by Jen Blood
“Of course,” I agreed.
I meandered aimlessly for about three minutes, then changed direction the moment I was out of sight of the house. There was no way in hell I’d spend the day trailing Blaze when I had leads of my own to follow. If Mae didn’t have the answers we were looking for, I had a feeling I knew where to find them.
Half an hour later, I was standing in line beside Casey Clinton at the local Dairy Queen—Casey’s idea, not mine. It was eight-thirty on a Thursday night, which meant our wait wasn’t long: a couple of acne-ridden teenage boys got Blizzards and headed for the other side of the restaurant, and we were up. When it was our turn, a slim teenage girl with dyed black hair, camo pants, and an Iggy Pop t-shirt two sizes too small took our order. Her right eyebrow was pierced, and she wore those trendy thick-framed glasses everyone likes so much. In Justice, Kentucky, she might as well have been wearing aluminum foil and a beanie.
“Hey, Case,” she greeted Casey, then looked at me. “Who’s your friend?”
“Danny’s uncle,” Casey explained. “Diggs, this is Sophie. Sophie knows pretty much anything that goes on in this town long before it hits the web.”
“I’m at the hub of the rumor mill in this hell-hole,” Sophie said. She had no discernible accent. “So this is Diggs, huh? I guess that explains Danny’s weird surfing obsession...and how he got so good looking.”
“We’re not actually related by blood,” I said. I tried for a rakish-but-completely-uninterested grin—something it pays to have in your repertoire when precocious high school girls are in the vicinity. “But thanks. Can I get a large Coke and a…” I looked at Casey.
“The usual,” she said to Sophie, who nodded and promptly pulled two large cups from the stack beside her. “Listen,” Casey continued. “I heard Danny stopped in here last night. We been trying to reach him, but he’s not answering his cell.”
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “Sure—I already told Creepy Jennings. Word is, Danny’s the one who freaked out and tried to cap the preacher. Is that true?”
Casey bristled, but I intervened before something started. “We don’t know what happened last night. That’s why we need to find him. Did he say anything to you?”
“Not really. He got here around eight. Got a dish of soft-serve and ate it over there.” She nodded to a booth in the back. “He said he was headed over to your place. I guess this means you guys won’t be playing next week?”
Casey hesitated. “I’m not sure. It depends on what happens with Danny.”
“Well, if you’re not playing, I’m not going,” Sophie continued with a practiced eye roll. “The rest of the bands they’re having are a bunch of losers. I heard if you don’t make it they’re bringing in Jake Six. If I wanted to listen to a bunch of drunk douche bags sing Toby Keith all night, I’d just come to work.”
“I’ll let you know,” Casey promised. “And can you give me a call if Danny comes back here? Let him know we’re looking for him.”
“Will do.”
She handed Casey an Oreo Blizzard and grinned at me when she slid my Coke across the counter. “Y’all come back now,” she said with an exaggerated drawl and a wink.
Casey and I took a booth on the other side of the restaurant, well out of hearing range of the kids who’d come in earlier. She apologized for her friend, then got right down to business.
“So, what’d you want to talk to me about? How can I help?”
“How well did you know Wyatt Durham?” I asked.
She faltered. “Danny’s daddy? I—I didn’t, really. I mean… We talked a couple times. He gave me rides home every so often.”
It wasn’t the truth, but I’d expected that. For now, I just wanted to see her reaction when I mentioned his name.
“There were two other victims the police think were killed by the same people who killed Wyatt,” I said. “They were bad guys—into drugs, beating up their wives, that kind of thing. But I know for a fact Wyatt wasn’t that kind of man. So, I’m just wondering why anyone would lump him in with those losers.”
She looked out the window, stirring her Blizzard into a melted mess. She was pretty, in an understated, trying-to-get-through-life-unnoticed kind of way—a wallflower in high school who’d likely go far, if she ever got out of this town and made it to college. I figured that was a big if, knowing even half of what she was facing right now.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “I know Danny, not his old man.”
“Casey, please,” I said. I took the damn ice cream from her, forcing her eyes to mine. “I think Danny’s in a lot of trouble here. I don’t think he ran away, I think someone took him. And if they did, we need to find him. Fast.”
She bit her lip. I thought I was in, but then the veil fell. She shook her head, glancing at the crowd of teenagers getting louder by the minute behind us.
“Sorry. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. I didn’t know his daddy.”
“Okay,” I said. Rule number one when dealing with a reluctant source: Don’t get pissed off. Bullying only works in rare cases, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be effective here. “Let’s forget Wyatt for a minute, then. What about Danny? I know he smokes a little dope… Anything else that could have made someone mad enough to take him?”
She looked relieved, which threw me. She’d talk about Danny, but not his father?
“Danny’s harmless,” she said. I pushed the Blizzard back toward her, feeling like an idiot for having taken it in the first place. “He smokes bud and plays guitar and sleeps with a lot of girls. That’s about as bad as it gets.”
“And Danny never talked to you about his old man? About problems they might be having?”
“They didn’t get along too good,” she said carefully. “But I always knew that was Danny’s fault—like, he can be kind of a pain, you know what I mean? And Dr. Durham just seemed like he was always tryin’ to do what was best. Danny’s mama was more the problem, you ask me.”
I didn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue on her own.
“Dr. Durham couldn’t ever say nothin’ to her about any of it, but I know he didn’t mind the band so much. Mrs. Durham was the one always tryin’ to get Danny to give it up and go play at the dang church instead. Till one day she just up and had a fit, and made Danny quit.”
“And you talked to Wy—Dr. Durham about this?” I asked, treading as cautiously as possible.
She lowered her eyes, returning her attention to her now-melted ice cream. “I told you, I didn’t know Dr. Durham. It’s just a feeling I got.”
Right. While I was still trying to figure out my next approach, the Ford Focus Solomon and I had rented pulled in and slid into the space beside the Chevy Impala I’d borrowed from Mae when I ditched Agent Blaze. I watched Solomon get out of the driver’s seat, then waited to see if she had reinforcements with her. No one else got out, though. She came in, waved to Casey and me as casually as you please, then went to the front and ordered herself a turtle sundae. Only then did she come over, sliding into the seat beside me with her dessert.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she said. There was a spark to her eye that suggested she was more amused than annoyed by my exploits. I took that as an encouraging sign. She slid the sundae toward me.
“What are the chances?” I agreed.
“Hey, funny story.” She turned in the seat so she could look me in the eye. “You know Agent Blaze? That super-hot, super-scary agent you were hanging out with this afternoon? She just got back. Turns out she got three flat tires while she was out at the Durham place. All at once. Crazy, right?”
“That is crazy,” I agreed.
“That’s not even the weirdest part,” she said. She was on a roll now, so I let her run with it. “She said you excused yourself to stretch your legs, and then…poof, you just vanished. You and Mae’s old Chevy, gone. Apparently, she didn’t even find a note.”
I took another bite of her sundae. Casey raised her eyebrows at both of us.
/> “I should probably get going,” the girl said.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” Solomon said. “If you guys were talking…”
I shook my head. Whatever happened between Casey and Wyatt Durham, there was no way in hell she was talking to me about it. “I think we’re done. I’ll give you a call if I hear anything, okay?” I said to Casey. “And if you think of anything, or you need anything at all, you know how to reach either of us. Right?”
She nodded, but I doubted I would hear from her. “I will. Y’all sure you don’t need anything else from me?”
“No, we’re good,” Solomon said, too sweetly. “But we’ll definitely call you if we hear anything else.”
Casey went back up to the front to have a confab with Sophie, and Solomon moved over to the other side of the booth. Not before she’d cuffed me soundly in the back of the head, however.
“Ow! Don’t try and tell me you were surprised when you heard I ditched G.I. Jane,” I said. “You know me better than that.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” she said. “What’d you find out from the kid?”
“Not a damn thing,” I said. “Danny smokes a lot of weed and I get the feeling he’s dipped his wick in some unsavory places, but I don’t see why that should get him kidnapped or killed. And Wyatt…”
I paused. She raised her eyebrows, a spoonful of ice cream halfway to her mouth. “Wyatt what?”
“I’m not sure. Casey knows something she’s not telling me, though. Blaze hinted that there was something we didn’t know about him…I have this feeling it might have something to do with Casey.”
“Like an affair?”
I shook my head. “No. I can’t imagine it—Wyatt wasn’t that guy. And even if he was that guy, if he was going to have an affair, he sure as hell wouldn’t have one with a fifteen-year-old girl.”
“It does seem like a stretch. So…?” she prompted.
“So, I’m thinking of alternate theories,” I said. I had an idea, but I wanted to give it a little time. Ask a few questions before I spoke out of turn. “How’d you manage to duck out on the masked avenger?” I asked, switching gears.
“The masked avenger, hmm? I think Juarez would like that, actually. We went over and interviewed a couple of weird old brothers who live together—they’re big fans of Barnel.”
“The Reese brothers?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. They didn’t have much to say, really. You know they have at least a dozen cats, all of them with little bells on their collars? It wasn’t like a hoarding thing, though. More like… you know, everything was a little too clean, and the cats were secretly in control. It was like a horror movie. A horror movie with bells.”
She was babbling, which meant however cool she might be playing it, she’d been worried when Blaze showed up at the station without me. I helped myself to more of her ice cream and let her babble.
“That’s rough,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” she agreed. “Anyway, Blaze was just coming off a murderous rage when we got back there. You might want to wear a cup when you see her next, incidentally. And somehow, her not being happy with you turned into her not being happy with me. I decided it might be smart to make myself scarce.”
“Good move.”
“That was my thought.” She fell silent, watching me while I pushed caramel around in her sundae. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
Landing the ball solidly in my court. I was just preparing to deflect the question when I read the look in her eyes and realized deflection was exactly what she expected. I thought of our conversation the day before. Everything’s this deep, dark mystery with you. I wet my lips.
“I think Wyatt helped Casey get an abortion,” I said.
Her eyebrows went up, eyes widening. “You just let me ramble about the cat brothers for five minutes when that’s what you’re sitting on? Thanks a lot. What makes you think that?”
“Timeline,” I said. “Mae said Barnel cut Wyatt off about six months ago, telling him he’d crossed a line he could never uncross. Danny said Casey missed the first month of school, which would have been around the same time… And Mae mentioned the whole thing about Wyatt going to talk to Casey’s father right about then.”
“You really think he’d do that?”
I’d been going over that in my head. I had a hard time imagining it—Wyatt and I were long-time friends, but our views on sex and marriage and everything in between couldn’t have been more different. I glanced up front while I was thinking it over.
Casey and Sophie were still talking, though it looked like their friendly chat wasn’t quite so friendly now. Sophie said something and Casey looked back toward me, her cheeks coloring when she realized I was watching them. She leaned in and said something more to Sophie, clearly pissed, and Sophie grabbed her arm as Casey started to leave. Solomon followed my gaze.
“Looks like a cat fight’s about to break out,” she noted.
I stood just as Casey pulled her arm free, turned on her heel, and started for the door. She stopped halfway there, as though she’d spotted someone outside. When she turned toward me, all the color had drained from her face. I looked out the window, toward whatever it was she’d seen. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Everything slowed to that endless impotent crawl of nightmares.
“Diggs?” Solomon said.
“Get down,” I said, my voice tight. Solomon just stared at me, forehead furrowed.
“What?”
“Now!”
The glass in the restaurant’s front door exploded an instant later as a tan minivan tore through the front of the restaurant and came to a stop in the middle of the dining room. Screams filled the air. I dove for Solomon, pulling her from the booth to the floor, and covered her body with my own. There was a split second lapse in which everything went quiet, and I heard something small and metallic hit the floor. It rolled toward us.
“Stay down,” I whispered in her ear, bracing myself.
The world hung suspended for a tenth of a second before the first explosion rocked the building. The force pulled me up off the ground for an instant, but I kept my body curled around Solomon and held on. Two more blasts went off around us before the van itself exploded.
I waited ten seconds, then fifteen, for something more to happen. The smoke alarm wailed; kids screamed. I still had my head down, my face pressed into Erin’s neck while she lay pinned beneath me, but I could feel the heat and hear flames surrounding us.
“Diggs?” Solomon whispered to me. My ears were ringing, her voice coming to me from far away.
I lay there, frozen for an instant, before I recovered enough to speak. “I’m okay,” I said. I lifted my head and took stock of the situation before I let her up. The kitchen was ablaze, the rest of the restaurant filling with smoke. I stayed low, noting gashes on Solomon’s forehead and arm when she sat up.
“Are you okay?” I shouted over the noise.
She nodded. Her eyes were already huge, but they widened even further when she looked at me. Her gaze lingered on my shoulder.
“I’m okay,” I repeated.
She shook her head. “You have a shard of glass above your shoulder blade.” She pulled out her cell phone and handed it to me. “Call for help, okay? Don’t take the glass out. Get whoever you can and get the hell out of here.”
She scrambled away, toward the worst of the injured. I dialed 911 even though I was sure by this time the whole town had been alerted, and hung up when the dispatcher assured me that, yes, there was definitely someone on the way.
Casey was kneeling beside Sophie, her eyes wide with shock, her face bloodied. The other girl lay twisted, unmoving on the floor. I crouched low and began to move as Solomon checked Sophie for a pulse.
The minivan was engulfed in flames by now, the driver unrecognizable. Solomon ran to me and shouted over the noise.
“We need to get people out—if the gas tank blows…”
She didn’t need to
complete that thought. I began with the little kids that had come in with their parents, their mother’s screams on a par with their own. The father lay on the floor, unconscious, his forehead bloodied. I picked up the bigger of the two kids, a boy maybe five years old.
“We need to get outside,” I said to the woman. The left side of her face was burned, but not badly. The kids seemed relatively unscathed. She stared at me blankly, then shifted her focus back to her husband.
“I’ll come back for him,” I said quickly. “You need to think about your kids right now—please.”
I shepherded her and the kids outside to the parking lot, where emergency vehicles were already pulling in, then started back in for Solomon. A fireman stopped me, decked out in full gear. The back of the building was consumed with flames, every window in the place now broken.
“We’ve got this—you hang back, let somebody check you out.”
He motioned to a paramedic to come get me. I was about to dodge them and force my way back in when Solomon came out with Casey’s arm draped over her shoulder, half-dragging the girl to safety. I’d expected to find World War III in the parking lot, but apart from a couple of broken windshields, the damage was confined to the DQ. Solomon left Casey with the medics, then returned to my side.
“Come with me, okay?” she said. She took my hand and led me toward one of three ambulances. The medic looked at me, then back at the bodies still being pulled from the building. He was young—maybe twenty-one. Clearly out of his element.
“I’m a certified EMT,” Solomon lied. At least I thought she was lying. She was just lying very, very well. “I can help you guys. You’ve got at least twenty injured in there; are you set up to handle that?” He shook his head, still looking dazed. “That’s what I figured. I can help triage. Are these your only rigs?”
“Paducah’s sending more,” he said. “But they’re an hour away.”
“Okay. Is there any kind of air evac unit coming?”
The man who appeared to be in charge—a paunchy guy with a handlebar moustache—came over. “You’ll need to set down, ma’am,” he said to Solomon. “Somebody’ll get to you two as soon as they can.”