originalsam_backup | Trace, Chapters 1, 2, and 3

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ONE

They said a lot of things about Colin Byrne in prison, once he was no longer there.

They said that he was a con artist, that he could sweet talk anyone and make cigarettes and scraps of paper disappear stage-magic style. He'd show you he was a pickpocket, given half an opportunity, by picking yours. They said he was a snitch, that he had a cop on the outside who was his lover (that this lover was a woman; that this lover was a man). They said he was in tight with the Five Families, the Bloods and the SMM boys they ran with, La Mugre, the Aryans. The Aryans denied it, but everyone said that was because he stole one of theirs before he left.

He once shanked a prison guard so stealthily that the guard didn't even know until ten minutes later and they never did figure out it was him. He didn't kill him. Just made him writhe a little, for some unnamed insult he'd suffered at the guard's hands.

He could get you anything you wanted. He knew what you wanted when you didn't. He'd show it to you, and you'd know, and then he'd name his price. He had nicknames on the inside: the guards called him Cat, the inmates called him Suicide.

In dark corners, in quiet voices, at other times they said this: that he could do magic, real magic, prison magic. He'd once drawn a bird so real it flew off the page. He couldn't be tattooed; the ink ran out of his skin while he slept. He could walk through prison bars. He could tell your fortune by looking in your eyes. If you gave him a lit cigarette, he could hypnotize a man just by flicking it back and forth. He could steal your soul if you let him draw you, but he wouldn't (but he had once). His name wasn't even Colin Byrne. They said that he was a ghost who'd just disappeared one day, straight out of his cell, and he'd taken one of the Aryans with him. They said he'd come back. Some people believed it; some didn't. Gutierrez, who talked to God, said there was a priest who owned his shadow.

All of it was true. More or less.

TWO

At the moment, however, Colin Byrne was on the outside, having a beer.

Raul's Diner in midtown Manhattan had a pretty little patio that looked out on the street, divided from the sidewalk by a thin rail that Colin's long legs were currently propped on, his chair tipped back and balanced precariously. He had a sketchpad in his lap and a bottle of microbrew on the table to his right; he was drawing left-handed, trying to make a perfect freehand circle. He was coming pretty close -- closer than most people could have, anyway. He was relaxed, disinclined to move, and happy.

So, when a handful of cops had walked past, looking for him, he'd let them. They meant that Joseph was looking for him; the diner wasn't a special favorite of Colin's, but he'd been doing lunch here a lot, lately, and Joseph would know that.

He owed Joseph a lot -- at the very least, his attention -- but he felt no obligation to make himself obvious to anyone else.

Colin Byrne was a handsome man: thirty but younger-looking, dark-haired, blue-eyed, with what his mother had called a "sweet devil" face, lantern jaw and snub Irish nose. He'd depended a lot on his looks, once upon a time, and he was still in the habit of catering to them. He dressed well, in suits tailored to fit his tall, lean frame, and that should have made him difficult to miss in a crowd -- but they always missed him. All of them except Joseph.

That was why Joseph was here now, of course, walking purposefully down the street towards him. The uniforms hadn't found him, so Joseph had come personally, which was Colin's goal anyway. Colin ignored him until Joseph hopped the railing easily and rested a hand on his shoulder. Then Colin did look up, over his shoulder and backwards, shooting him a sly smile.

"Heya, Joe," he said, rocking his chair forward, bringing his feet back to the ground. Joseph didn't let go, and he gave Colin's shoulder a warning squeeze; he hated being called Joe. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Fancy that," Joseph echoed, a scowl crossing his narrow, intelligent features. He looked more annoyed than he probably was; Joseph was a creature of logic and efficiency, and it was pointless to get annoyed with Colin Byrne just because the NYPD couldn't find him when he was sitting in plain view.

"How can I help New York's finest?" Colin asked. He didn't bother to hide his glee as he watched the cops searching nearby storefronts for him.

"How about you explain that?" Joseph nodded at the search party.

"What's to explain?"

"How the guys I sent to find you, here, are all looking for your ass across the street," Joseph said.

Colin shrugged. "You sent for me instead of coming yourself. You know better by now."

Joseph sighed. "I thought once, just once, I wouldn't have to. Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, if I didn't have to interrupt my busy day and come find Colin Byrne?"

"What, you forgot I own a phone?" Colin asked, and reached into his jacket. There was a sharp buzz, like circuits shorting out, as he took the phone out of his pocket. He studied his cellphone, then groaned. "Ruined another one."

"You're a peril," Joseph said drily.

"This is why I buy the cheap burners. So," Colin continued, dropping his phone on the table and setting his sketchbook aside. "How's things? How's Lise?"

Joseph smiled a little at the mention of her name. "She's good, things are good. You?"

Colin spread his arms. "I'm great. I have a drink and a sketchpad. It's a nice day."

With the touch of Joseph's hand on his shoulder, the cops across the street seemed to notice they were doing something wrong. One of the sergeants caught on first; he turned and found Colin and Joseph after a quick scan down the block. Joseph waved. Colin smiled.

"Head on back," Joseph said, releasing Colin as the sergeant trooped across the street, glaring. "Byrne and I need to have a chat."

"I swear, Detective Wright, I'm an innocent man. I've been right here the whole time," Colin said. Joseph hitched the edges of his jacket, holstered gun briefly visible under his arm, and sat down opposite Colin. He leaned back, stretching his legs under the table. The breeze lifted his short blond hair, ruffling it and making the ends curl.

"You know, there's a hell of a lot I don't know about you," he said. As a conversational opener it was a little awkward, but then sometimes so was Joseph.

"Well, you're the one who spent a year stalking me," Colin replied. "Check your case file on me, I'm sure the answers are in there."

"That's just details." Joseph waved a hand.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but your attention to detail is what got me thrown in prison for five years."

"Play me a sad song, Colin. You got out in three," Joseph replied. "It's not like you didn't deserve it."

"I don't think I did," Colin declared, sipping his beer. It was an old fight, but not one he was willing to give up yet. "I only scammed people who were rich enough to afford it and stupid enough to fall for it."

"Have fun lobbying to change the law to thou shalt not steal unless thy neighbor is loaded," Joseph answered, looking bored with both Colin's defense and his own rebuttal.

"There's an old saying, you know, that you can't con an honest man," Colin continued. "Greedy people deserve what they get."

"I don't think that's your call to make," Joseph said. A waitress arrived and cocked her notepad at him, giving him a winning smile. "Ginger ale."

"Square," Colin murmured.

"I'm on the clock," Joseph replied. The waitress ambled away. "Okay, tell me this. How'd you pick my pocket just now?"

Colin gave him an innocent look.

"Come on, Colin, my back pocket has at no time been within arm's reach of you. I know you did it."

Colin reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out the wallet, passing it over. "Trade secret."

"My ass."

Colin smiled, tilting his chair back on two legs again, folding his hands across his stomach. "I'm a free agent, you know, I don't work for you. Did you want something, Joseph?"

"Other than to know why a dozen beat cops can't find you when you don't want to be found?"

"Tell me how come it doesn't work on you, and we'll be even."

Joseph was apparently in no hurry to respond to that, or to get to business; he twisted in his chair and thanked the waitress as she brought him his soda, then closed his eyes and turned his narrow face up to the early-autumn sun, the last real warmth they might see for a while. And why should he hurry? He knew Colin wasn't going anywhere.

In prison, the guards had called him Cat because they thought he walked softly, but the truth was that when Colin didn't want to be seen, he wasn't seen. It didn't always work perfectly, but it worked at least a little on everyone -- except on Joseph. It was what had made them more than cops and robbers, when Joseph was assigned to catch the forger who was ripping off New York's elite; the problem of why Joseph always saw him had intrigued Colin enough that by the end of the chase he'd almost considered Joseph a sort of friend. Even now, after prison, when things were so different, he didn't know how Joseph did it.

Which was the only reason he didn't get up and walk away now, the reason he never walked away from Joseph. Where the hell was he supposed to go that Joseph couldn't follow?

"You're pretty slick," Joseph said finally. "But I think you know why I'm here."

Colin studied his hands, rubbing idly at the graphite on his left index finger. He knew. "I think you want to put me back in prison."

"That why you hid?"

"Nah, that was just to fuck with you," Colin said, turning his head to smile at him across the table. "I don't like being sent for, I told you. Anyway, I haven't done anything, Joseph. Believe me, it sucks. Not as bad as prison, but it sucks all the same."

"I'm not here to arrest you," Joseph said. He looked almost distressed.

"But you are," Colin said delicately, "here about prison."

Joseph let his head drop in defeat. "Yeah. I am," he said. "How'd you know?"

"So," Colin sipped his beer, ignoring the question, "lay it on me. What's the story? Colin Byrne, of Byrne Consulting Ltd., Private Detective, at your service."

Joseph cocked an eyebrow at him.

"What, you were expecting me to call myself a dick?" Colin asked.

"Everyone else has."

"You wound me, Wright. Come on, spill your guts."

Joseph exhaled. "Someone's laundering money through Railburg Correctional."

Colin whistled low. "My alma mater."

"Yeah. I think it takes balls to use a prison as a money-laundering operation, but that's just me," Joseph said, smiling a little.

"So why is this your deal?"

"Ever tried to get an investigation started with the Department of Corrections?" Joseph asked. "It's not pretty. They'll wander in flailing and whoever's running the game will just quietly pack up and burn all the evidence."

Colin waited patiently for the rest.

"...and an anonymous tip to look into Railburg came to us, not the DoC," Joseph finished, a little guiltily.

"NYPD has jurisdiction?" Colin asked.

Joseph shrugged. "Someone's cleaning gangland money outside the city. We're working jointly with the organized crime task force. They have a lot of pull. It's enough to get a guy in undercover."

Colin raised an eyebrow.

"Two guys," Joseph admitted. "Me and you. Usual consulting rates plus hazard pay apply."

Colin smiled; hazard pay for prison time satisfied something deep in him, and he'd get three free meals a day while he was there. He toyed with the lip of his beer bottle. "So how optional is this? Oh, come on," he added, when Joseph opened his mouth to protest. "Don't feed me a line. Five minutes of you talking to the right people and my business dies. I could probably end up back in Railburg anyway."

"Look, I have orders from on high to recruit you," Joseph told him. "You say no, that's okay. It's my ass in the sling, not yours. You know I wouldn't screw you, Colin."

Colin gave him a slow smile. "Not unless I asked nicely, huh?"

Joseph just tilted his head. He didn't like to talk about this, especially not in public, which was why Colin needled him in public about it all the time. But Joseph was serious about the case, ignoring his sly pokes. Anyway, his word was good; the shade was flitting in his eyes.

Colin peered at him, watching the shade dance. Nobody else saw it, at least that he knew of, except for Analise, and even she didn't see it very often. Colin had never seen the shade in Joseph's eyes before Railburg, but prison had changed so many things about the world. The shade had always been there; Colin's ability to see it had simply been lacking.

His senses pricked up and he turned away from Joseph as a man emerged from a doorway across the street, a little narrow passage between two storefronts, leading to a second-floor apartment. Joseph caught Colin's look and slowly turned his head, as if he were just gazing out at the street. The man lit a cigarette.

"Your prey?" he asked, turning back to Colin.

"Man's gotta make a living," Colin replied. "His wife wants to know why he never eats lunch with her anymore."

"People get busy."

"People have mistresses."

"You're an ex-felon acting as a private detective without a license," Joseph pointed out.

Colin held out his wrists, hands cocked; arrest me and prove it. Joseph shook his head. He was willing to imprison criminals, but they both knew Colin's work now didn't harm anyone. It even did people good once in a while, and the man had to survive somehow.

"You need to take off?" Joseph asked.

"Not until he finishes his smoke," Colin said, keeping his eyes unobtrusively on his mark.

"Who's his wife?"

"Nobody."

"Bullshit. Honest people don't hire unlicensed detectives."

Colin made a noncommittal noise. "She's a saleswoman."

"Prostitution or drugs?"

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies," Colin retorted stubbornly.

"That isn't how it works," Joseph said, but he stood up and tossed out two bucks for the soda. "Drop by the station when you're done."

"Shouldn't be long," Colin said.

"Is that yes?"

Colin looked up at him, face impassive. "I guess we'll see, won't we?"

Joseph's eyes narrowed, but he didn't reply, and Colin grinned as Joseph walked away. Pretty soon, the guy with the cigarette started walking too; Colin vaulted the railing and strolled down the street after him, dodging around people who could no longer see him, staying as far as he could from the reflective glass and metal bars of the storefronts lining the pavement. Four blocks away, the guy stopped for another cigarette, and Colin approached cautiously.

"Bum a smoke?" he asked. His mark opened his cigarette case without even thinking about it. Colin put the cigarette between his lips and smiled. "Got a light?"

The guy absently offered him a disposable lighter. Colin lit the cigarette and held onto the lighter, inhaling.

"Your wife hired me to find out who your girlfriend is," he said, around the filter. It took a few seconds for this to land.

"Dunno what you're talking about," the guy said, but his hand shook as he reached for the lighter. Colin held it just out of reach. It was ridiculous, really, how long a person would stay and talk if you had even the cheapest of their possessions in your hand.

"Listen, we could go around and around, but let's just get to the point," Colin said. "Your wife hired me to find out if you're stepping out on her. We both know she would have you and your girlfriend killed if she found out, and that puts me in a bad position. I need the money, but I don't like being an accessory to murder. Plus, if I tell her, she's going to offer me the job of offing you, and I don't want it. But once she offers it, that's my neck in the noose if I say no, because she's not going to let a witness get away. See what I mean?"

The man just stared at him. Colin sighed.

"You don't want your girlfriend killed, right?" he asked. "So here's an alternative. I get two thousand dollars on top of my fee if I find your girlfriend. If I don't find evidence of any wrongdoing, I tell her you're a faithful husband. I don't like suborning infidelity, so let's make it three grand for my pains. You break it off -- as of today -- and in three or four days I'll tell her you've been taking dancing lessons on your lunch break. Can you dance?"

The man nodded.

"Okay then. Surprise your wife this weekend. Take her out for a nice dinner. After dinner, take her dancing. After you take her dancing, you take three thousand dollars in hundreds and put it in your wallet. I'll collect it."

"How?" the man asked. Colin rolled his eyes. Of all the things to ask about.

"Just do it," he said. The man frowned. "Listen, we all pay a price for the life we lead. You got a nice setup, because your wife's a crook and you look the other way. Think of fidelity as your price."

He walked away without waiting for a response, tossing the cigarette in an ashtray outside a parking garage. From the other side of the concrete barriers, inside the parking garage, a tall fair-haired woman watched him go.

***

Colin's face was not unknown at the NYPD and especially in Joseph's precinct, but for a long time it had been because his face was on a wanted poster that had dominated the Fraud division's pin-board. Now there were other faces there, though none as interesting or, he felt, as handsome as his. But then Colin had always prided himself on being one of a kind.

"Tips for me?" Joseph asked, coming up behind him as Colin studied the posters.

"Someday, when it's worth it to me," Colin answered with a sly look. Joseph smiled back, tolerant now that Colin was here. "So are your cops ready for me or what?"

"In," Joseph said, jerking his head at a small, ill-lit conference room.

There were a couple of new guys that Colin didn't recognize, sitting around the table. The gang crimes task force, maybe. There was a woman standing in the corner, too, but Colin ignored her.

"Colin Byrne," Joseph said, indicating Colin with a nod.

"One of your strays?" one guy asked, grinning.

"Colin's special," Joseph replied. Raised eyebrows all around. "He's been in Railburg. And he's worked with the police, so he knows both sides of the equation."

"You're our inside guy?" another asked. "You don't look tough enough for Railburg."

"You read my file?" Colin asked.

"Sure. Art school dropout, con man, pickpocket, fraud," the guy said.

"So you know I did three years."

The man shrugged. "Plenty of big guys in there would like a guy like you."

Joseph put out a hand, blocking Colin from pulling the man across the table and showing him just one of the many ways he'd survived three years in prison. "No pestering our asset," Joseph said to the man, who gave him a sullen look and leaned back in his chair. Joseph manhandled Colin into another chair, with a gentle shove that said stay there. Colin bared his teeth at his antagonist, in what could be taken for a polite smile if you weren't looking closely. Joseph gripped the back of his neck briefly and then let it go, settling into the chair at the head of the table.

"Three weeks ago we had an anonymous tip," Joseph said, drawing all attention to him effortlessly, as he always did. Colin had seen him walk into a room full of people and silence it, slowly, just with his presence. "Called in through the switchboard to the Fraud unit. Young, male. He said that money from gang activity in the city was being routed to Railburg and laundered there. He didn't give details, but we've determined that there's definitely money coming out. We don't know how it's going in, and we don't know what happens to it once it's there. We have some conjecture, nothing more."

"Nothing else on the tipster?" one of the Fraud detectives asked.

"Probably a recent inmate, looking for revenge, or someone who's talked with a recent inmate," Joseph said. He cut his eyes briefly to Colin, quick enough that the others might have missed it. Colin didn't. "Possibly someone who overheard a former inmate talking. Technically it's not our beat, since it's gang activity, but money laundering is something Fraud has a vested interest in. So we're working," he said, looking around the room sternly for emphasis, "together on this. Gang Crime gets the collar eventually, but I'm running the show. I'm the one going into Railburg with Colin here, if he agrees, so I need to know everyone's backing this play."

"Look, I need to say this," Colin said, and everyone looked at him, surprised. "No offense, but nobody's gonna buy you as a criminal for a hot minute. And you don't want to go under in a level three prison with no experience. You really don't."

"I'm not going under as an inmate," Joseph said. "I'm going in as a guard."

"Ah, ah," Colin shook a finger. "Correctional Officer. Guard is pejorative. Only the crooks are allowed to say it," he added with a grin.

"Duly noted," Joseph grinned back. "I'm going in as a Correctional Officer. So. Let's talk procedures and practices, everyone. Here's what I need from the unit..."

Colin let his mind drift while Joseph briefed them on the investigation. This was not the kind of job you could study for; all the briefing in the world didn't really prepare you for incarceration. He didn't need to hear about the gangland connections or the minutiae of what they'd found out, the undercover safety protocols that he couldn't hope to follow once he was there. Mostly he watched Joseph, studying the way the fluorescents illuminated his pale hair, breaking his sharp features down into light and dark, shape and shadow, as if he were an artist's model.

"Colin," Joseph prompted.

"Hm, sorry?" he asked, looking up when he realized Joseph was waiting for him to answer a question. A file was passed across to him, a sour look on the face of the detective offering it. He flipped through prisoner photographs, each of them vaguely familiar.

"Are any of them going to cause you trouble?" Joseph asked, nodding at the file. "They're the guys at Railburg that you helped us put away."

Colin drew out the photographs and sorted them into piles -- some face down, some face up, until he came to the last in the stack. He stopped and studied that one, fingers drifting over the scowling, puffy face of Eric Galano. The photo wasn't his mug shot, must have been taken later; his brown hair had been clipped prison-short and he'd been allowed to tip his head slightly to one side, hiding the puckered scar below his left ear.

"These won't bother me," he said, pointing to the face-down pile without looking away from the photo of Galano. "Don't put me in a block with these two," he continued, indicating the face-up pile. "This guy..." he added, tapping the photograph in front of him.

Joseph craned his neck slightly. "Galano."

"He's at Railburg?" Colin asked.

"Looks like it," Joseph replied.

"Who's Galano?" another detective asked.

"He's a serial killer," Colin answered.

"That's conjecture, he was never convicted," Joseph corrected.

"He's linked to at least four murders we know of," someone offered.

"He went down for theft," Joseph said firmly.

"He killed -- " Colin's left hand clenched into a fist; he forced himself to stop and relax, before he gave the whole game away. "He tortured a man to death. I testified at his trial."

"I remember." Joseph nodded. He'd called Colin in to consult on the case six months back, because he knew a little bit about the counterfeiting operation Galano had been running. Colin hadn't expected murder, or what he found when he dug into Galano's past.

Joseph had reason to remember Galano, too. He'd been the one standing next to Colin, one hand on his back, getting Colin's puke on his shoes after they saw the body Galano had left behind. They both knew what Galano was capable of, even if Joseph refused to hold the killing to him without legal proof.

"He was found innocent on that charge," Joseph said.

In the photograph, Galano's lips suddenly twitched upwards in a smirk. Colin inhaled sharply through his nose, fighting the urge to start backwards. He stacked the other photos and shoved them into the folder, closing it, keeping his hand on top of it as if it might fly open again.

"I need to think about it," he said, forcing himself to turn to Joseph and smile. "Can I have the night?"

"We need to hustle on this," Joseph replied.

"You might. I'm not obligated," Colin said. Joseph frowned and ran a hand through his short hair, rubbing his face.

"Sure, okay. Take the night. We'll get back on this tomorrow," he announced to the room, and the other detectives began gathering up their files, dawdling towards the door. Colin stayed where he was until they'd gone, waiting for Joseph to finish, because it was never so simple, not with Joseph. When they were alone, Joseph piled up his own paperwork. Without looking up from it, Joseph asked, "Dinner? Lise misses you."

"I'd like that," Colin said. "Heading home?"

"I'll give you a ride." Joseph tucked the files under his arm. "You really need the night?"

"I need a little time. Might as well spend it in good company," Colin said with a smile, and followed Joseph out.

THREE

Three years into Colin's five year sentence for grand theft, with a history of non-cooperation with the Correctional Officers and one stay in Segregated Detention, he flipped on the Aryan Brotherhood, the biggest white gang in the prison. He told prison authorities he knew of a murder the head of the Aryans had committed, and negotiated his release two years early on the strength of the evidence he provided.

It sent a guy who called himself Henrik (real name Thomas) to Death Row, which was Colin's real goal. He'd had to get rid of Henrik somehow; if he hadn't, Henrik would have killed him, and not only him. Normally, Colin wouldn't have involved outside authority -- he would have just had Marlow put a curse on Henrik -- but he needed to strike hard, and he needed the Aryan Brotherhood in disarray long enough for what he'd done to be forgotten in the power struggle that would follow.

Besides, Colin wasn't averse to working the system when the system could get him something. And it did: it got Colin out of Railburg. But it failed to provide him with a support network on the outside, because his unorthodox release extended to a parole officer and a wish of good luck, and that was it.

When Colin was two weeks out from Railburg, Joseph Wright got a collect call from Hoboken, from a man he'd put in prison three years earlier.

"This is Joseph," he'd answered, and Colin had almost wept with relief.

"Detective Wright," he'd said. "It's Colin Byrne."

There'd been a sigh down the line. "How'd you get around the recorded message, Colin?"

"What?" Colin asked.

"The recording. You know. You are receiving a call from Railburg State Correctional Facility -- "

"Oh, I -- they didn't tell you I got out?" Colin had asked. At the time it had seemed like an insult, that the man who'd spent a year getting Colin into Railburg hadn't even been told he'd been let out.

"You what?" Joseph demanded. "Are you on the run? I swear to God, Colin, I thought you were -- "

"No. I struck a deal, I'm on parole," he interrupted. Joseph was silent for a while. "Detective?"

"Why are you calling me?" Joseph asked, sounding almost plaintive. Colin was aware that Joseph did not cope well with emotional surprises.

"I need your help," Colin had said. "I'm sort of stuck in Hoboken."

"Stuck in Hoboken," Joseph had repeated.

"Well, it was better than Railburg. I was supposed to have a job waiting but they said someone else got there first. Nobody wants to hire a felon, Joseph, you know that."

There was a snort down the line. "So steal something."

Colin was silent for a while. "I'm trying to go straight," he'd said softly. He'd been prepared to beg if he had to; it wasn't like he had a lot to lose. "Nobody I know can help me, not legally. Can't trust any of them anyway." He laughed, dry and humorless. "The wages of sin, I know."

"What about your girlfriend?" Joseph had asked. "What's her name, Grace?"

"She's gone," Colin said, and he knew Joseph had heard the anguish in his voice. "Listen -- at the courthouse, when I was sentenced, you said when I got out...you said I didn't have to do this anymore. You said to look you up."

"I didn't think you'd take me up on it. I didn't think I'd hear from you again. Well, until you robbed a bank or something," Joseph answered. Colin had practically been able to feel Joseph's internal war with himself. "Okay. This is a one time offer. You get a choice. You want a handout, or you want real help?"

"What good's a handout going to do me?" Colin asked, despairing.

"Good answer," Joseph said.

That night Joseph came home with an ex-felon at his heels, which was when Colin met Joseph's wife for the first time. Analise was a lovely woman; she carried herself with the kind of assurance Colin had come to associate with criminals, but she had a round, friendly face with kind green eyes. She was smart, too. And better still, she knew the shade.

You can see it, Analise had said to him. They both had seen it, in the moment Joseph had turned to introduce Colin to Analise and let an implicit threat rest in his voice: if Colin stole from them, or if he hurt Joseph's wife, it would not go well for Colin. The threat was probably unnecessary, since he knew how Colin operated, but it was there, and so was the shade in Joseph's eyes. Joseph had left Colin to wash in their bathroom (privacy and safety, oh God) and when Colin emerged, while he was dressing in their guestroom, Analise had leaned in the doorway.

You can see it, can't you? she'd repeated, when he looked up at her sharply.

He hadn't even bothered to ask what she meant. Do you? he'd asked, surprised. He'd never known anyone outside of prison who could see that kind of thing -- but then, before prison, he hadn't been able to either. How do you?

She'd smiled then. I'm his wife, she'd said, and led him out into the dining room to eat. Aftewards, sitting at the table, she'd just glanced at Joseph, and Joseph had nodded.

"You'll stay here a while," Analise had said to Colin.

"Yeah, maybe," Colin had answered, still uncertain. If he could get on his feet here, he could get away quickly and melt back into New York. Maybe hit some of his old haunts, see what was moving. "I appreciate the help."

"It wasn't a question," Joseph had said, the shade flickering. And Analise had taken Colin's hand.

***

The next morning, when he'd woken in their bed, both of them were already gone. A note from Joseph, stuck to his chest with tape, had said Stay here and try not to break anything. Colin had wandered into the kitchen, hungry, unaccustomed to having his choice of food -- and been confronted with a full carton of eggs in their refrigerator.

You never got whole eggs in prison; they arrived powdered, or pre-mixed in buckets. Whole raw eggs were powerful. He took one out of the little cardboard container, studied it, and then smiled.

Lise had been his first friend on the outside, after Railburg. Even before Joseph was. Because they both saw the shade in Joseph and knew what it meant, and better still -- she controlled it. He could use a friend like that.

He took the egg with him, through the kitchen door and into the tidy little backyard behind the house, where there was a fancy clay oven for heating the patio in the winter. Cautious of the neighbors, he'd lit a fire and put the egg in the flames, burning it until the shell turned to ash and the white and yolk were charcoal. He did it for Analise, so that she'd never be hurt.

Well, it worked in prison. Who knew if it worked on the outside, but it seemed to be, so far.

Continue to Chapters 4, 5, and 6

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From:

sanura.livejournal.com

AWESOME. Clear. Much more divorced from the WC trio. Also, I don't see the backstory so much as backstory; it's more like a nonlinear narrative device, well-incorporated. It doesn't feel parenthetical, the way you've smoothed it out.

The last sentence is bothering me. Parallelism? It seemed to work, or it seemed to be working, I know they're redundant, but the verb form is no good just "be".

From:

Sam Starbuck's Original Novels

Trace, Chapters 1, 2, and 3

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