Banished

or for Rattler or for any of the other threats I’d never thought to worry about, threats that until a few days ago hadn’t existed for me, but that had changed the course of my life.

I’d argue with Prairie if I needed to. I wasn’t going to let this drop. She had saved me from Bryce and Gram and Rattler, and I was grateful. But she couldn’t leave us now. I wouldn’t let her.

I didn’t have any other choice.

“All right,” she finally said, and I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “You can come with me to Penny’s. But after that, when we get to the lab, I go in alone.”

I wasn’t going to argue that-yet. One step at a time.

She wanted to wait until dark to make the trip to her neighbor’s house, so we spent the afternoon in a park. Chub played on the swings and the slides and dug holes and tunnels in a sandbox with a plastic shovel someone had left behind. I tried to interest Rascal in chasing a stick, but he just walked beside me and sat whenever I stood still. Late in the afternoon Prairie drove us north of the city to Evanston, the suburb where her apartment and the lab were. She parked near the lake and we walked out on a strip of land from which we could see Chicago to the south, the setting sun glancing off the windows of all the high-rise buildings, making it look like a city made from gold and mirrors. Chub was more interested in throwing rocks off the pier than at looking at the city, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the skyline and the sun sinking toward the inky blue of the lake.

At last it was nearly dark. Prairie drove around for a while before choosing a parking spot on a quiet side street, near an alley. Cars were jammed in tight on both sides of the street, but a red Acura pulled out just as we were cruising past. It took several minutes of careful maneuvering to get the Ellises’ big car into the spot, but when Prairie finally shut off the ignition, she seemed satisfied.

“I wish we had a leash for Rascal,” Prairie said.

“He’ll stay close. He won’t run off.”

“Yes, but there are leash laws here. Well, we’ll just make do. When we get to Penny’s house he can come inside. She loves dogs.”

We started walking and entered a residential area. Prairie set a quick pace, cutting across a wide street and into an alley that ran behind a row of houses. We made our way down a few blocks, hurrying across when we came to an intersection. I tripped over a hose that had been left coiled behind a garage. We had to hush Chub several times; he was tired from skipping his nap and stumbled along half awake, rubbing his eyes and mumbling.

Prairie put her hand on my arm and pointed at a small, shingled coach house set back from a bigger house that fronted the street. I squeezed Chub’s hand and he leaned against me, his face pressed into my legs. He was so exhausted that he started to cry silently, small sobs muffled by my jeans. We had stopped under the low-hanging branches of an elm that was leafing out for spring, and I hoped we were hidden from anyone who happened to look out their bedroom window.

“Is this Penny’s place?” I whispered.

“Yes. I don’t want to knock because she’ll turn on the porch light, but she won’t mind me letting myself in. We have an arrangement. We water each other’s plants when we travel, that kind of thing.”

Prairie didn’t look as confident as she sounded. She dug for the keys she’d pocketed in the Wendy’s bathroom.

I picked Chub up as she turned the key in the lock. He stiffened in my arms and I hushed him, holding his body tighter. I realized only after I heard the gentle click of the door opening that I had been holding my breath, waiting for-what? A gunshot?

Back in Gypsum, I was always on edge-I never knew what I’d come home to, who I’d find slumped at the kitchen table. But this was different. The things I worried about in Gypsum all seemed kind of stupid now-kids making fun of me, or Gram being in a bad mood, or Dun Acey trying to grab my butt when I walked past him.

“I guess she went to bed early,” Prairie said as she stepped aside to let me into the dark foyer of the coach house, Rascal following.

She slid her hand along the wall. I could barely make out its outline in the moonlight coming through the door. There was another soft click as Prairie’s fingertips found the light switch, and the room was illuminated by the soft light of a lamp on a low table.

A few feet in front of us, an elderly woman in a pink quilted housecoat sat in an overstuffed chair, her feet out in front of her at an odd angle, one of her satin slippers upside down on the wood floor.

For a second I thought she’d fallen asleep. Then I noticed a dark stain that ran down her neck and into the folds of her housecoat, and when I took half a step closer, the reason became clear.

Her skull had been bashed in.

CHAPTER 18

PRAIRIE MADE A SOUND next to me, a cut-off little cry. I pushed Chub’s face hard against my shoulder, shielding him from the sight of the dead woman. When he’d been crying moments earlier-he’d known that something bad waited inside.

I saw that bits of shattered white skull showed through the woman’s ruined scalp and blood-matted hair, and I took a step back. My foot hit something on the floor and I tripped, nearly dropping Chub. Instead, I staggered sideways and managed to stay on my feet. I looked down to see what I’d tripped over: a skillet, an old black one with a wooden handle.

“Welcome home,” came a deep, rough voice. Another lamp switched on and I could see a man sprawled lazily on a floral-print couch, one arm slung along the plump cushions, the other hand dangling a handgun.

It was Rattler Sikes.

A purple bruise showed through the stubble on his jaw, but otherwise he looked none the worse for wear. My heart sank. All our efforts to throw him off-they hadn’t worked. Had he seen every move we’d made?

As if reading my thoughts, he chuckled softly. “Bet you’re surprised to see me. You really thought you could get me off your trail with that wild-goose chase? You must of forgot I ain’t got any quit in me.”

“Rattler,” Prairie said, her voice choked with fury. “What have you done?”

“Before you go lookin’ around for something you can throw at me, Pray-ree, you might ought to consider I got a gun and you got a little boy with you ain’t done anything to anyone.” The way Rattler said her name, it was like he was mocking her with it. “And I got a itchy finger, so’s if you so much as make me nervous, why, I’m liable to go twitchin’, and I know none of us wants that, right?”

“You’ll have to shoot me first.” I turned so my body was between Rattler and Chub.

“Hold up, there,” Rattler said. “I ain’t shootin’ nobody just yet. Don’t you want to know how I came to meet your friend here, Pray-ree? She weren’t any too hospitable, though, I gotta say.”

“How could you-”

“She saw me knockin’ on your door, and come over wearin’ garden gloves and waving her pruning shears and askin’ me all kinda nosy questions. Liked to have pruned me to death, way she was lookin’ at me. And I got to thinkin’, maybe I’d just wait for you from her house here. Nice window I could look out of, make sure I saw when you got home. And now look, it must be my lucky day, ’cause you gone and come to me.”

“She never hurt anyone-”

“Hey, all’s I asked her to do was leave me be and set quietly in this here chair while we waited on you all. I wasn’t fixin’ to kill her or nothin’. Then I tell her to git me some tea and she come back with a skillet and she’s ready to haul off and hit me on the head with it, only she didn’t move quick enough. Guess that didn’t work out too well for her, now, did it?”

I thought about how frightened the woman must have been when Rattler forced his way into her home. His grip on the gun looked sloppy, but I knew better. He could hit a can on top of the trash in the burn barrel in Gram’s backyard while standing in the middle of the field next door. I’d watched out my bedroom window one summer twilight as he and a few of Gram’s customers took turns shooting. The other guys hit the barrel or missed entirely, but Rattler nailed the can every time.

Now he was staring at Prairie with an intensity you could light fires with. And she stared back. There was something between them, all right, something crackling with tension and danger, something almost… alive.