Jillian Cade (15 page)

“Jillian.” He said my name in a whisper. “In all of this, have I ever hurt you?” He didn't wait for me to answer. “No. I wouldn't hurt you. I would never hurt you. All I want to do is protect you. That's why
. . .
you have to believe me when I tell you it's fate.”

I stared at him, the ache in my throat making it hard to speak. “I believe that you think it's fate, but there's no such thing.”

“Jillian, trust me—”

“I don't.” It came out of my mouth like a bullet. I watched the hurt flash over his face.

“That's because you don't know me,” he said.

“Exactly. If you really want to protect me, then help me. We're supposed to be getting photos, not making out in public like horny teenagers.” Even as I said it, I knew how he would respond.

“We
are
horny teenagers.”

“Speak for yourself. This thing between us—”

“This connection.”

“This whatever-it-is, we put it on hold until we find Todd Harmon. It's a deal I made with myself, and you have to respect it.”

For a moment, Sky seemed to consider. Then, like it had never been gone, that cocky half smile was back. “Motivation. I like it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper with his two addresses on it. “See you back here.”

“Soon,” I said.

“Very soon.”

We headed in opposite directions.

One thing I
did
learn from my father: never look back (even the Bible says you could turn into a pillar of salt). Maybe defying Dad was what compelled me to do it. That's how I saw Sky slow to a standstill beside the last sycamore tree in the parking lot. I wanted to run back and fling my arms around him.

Instead, I waited. I watched as his shoulders slumped. I watched as he scuffed at the sidewalk with a dirty tennis shoe. And I jumped when he slammed his hand into the rough bark of the tree.

Then I whirled around and ran.

Not because I didn't want Sky to know I'd seen him. Not because I had no idea how to handle someone else's pain or rage or confusion. It was because running away was the one thing that came naturally to me.

Besides, I had a job to do.

Twenty-Two

I checked my
scrap of paper and decided to head to the address on Eleventh Avenue. It was furthest away; I'd go there first and work my way back. I crossed Creed to avoid a group of older teenagers swarming around the hood of a parked car blasting rap. The heavy
thud-thud
of the bass followed me as I skirted a man selling frozen mango slices out of a pushcart. Then I took a left on Eleventh.

At first glance, the block wasn't promising. Lawns were patchy and dry, and they fronted what appeared to be older homes that had been cut up into apartment buildings. Halfway up the block, a blue recycling bin was tipped over on the sidewalk, its contents of empty Old Milwaukee and King Cobra bottles strewn everywhere.

Granted, I didn't really know Misty-the-Potential-Succubus. But thus far this wasn't looking like a place she would call home.

At least, that's what I thought before I saw the limousine.

In typical limousine fashion, it was long and sleek and black. In less typical fashion, it was hanging out on crappy-ass Eleventh Avenue in Leimert Park, idling at the curb in front of the second to the last building on my side of the street
. . .
the building I was supposed to check out.

I felt my steps slow as thoughts began to turn in my brain. First and foremost: If Misty herself stepped out of that limousine, what would I do if she saw me? After all, the last time we'd laid eyes on each other, I'd roofied her with Sky's blood before sucking his face, and then she'd sent her crazed bodyguards after me. “Hey, wassup?” hardly seemed like the way to go.

I was still a house away when the back passenger window slid noiselessly down and an arm extended from the limo. A dark, walnut-skinned arm with defined biceps. And a hand holding a black flower.

I froze and slid my phone from the back pocket of my jeans, but it slipped from my clammy fingers and dropped onto the sidewalk. There was a cracking sound when it landed. As I squatted to grab it, I saw the splintered spider web across the screen.

Shit.

I skimmed my finger over the now-shattered glass. It still worked
. . .
at least enough for me to open my camera app and point the lens at the limo. On the broken screen, I saw the brown biceps of that arm bulge and glisten in the dimming sunlight and then darken as a shadow fell over it.

Something else was emerging from the window.

I tried to make myself small—as if I had a prayer of going invisible, crouching there on the sidewalk—and watched as the thing surged from the window, right above that muscled arm. The thing was a shaved head with a neat goatee and a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

“Speed it up, Frannie!” the head barked. “We're gonna lose our table.”

“Chill, douchebag.”

I whipped my gaze to the right. A woman was tottering out atop a fire-red pair of stilettos. Their color exactly matched her miniskirt and halter top and lipstick and hair.

She looked like an extremely tall, skinny, busty tomato.

“Hey, I bought you a fuckin' rose!” Baldy shouted.

The tomato lady snorted. “It's black. What the hell is a black rose?”

“It's not black. It's deep red. It's called Night Owl, and it's expensive as hell.”

“That's screwed up.”

“That's love, bitch!”

The tomato woman reached the limo and planted a kiss right on the guy's mouth. “I love you too, baby.”

She climbed inside. I smiled at the limo as it glided away from the curb. Here were people who seemed way stranger than me but nonetheless managed to have successful relationships.

I really needed to figure some things out.

To cover my bases, I kept heading north on the sidewalk so I could pass the building the woman had exited. I got a couple photos of it on my phone and peered inside the trash bin but didn't see anything suspicious. Of course, I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for.

The sun was no longer visible, but the streetlights hadn't yet come to life. Maybe they were on timers. Or just for show. Or broken.

I turned left at the end of the block and left again. This street—Edgehill—was shadier than the other. Huge sycamores lined both sides, their dense branches spread out over me. In front of the first house I passed, a skinny girl about my age squatted on an upside-down bucket, picking at her fingernails. She looked up as I walked by.

“You here for blow?” she asked.

“No,” I told her. “Something else. But thank you.”

We nodded at each other. I continued on. My second destination was a two-story house halfway down the block. The bottom floor was made out of stucco. The top appeared to be wood that had been painted peach. A faded Christmas wreath hung on the front door. I had a hard time believing Misty would decorate for the birthday of the baby Jesus, but one never knew. Maybe she was trying to pass for normal with her neighbors. Maybe the wreath had already been there when she moved in and ate the previous occupant. After all, it was slightly more reasonable to think that she was a cannibal than a succubus
. . .

I took a picture from the sidewalk. There were no lights on in the house, so either no one was home, or whoever lived there was hanging out in the dark. I was about to leave when I saw something: a torn piece of paper on the house's cracked walkway. I glanced around. The block was deserted aside from the girl on her bucket, and from where I was standing, she was nothing more than a dim, shadowed outline. I was alone.

I darted up the pavement, snatched the paper, and was back on the sidewalk within a matter of seconds. Shoving the scrap into my pocket, I sprinted to the end of the block—which put me again at Creed, across from the big empty parking lot, and also put me significantly out of breath.

I scooted into a streetlamp's pool of light and yanked out the scrap. It was a half page of newspaper, ragged along one edge where it had been ripped away. As I'd hoped (or maybe feared?), now that I had it in my hand, I could see that it was exactly what it had looked like.

The obituary section.

I touched the paper, feeling its litho-or-web-fed-or-whatever-Eddie-said roughness under my fingertips, and held it up so my shadow wasn't blocking the light from the streetlamp falling onto it. A rectangular section had been ripped out of the top center of the page. The upper edge had been ripped away with it, including the part where the newspaper's date would have been.

I really wished I had my obituary—my fake, creepy obituary—with me so I could compare the two pieces.

It could have been a coincidence. But I knew it wasn't. It was just another thing that defied explanation. These days, there were so many. Todd Harmon's disappearance. Misty's tongue. My sister's name on my future obituary.

Sky.

Nothing made sense anymore.

I folded the paper twice.

And then I paused. And opened it. And turned it over.

On the other side was an advertisement: a full-page spread for Target, hawking the joys of purchasing back-to-school supplies, featuring a cute girl in a denim jumper and glasses (because spectacles equal scholastic achievement; thanks, marketing geniuses!). Someone had used a red pen to circle various items. Post-it notes for the low, low price of $1.99 had been circled
. . .
and then crossed out.

Apparently the red pen's owner thought he or she could do better.

Around the empty portion—the part that had been ripped out—parts of red lines were still visible. The owner of this paper was going to save fifty cents on rounded scissors or maybe mechanical pencils. I crumpled it, shoving it into my pocket. This piece of paper wasn't about the obituaries after all. It didn't have a damn thing to do with me, or with the Todd Harmon case.

It was a reminder that there
were
no coincidences. Everything had to have an explanation.

That's when my phone rang.

I nearly jumped out of my skin, of course. Naturally my next response was to hope it was Sky calling. But no such luck. The letters on my screen spelled the name Ernie Stuart. Ha! That
was
a coincidence. Or not. I almost didn't answer, but curiosity won out. “Hey, Ernie.”

“Hello, this is Ernie Stuart. Can I talk to—” He paused. “You kids and your caller ID. How are you, honey?”

“I'm great, Ernie. What's going on?”

“Thought you'd want to know my buddy got back to me.”

I squinted across Creed to see if Sky or Norbert was back yet. It was too dark to tell. “Oh yeah?” I said into the phone.

“He pulled a partial set of prints off your paper,” Ernie told me. “Ran 'em through the California driver's license database. Turns out they belong to a kid.”

That got my attention.

“Yup, I was right. Just a goofy joke. One of your classmates messing with you.”

My heart lurched and then settled back into my chest. It felt tighter than it was supposed to be. Heavier. I knew what the name would be even before Ernie spoke it into my ear.

“Sky Ramsey.”

Twenty-Three

My directions had
been very specific. I had told everyone to meet back at the parking lot. Yet here I was, disobeying my own instructions. I couldn't do it.

Sky had lied.

No, it wasn't that small and simple. Our entire relationship—if you could call it that—was built on a heaping pile of bullshit. Sky had started with dishonesty and then shoveled lie after lie on top of it. From the moment I'd set eyes on him, it had been deception by omission. I'd forgiven all his earlier lies, because I was a liar too.

But this was different.

Sky was behind that fake obituary in my locker. He had confused me. Terrorized me. And he'd done it deliberately.

I couldn't risk being alone with him. I couldn't even see him. At least, not before I'd had a chance to think this over. Until I figured out his motive. I didn't know how I should react to him: with outrage, sorrow
. . .
fear
? For now, if I saw him, I had to pretend I didn't know about his treachery. That was the only way I could get through this. Otherwise, it would hurt too much.

Norbert.
Norbert was family. He was safety and sweetness and understanding. I had to find Norbert.

The problem was, I didn't have either of the addresses he was currently investigating. Stupid, stupid printout. I didn't know where either of them had gone. I pulled out my phone. I heaved a sigh of relief when the cracked screen allowed me to open my texting app. I shot Norbert a quick message:

where r u

While waiting for his answer, I scanned my brain. One of the addresses had been on a street that started with a
D
. Deadwood, maybe? Or Dunham? I checked the map on my phone and—
yes!
—there it was. Degnan Boulevard. I headed west on Forty-Third and turned right.

I walked the length of the block, giving a wide berth to a guy sleeping on the sidewalk. Across the street, there was a woman sitting on her front stoop. By the flickering light of her porch lantern, I could see that she was peeling carrots, letting the discarded strips fall onto the bottom step. Occasionally she gave her peeler a hard flick, and a piece would fly into the grass. She looked up and caught my stare. When she raised a hand in greeting, I did the same.

Still no sign of Norbert or Sky.

I turned left, then left again. South Norton Avenue was darker than the other streets, thanks to the low-hanging trees. I felt something touch my face and swatted at it, thinking it was a spider web, but it was a tiny raindrop. The mist was back, stickier and heavier than before.

Halfway down the deserted block, I heard a sound behind me, like shoes dragging across gravel. I whirled, but couldn't see a thing. Everything was inky stillness. I resumed my original path, seeing the streetlights of Forty-Third glowing faintly at the end of the block, my heart quickening in time with my feet.

I heard the hiss at the same time I felt coldness licking the skin of my left leg. I jerked in the direction of the street, pivoting. My boots sank into the grass. I tensed for an attack—

But there was no attacker. There was only a broken sprinkler head, spraying an arc across the sidewalk. Only water on my leg.

Between the not-succubus and Sky, I was coming unhinged.

I scraped my muddy boots as best as I could on the edge of the sidewalk, and then stepped toward the broken sprinkler. It had scared the crap out of me, so the least it could do was clean off my footwear. I held my right boot in the arc of water, hoping it would take off the worst of it
. . .

When I saw something. A real something. It was there, in the mud beside the broken sprinkler head. It was fresh and it was clear.

The outline of the Millennium Falcon.

My cousin had a
Battlestar Galactica
backpack. He had a cookie cutter in the shape of the starship
Enterprise
, and the outside of his bedroom closet was painted like a blue British police box. Norbert had no problem mixing metaphors or fictional universes. And although I worried that some future girl might be turned off by his Ewok sheets, maybe she too would admire his passion for all things classically geek.

Now looking down at the mud, I remembered the whole fuss when we were trying to leave his house:
the boots
. He'd had to find the right pair. They were necessary because they'd bring us good luck.
Star Wars
boots, with the outline of the Millennium Falcon engraved on the soles.

So very Norbert.

This particular Falcon imprint was pointed straight at the building looming over the patchy, muddy lawn. Beyond the first Falcon was another and then the blurred outline of a third.

Norbert had checked out this building.

Which was fine. We were
here
to check out buildings. But then I suddenly realized why this specific building looked different. It's because it was dark, darker than everything around it. And it wasn't because the lights were off. It was because the windows had been painted black.

I briefly considered texting Norbert or calling him again. Even more briefly, I considered calling Sky. Maybe there was a chance he wasn't actually an evil liar with a moral compass that stunk worse than hellfire. Perhaps he had good reason to scare me
. . .
and confuse me
. . .
and lie to me.

No. Sky was a terrible person—maybe even a sociopath—and I couldn't trust him at all. I couldn't go to him for help.

I was on my own.

Best to keep moving until I found Norbert. I crept along the side of the building until I reached the back corner. I stepped just past it, to a nearby tree. Setting one hand against its rough trunk, I cast my phone around, using its dim light to hunt for anything that would clue me in to Norbert's whereabouts.

Nothing.

I aimed my phone at the building. I heard a gentle, rhythmic slapping sound but couldn't pinpoint the source. From back there, the building looked like it was probably a fourplex, with two apartments above and two below. On the bottom floor were two sliding doors leading onto two small patios made of cracked concrete. I peered into the gloominess between the patios and a wooden deck that stretched from one end of the second floor to the other.

My fingers and toes went numb.

The whole deck was covered with a giant piece of black tarp, as if to shield it from the sun. One side of the tarp was completely shredded. It looked like giant claws had ripped it from top to bottom. The torn pieces flapped gently against each other in the rain.

At least I knew where the sound was coming from.

I backed up against the tree trunk. “Norbert?” My stage whisper carried through the night, but no one answered. I tried again—louder—but there was still nothing. I jerked my phone downward, casting its glow on the ground. There they were, all over the mud at my feet: smudged Millennium Falcon imprints. I pointed my phone up. A small branch hung at an angle, newly broken. There were wet, muddy scrapes against the trunk.

Norbert had climbed this tree.

Norbert had gone into this building.

Shit.

I shoved my phone into my pocket—I was down to eleven percent battery life—and scrambled upward toward the closest branch. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world, climbing a tree in the dark, but the trunk was knotty with
lots of solid bumps and thick twigs to grab. I was able to hoist myself onto the first branch and then another. If Norbert could do this, so could I. I wormed my way across the thick limb, extending over the deck. The branch bent a little as I reached the railing. When I made it onto the balcony, it sprang back into place with a rustling of leaves.

Up here, a full floor above the relative safety of the ground, the air smelled like fire and fear, and I knew not to call out for Norbert. I took a step toward the building. Something crunched beneath my foot. Light glinted from several places on the wooden balcony.

Shattered glass. Lots of it.

I stepped over the pile to the apartment's entrance. What had been a sliding door was now a jagged opening. It had been broken. Violently. The shards had exploded out in every direction. Faint starlight reflected on them.

Beyond the door was a pitch-black abyss. I pulled my phone back out, holding it before me as I stepped inside.

Ten percent battery life.

It had been a bedroom (this wasn't my awesome detective skills at work; there was a king-size bed pushed up against the wall). Now it was a deserted war zone.

From the middle of the room, I could see that there had once been something behind the sliding glass door: a barricade to keep out intruders
. . .
or sunlight. It was made of thick iron, but it had been completely obliterated. Whatever had shattered the glass had blasted right through it too. Now that I was inside with my phone held high, I could see splinters of dark metal mixed with the glass shards.

This is so bad.

I cast my phone's light over the bed. It was simple: white wooden rail headboard, white sheets. It looked totally ordinary, like something you'd see in that discarded Target ad, except for one thing.

Splayed across it were ashes in the shape of a human body.

I leaned closer. It could have been my imagination, the darkness, whatever; there were what appeared to be charred pieces of bone mixed in with the ashes. A set of metal handcuffs was looped over the wooden slats at the head of the bed, the locks closed. On the white pillow right beneath them was a melted, misshapen circle of gold.

A ring. But destroyed, like the rest of the place.

I held my breath and reached out to touch it. It was smooth and cool, so I lifted it, hefting its weight. My mind flashed to Misty and that big golden ring on her finger
. . .

Within the depths of the fourplex, there was a
clunk
. I shoved the ring into my pocket and looked around for something—anything—that could be used as a makeshift weapon. I found a jagged piece of iron on the floor and lifted it. It was about the size and shape of a long dagger, with some serious weight. I didn't know if I had it in me to use it against another human (or nonhuman), but it was better than nothing. I tiptoed toward the open door of the bedroom and peered out into the living area.

There
was
no living area.

My heart began to thud. The building wasn't even a fourplex. At least, not anymore. The inside of it had been ripped apart and crazily reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle from a lunatic's nightmare. I was looking at a corridor: sloping downward, lined by cavernous openings into other darkened rooms. Unlit lanterns swayed from the ceiling.

Below, I caught flickers of light. Candlelight. I felt like I'd stepped into a three-dimensional M. C. Escher painting, one that smelled like rotting garbage and was freaking terrifying.

And my cousin was somewhere inside.

I descended the corridor, holding my phone before me and testing each step before putting my weight onto it. The floor creaked, but it felt solid. I edged along until I reached the lip of the first opening: a gaping hole in the wall to my left. It was like a mouth. An uneven, black mouth waiting to swallow me whole.

I slid my foot ahead, hearing the scraping sound it made against the ground, and then shifted my weight forward.

One step.

I could do this. I could do this for Norbert.

I took another shuffling step, and then another. I was past the lip of the hole now. I had to look inside. I couldn't
not
look inside. So I slowly turned my head, my breath coming in shallow huffs, hearing it loud in my own ears along with the scraping of my foot moving forward
. . .

Except I had stopped moving. I was frozen, staring into utter blackness. And I was still hearing footsteps drag across the ground.

Somewhere nearby, someone else was walking.

It came down to this: I could keep sneaking along, trying not to be seen or heard even though I was pretty sure I had already been both seen
and
heard
. . .
or I could charge in like I owned the joint and deal with whatever came at me from the darkness. Both options sucked. I went with a third: the one that might get me out the quickest.

I raised my phone high in the air and yelled for my cousin: “Norbert!”

There was an awful pause in which the world stopped turning on its axis . . .

And then, the noises started.

From above me, there was a rustle. From the black hole to my left, a moan. From behind me, more scraping. But from down below, something much more welcome: an electronic squeal.

Norbert's key-chain alarm.

He was here. He was alive. Getting us out was all that mattered. I thrust my phone before me and headed downward as quickly as I dared. Passing one more awful, ripped-open hole of darkness, I briefly wondered if I had dipped below ground level. Was this the building's basement?