Tracers Read online

  The truck started to pull away, and Cam tried to hold on. “Jerry, cut me some slack . . .”

  Hu hit the brakes, and Jerry opened the door Cam had been holding on to; Cam nearly tripped. Jerry hopped out of the truck and got in his face—which was usually Hu’s job. “You still don’t understand how this works, do you?” Jerry took another half step forward, and added in a lower voice, “If you don’t pay, we don’t shoot you.” Jerry had really lost his cool. His hair was a complete mess.

  Cam caught Angie’s movement out of the corner of his eye. Her place was a few houses down—she was taking out the garbage. Cam met Jerry’s gaze and understood.

  A cold feeling went through him. He thought about Angie, and Joey.

  And then he thought about Nikki.

  Finding that much money in one month was impossible. Which meant that seeing her again was impossible too. Unless he could make a lot of money, fast.

  He looked up and realized that Hu and Jerry had towed his father’s car away. He trudged back to Angie’s, but he only got halfway up the drive.

  Angie met him there, her face a mask of anger. His two plastic crates were sitting next to her, containing all of his worldly possessions. He saw Joey open the screen door, but his mother barked at him to go inside.

  “Angie, I’m sorry . . .” he began, but he didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

  He didn’t have to figure it out, because Angie slapped him, hard. “Your friends gave Joey a ride home from school today, Cam.” Her voice shook. “Those . . . thugs brought my son home from school!” A tear escaped from the corner of her eye, and she swiped it away.

  “Angie, I . . .” Cam felt helpless, and sick. Seeing Angie so scared and angry was like letting his mom down all over again.

  “I don’t want to see you anywhere around me or my son or this house ever again. Do you hear me? Stay away from us, Cam! I mean it.” She threw both crates at him, stalked into the now-empty garage, and hit the button, closing the door.

  Now he was carless and homeless.

  Nikki had said he was one of those people who couldn’t hold on to anything nice.

  She’d been wrong.

  He couldn’t hold on to anything at all.

  • • •

  After Angie kicked him out, Cam was full of pent-up rage. It wasn’t that he blamed her—she was just being smart. He was pissed at himself for dragging her into this mess. With his mom gone, she was one of the few people in the world who actually gave a crap about him, and he sure as hell didn’t want anything bad to happen to her or Joey.

  But he still felt angry—at the universe for his mom getting sick, at his father for the fact that they’d been up to their ears in debt before she’d even been diagnosed. At the Tong for obvious reasons.

  Parkour seemed the perfect distraction.

  First, he stashed everything he owned in the corner of the break room at Lafayette. Then, he headed for the closest park and started practicing his cat leaps using the low wall at the perimeter. When that move felt solid, he started to use the benches to work on his dash vault.

  As darkness started to fall, Cam realized he was getting tired, and he decided to head home.

  And that’s when he remembered he didn’t actually have one anymore.

  He snuck back into the break room at Lafayette Messenger and spent the night on the lumpy old couch, still leaping and jumping all through the night, in his dreams.

  SIX

  CAM SAT ALONE, looking down at the alley, watching a stray cat picking through a pile of garbage.

  He’d woken up early, before anyone came into work at Lafayette. He was stiff from the training and from sleeping on the lumpy couch. He spent the morning finding a new place to crash—finally settling on an old seven-story building that was in foreclosure. Just the other day, on a delivery run for Lafayette, he’d spotted the place. It must have been a really nice place, once. There was even a small greenhouse on the roof. One of the glass walls had been broken, probably in a storm, but someone had draped a tarp over the opening to cover it. He had found a few old mattresses in the building, but with the nights so hot lately, Cam was betting it would be a bit cooler on the roof, so he dragged the least objectionable-looking mattress up and laid it under the tarp.

  Now, as darkness was falling on another crappy day, he was enjoying his penthouse view.

  The accommodations were pretty rough, but he figured this place would do until he could figure something else out—or until he got caught squatting there. He might have a couple of months or just one more day. Spotting the place to begin with had been dumb luck, random chance.

  He was beginning to think that was all there was to life: dumb luck and random chance. Up to now, nothing anyone had ever tried to teach him had done him any good.

  His life up to this point had been an extreme waste. That much was clear.

  He lay back, crossed his arms, and looked up at the sky. Up this high, he could see a handful of stars. He spotted the Big Dipper—or maybe it was the little one? And that bright star might be Sirius, the Dog Star. Cam remembered when he was in grade school his class would go on field trips to the planetarium down the street. They’d lean back in their seats and gaze up at the fake stars glinting in the fake-sky ceiling. The guy who ran the place would teach them about the constellations, and tell stories about them. He remembered the man promising them that they could all be astronauts when they grew up, if they worked hard enough.

  Cam closed his eyes, shutting out the stars. He’d worked hard ever since his mom had gotten sick, and look where it had gotten him. All the other useless things they’d tried to teach him in school—algebra and world history and Shakespeare—what had any of it been for? His tenth-grade girlfriend, Melina, had been obsessed with Romeo and Juliet—she’d made him watch the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio over and over before she even let him get to second base. She used to walk around quoting the lines all the time—telling him he was her Romeo. Cam knew what had become of Melina. He sure as hell hadn’t turned out to be her Romeo, and neither had anyone else. All her faith in true love hadn’t gotten her anything but pain and trouble. The boyfriend after him had gotten her into drugs; last he’d heard, she was serving a ten-year stint upstate for felony possession.

  His parents had been the same, Cam mused—believing in fate and love and all the rest. He remembered his father taking him for a drive one night. They’d lain across the hood of the GTO, looked up at these same stars, and his father had explained to Cam how he would know when he’d met the right girl.

  “It’s magic, Cam,” his father told him. He handed Cam the bag of Cheetos they’d been sharing, and wiped the orange dust from his hands. “That’s what happened with your mother. She was manning the counter at her dad’s place—remember the shop he had over in Elmhurst? Anyway, I took one look and boom. A goner. Got hit with Cupid’s arrow, right between the eyes. I knew right away we’d be together forever. Magic, I’m telling you. It’ll be just the same for you someday.”

  Forever got a lot shorter a few months later when his dad got sent to prison. Cupid’s arrow had blinded his mom to his dad’s faults until it was too late; all their money was gone and they were alone with his debts. And then she got sick.

  So Cam was glad he’d learned so much valuable crap about love and sonnets and the freaking stars. It was all proving super useful.

  The worst part: it seemed pretty clear now that Cupid had had the nerve to shoot him, two weeks ago. Except instead of an arrow, he’d gotten hit with an actual girl falling out of the sky.

  Now Cam knew what he hadn’t understood on that night long ago with his dad. Even if there was such a thing as love at first sight, the world was still going to tear the two of them apart, because that’s what the world did. And he knew from watching that stupid movie with Mel where Romeo’s love had gotten him.

  Cam picked up
a little glass pot that was sitting near the edge of the roof. It was pretty: red and gold glass panes in diamond shapes. The plant inside had died, but the roots were still there, tangled up in the dirt. He looked down. The cat was gone, the alley empty. Cam held the pretty thing up and then let go, watching the pot burst apart in the light of the street lamps below. He realized then that the glass had been broken and had cut into his hand. Now he would need to find something to bandage it. But at the moment he couldn’t make himself move, or care. He lay back against the cold cement of the roof and stared out into the darkness.

  • • •

  The text message from Jax pulled Cam out of his thoughts:

  Jets game & grub @ my place-104B Ave C @ 7

  Cam smiled down at his phone. It had been forever since he’d gotten a come-hang-out text. He didn’t hang out with any of the messengers at work.

  His hand was still bleeding a little, so he ripped off the hem of an old T-shirt and wrapped it around his palm, then took the train down to Jax’s place, which looked like one-quarter of a loft.

  Jax answered the door wearing head-to-toe green and white. He clapped Cam on the back. “You made it! Welcome!”

  “Thanks,” Cam said. He walked in and looked around. There were three beds in one corner. “Nice place. You guys all live here?”

  “Me and Tate and Dylan,” Jax answered. “Oh, and my boys!”

  At that moment, three pit bulls rushed toward Cam, almost knocking him over.

  “I told you to hold them!” Jax called over his shoulder.

  “I did,” Tate yelled. “Noodle started slobbering all over me. Your dogs, dude. Control ’em.”

  Jax smiled sheepishly at Cam. “They told me if I bring home one more, I’m out,” he confided. “They’re rescues. I’m in this group, and they call me . . .” Jax shrugged as though to indicate his helplessness in the face of pit bulls in need. He led the way into the middle of the loft, where there were two big sofas and a flat screen already tuned in to the game.

  “Told you before, dude. You gotta get your name off the sucker list,” Tate said, standing and greeting Cam with a handshake. “Welcome to the dog pound. Have a seat. Hope you don’t mind dog hair. Or drool.”

  “No worries,” Cam said, sitting. One of the dogs promptly climbed up on top of him, staring at him with sad doggie eyes. He noticed that he only had three legs, and his ears looked like someone had attacked them with scissors. Cam reached up and petted his head. “Poor dude. Looks like you really needed a rescue,” he said.

  Jax sat down across from him. “Yeah, Sammy there had it the worst. He was a bait dog. People suck. But enough about my monsters. What do you like on your pizza?”

  “Anything,” Cam said. “I mean, I guess anything except pineapple. Pizza’s just not the place for fruit.”

  “No arguments here,” Tate said. “Dylan’s on his way. With Nikki.”

  Cam wasn’t sure how to feel about that news. Part of him wanted more time with her. Part of him just didn’t understand her, and feared he never would.

  Tate was calling for the pizza. “So you guys lived here long?” Cam asked Jax.

  “Maybe a year? When I first came here I lived in this—crap hole doesn’t begin to describe it. Finally, after meeting up with these guys, I went over to Tate’s, and his place was a crack den too. So I had the idea we could go in together.”

  “Yeah, I’ve lived in my share of garbage places,” Cam agreed. “You said you came here? From where?”

  “Virginia, the bottom part—near Tennessee.”

  “Why’d you come here?” Cam asked. “No offense or anything. I’ve just spent most of my life trying to get out.”

  Jax seemed to consider the question for a few seconds before answering. “I started getting into tracing in my last year of high school. I was supposed to go to community college, but really I just hated school. I was never any good at it. This was the first thing I was, like, good at—you know? Anyway, I knew this guy from my gym. He went to New York and got a job as a personal trainer, made huge money right out of the gate. Seemed like I should try my luck. I just wanted something . . . more, I guess.”

  “Well, you’re doing pretty well for yourself,” Cam told him. “What do you guys do for a living, anyway? Can’t live off parkour.”

  Jax gave him a strange look. “You might be surprised.” He got up and walked to the kitchen, coming back with a bone for each dog.

  Cam watched him, thinking. It was obvious that the group did more than train together. But he knew he’d have to earn their trust before they told him their secrets. Especially if their business involved anything illegal.

  Snapping back into the moment, Cam realized Jax was still talking to him. “Dude, you should have seen me the first couple months. Damn near starved to death.” Another of the dogs jumped up beside Jax and he rubbed its head. “Good boy,” he told the dog.

  “You two wanna be alone?” Tate asked Jax.

  “You’re just jealous,” Jax said. “When’s the pizza coming?”

  “Thirty minutes or less, just like always, moron.”

  They were interrupted as Dylan and Nikki came through the door. She was holding two paper grocery bags over her head, away from the dogs that crowded around her. Cam jumped up and took one of the bags from her and set it on the counter.

  “What’d you bring us?” Jax asked her.

  “Food.”

  “I mean, like, specifically?”

  Nikki rolled her eyes as she put the remaining bag down on the table that separated the living area from the kitchen. “I was being specific. There’s never any food in your food, so I brought you something with actual nutrition.” She pulled out a plastic tray of veggies and waved it around like a flag. “See?”

  Jax groaned. “I told you we should have ordered wings too.”

  Sighing, Nikki put the tray down on the kitchen counter. “Years from now, when your arteries are all clogged up, let it be remembered that I tried to save you.”

  Jax picked her up and twirled her around. “Ha! We’re living fast here, baby. We don’t worry about no stinking arteries.”

  “Put me down, you idiot!” Nikki demanded, and Jax complied. “Living fast? You know how that saying ends, right?”

  “First she brings vegetables, then she brings the doom and gloom. Remind me again why you guys always want my sister around?” Dylan came up behind Jax and Nikki, used the counter to force the cap off his bottle of beer, pulled Nikki against him, and planted a kiss on the top of her head.

  “Jerks,” she muttered, but she was smiling.

  “Game’s on!” Dylan announced, as he headed for the TV.

  “What did you do?”

  Cam realized Nikki was talking to him. She pointed to the fabric he’d wrapped around his left hand.

  “Training,” he lied. He wasn’t about to tell her he’d been wallowing in his own misery and cut his hand on a pretty glass flowerpot.

  “You’ve been practicing,” she repeated, her voice oddly toneless. Almost like she didn’t approve.

  “Yeah, some,” he told her, keeping his own voice neutral. “It’s kind of addictive.”

  Her face broke into a smile. “Yeah, it is. I never thought I’d like it—I did gymnastics when I was a kid, and at a certain point I started to hate it. The discipline, the hours and hours of practice. But parkour is different. No rules, you know?”

  “You don’t like rules, I take it?” he said, taking a step closer.

  “Hey, you’re bleeding!” Nikki took his injured left hand. Gently, she unwound the now-bloody strip of T-shirt. “You need to wash this out,” she told him, and led him over to the kitchen sink.

  “It’s fine,” Cam said, feeling embarrassed, as though by looking at the wound she’d be able to figure out he’d been lying about its source.

  “Don’
t be such a tough guy, Cam. You don’t want it to get infected.”

  “No. I don’t want that.” Cam was distracted. She had rinsed away the blood and was now gently drying his hand with a paper towel.

  “I think they’ve got a first-aid kit down here.” Nikki knelt down to open the cabinet under the sink. “Only because I put it here,” she added, rolling her eyes and smiling as she stood up. She opened the small plastic case, found a big adhesive bandage, and pulled it out along with a packet of ointment. “This might sting a little,” she said, carefully dabbing some of the antibacterial gel on his cut.

  “It’s fine,” he said. Something had tightened in Cam’s chest that made it hard to speak.

  It was a little thing, her putting a bandage on his cut hand. But it had been a long time since anyone had taken care of him like that.

  “There. All set. Just try to keep it dry until tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” he said, his voice coming out oddly hoarse.

  “You’re welcome.” Nikki’s eyes met his, and the moment stretched between them . . . but then that guarded look came over her face again.

  She turned around and busied herself with pulling the plastic cover off the veggies, and the moment was over.

  “You’re missing the game!” Jax called.

  “Coming,” Cam said, but then turned back to Nikki. “Unless you need any help?”

  “Nope. All set.”

  Cam sat down on one of the couches. He watched Nikki stop for a second, glance at the empty space beside him, and then choose a spot beside Jax on the other couch.

  “You a Jets fan?” she asked Cam.

  Yep, and we’re having some great weather today too, Cam thought. He realized he was frowning when he saw his expression reflected on Nikki’s face. “I guess not,” she added.

  “I’m really more of a Giants guy, actually,” he said. The three-legged dog jumped up beside Cam again and he scratched its ears.

  “Looks like you made a friend.” Nikki smiled at him. The dog seemed to hear her, and chose that moment to sprawl out across Cam’s lap, letting out a massive sigh.