Undertow (The UnderCity Chronicles) Read Online Free Page A

from one of the small cupboards. “Yeah. Something like that.”
    Lindsay took in his familiarity with the place, and had to ask, “You and Jack are…roommates?”
    “Yeah.” Reggie scrunched his forehead in sudden thought. “You asking if I’m gay?”
    The directness of his question threw her, and she reacted with her own bluntness. “I don’t care if you are. I’m just wondering about Jack, is all.”
    Reggie let out a whoop of laughter, and he fell back against the ancient yellow fridge, rocking it and holding his gut. He chugged out a succession of long motor-like guffaws. “Oh, man, I can’t wait. I can’t wait.” Gradually he subsided and began cracking eggs into the pan.
    He was on his seventh when he theorized, “Might explain why he’s so off women, but I doubt it.”
    Lindsay watched as Reggie broke all twelve eggs into the pan and proceeded to scramble them on a two-burner hot plate, his back to her.
    “How do you know him?” Lindsay said, shedding her jacket and folding it over the back of the chair. The place wasn’t as cold as it looked.
    “How come you say you’re a friend of Jack when you’ve never come around before?” he asked right back.
    He had a point. “We were friends in high school, then he and his dad moved away, and I haven’t seen him since. I didn’t know until today that he was back in New York.”
    “You’re here to say hello?”
    Lindsay wasn’t about to go into it with Reggie. “Yeah. Something like that.”
    He snorted at having his line thrown back at him. “I like you, girl.” He shook his head. “I can’t wait.”
    When the pan had heated to a steady hissing, he tipped half of the yellow globby contents onto a plate, and ate the rest out of the pan, staring off into space as if he were by himself.
    “You live alone?” he suddenly asked.
    This time Lindsay was prepared for Reggie’s abruptness, maybe because he was a straight-shooter like her. “No. I have a niece.”
    He stopped chewing. He looked ready to ask another question when the door at the top of the stairs opened. The light from the store above briefly cast a man’s shadow down to the dim apartment. Gold teeth appeared in anticipation. “Must be him now.”
    Lindsay stood automatically. Her hand fluttered to her pale hair and she wished she’d thought to check herself in the mirror instead of watching Reggie shovel egg into his face.
    Not that she was here to rekindle a high school crush, her ears tracking the descent of the booted footsteps. Still, there was no denying it. She was looking forward to seeing Jack Cole again.
     

 

    It was Jack, but not the boy from her memories. He was a man now, of course, taller, filled out, with a rough, angular face and dark hair grown overlong. What made Lindsay stop, however, were his eyes. The amber had brightened and hardened, become the eyes of a bird of prey. Powerful and intimidating, they instantly locked on hers. Lindsay felt herself caught, held at bay. Then he looked to Reggie, snapping the connection.
    “What’s she doing here?” he asked, zipping off his parka and dropping it on the floor with Reggie’s.
    Reggie shrugged his massive shoulders. “She came looking for you.”
    Annoyed at being referred to in the third person, Lindsay found her tongue. “I’m Lindsay. Lindsay Sterling. Remember, from high school—”
    He cut her off. “I remember.”
    His hostility stunned her, and despite her normal eloquence, Lindsay stumbled over her words. “Oh…yes…well…”
    “What do you want?”
    “I need your help.”
    His mouth twisted. “This about your niece?”
    What was going on?.“You know her?”
    “She came to me about four months ago. Dropped your name. I take it she’s in trouble.”
    Seline had gone to see Jack—four months ago!—and hadn’t said one peep about it. “She came to you? How did she find you?”
    “She met Reggie at Grand Central and my name came up. Said she heard all about me from you.” He made it