Deeper (The Deeper Chronicles #1) (3 page)

Avi shimmied and bopped down the rows of desks, picking up broken pencils and forgotten sweaters. With a swaying of her hips, she tidied up her classroom, returning spiral notebooks and worksheets to where they belonged—simple things six-year-olds were wont to forget when the final bell rang.

Why her principal took a chance on an inexperienced new graduate, she didn’t want to question. All Avi had was a passion to make a difference—a dream she’d held onto ever since she had met her own first grade teacher.

I guess he saw it too.

A knock on her class door silenced the music that played in Avi’s head while she cleaned. She made a small pirouette and found herself staring into the vivid green eyes of Sophia Walker, another first year teacher who had befriended Avi in the teachers’ lounge over their shared hatred for the school’s coffee and a love of fashion.

“I was knocking and knocking. Where the hel–er, heck were you?”

Avi giggled at the low words. “It’s funny how once you become a teacher you always censor yourself, even when the kids aren’t around,” she responded.
Those little ears were attached to small bodies with sponges for brains.

“Right,” Sofie said, flipping her shoulder-length auburn hair from her face.

Avi asked, “So, what’s up?”

Sofie rocked back and forth on nude pumps that Avi would bet her next paycheck had the well-known red soles. How Sofie could afford her designer outfits and handbags on the paltry salary the New York City Board of Education paid, not to mention pay back student loans most young graduates were saddled with, was a mystery. Avi could tell Sofie had a fierce closet simply by the clothing she wore.

Despite Sofie’s ready smile, bubbly personality, and their easy friendship, doubt pricked Avi’s intuition. To be caught unawares like she had been three years ago when flashing red and blue lights filled the rearview mirror of her mother’s beat up Hyundai would be devastating.

“We’re going out tonight.” Sofie’s words ended Avi’s morose thoughts.

She shook her head, and forcefully too, giving Sofie an answer to her demand disguised as an invitation. Avi had firmed up her after-work plans early in the morning: get take-out from the Chinese gem she had discovered near 125
th
Street, shower, and then veg out in her pajamas in front of her television.

Her itinerary was set in stone; Avi’s goal was to celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday, which had come and gone two days ago without fanfare, as she pleased. She tuned Sofie out while she ticked off the reasons they needed to go out.

“We’re celebrating your big day, whether you want to or not.” Sofie looked mutinous at Avi’s insistent, silent ‘no’.

“I don’t know why I told you it was my birthday,” Avi mumbled, stacking some books while Sofie followed.

“Hello? Because we’re friends.” Sofie’s hands took up residence on her hips in defiance.

Unfortunately for Avi, she’d slipped and told Sofie about her low-key birthday the previous day during their lunch. Her new friend had been upset. “Friends shouldn’t keep secrets from each other,” Sofie had uttered to a flabbergasted Avi. But, it hadn’t taken long for perky Sofie to return with a devilish grin and a promise to make it up to her.

Avi blinked and bit the inside of her cheek, coming back to the here and now, meeting Sofie’s eyes, which were brimming with excitement. She offered a tentative laugh in response to her friend’s very loud one.

“Fine,” Avi said.

Sofie screamed her enthusiasm and threw her slender arms around Avi’s shoulders. “You won’t regret it. I promise.”

This is a mistake
, Avi thought while exiting the cab.

Those four words had run through her head during her bus ride home. Doubt overruled anticipation, even while she applied the final touches to her smoky-eyes. Avi second-guessed her decision to go out, remembering the disastrous end-result of a time when partying was all she did.

Music spilled out of the club and seemed to make the walls shake and shiver.

What am I doing?

She felt her sanity slipping.

Did I give off a clubber vibe?
Because those days were long gone.

A luxury SUV cut through traffic as if everyone else on the road knew Noah Adams was seated in the back, the man New York’s gossip sites called a playboy with rumored criminal ties and a confirmed short fuse and, therefore, gave a wide berth. The President and CEO of Accipere LLC was a man who enjoyed maintaining an air of intrigue. Maybe it was his hypnotic onyx eyes or the way his tailored suits cut his tall, muscular frame, but Noah Adams was intimidating and mysterious to just about everyone. At thirty-three years old, Noah had earned every bit of wealth, power, and fear surrounding him.

As usual, the day had begun too early and ended too late. He closed his eyes and leaned back into his seat. Smooth lane changes and butter-soft leather lulled Noah into a rare relaxed state. A phone rang from its place in the center console and shattered his brief moment of serenity. He lolled his head toward the phone and debated letting the call go to voicemail. The numbers glowed brightly in the dark cabin, and recognition made Noah sit up in his seat.

The driver’s gaze rose to the rearview mirror at his boss’s change in posture and contemplative stare at the mobile phone. He tapped the brakes, lurching the vehicle forward.

Noah looked up and met the wide eyes of his latest hire, Zachary Bakker. “Eyes on the road, Zach.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Adams.”

The kid was all right, although a bit jumpy and star struck, but that would go away in time. Noah waved away the young man’s worries and re-focused his attention on the ringing phone.

It was a number that hadn’t called him in two years.

He knew he had to take it.

Hell, he wanted to take it.

Noah tapped the green button and held the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end said, sounding nervous. He was never nervous.

Noah took a deep breath. Their last conversation had been brief. Although two years had passed and they had exchanged no more words, Noah had always called on holidays and birthdays and spoken to the silence. Not one single word from the person on the other end of the line in seven hundred and thirty days—not that Noah had been counting.

His heart raced as he tried to appear unaffected. “What’s up?”

“Is that how we’re speaking these days?” His rich, familiar chuckle reminded Noah of nights spent on a worn blue couch in Brooklyn, eating take-out, and watching
Saturday Night Live.

“Only to old men who call when I’m ready to go home,” Noah responded, wanting to keep the man talking, and relishing every word.

“Ah, so now I’m old?”

Noah imagined Harry Manning’s violet eyes bright with laughter. He should be taking off his reading glasses and turning in for the night; that was the schedule Harry had kept when the two had spoken more frequently.

Noah huffed out a breath and toyed with a cuff link while trying to find the words to say. There were few people who had Noah’s real contact information, and Harry was one.

Still.

The two were so deeply connected, despite their seventeen-year age difference, that it was impossible to scrub the other from their lives, even after Harry had “washed his hands.”

“Noe...” Harry’s use of his nickname forced Noah’s concentration back to the phone call.

Noah cleared his throat and smoothed out his lapel. “What are you doing calling?” The words left his mouth and he immediately regretted his tone.

“I see not much has changed,” Harry said. “Still speaking first and thinking second.”

“Hard to change what’s part of you. You know this.”

Harry’s laugh was strained. “What I have to talk about isn’t for this phone, but since I don’t have any other number...”

A crease marred Noah’s brow at what Harry insinuated. He needed another number. One that would be untraceable and changed every two weeks or so. If Harry was referring to that kind of number, then there was trouble—the sort of trouble that could include officers who wore dark blue jackets with ‘DEA’ emblazoned in bright yellow lettering across the back—trouble that made Noah’s ass itch and would require a call to his high-priced lawyer.

Fuck.
“I’ll take care of it,” Noah said, mentally adding another item to his never-ending to-do list.

“How soon? Because what I have to say...” Harry stopped speaking.

“A day at the most.” Noah paused, the seriousness of the situation dawning on him. If Harry was spooked into breaking his self-imposed exile from Noah’s life, then it just became Noah’s top priority. “Someone will be in touch.”

Harry coughed. “Good. Good. So, until then?”

Two years ago, Harry would have ended with: talk to you later.

But a teen who should have been fucking around on Facebook or doing some other teenage bullshit had ruined Noah and Harry’s friendship. When a tingle of guilt would try to creep into Noah’s subconscious, he reminded himself that he wasn’t directly at fault. It wasn’t like he told the kid to push that shit into her veins. That was her choice. Choices were made every day. The consequences weren’t always favorable, but one had to be man or woman enough to deal with whatever the outcome was.

Some would say Noah was cold-hearted. Maybe he was, but he never tried to convince anyone he was someone other than who he was.

“Noah, are you still there?”

He massaged his forehead before answering. Thoughts of that kid stirred up something he didn’t dwell on for long, but her death wasn’t enough to get him to do more than a few protocol changes; the heart of his operations remained the same.

“A day, then we’ll talk.”
And I’ll learn what the fuck is going on.
A part of Noah wanted to prolong the conversation, but he struggled with what next to say.

“Sure. Tell the guys hel—”

“Harry, I’ve got another call.”

Harry’s sentimentality was too much to deal with right now.
Another day...maybe.

“Oh. Okay.”

The line remained open until Noah clicked the end button.

I need a drink.

The phone was tossed onto the seat beside him while Noah tried to forget the man’s voice and his words. His mind lingered more so on what couldn’t be shared.

He was in the dark, and Noah Adams was never in the dark. If there was one thing he hated more than anything, it was being in the fucking dark about his businesses, his associates, and his competitors.

Who am I kidding? I hate lots of other things, like cops
—Harry was the exception—
sellouts, liars, thieves, a bad fuck, slow motherfuckers…the list goes on.
Noah watched the New York scenery through his window.
Bad fucks were high up on the list.
The thought made him chuckle.

Zach looked back at his boss. “You okay, Mr. Adams?”

He had been looking forward to going home and crashing from the long day, but as he passed a corner, another idea came to him.

“Zach, hang left when you can and head to one.”

The young driver nodded his understanding.