Kill the Messenger

You know J. C. Damon?”

“This is outrageous!” Madame Chen said. “You will stop this immediately!”

“Yes,” said Boo Zhu, but his smile of pride melted on his round face as he looked at Madame Chen. “Ty R bother? Yes, ma’am?”

Kyle ignored Madame Chen. “Tyler is J.C.’s brother?”

Boo Zhu looked at Madame Chen, his face mottling red as he began to worry he had done something wrong. “Yes, ma’am. Yes?”

Kyle turned to his partner. “Where’s the kid?”

“He went inside.”

“I want him out here. Now.”

The big detective started toward the office.

Tyler bolted like a rabbit. On television the cops did all kinds of things they weren’t supposed to do. Jace had always told him he couldn’t trust them. He couldn’t trust anyone but family. The life he knew depended on it.

Like a shot, he was down the hall and up the stairs. He ran like a whirlwind through the apartment, grabbed his backpack, grabbed the walkie-talkie Jace had given him.

He ran out of the apartment and up the last of the stairs, to the roof. The garden was empty. Grandfather Chen had gone to meet his cronies for their daily gossip.

Tyler crept on his belly to the edge of the roof, and looked down on the scene. The lot was empty. Only Boo Zhu remained, sitting on the edge of the loading dock, rocking himself and wailing.

Tyler felt bad for him. There was no doubt in his mind Chi had put Boo Zhu up to it, telling him everyone would be happy and proud of him if he told the policemen he knew Jace. Now Boo Zhu was upset and frightened. He wouldn’t understand why everyone hadn’t been delighted by his revelation. Or why Chi had abandoned him.

His heart pounding against his ribs like a hammer, Tyler strained to hear footsteps or voices below him, on the stairs or in the apartment. Maybe they were still looking for him downstairs. He would wait. Count to a hundred, maybe. When he could hear them getting close to the roof, he would go to the ground.

He swiped a hand across his face to brush away the tears that panic had brought to his eyes.

One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight . . .

What if he didn’t hear them coming? His pulse was pounding in his ears.

Ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five . . .

Could they hold him as a material witness? In jail?

Ninety-four, ninety-three . . .

Would they call Children and Family Services right away?

Ninety-two . . .

If they took his walkie-talkie, he wouldn’t be able to reach Jace.

Ninety-one.

If CFS took him, Jace would never be able to find him. Ever.

The tears beginning to come faster, Tyler scrambled back from the edge of the roof, ran to the other side of the building, and started down the fire escape. The iron was rusted. Some of the connections to the building were loose, the old bolts sheared off. It could hold Tyler’s weight because he was small, but it rattled and shook, and he hoped no one could hear it.

His feet moved as fast as they could. He was quick, but he was scared, and fear caused mistakes. He stubbed the thick rubber toe of his sneaker and stumbled once, grabbing at the railing as he fell, scraping his knuckles, banging his elbow, then catching hold.

The last part of the escape was a ladder pulled up a dozen feet from the ground to stop people from climbing the stairs from below. Tyler grabbed hold with both hands and tried to force it down, but he wasn’t strong enough, and it didn’t move.

Without stopping to think about the danger, he climbed like a monkey to the other side of the ladder, the ground a long way below him. He would have been scared if he’d had time to look. Hanging on above his head with both hands, he jumped up and down on the rung below him. The ladder dropped a couple of inches, a couple of inches, then shot downward to its full length so fast, it took his breath away, then stopped so abruptly that Tyler kept falling, his momentum yanking his hands away from the ladder.

He fell the last five feet and hit the ground with a thud on his backside, his breath leaving him in one big huff.

Rolling over onto his hands and knees, Tyler pushed to his feet and braced himself against the brick wall until the earth stopped tilting beneath him.

The cops had gone inside. The alley was the only way to go. If he turned to the right, he would be on the street quickly, but he didn’t trust that there wouldn’t be a police car waiting. That was the direction the black-and- white cop car had come from earlier. If he turned left, he would have to dash past the lot. If Detective Kyle had come back outside . . . or Chi . . .

He turned left and crept along the back of the building, peering carefully around when he reached the corner. The lot and the loading dock were empty except for Boo Zhu, still lost in his misery. Tyler took three deep breaths and ran across the opening as fast as he could. He ducked behind the stack of wooden pallets where the other detective had found him. Detective Parker.

Tyler wondered why Kyle and Roddick had come and asked the same questions all over again. They hadn’t even known the Mini Cooper had been taken away. Maybe they weren’t real cops. Maybe they were bad guys. Maybe they had killed the guy Jace had been accused of killing.

Whoever they were, Tyler didn’t like them. Parker had seemed like a nice guy, even if he was a cop. Kyle was just what Madame Chen had called him—a bully.

Sticking against the buildings like a tick, Tyler moved down the alley to the parking lot where Parker had caught him. He retraced his route down the narrow space between the two buildings, where Parker had lost him. His backpack scraped against the sides here and there.

At the opening to the sidewalk, Tyler crouched down and looked back toward the fish market. People were walking up and down the street. No one noticed him in the narrow opening, half hidden by a chalkboard sign advertising the specials of the day at the dim sum shop.

He saw Kyle and Roddick step out onto the sidewalk, making the people flow around them like a stream around boulders. They were discussing something, arms gesticulating. Kyle pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and started a conversation with someone on the other end. Roddick planted his hands on his hips, turned and looked down the street, directly—it seemed—at Tyler.

Tyler held his breath. A thin woman with long dark hair and movie-star sunglasses was coming down the sidewalk walking a roly-poly pug dog. The dog’s bug eyes spotted Tyler and bulged even larger. His nails scraped the sidewalk as he strained at the end of his leash, barking, trying to pull his owner closer to the dim sum sign.

The woman frowned and tugged at the leash. “Orson, no!”

Roddick was still staring down the street.

Orson the Pug kept barking. Tyler tried to shush him. The thin woman spotted him then, and hopped back, startled. Tyler stared up at her with imploring eyes and a finger pressed to his lips.

Roddick took a couple of steps, then Kyle said something and stuck the phone back in the pocket of his suit coat. They went to a car parked in front of a fire hydrant and got in.

The woman with Orson the Pug dismissed Tyler as unimportant, and kept walking. Orson tried to linger, but had to give in to the leash and move on. The detectives pulled into traffic and drove past without looking.

Tyler let his breath out in one big puff. His head swam and big spots swirled before his eyes. He leaned sideways against the building to his right and wondered how long it would take for his heart to stop going a hundred miles an hour.

He pulled his backpack off and dug around in the front pocket for the walkie-talkie.

“Scout to Ranger. Scout to Ranger. Do you read me?”

Nothing.

“Scout to Ranger. Are you out there, Ranger?”

Silence.

Tyler pressed the radio against his cheek and closed his eyes. The rush of urgency and excitement had