Chapter 33 The Devil in Transit

Chapter 33 The Devil in Transit
 Liam

The Martinez mansion disappeared in my rearview mirror at nine forty-seven PM.

I had carried Chloe inside; she had woken up at the front door, insisted she could walk, taken four steps, and then lifted her arms in the universal twelve-year-old signal for "carry me anyway." I deposited her on the living room couch with her Oakwood scarf still wrapped around her neck. I had to inform Daisy that today’s session was canceled.

"Tonight's canceled," I had said, at the front door. "I'll be back late."

Daisy had looked at me with those hazel eyes that were always running a calculation I couldn't fully see, nodded once, and said

"Okay" in the voice she used when she had more to say and had decided not to say it.

Then the door had closed, and I was in the car, and the night was open in front of me.

I let out a long breath and rolled my shoulders back and became, fully and without any remaining performance required, just Liam Martinez driving to a party on a Friday night after a win.

This was the version of the evening I had been looking forward to since the second quarter.

My phone rang through the car speakers at nine fifty-two. I accepted without looking.

"You're not here yet." Tiffany's voice filled the car, crisp and precise.

"I'm twelve minutes out."

"Dev's been asking where you are. The whole team is already inside."

"Then they started without me. They'll survive. "I changed lanes smoothly. "I had to drop Chloe."

A pause. "And Daisy."

"She was with Chloe," I said. "It was the same trip."

"Right." The word was flat in the specific way Tiffany's words got flat when she was deciding how much of what she actually thought to put into a sentence. "How was the drive?"

"Fine."

"Fine," she repeated. "Liam."

"Tiffany."

"I'm just asking."

"You're never just asking," I said. "Tell me what you actually want to say."

Another pause. Shorter this time.

"She waited for you after the game. With Chloe."

"Chloe needed a ride. Daisy didn't want to leave her alone. "I kept my voice easy. "It's not complicated."

"She canceled the Uber."

I glanced at the dashboard. "You saw that?"

"I saw her open the app and then put the phone away." Tiffany's voice was careful. Measured. "I just think it's interesting."

"It's logistically efficient," I said. "One trip instead of two."

"Liam." Something shifted in her voice. 

"I've known you since we were fifteen. I know what logistically efficient looks like on you, and I know what something else looks like."

The highway stretched ahead, dark and clear, the city lights making a low orange glow against the sky.

"I've got it handled," I said, my hands on the steering wheel.

"You keep saying that."

"Because it keeps being true."

"Does it." Not a question. The particular Tiffany delivery meant she had already formed a conclusion and was waiting to see if I would reach it on my own.

"The bet is on track," I said. "My grades are stable. The championship is five weeks out. Everything is moving exactly the way it needs to move."

I tapped the steering wheel once. "Stop worrying."

"I'm not worried," she said. "I'm observant. There's a difference." A beat. "See you in ten minutes."

The call ended.

I drove in silence for a moment.

Then I turned the radio on, found something with a hard enough beat to reset the frequency of the evening, and let the music do its job.



Dev's house was three blocks from school in the direction of the newer developments, big and bright with every downstairs light on and the bass from the speakers audible from the driveway.

Cars lined both sides of the street. Someone had strung lights in the backyard that were visible over the roof from where I parked.

I sat in the car for sixty seconds.

Not thinking. Just running the reset the way I ran it before every game, clearing everything from the previous hour and setting the parameters for the next one.

After that, I got out of the car.



The party parted for me the way parties always did, which I had stopped noticing years ago and now only registered as the background condition of most social situations. Jace found me before I reached the kitchen, already holding a cup out.

"Twenty-eight fourteen," he said by way of greeting.

"Twenty-eight fourteen," I confirmed, taking the cup.