I'd barely made it two blocks from the casino, the yellow envelope tucked safely inside my jacket, when I noticed the black sedan. It stopped whenever I stopped. Moved whenever I moved. By the third red light, I was fairly convinced I wasn't imagining it.
When a crowd of pedestrians finally crossed in front of me, the car disappeared, and I told myself I'd been overthinking things — right up until I reached the next intersection and found the same black Honda parked beside a meter, with a familiar tall figure leaning against the hood.
"Why are you following me!" I demanded, closing the distance fast. "Did I do something to you?"
"Markus Couch," the man said, pushing off the car with an easy, unbothered smile. "Some people call me Mark."
"Nice to meet you," I said, in a tone that made it clear I didn't mean it. "You still haven't answered my question."
"Yes and no," he said. "Yes, I'm following you — my employer asked me to drive you around for the day. No, you haven't done anything to me personally."
"Why would the casino send me a driver," I said, suspicion sharpening every word.
"You met my employer's family member," Markus said, walking around to open the back door like this was a completely ordinary request. "I'm mostly a driver, though occasionally security. Shall we?"
It clicked a second later. "River sent you?"
"You sat and talked with the young master for a while before he left," Markus said, still holding the door. "He said you were a good friend who could use a driver for the day."
Something in my chest loosened slightly at that, even though I knew better than to trust a stranger's car this easily. I glanced around — empty sidewalk, no one in sight, nothing that suggested this was about to end badly — and got in anyway. "If you try to kidnap me," I told him through the open door, "I'm calling the cops."
"Understood, sir," Markus said, entirely too amused, before sliding into the driver's seat.
We drove in silence for the better part of an hour, long enough that I started studying him through the rearview mirror out of sheer boredom. Late thirties, I guessed. Calmer behind the wheel than he'd looked standing guard at the casino entrance.
"How long have you known River," I finally asked, mostly to fill the quiet.
"Since he was a baby," Markus said, something fond slipping into his voice.
"How old is he, then?"
"Turning twenty-seven this year," Markus said. "Still a little boy in my eyes, though."
Two years older than me, I thought, filing that away for no reason I wanted to examine too closely. "So why do people call him such mean things?"
"He stopped talking to most people once he started high school," Markus said, eyes still on the road. "Started giving everyone that cold look you probably saw last night. You're the first person I've seen him actually smile at in a long time."
"I don't believe that," I said, laughing. "He's probably got a girlfriend somewhere who gets all the smiles."
"No girlfriend. No lover," Markus said. "You're the first, sir. Truly."
"Surely he's got at least one friend."
"One," Markus said, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Thick as thieves, those two. Bonnie and Clyde, except—"
"Did they kill someone?" I asked, only half joking.
"No," Markus laughed. "Just got into trouble together constantly. She's overseas now. They still talk every chance they get."
"Must be hard," I said quietly, thinking about my own short list of people I actually trusted. "I don't really have friends either. Just my mom and my sister."
"Sometimes it is hard," Markus agreed. "But they make it work."
"It's just been the three of us for a long time," I said, surprising myself with how easily it came out. "My dad died in a car accident when I was nine. Drunk driver hit him on Thanksgiving, driving home. The other guy survived. Had enough money to make the whole thing disappear before it ever really started."
"I'm sorry," Markus said, and meant it — I could hear it in the quiet that followed.
"It was a long time ago," I said, wiping at my eyes before he could see in the mirror that I needed to. "I don't even know why I told you all that."
"It's alright, sir," he said gently. "We're here, by the way."
The hospital came into view through the window, and I climbed out before the embarrassment of crying in front of a total stranger could fully catch up with me.
"Alex, is that you?"
I turned to find my mother walking toward me from the entrance, and for a moment, everything else — the money, River, the stranger driving me around — fell away completely.