Olive and I get along about as well as any sisters would, for the most part, but it’s no secret she blames me for Mom leaving.
She’s not wrong.
Olive turns to my grandfather. “Can we go?”
“Of course.” He wipes the flour from his hands with a dish towel. As they’re about to leave, he turns to me with pretend sternness. “Allow those cookies to cool before gorging, please.”
I give him a salute. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll get that license plate for you this evening.” The look in his eyes is gentle, and a little sad. He doesn’t really know how to feel about the Mom stuff, either.
“Thanks.”
Later, after my grandfather has plied me with more tacos than I should reasonably be able to fit inside me, I call in the Garcy tip. The cops aren’t particularly thrilled to hear from me—we don’t have the best working relationship—but Gramps cashed in a favor with the Department of Transportation and got me the tollbooth photos of Garcy entering the area, his face and license plate number clear as day. Hard for the police to ignore me when I hand them a perp on that kind of silver platter.
In the state of New York, you must be at least twenty-five years of age and have a minimum of three years’ relevant experience to apply for a private investigator’s license. Needless to say, I fall short on both of the requirements.
The cops pretend that I’m some dumb kid who barely stays out of their way. I play along because it protects their delicate egos and keeps them occupied while I do my job.
Because it is a job. Garcy was a special case—I found him in an article about how the NYPD finally tested thousands of rape kits they’d held in storage for years—but most of the time I work for hire, and I get paid. All under the table, of course, and if the IRS ever calls, Cass and I are simply running a very lucrative babysitting business.
I pull up all of Penn’s and Damian’s social media accounts and start combing through them. The two of them are part of that crowd that hangs out in the art studio during their free periods, so most of their pictures are of their work. Half of Damian’s feed is taken up by progress shots of a giant white snake sculpture. There are no obvious signs of distress, but one thing sticks out to me right away: up until about three weeks ago, both Penn and Damian commented on every single one of each other’s posts. And then nothing.
I hesitate, then pull up Ava’s profile. I haven’t let myself look at this in a long time, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong and Ava was too afraid to talk.
Not much has changed on her feed. Lots of pictures of her and her friends, laughing and goofing off. A screenshot of a bell hooks quote. A dark, grainy video of her playing her bass in her bedroom.
I scroll down farther. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself.
There: last July. One picture, the only proof that the two of us were ever anything. A selfie she insisted we take. We’re lying on our backs, our cheeks pressed together. I’m flushed with giddy embarrassment. Ava’s smile is as dopey and glittering as mine. No hint that a month later she would refuse to speak to me, let alone be in the same room. If you look closely, you can see the floral print of my pillowcase under her head.
My phone vibrates. Ava McQueen’s name lights up my screen.
There’s a flutter of fear and pleasure in the no-man’s-land below my belly button. Does she know I was looking at her, somehow? Does she want to talk to me?
But she had that look on her face earlier. That dark look.
“Hello?”
“Flora?” Ava whispers. “I need your help.”
I haul myself off the bed. “What’s wrong?”
There’s a hitch in Ava’s breathing, like she’s running. I close my eyes and press the phone against my ear. I can’t make out any background noise. Rustling. Maybe the wind?
“Ava, are you there?” My voice comes out too loud.
“Come. Okay? I’ll text you the address.” Her voice is ragged with terror.
“Okay. I’ll come. I promise. But—”
The call disconnects.
Each of my heartbeats comes faster than the last. My room is too warm, too small. I push my hair behind my ears and count to five. I need control.
I grab my coat and backpack off the hook on my door. Should I call Cass? Her parents probably won’t notice or care if she takes her car out in the middle of the night. Plus, Ava and I haven’t really been alone together, not since… Well, the coward part of me wouldn’t mind a buffer.
The phone vibrates again in my hand. A text from Ava:
Intersection of Fourth and Mason in Whitley. Come fast.
I can’t be thinking about my failed love life when Ava obviously needs help. I have to face this one on my own.
I open my window and pop off the screen. March air rushes in, cold on my clammy cheeks. I climb out the window and into the night.
I ride my bike to meet Ava. I can drive, and Gramps is cool about letting me take the car as long as I explain where I’m going, but I don’t have time for that right now.
There’s a nasty crunch in my stomach, like my gut is eating itself with nerves.
Maybe it’s fine. Maybe it’s nothing.
I pedal harder. It’s like those dreams where you move your legs faster and faster, but they’re just rubbery noodles that get you nowhere.
The night is too cold for clouds. The wind claws my face, and my fingers are numb on the handlebars, but sweat trickles down my back from all the pedaling.
It’s about a thirty-minute bike ride from my house in Hartsdale—one of those cookie-cutter suburbs where everyone knows each other’s secrets—to Whitley, the city next door. This late at night, the streets are mostly deserted. I ride by warehouses and run-down storefronts. Past cars that have been parked in the same spot for decades, their tires sagged with defeat, no longer waiting for their owners to come back.
I try to concentrate on the movement of my body pushing me forward, but my mind keeps drifting to other stuff. Stuff I shouldn’t be thinking about.
Ava and I almost dated. Or maybe we did, but it fell apart so quickly I didn’t even have time to realize we were dating. I had liked her for ages, since I met her in that class freshman year, and we even kissed once, but all my crap baggage kept us from actually getting together. And then last year, right before school let out for the summer, I helped Ava’s friend on a case. Ava and I started talking again, and before I knew it we were making out in the photo lab darkroom.
All through last summer, Ava would come over to my house, and we’d curl up on my bed and kiss and kiss until both of us were about ready to burst into flames. But I didn’t know if she was officially my girlfriend, and I was too awkward to know how to ask. Then I went to visit my mom in Germany for three weeks. When I got back, Ava wouldn’t answer any of my texts. She’s been avoiding me ever since.
Gunshots crack through the night—three of them—and I nearly fall off my bike. I grip the handlebars tighter, but they’re slick with sweat.
A few blocks away from Ava’s intersection, I hop off my bike and prop it against a wall. I don’t want to screw around with a bike lock if I need to make a run for it.
I go the rest of the way on foot. Where Hartsdale is all trees and fancy Colonial houses, Whitley is nothing but high-rise apartments, metal, and pavement. The smell of exhaust, trash left out on the street, and old coins. My footsteps are multiplied as they echo off all the concrete. I keep turning around like there’s someone behind me, but I’m alone. I’m trying to watch every direction at once. The voice in my head says I’m that girl, the one at the beginning of the horror movie.
That voice can go fuck itself.
One block away. Everything’s gone quiet. No gunshots, no footsteps. Nothing but the wind.
I arrive at Fourth and Mason. No Ava. No one at all.
“Ava?” I whisper. No answer.
“Ava?” I try again. I don’t want to shout. Icy wind rakes through the damp, sweaty hairs on the b
ack of my neck.
Across the street, there’s a rustle of blinds in one window, but when I turn, they go still. The light turns off.
Maybe she was messing with me. She’ll leap out—Boo!—and laugh while I try to act pissed off. We’ll hold hands and get hot chocolate. We’ll pick up where we left off last summer, before everything got weird.
Given my track record, this seems unlikely.
I search for signs of life up and down the street. There’s not a sound, not a flash of movement anywhere. No cars driving past. No people. My throat closes up with panic.
My eyes snag on a narrow gap between two buildings. An alleyway. As I creep closer, I reach into my backpack and pull out my Taser. The slick plastic is soothing against my sweaty palm. I grip it tighter.
I am not the girl in the horror movie. I’m not.
I grab my flashlight, too, but don’t turn it on yet.
I’m at the mouth of the alley when I hear the faintest wheeze, like a sigh of relief.
“Ava?” I pop the button on the flashlight and flood the alleyway in harsh white LED light.
Ava McQueen is sprawled on the ground. Blood trickles lazily from three bullet holes in her chest and abdomen.
I drop my flashlight. The night has become a vacuum, sucking all the air from my lungs. I scream and scream, but I can’t hear it.
This isn’t happening. Not again.
The world around me turns to jagged flashes. My vision goes black, then flares bright like a lightning strike. Each time it snags on a new, horrifying image.
Three bullet holes smolder in her shearling coat.
A blackish pool grows wider and wider beneath her.
Her eyes dart left and right.
She’s still alive.
My heart slams against the front wall of my rib cage. Everything zooms back into focus all at once, and my mouth fills with warm, syrupy saliva.
I pick up the flashlight and scramble to kneel at Ava’s side. The pool of her blood seeps into the knees of my jeans.
“Ava? Ava!” I turn her face toward me. Her eyes are open, but her pupils are deep, dark holes with no bottom. She can’t see me. I feel for a pulse. It’s there, but there’s a long pause after each beat, like the next one might not come.
“W-w-wh,” she wheezes. “Wess.”
I don’t know if she’s trying to talk, or if this is the sound of life leaving her body. Her lips part again, but nothing comes out this time. My fingers are meaty and useless as I fumble with my phone.
“911. What’s your emergency?” The operator’s voice is cool and crisp. So alien to me, kneeling on the grimy pavement slick with Ava’s blood.
“Hi, yes.” My tongue can’t get out of its own way. “I’m in the alley on the southeast side of Fourth Street between Mason and Deloit. A girl. A girl has been shot. There’s a lot of blood. She still has a pulse, but there’s a lot of blood.” I gasp for breath, and the smell of it rolls over me in a wave. It’s a smell I know. Like iron, and something else. Something rotten.
“Okay.” The woman’s tone is still calm. “An ambulance is on its way. What’s your name?”
“Flora Calhoun.” I try to balance the phone on my shoulder while I claw off my coat and sweatshirt. I lift Ava up—her heavy body lolls in my arms—and slide my sweatshirt around her waist, pulling it tight around her middle. Ava lets out a wet gurgle that makes my stomach roll. “I’m trying. I’m trying to stop the blood, but someone has to come.” I tie the sweatshirt’s sleeves as tight as I can around Ava’s chest. It won’t be enough.
“An ambulance is on its way, okay, Flora?” the operator reminds me. “Now, I need you to look around and give me some more information. Are you safe where you are?”
“I don’t know.” I press both hands to the highest bullet hole, the one above Ava’s heart, where my sweatshirt tourniquet won’t reach. The alley stretches along the backs of the buildings until it reaches Fifth Street on the other side. I see a couple of trash cans, but nothing else.
“I don’t see anyone, but I don’t know.” Ava’s blood wells up between my knuckles. I put more pressure on the wound, but the phone slips from my shoulder and clatters to the ground.
I don’t pick it up.
“Flora? Flora, are you still with me?” The operator’s faint voice calls to me from the phone speaker, but I can’t take my hands away from Ava’s chest.
Someone is on their way. An ambulance is coming.
My flashlight is still on the ground next to me. Half of Ava’s face is cast in light, and the other half in darkness. Her brown skin is gray and ashen.
“Wess,” Ava slurs again. “G-grays.” Her eyes close. They take several seconds to open again.
“Keep talking.” My voice comes out tattered and desperate. “Talk to me, please. Ava. They’re coming. They’re on their way. Please, keep talking to me.”
Her eyes lock on mine. For the first time, she can see me. She knows I’m here.
“Wes Grays.” Her voice is stronger now.
“Wes Grays,” I repeat back to her, even though I have no idea what that means. “I’m right here.”
Ava’s eyes stay fixed on mine, like she’s using all her energy to tell me how serious this is. Wes Grays. I have no idea who that is. Is it the shooter?
Ava sucks in a rattling, high-pitched breath. Her eyes widen with a look of pure terror, but they’ve lost their focus. She can’t see me anymore.
“I’ve got you,” I choke out. “I’m trying, Ava, but you have to hang on a little longer. They’re coming. I promise.”
For once, the universe listens to me. An ambulance shrills plaintively in the distance.
“Hear that?” There’s something wet on my face. Tears. “They’re going to be right here, and you’ll be okay. I promise. Stay with me.”
Ava doesn’t say anything else.
I check her pulse again. I can’t find it. My fingers leave bloody smears on her neck.
Blue and red lights create a sickening strobe on the walls of the alleyway.
“Ava, they’re here.” I paw at her neck for that drumbeat. “They made it. They’ll take care of you. Please.”
Her lips are parted. She’s still wearing the same eggplant lipstick from earlier. It’s a little faded and peeling, like lipstick always gets at the end of the day. The sheer humanness of that detail blurs my vision with fresh tears.
Footsteps behind me, but I don’t look away from Ava’s face. It is so still. Stiller than any living thing should be. The wild terror is gone from her eyes, replaced by a vacant, staring nothingness that is somehow more horrible.
The EMTs shunt me out of the way, and the world is quiet again. I still see, and hear, and feel, but it’s all muted as the EMTs crowd around Ava, as they shout instructions and questions. As they poke and prod at her body, trying to figure out what I already know.
That’s all she is now: a body.
One medic asks me a question over her shoulder. I don’t understand the words. I blink in response, and she gives up on me.
Another one of the medics grabs me, tries to ask me something. My tongue is too thick and dumb. He shines his flashlight in my eyes, then says something to the others before hustling me away, one arm around my shoulders.
I look back. Ava’s face is blocked from my view as the EMTs work, but I can see her foot. Her olive-green pants have ridden up, exposing a sliver of bare ankle above those chunky black boots. The hem of her coat is visible, the shearling lining gone sticky red.
My sweatshirt is still tied around her waist.
Out on the street, the EMT sits me on the curb while he rummages around in the ambulance. He reappears with a package, ripping it open to pull out a shiny space blanket. The strange fabric rustles against itself as he hands it to me. I stare at it. The whole world is like a jigsaw puzzle knocked to the floor. I can’t figure out where the pieces are supposed to go.
“You’re shivering,” he explains, and I realize that I am.
My swea
tshirt is still tied around her waist.
I take the blanket and unfold it around my shoulders. My blood-soaked clothes are sticky and cold where they brush against my skin.
“Are you injured?” The EMT crouches down and examines my eyes, my skull, my arms. He pulls my limp body this way and that.
“No.” My voice comes out hoarse. “I’m fine. I…” I don’t have any more words.
“Do your parents know where you are?” he asks gently.
It’s 7 a.m. in Berlin right now. Mom is waking up without a single thought about where I am.
I shake my head.
More wailing sirens. Squealing breaks. Two police cars pull up on the street.
“You hang tight.” My EMT stands and jogs over to meet the cops, leaving me alone on the curb.
The other medics come flying out of the alleyway, rolling a stretcher between them. Through the whirl of activity, I catch a glimpse of Ava’s face: slack and gray and horrifying all over again. And then she’s blocked from my view, and the doors are slamming shut, and the medics are shouting instructions to each other the whole time, urgent and fast like they can still save her, but it’s all for nothing.
I already know. They’re too late.
I keep leaving my body, then smashing back into it. My mind is blank. Empty. Except for one thing: Ava is dead.
Ava is dead.
Her bloody shearling coat.
Ava is dead.
The look of horror as the last bit of life left her.
Ava is dead.
The smear of blood I left on her neck.
Heels click on the pavement as someone approaches.
“Flora.” Detective Jennifer Richmond appears in front of me. I know her. She looks tired, and not surprised to see me.
Richmond takes in my bloody clothes, the tears still streaming down my cheeks, the way my shaking hands clutch the space blanket to my chest.
She sighs. “Are you okay?”
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