“Try again.”
Cheater dialed, held the phone to his ear, then said, “Nope. No answer.”
You can always reach me at that number—day or night.
“I don’t like this.” I flagged down a cab. The driver wasn’t thrilled at the idea of five kids and a giant accordion in his cab, but a twenty-dollar bill erased his concerns. We crammed in and rode back to the funeral home.
“Do you think Bowdler brought Lucky here?” Martin asked.
I looked at the opening where the door had been. “I can’t tell. We’re just going to have to go in and find out.”
When I went through the doorway, the hairs on the back of my neck rose up.
“Something’s wrong here,” Martin said.
“Yeah.” I walked to the stairs at the end of the hallway. Halfway down, I froze. “Oh God …”
“What?” Flinch pushed by me, then lurched to a halt. I saw his whole body shudder. He spun around, staggered past me, then bent over and threw up.
I choked down my own nausea and forced myself to move a step closer. I didn’t want to. The chill on the back of my neck grew colder as the odor of spilled blood flooded my nostrils.
“They’re both dead,” I said.
There’d been a fight. That much, I could tell for sure. I guess the guy put up a struggle when Thurston went to take him out of the cell. I heard a thump behind me. Torchie had dropped to a seat on the steps. His head went limp. As he started to tip over, Cheater steadied him.
“Let’s get out of here,” Flinch said.
I shook my head. “I have to see … Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe Torchie can stop the bleeding. Thurston is really tough. I broke all his ribs and he lived.”
Martin grabbed my shoulder. “He’s gone.”
A knife handle stuck out of Thurston’s chest. His eyes were wide open and staring. The other guy, outside the door of the cell, was sprawled face down in a pool of blood that was still slowly spreading. I think he’d been shot in the throat. The guy must have pulled a knife and stabbed Thurston. It looked different than the knife Thurston had taken from him earlier. I guess he’d had it hidden. And I guess Thurston managed to get off a shot before he died.
Then I noticed something else. There was blood on the steps below me.
“Footprints,” I said. “I’ll bet Bowdler brought Lucky here, then took off when he saw the bodies. We probably just missed them.”
“Let’s go,” Cheater said.
“Wait,” Martin said. “We need that video.”
I looked at him. He looked back at me. I knew neither of us wanted to reach into a dead man’s pocket.
“I’ll do it.” Flinch went down the steps, skirting around the blood, and slipped two fingers into Thurston’s shirt pocket. He pulled out the memory card, shuddered, and came back up the stairs.
“You okay?” I asked.
He nodded, then shuddered again. “Must have just happened. He’s still warm.”
I stared at Thurston for another moment, then turned and went outside. The fresh air scrubbed my lungs, but the rest of me felt smeared with the stink of death.
some dim place
I STOOD OUTSIDE the building and kicked the ashes from the door off my sneakers. “I’m sorry.” My words felt hollow. How could anything make up for dragging the guys into this mess?
“Don’t apologize,” Martin said. “You didn’t know this would happen.”
“Hey, we’ve been in trouble before,” Cheater said.
“Not like this.” My voice sounded flat to me. So did theirs. I think we were numbed by what we’d seen.
Martin shrugged. “Trouble is trouble. We’ll be okay.”
“It could be worse,” Torchie said.
“We don’t even have a place to go.”
I realized the hotel was out. That’s where Bowdler had found us. I hated to leave my stuff behind, but there was nothing I could do about that. We couldn’t go to anyone’s house. Somehow, they’d connected Lucky to me. Probably through Edgeview. So they knew about all of us. “What’s your hotel like?” I asked Torchie.
He wrinkled his nose. “It’s not great. I think the guy who was there before me had a dog. And the room’s really small. But I guess we could go there.”
“We’ve got a better place,” Cheater said. “My uncle owns a business in Chinatown. That’s only about twelve blocks from here. There are apartments above it. He keeps a couple of them available for family members. I stay there all the time.”
“Awesome,” Flinch said. “I love Chinese food.”
Cheater spun toward Flinch. “Did I say anything about food? What makes you think it’s a Chinese restaurant?”