The man blinked. “But those moms didn’t carry those cars over ten blocks.”
Cheyenne wrinkled her nose at the man. “Neither did I.”
Rawley grinned. “She’s got a point, man.”
McMathers rolled his eyes. “Then what about the timing?”
“I don’t know how long it took me to get Ember to the ER if that’s what you wanna know. I wasn’t paying attention to the time, either. I guess both of us were lucky I got her here in time.”
“Yeah. Lucky.”
Rawley shot her partner another of those looks, then shook her head and caught Cheyenne’s gaze. “Did you see anyone else in the park besides the people involved in the argument and the shooting? Maybe somebody stayed behind or showed up for a better look when you did?”
That’s right. Now they’re trying to explain the chunks blown out of the cement skatepark and the chain-link fence that got ripped up like a piece of toilet paper.
Cheyenne shook her head. “No.”
“Think about it,” Rawley added. “Anything you can remember from that night that might help us find the people who did this to your friend?”
The halfling pretended to give it a moment of consideration. “No, sorry. I remember everyone running away after the gunshots. I thought it was weird nobody stopped to check on the person who went down.”
“And that person happened to be your friend.”
Cheyenne glared at McMathers. Now he’s being a douche. “Yeah. My friend got shot and might not ever walk again. But at least she’s still alive. So like I said, we both got lucky.”
“You sure did.”
Rawley nudged her partner’s arm with the back of her hand, then nodded at Cheyenne and looked both grateful and sympathetic. “Thank you, Miss Summerlin. We appreciate you taking a minute to talk to us. If you end up thinking of anything else, if it seems like the most mundane detail, give me a call.”
The woman pulled a business card from her jacket and handed it to Cheyenne. The halfling took a quick glance at it—Michelle Rawley, Richmond Police Department—and tucked it in her pocket. “Okay.”
“Okay.” McMathers squinted at Cheyenne, and Rawley all but rolled her eyes.
“Have a good night.” With a nod, Rawley stepped past Cheyenne down the hallway, followed by her reluctant and suspicious partner.
He can be as suspicious as he wants. No humans-only police department is gonna be able to solve any kind of case with people and powers they don’t know exist.
She waited for the officers to turn the corner past the nurses’ station, then slipped back inside Ember’s room. “Man, they’re taking thorough questioning to a whole new…”
Ember was asleep, the head of the bed still raised to support her. The pizza rolls were gone.
With a little smile, Cheyenne crossed the room and grabbed the Gladware. She plugged Ember’s phone into the wall beneath the window and took the tote bag of her friend’s clothes to the desk on the opposite side of the room, then searched around the hospital bed until she found the button to lower it until it laid flat. After studying Ember’s sleeping face, which had foregone peaceful and went straight for knocked-the-hell-out, the half-drow gave her friend’s hand a gentle pat. “See you tomorrow, Em.”
No one stopped the drow halfling on her way out of the Medical Center. When Cheyenne got halfway to her car, she detected the prickling sensation of someone’s eyes on her.
You’d think if I went missing for five days, whoever was following me would’ve given up by now.
It crossed her mind it might have been Sir sending one of his FRoE operatives to watch her, but she batted that thought away. They agreed to their end of the deal. And my conditions didn’t include no tracking devices in that stupid burner phone, but they don’t know I already took care of that. They’ll know when they call me.
They hadn’t called her. Yet.
The eyes on her brought an all-too-familiar feeling. Cheyenne didn’t slow down until she got to her car and unlocked the driver’s side door. She took the time to glance around the parking garage before getting in. The sun had almost set, but in the not-quite-twilight, nothing moved. Nobody was walking around, and the garage was mostly empty after visiting hours. The minute she opened the door and slipped into her car, the feeling of being watched faded.
I’ll find out soon why you’re following me, whoever you are. Trust me.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Cheyenne slept well for having spent five days asleep in the FRoE compound chained to a hospital bed. When her alarm went off at 6:30 a.m., she got straight up.
Before heading to her first class of the day with the joyless, monotonously droning Professor Hersh, she took a peek at the Borderlands forum and the new topic she’d put up the night before. It had taken her a little while to gather her thoughts after coming home from the medical center, but she’d settled on a topic title that left pretty much zero room for misinterpretation.
Topic #1763 by OP ShyHand71: I’m looking for Durg.
And the first comment under the title, of course, only had the critical info that needed to be gotten across.
ShyHand71: Any information is helpful. Willing to negotiate for information. PM me if you want to work something out.
Nobody had left her a comment yet, but she’d made the first move, and it was a pretty bold one.
“Maybe gu@rdi@n104 will have something to say.” She exited the Borderlands forum. “Doesn’t he always?”
After straightening her High Voltage Raven Black-dyed hair and letting it fall flat on either side of her face—mostly habit at this point since she’d spent the last fifteen years hiding her slightly pointy ears, she decided to grab a breakfast burrito from the gas station a block away from her apartment complex before hitting the road. Cheyenne strolled into the convenience store.
Looks like the owner cleaned the place up since last time I was here. Granted, it needed a serious cleanup because I was here.
Evidence of the
