covered complex.

“Is this where he works now?”

“This is where he meets you,” Reid said.

We came to a stop at a crumbling brick building with several round metal stacks rising from behind, surrounded by catwalks and smaller structures. A maze