Chapter 5: The Black Car

Dante stood beside the desk with his empty hands at his sides.

He could have lied.

He had lied to a hundred men for less.

"I can't explain it tonight," he said instead. "It isn't something that will hurt you."

He paused.

"I'd like you to believe that, but I won't ask you to."

Javier looked at the mug, and at him.

"That's what people say right before it does hurt."

"I know."

"You know," Javier said slowly, "and you still came across the room and put it on my desk."

"Yes."

Javier picked the coffee up and drank half of it.

He made a small face, because it was too hot, and set it down.

"It's good," he said. "Go to bed, Greco."

Dante went to bed.

He lay on his back and listened to the pencil move at the window desk until it stopped, and the lamp clicked off.

He did not sleep, and for the first time in a week he did not mind.

The black sedan was parked at the foot of the dormitory steps on Thursday morning.

It was there again after the physiology lecture.

Dante saw it from the second-floor window and swore under his breath.

He had told them to go home.

Javier came up beside him with his bag over his shoulder and a pen between his teeth.

"That car's been there since yesterday," he said, taking out the pen. "Tinted windows."

He tilted his head at the glass.

"Two men in the front, and they never get out. Daniel thinks it's the police."

"It isn't the police."

"Is it yours?"

There was a whole year in that question.

Dante could feel Javier watching the side of his face.

He thought of every excuse he had.

"Yes," he said. "It's my family's. They worry. I'm going to send them away now."

"Your family has people sitting outside a dormitory?"

"My mother is careful. She's also wrong."

He went down the stairs two at a time.

The driver's window slid open when he knocked.

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