happen?”
Suddenly, Johnny saw God’s plan woven throughout his day: the visit from Ryan LaCroix. His thoughts of Caitlin. Now, Omari. God’s message came to Johnny with such clarity that he marveled at people who insisted they couldn’t see them.
Glow.
After she’d left Berkeley, when her paranoia had kicked into high gear, Caitlin had made Johnny swear never to mention Glow to her again. But if Ryan LaCroix was right—if Caitlin’s Glow had cleaned out his blood—everything was different. Could he convince Caitlin to give him Glow one more time, even if it was dangerous? “You gonna’ make a miracle happen?”
“Maybe,” Johnny said. His heart and head thundered in unison. “Yeah. Maybe I can.”
THREE
Seattle
Sunday
I ’ve got Kush…White Light…Glow.”
Caitlin O’Neal kept her voice low, as if she’d been talking to herself, as she haunted the storefront of Left Bank Books at Pike Place Market. Her cheeks stung from the cold wind spraying from Elliott Bay’s waters just beyond the tourist shops. Her elfin body was nearly hidden beneath the drab green of her oversized militia coat from a thrift shop.
Someone was watching her.
He was sitting in the window of the coffee shop across the street, reading an e-book at a table. He was a black man with white hair and a matching beard, but he might be one of them. Wearing a disguise. Or he could be a cop, which was almost as bad. Almost.
Caitlin remembered a summer sleepover party, when she’d played one of the sequels to the ancient horror movie Candyman and all of her Long Island friends had jumped and screamed every time black skin had shown up on the screen. Pathetic. And now she was just as bad. Would she have even noticed the man in the coffee shop if he hadn’t been black?
But Caitlin was almost sure she had seen him before. He looked like a man she’d noticed at the student union at Seattle U, where she’d ended up because she’d been low on cash. She could always find a student with a problem and a cash advance on Daddy’s credit card. Last week she’d sold Glow to a law student who had just been diagnosed with Parkinsons. Only five hundred bucks, but his grateful eyes still put a smile on her face. She should have charged more. The money was already gone.
Caitlin prayed she wasn’t being followed. She needed to get out of town.
“I’ve got Glow.”
A flock of men in suits walked past her, fresh from a meeting. The last man turned around to glance at her over his shoulder. She kept her face blank, as always. Just in case. Nowadays, Glow was worse than moving bricks of cocaine. Vince and Lana were doing fifteen years in Georgia, and a nurse was up for a felony trial in Vegas. Vegas! It was an insult to be arrested in a city as corrupt as Vegas, and it was a bad time for a Glow bust anywhere.
“Got weed?” a scrawny teenager said hopefully, appearing from around the corner. She assessed him in a glance: Five-three. Awkward, furtive manner. A lightweight Insect skateboard under his arm. Not even fifteen. Yeah, right.
“Not for kids. Get ghost.”
The boy gave her a sour, childish pout and moved on. The last thing she needed was a bust for supposedly trying to sell drugs to a minor. If he was old enough, he could get a prescription and go to a dispensary like everyone else.
Shit, shit, shit. It was late, and it was too dangerous to be seen in Seattle, especially since the Whitfields had moved to New York. After she interviewed Father Arturo, maybe he could loan her enough to take a bus. Or rent a car, if her dummy credit card still worked. She had six vials, and Laurel was waiting in Vancouver. Patients were dying.
Father Arturo Bragga had a personal recommendation from the Whitfields, which went a long way, and he had also passed his six-month assessment period and background screens. One last face-to-face with a conductor, then the five regional conductors would vote. The ones who weren’t in jail, anyway. It would be