“I hadn’t talked him down from anything,” I said. “I had the impression that he was planning a suicide by cop.”
“That’s better. Much better than a smart mouth. I didn’t much care for your remark about shooting Harlan again. I didn’t like having to shoot him.”
I remembered the way he’d smiled at Harlan’s bleeding body and knew he was lying. “Sorry about that,” I told him. “I was all worked up with adrenaline.”
He smiled that same smile. “Fine,” he said. “That’s just fine.”
He asked where I was from and why I was in town, but he seemed distracted and his questions were careless. I managed to avoid saying that I’d been in jail that morning. He didn’t seem to care about me, now that I’d apologized.
I watched the ambulance drive away. “Where are they taking him?”
The cop eyeballed me, as if trying to decide whether answering my question would undermine his authority.
“County hospital,” he said. “You planning to visit?”
“Yep. I’m a Good Samaritan.”
“Fine. That’s fine.” A brown, rusted Dodge Dart parked at the intersection, a little too close to the police car already there. A fourth cop, this one tall and slender, moved out of the shadows to intercept the driver. As he stepped into the light, I saw bright red hair on the top of his head.
“That’s our local paperboy,” the cop said. “You better go now if you don’t want to be here all night answering his questions. But stay in Hammer Bay for a couple days, understand?”
“I intend to.”
Annalise stood on the sidewalk a few yards away, the broken windows of the diner behind her. Her eyes were hooded and her face expressionless.
As I approached her, the cook stepped up to me. “You cost me a door,” he said. “Harlan busted my glass door because you wanted to be a hero. What if one of my customers had been shot, huh? What then?”
“Don’t you pay any attention to him,” the waitress said. “Anytime you want, you come back and have another burger. On me.”
The cook turned on her. “What about my window?”
She told him that’s what insurance was for, and the cook grumbled that all the different kinds of insurance in this town were going to put him in the gutter.
I edged away from them and stepped up to Annalise. I could feel the ghost knife on her somewhere. Good. I didn’t want it to fall into just anyone’s hands, and I didn’t want to stick around here any longer.
She held out her hand. “Keys,” she said. “You’re not driving my van until you wash your hands.”
I hesitated, hoping she would offer me the ghost knife. She didn’t. I could feel that it was nearby, probably right in her pocket. I wondered how long she was going to keep it, because I sure couldn’t take it from her. I dug the keys from my pocket and gave them to her.
There was a change in the noise behind me. I turned back toward the crime scene.
New people had arrived, and Emmett Dubois was speaking with them. They were four men: one was very tall, very lean, and somewhere in his late fifties; beside him was a younger man, also tall, also lean, with a thick head of dark hair. Another was a short man with a shaved head, and the last was a fat man with long, graying hair. Dubois’s body language had altered. He didn’t look imposing. I only caught a glimpse of them before they moved out of view behind a parked van.
Then I felt a twinge under my right collarbone. There was no wave of force this time, but I knew what that twinge meant. Another kid had caught fire somewhere.
One of the men talking to Emmett Dubois fell to the ground and flailed around. My view was partly blocked by the wheels and fender of the van, but I could see he was having a seizure. It was the tall young one with the dark hair.
Dubois bent down to him. “Medic!” he shouted, his voice worried.
“Let’s go,” Annalise said.
“Look,” I told her. “At the same time that I felt the-“
“I know. Let’s move.”
She dragged me toward the van and drove away from the scene. I glanced back and saw the little reporter trying to climb back into the Dart. The officer was blocking his way.
“Well?” Annalise said as we pulled into the street. There was very little traffic. Men walked down the street, guns in their hands. They didn’t look like citizens protecting their own. They swaggered and looked bored.
I told Annalise what I’d learned from Harlan. I mentioned that he had a black mark on the floor of his home, too. Annalise asked a lot of questions I couldn’t answer, like where he lived and how old his kids had been. She didn’t like that I hadn’t gotten those answers, and his punctured lung wasn’t a good enough excuse.
I knew she was just riding me, so I let it pass. I was too tired to be angry anyway.
I said: “Sorry I didn’t get killed.”
“There’s always next time,” she said.
CHAPTER FOUR
Annalise drove around until we found a motel. She had to circle the block twice before she turned down the
