Craig blinked. “That was a lot of questions in a very short span of time.”
“Well, I’m waiting for answers.” I tapped my foot.
“You’re on edge tonight.” He leaned against the wall, as if his artful casualness would underline my own tension. The attitude snapped my already-tenuous hold on rationality.
I stepped forward and poked him in the shoulder. “You’re damn right I’m on edge,” I said. I poked him again. “I got kicked out of the running for a grant I really wanted, my landlord made me close my store, I got arrested, a kid I loved died, and two of my friends have been accused of his murder.” I emphasized each of my accusations with another poke, and he just stood there, looking bemused. My voice raised into a near-shriek. “Of course I’m ‘on edge.’ Hell, you should be more on edge—someone threatened your fiancée, and your freaking assistant got arrested. Why are you so—damn—cool about it all?”
I stopped, panting.
Craig lifted his arm and caught my poking hand in his fist. He forced my arm down slowly. “Easy there, tiger,” he said. “You’re dangerous with that thing.”
“Shut up with your jokes!” I shouted. “Just—answer me!”
“Why am I so cool?” he asked. He tilted his head, pretending to think. “I learned from the best, I guess. Some girl I know taught me all about it when we were kids.”
I deflated. “Ha, ha, ha.”
“Do you feel better now?”
I nodded. “A little.”
“Okay. So. Questions. Answers. I don’t think Donald and Meghan fixed the grant competition, but I do know they’re up to something. I know that Donald’s having trouble with this building’s finances, but I don’t think he’s as broke as you seem to think he is. And I have no idea where he is.”
“What do you mean, Donald and Meghan are ‘up to something’?”
“Exactly that—they have some plan, either for Meghan’s store or for the grant money or for the building. They’ve been meeting a lot, talking on the phone. Meghan’s my fiancée, after all—I know who she’s been talking to, even if I don’t know what she’s been saying.” He paused, studying my face like a book. “And I do know she didn’t murder anyone, Autumn.”
“You don’t know,” I said. “You left that night.”
“I do know. Meghan does not have it in her to kill someone. She’s a good person even if you can’t see it.”
“Oh, sure, real good. Steals other girls’ boyfriends, fixes a high-stakes grant contest, calls the cops after a little harmless trespassing—”
“Are you listening to yourself? You’re acting like a crazy person.”
“I am not crazy. Craig, Wes is dead. There’s no undoing that. And someone is threatening me, and someone is threatening your fiancée—” I broke off, shaking my head. “This isn’t over.”
“What do you mean, someone is threatening you?”
I held out my hand, the crumpled Spellcasters card sweaty and slick in my fist. Craig took it, frowning. “What is this?”
“I keep finding them. In the store, around the store. At first, I thought they were a remembrance for Wes, but they keep happening. Nick and Paige can’t be doing it. And why would they threaten me, anyway?”
“Do the cops know about this?”
“Yes. They think I’m making it up.” I laughed bitterly.
“Why?” Craig looked angry on my behalf, his hazel eyes sparking. Jordan wondered why I let Craig remain in my life: this was why. We had been and were still, after everything, friends. He cared about me. We had a history, a story we’d written together, and there was no undoing that. He had hurt me, yes, and he could be insensitive, but we were so much more than just a few months of pain.
“Because of the vandalism at Meghan’s, and because I don’t want to believe Paige and Nick killed Wes. They think I’m trying to interfere with their investigation.”
“But Jordan is helping you, right?”
“No. Well, she was. But she can’t anymore.”
“Oh man. I’m sorry Autumn. It’s got to be serious if she’s not helping you.”
“Yeah. Well.” I rubbed my forehead with the back of one hand. “This whole week has been pretty ‘serious.’”
“I think you should take off.”
“What?” I took a step back and leaned against the metal railing. “What do you mean?”
“Take off—take a break, take some time. Or, better, just go—close up. You’re already closed. Go stay with your mom in Madison. Open a new store there. Start over, try again. You don’t need this little town, anyway. You never did.”
“You’re seriously telling me to uproot my life, move away, start over again—you’re telling me this in a stairwell?”
“Does the location matter?” Craig took a step toward me. “Come on. Think about it. You never liked it here, always said you wanted to go somewhere else, do something else.” He took me by the shoulders and shook me a little.
“Yeah, when I was like seventeen.” I shrugged off his hands and pressed myself against the railing. “I’m a grown-up now, Craig. I like my life.”
“You’re not happy.”
“This week is not a very good gauge of my day-to-day happiness.” I sighed. “No. Tempting as it is, as it always has been, running away is not an option. This will pass, whatever happens. The store won’t be closed forever. I may have to move, but I won’t shut down permanently.”
Craig took a step back. He half-smiled at me, an odd little expression I couldn’t read. “I guess you know what’s best for you. I think you could be happier, though.”
“Maybe so. Maybe not, though.” I straightened my shoulders. “So why did you want to talk to me?”
“What?” Craig blinked.
“You were coming downstairs.”
“Oh. Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about all this—ask you to ease up on Meghan, you know.” He paused, looking like he was going to say something serious. He opened his mouth, and suddenly I didn’t want to hear what was next.
As if I’d conjured them just to silence my ex, the fire alarms started blaring, the little lights in them flashing a blazing, brilliant white. The stairwell suddenly had the atmosphere of a rave, deafening us, the strobe-like lights distorting my vision. My hands went to my ears. “What the hell?”
Craig leaned toward me. “What?”
“I said, what the—” I broke off, shaking my head, and pointed at the door. “Come on—there’s an exit on this floor.”
Craig pushed the door open, and we entered the main lobby. The lighting was more tempered here, though the alarms still blared, and the flashing lights cast shadows that leapt across the floor and disappeared, creating random, dizzying patterns. There was no smoke, no evidence of fire, but no one occupied the lobby. Max’s security desk stood empty.
A woman screamed down the hallway.
“Meghan!” Craig cried. He took off at a run.
Against my better judgment, I dashed after him. I couldn’t see or smell a fire, but still, he might need help. I rounded the corner and saw a gush of white smoke pouring from the door of Chic. Craig stood at its outskirts, coughing and waving his hand in front of his face. The smoke had a chemical smell and billowed without a clear source. Distantly I heard sirens, but I still hadn’t noticed any flames.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“I don’t know—it’s not hot. I don’t think there’s a fire. Meghan’s in there!” He made for the door, but I caught his arm.
“Wait!” I said. “I hear the fire engines.”
A figure appeared in the smoke. I took an involuntary step back, frightened, but the man approached, and I saw that it was just Donald entering from the street door at the other end of the building. His face was gray. “I don’t see any flames,” he said. “Why are you two here?”
“We need to get out of here!” Max, the security guard, had arrived. He panted as he approached, a hand pressed to his
side.
A crowd of the other storeowners was forming behind us. Some of them were heading for the door, but others were making their way toward us, curious or frightened.
“Meghan is in there!” Craig said again. He shook me off his arm and plunged into the smoke.
“Wait!” Max cried, hoarse.
“Craig!” I shouted. The door closed, wafting some of the smoke toward us so that I was able to catch a glimpse into the store. I still didn’t see any fire.
I swore and followed him in.
The smoke parted around me, thinner than it looked from the hallway. I groped my way through it to the door. My eyes burned as I patted the door itself gingerly, then poked at the handle with one fingertip. It was cool—if there was a fire, it wasn’t burning anywhere near me. I pulled the door open and stepped into the store.
Smoke hung in clouds inside, and the place reeked of sulfur, but there were still no flames. The smoke seemed like something on a movie set, rising in tendrils and clouds from the ground itself. It dispersed, fog-like, along the ceiling, but nothing stirred it.
I saw as I approached that the source was smoke bombs: one of them smoldered on the floor a few feet away, thick white smoke rising from it like steam from a volcano, foul and chemical scented.
“Craig?” I called.
I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me. I coughed, waving my hand in front of my face. The smoke was thickest ahead of me, near the office. A mannequin stood beside me, eerie and headless. I shouted again, not keen on venturing into the depths of the store blind. Even if there was no fire, the person who had dropped the smoke bombs could still be here, waiting to hurt me or whoever went looking for Meghan.
“Autumn?” Craig’s voice came through the smoke. “Are you there?”
“Yes—where are you?”
The sprinklers came on and I shrieked as cold, stale water sprayed down from the ceiling. I heard Craig shout wordlessly, too, as the water hit him.
“In the office,” he called. “You can come back. It’s safe. I’ll need help.”
I darted toward the office, flailing my arms in front of me like a Muppet to keep from running into anything. Water dripped down my body, chilling me, and my sneakers squelched on the carpet. I found my way back, though, and pushed through the door.
Craig knelt on the floor over Meghan’s prone form. I paused, stunned at the difference from the scene I’d witnessed earlier. Sprinklers sprayed everywhere, and the office was in shambles. The desk was soaked, and I could smell hot electronics. Steam rose from the computer. I saw a smoke bomb on the desk, still glowing even though spray from the ceiling fell all around it.
“Autumn,” Craig said.
I shook myself and squatted beside him. “What do you need me to do?”
“I’ll have to carry her. I think she’s hurt—it looks like someone hit her. I just need you to lead me.”
I could see the whites of his eyes, but his voice was calm. His arms were steady as he gathered Meghan up.
I nodded. “Okay.”
Once he’d straightened, Meghan limp as a Beanie Baby in his arms, I held open the office door for him to slide through. He stopped once he had made his way out and waited for me to maneuver my way ahead of him. I lumbered on, guiding him, still waving my arms ahead of my body to make sure neither of us ran into anything on our way to safety. I banged my shin once on a low table that held expensive folded—now ruined—shirts, but Craig dodged it with ease.
Max was waiting for us at the mouth of Chic. We spilled into the hallway, coughing, and a solicitous crowd milled around Craig as he strode toward the lobby. I followed, solicitous hands guiding me toward clearer air. The fire department arrived just as we opened the front doors, and an ambulance pulled up to the curb. I watched, dazed, as uniformed paramedics swarmed Craig and Meghan. They produced a stretcher, took Meghan from Craig’s arms, and laid her on the stretcher with expert hands. She started coughing, and one of the paramedics stepped forward with an oxygen mask.
“Are you all right?” someone asked.
I turned. A fireman stood beside me, looming large in his uniform. I nodded, though my throat burned, and my eyes stung from the smoke. My clothes were damp, and I felt like I’d been through a garbage masher. But I was fine—I was whole, unharmed. I hadn’t confronted Meghan, but it seemed suddenly clear that she wasn’t the killer. The paramedics were rushing around her stretcher, strapping things to her and peering into her eyes, and Craig held one of her hands while she looked up at him.
I’d been wrong.
I let one of the paramedics wrap a woolly blanket around me and push me to a seated position on the curb. She shined a light into my eyes and told me to take a deep breath, checking for some sort of smoke damage, I assumed. I waved her off irritably, not in the mood to be dragged to yet another tiny institutional room and asked questions I couldn’t answer.
The paramedic fussed at me, saying that if I refused medical attention, I’d have to sign a form. I gave her my very best basilisk glare, then turned away, wanting to stew alone.
A crowd had formed around the building’s entrance. Firemen rushed in and out the front doors, but no one carried hoses or buckets—there was, as I’d thought, no actual fire. Donald stood, stunned, beside a uniformed police officer, who appeared to be asking him questions. His sweater vest was dirty and his khaki pants smudged. I frowned at him. Why was he so dirty? And where had he come from? Max lurked at his shoulder, nodding to the police.
The paramedics and fire crew milled around me looking for other problems to solve. No one interrogated me—apparently I wasn’t being accused of this particular act of vandalism. Someone pressed a bottle of water into my hand—I didn’t see who—and I realized, dimly, that I must be experiencing shock or the aftereffects of adrenaline. The crowd, the smoke, the world all seemed very far away. I saw Meghan and Craig in sharp focus, though. The paramedics lifted Meghan’s stretcher into the ambulance. Craig climbed in after her.
It couldn’t have been her. She had been attacked, knocked out—she had a bloody wound on her forehead, I’d seen that much. The cops circled her, waiting to pounce, and I knew they would be reeling at this sudden act of violence. I was grateful that I’d been with Craig, though I wished someone else had seen us. There was no way he or I had done this, though, and if I’d needed any further proof that Meghan wasn’t guilty of the vandalism, at least I had it now. I couldn’t accuse her of attacking herself.
But Donald had been there. He could have been behind all of it—the Spellcasters card, which Craig still had, the petty vandalism with the dolls, the attack on Meghan, Wes’s death, everything. It didn’t make sense, though. I would have thought he had no insight into game or geek culture, didn’t even know a game called Spellcasters existed. But he had motive and means. Maybe he was the one doing everything. I shivered and pulled the edges of the impersonal gray paramedic’s blanket tighter around my shoulders.
I wished, desperately, that Nick and Paige had not already been arraigned. If they’d still been in police custody when this happened, maybe we could have settled it, finally and for good. I hoped they had an ironclad alibi for today’s vandalism—and I hoped it had nothing to do with me or anyone else I knew. I was running out of energy for worrying about them, when it seemed I needed to be worried about my own safety, and the safety of the building itself. Someone bumped into me, jogging down the sidewalk behind me, and that seemed to emphasize the point: things were happening, and it had something to do with Independence Square Mall. And whoever was behind it would hurt anyone standing in their way.
I scooched myself closer to the street, trying to make myself smaller.
That’s when I spotted Cody in the crowd, lurking near Max. He was watching me, his eyes dark, his shaved head shining under the lights. No one else seemed to see him—he looked like just one of the many rubberneckers who had stopped to see what the fuss on the square was. Neither Max nor Donald ack
nowledged him, and the policeman just kept talking to Donald, oblivious.
My stomach turned over, and I turned to the paramedic nearest me. “Maybe I do need medical attention after all.”
18
I DIDN’T GO TO the hospital. The paramedics cleaned me up at the scene and sent me on my way, telling me to take aspirin if I felt any soreness, drink a lot of water to hydrate my lungs, and call my physician if I felt light-headed or disoriented.
Something told me my physician wouldn’t be able to help with the kind of disorientation I felt now.
I sat at home, alone, as the clock ticked steadily on into the night, wondering if I should be alone. The vandal had targeted Meghan specifically, and that frightened me. She hadn’t dropped the smoke bombs herself. Meghan might be willing to put on a show to win herself some pity, but she would never do anything to undercut her store’s business—or permanently mar her pretty face. She was a horrible human being, sure, but she was also a good businesswoman. We had that in common.
It had to be about the building.
While I wanted to believe the grant was the connection, there didn’t seem to be any involvement beyond Meghan and me. I’d looked it up: there had been no news about the other contestants applying for the grant, no reports of vandalism, no violence, no nothing.
Meghan was a target. I was a target. Wesley had died.
Cody was there, Donald was there, Craig was there. I didn’t think it could be Craig, because I had seen his reaction to the attack on Meghan, and he had been with me the whole time. That left Donald and Cody—and while I could believe Cody would hurt Wes, I didn’t think he would kill him, certainly not over a game. And that didn’t explain why he would attack Meghan, unless he meant to cover his tracks. Maybe it was an elaborate set-up for Nick and Paige.
Or maybe, the cops were right, and Nick and Paige had killed Wes and that was the end of the story. I wondered if they’d been taken back into custody.
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