For a while, that frontier had been Memphis. It was a world she fit into, cradled by the call and response of twelvebar blues. But it had turned out to be a world with no future. “Emma,” Tyler said, bringing her back to now. “Algebra?”
“I’m sorry,” Emma whispered. “I could give up all my Friday nights to algebra, but I don’t know that it would make a difference. It’s just gibberish to me. You’ve put a lot of time in, and I have, and it seems like I work harder than anybody else, but—”
“No,” her father said. “I’m sorry. When you’re young, you don’t think about anybody but yourself. You think the usual rules don’t apply to you. You do things that you regret for the rest of your life. Your mama and I . . . we . . .” And then he stopped, as he always did, never quite finishing the apology.
He’s not talking about me, Emma thought. He’s talking about himself. Was he sorry he’d turned his only child over to Sonny Lee for raising? Because now the two of them were all but strangers. Maybe if she’d had a more regular kind of childhood, she wouldn’t feel like a fish out of water all the time.
Tyler stood. “All right, Emma, I’ll leave you be. I need to get some practice in for tomorrow night. But don’t stay up too late, even if it’s Friday night. Get some sleep, and tomorrow, I want you to at least give that homework a try. I’m gonna try to do better than I have done. Just don’t ever think I’m disappointed in you.” He rested a hand on her shoulder for a moment, then slowly, wearily, clumped up the stairs.
Emma kept playing until the sound of her father’s steps receded. For a long moment, she rested her cheek in the curve of the guitar, feeling the sweet, nonjudgmental kiss of lacquered wood. Thinking about Friday nights in Memphis in the steamy summertime.
She heard the music start up again upstairs, the visceral thud of Tyler’s bass guitar. Knowing Tyler, he’d be at it for a while.
Emma settled the Galiano back into its stand. Slipping down from the stool, she crossed the workshop, unlatched a case, and lifted out another guitar.
This one wasn’t vintage. This one she’d made the previous summer—one of two she still owned that were entirely her work. The other two she’d sold through Sonny Lee’s shop under the label Studio Greenwood, since she didn’t want anyone to mistake them for authentic Greenwoods. Sonny Lee’s guitars commanded prices of thousands of dollars, and she was just getting started.
Sonny Lee’s maker’s mark was an elaborate G inlaid in ebony and mother-of-pearl on the fret board. Emma had come up with her own logo—a simple S and G, block letters, burned into the head.
She retuned into an open G, plugged into her workshop amp, and played, pouring her frustration into the music. Head bent, eyes closed, she played, chewing on the notes the way the old blues guitarists did, ripping off bits of herself and putting them into the music. Spilling it all.
When she looked up again, the door to the dirty room was open.
A boy stood in the doorway—or maybe a man—wearing a mask, a hooded sweatshirt, and jeans. From his black leather gloves to his black boots, every inch of skin was covered, save the upper part of his face. It was almost as if he were trying to hide in his clothes.
And yet . . . somehow she knew that she’d seen him before. It was more the effect he had on her than anything about his appearance. It was like he gave off a scent that made her want to run headlong into trouble.
He stood, framed in light, like a saint in a medieval painting. But anybody who breaks into your basement in black leather and a mask is no saint.
You should be afraid, said the practical voice in her head. You should be screaming. Or running. But Emma did neither of those things. She sat, transfixed, as he stalked, catlike, across the room toward her. Though he was broad-shouldered and muscular, he moved with a dancer’s grace. Up close, she saw something poking up over his shoulder. The hilt of a massive sword. He wasn’t looking at her, though. He was looking at her guitar.
“I’ve never heard a guitar like that before,” he said, running long fingers over the binding. There was a player’s knowledge in his touch. “Is it custom work?”
Emma looked down at the guitar, resting across her knees, as if she’d never seen it before. Fingered the maker’s mark on the head, the S and G. And could not speak to save her life.
A masked boy had broken into her basement with a sword. Apparently so he could talk about guitars.
She looked up at his face again. About all she could see were his eyes, but his eyes were enough.
This boy actually looked at her. Looked and knew and didn’t judge. A fragile thread of connection shimmered between them. It was that, and his voice, more than his physical beauty, that drew her in. In fact, she couldn’t see his physical beauty, but she knew it was there, under his clothes.
Under. His. Clothes. Warmth rushed into Emma’s cheeks. “Do I know you?” she whispered.
“No,” he said quickly. “You don’t. And you don’t want to.” He studied the guitar, as if to memorize every detail.
Emma wished he would look at her in that hungry way.
“The guitar,” he said softly. “Where did you get it?”
“I built it,” she said, running her fingers over the mirrorlike finish.
“You built it,” he repeated, shaking his head. He glanced around the shop. “I guess I should have figured that out. Are there more like it?”
“I’ve made four,” Emma said. “I’ve sold two of them.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” she said, the spell he’d spun fraying a bit. “What are you doing here?”
“But . . . you’re a savant,” he said.
“A what?” This boy was just about as ADD as she was. But somehow she just kept right on answering his questions.“Who else is here?” he asked.
“My father,” Emma said, apprehension raising the hair on the back of her neck.
“What’s your name?”
“Emma Greenwood.”
“Tyler Greenwood is your father?” He said it like that was the worst news possible.
“Well,” Emma said, “he goes by Boykin now.”
His shoulders slumped, picking up weight.
He doesn’t want to hurt me, Emma thought. He doesn’t. He doesn’t. But he’s going to hurt me anyway.
“What’s your name?” Emma said.
He hesitated, a fraction of a second. Then said, “Zorro.” His eyes had fixed on the guitar again.
“Are you here to steal a guitar or what?” she asked bluntly.
“Steal a . . . ? No.” He shook his head. “But . . . may I give it a try?” he asked, almost shyly.
Mutely, she extended it toward him. He took it, flipped it around, and rested one foot on the cross brace of Emma’s stool. Fitting his fingers onto the frets, he brushed his other hand across the strings. Sound rippled out, like water over stone, sweeping her along. She spun helplessly in its current, unable to gain footing. He played a few riffs—bits of rockand-roll standards. Then a haunting instrumental Emma hadn’t heard before.
When he’d finished, he closed his eyes, shivering, savor ing each note as it died away. “It’s like sex, isn’t it?” Emma said, her mouth, as always, running ahead of good sense. She clapped both hands over her mouth, too late.
For a moment, the joy faded from his eyes. Then he laughed. “Yes,” he said. “It’s just like sex.”
Desperate to change the subject, Emma said, “What was that last piece? I’ve never heard it.”
“My brother wrote it,” the boy said, handing back the guitar.
“Well, he has a gift.”
“He does.” The boy nodded, his expression softening into unguarded love.
This boy would not hurt me. This boy could never hurt me.
“I never saw anybody play guitar with gloves on before.” Emma set the guitar aside, on the workbench.
“I like to challenge myself.”
“You going to tell me why you’re here, or not?” Maybe it was a risky thing to ask, but she couldn’t stand the suspense anymore.
Zorro winced. “Right,” he said. Digging in his pocket, he pulled out a bundle of cording and a pair of handcuffs. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “The thing is, I’m going to have to tie you up.”
Well, that broke the spell for sure.
“Oh, no,” Emma said, sliding off the stool, both feet hitting with a thud. “You don’t.” She ran for the stairs, but the boy moved impossibly fast, easily intercepting her.
He caught her about the waist, pulling her back against him, speaking low and fast, his breath warm on her neck. “I won’t hurt you, Emma, I promise I won’t hurt you. Just let me do this.” His voice was like Southern Comfort—smooth and sweet and just as potent. As he talked, he turned her so she faced the wall, bringing her hands behind her back with the ease of long practice.
He’s done this before, Emma thought, her head swimming. He’s one of those serial killers. The kind that sweet-talk you into opening your door.
He kept right on talking. “I wish I didn’t have to do this, but this is the best way to make sure you don’t get hurt. I just need a little uninterrupted time with your father.”
She wanted to float on the current of that voice, like a chip of wood in a river at flood.
I need to find a way to stop it.
Emma slammed her head back, shooting up from the balls of her feet, feeling a satisfying crunch as her skull hit his nose. His voice stopped, his iron grip relaxed, and she ripped free, hurling herself toward the stairs.
She stumbled, though, and he caught her before she got there and dragged her back, into the dirty room, one gloved hand over her mouth, pressing her tightly against his body to prevent any further head-butting. He pushed her to the floor next to the band saw, trying to pin her with one hand, but she rolled onto her back, gouged at his eyes, ripped at his mask, kneed him in the groin—used every street-fighting trick she knew to hurt him all while he seemed to be doing his best to get her tied up without hurting her.