The most obvious places—cupboards, closets, under beds—yielded no box. “I bet he tossed it,” I said. “Did it have a lock?”
“Yes. But Neil always kept the key on him. There used to be a spare, but I don’t know what happened to it.”
That meant Zmira would need a tool to open it, and most people kept their tools in a garage. “This way,” I said, pointing to a door off the kitchen.
The garage was dark and reeked of gasoline. I felt for a light switch, but Adam managed to kick over a trash bag of aluminum cans before I could locate it. “Watch where you’re going,” I hissed. But he was already squeezing past the car and toward the workbench, where a battered and beaten gunmetal box sat.
Wait. A car? That couldn’t be good.
On cue, a dog began barking in the side yard. “Adam, he’s home!”
Adam grabbed the box from the workbench. A lawnmower blocked the side exit, and opening the garage door would give us away for sure. We had no choice but to return the way we came. Adam was one step ahead of me.
He opened the door and ran, nose to muzzle, into a shotgun held by Zmira, who was dressed in a Skillz on Grillz apron. All I could do was duck behind an oil drum and pray I hadn’t been spotted.
Mr. Zmira’s pupils were dilated. His hands trembled. If he didn’t shoot Adam on purpose, he was going to shoot him on accident. “Slowly now, set the box down and step back. You thief,” Zmira growled.
Don’t be an idiot. Do as he says, Adam.
As if he could hear my thoughts, Adam obeyed, but not without a mouth full of back talk. “I’m not the thief here. You took that from my property. It belongs to me.”
Smooth move, Adam. Poke the viper with a short stick, why don’t ya?
“Your property? Don’t tell me you’re that kid I used to see playing in the dirt in the orchard, the same one who liked to trap ground squirrels and chuck walnuts at my bathroom window whenever I was on the pot. What’s your name?”
“Adam.”
“Adam what?”
“Lassiter.”
“Not possible. That boy’s been gone for years.”
I inhaled sharply, nearly giving myself away.
“And yet here I am,” said Adam coolly.
“I have to admit you do look a bit like him. You alone? I thought I heard a girl’s voice.”
Adam didn’t answer.
Zmira kicked open the door wider. “Okay, I know you’re in there. Come on out.”
Chin to chest and hands in the air, I stepped out from behind the drum and into view, praying to the patron saint of morons that Zmira didn’t recognize me. “You could have lied,” I said to Adam out of the corner of my mouth.
“I can’t, remember?”
Who does he think he is, George Washington?
“Lily McCrae,” exclaimed Zmira, swinging the barrel of the shotgun toward the kitchen ceiling. “Is that you?”
So much for saints. I nodded but was shaking badly.
“Well, I never expected you to be the sort to break into a man’s house.”
Yeah, that makes two of us.
“We didn’t break in,” corrected Adam, who didn’t seem to comprehend the seriousness of our situation. “The door was unlocked. Now if you’ll let me take the box, we’ll leave and never bother you again.”
“Hold on. That box must contain something pretty valuable to go through all this trouble.”
“It belonged to his father,” I volunteered, since apparently all my coaching had been a waste of time. “He wants it as a keepsake.”
“That may be so, but—”
Beyond him through the kitchen window a cloud of dense black smoke billowed skyward.
“Ardes!” Adam yelled alongside my “Fire! Fire!”
“My tri tip!” Shotgun in hand, Zmira grabbed the lockbox, sprinted through the house, and elbowed open the glass slider. It was our chance to escape, but no sooner did we reach the family room than mop dog bolted from out of nowhere and clamped onto my sandal. The harder Adam pulled at the demon dog’s collar, the more it growled and writhed like a Tasmanian devil.
Outside, curses filled the air as Zmira yanked the meat from the grill and dropped it on the patio table behind him. He batted at the flaming steak with a pot holder, but couldn’t see the tongues of fire licking his backside. Adam grabbed the hose just outside the door, aimed it at Zmira and the grill, and turned on the faucet full force.
“Shut it off! Shut it off!” roared Zmira.
Adam panicked and cranked the spigot handle the wrong way. The hose whipped about, spraying water everywhere, including through the open slider. Adam repeatedly lunged for it, but the hose stayed out of reach. Finally, with mop dog in tow, I managed to shut the water off. The soggy mutt released his hold on my wet shoe and belly-crawled under the deck. Zmira streaked into the house to fetch a stack of towels. We all did our best to soak up the water that had soaked the flooring and drenched his sofa, but the damage was done.
“Sorry,” I said. “We were trying to—”
“Save it. That couch is leather. It’s ruined. And the gun’s going to need a cleaning. But don’t think it doesn’t still work,” he added quickly.
“At least let us repay you for the damages,” offered Adam, forgetting we’d be lucky to have a dime between us.
“Tell you what. I’ll keep the box, and we’ll call it even. And to ensure that you and your girlfriend don’t try any more stunts, I think I’ll lock it in my gun safe.”
Before we could argue with him, he tottered down the hall with the lockbox tucked beneath his bony arm. I took one slow step in the direction of the front door. The mop dog snarled, and I reconsidered.
Adam nodded toward the backyard where there were several bags of cement, a stack of flagstones, and an orange circle spray-painted onto the patchy grass. “What is that for?”
“A minute ago you nearly got shot for attempted burglary and now you’re wondering about some unfinished landscaping project?”
“Are you angry with me? You’re doing that thing with your forehead, squishing it all together like this.” Adam made this ridiculous face, and despite our present circumstances and our failed mission, I had to laugh.
“You think this is funny?” said Zmira, returning from down the hall.
I bit my lip and hung my head. “No, sir.”
Again Adam asked about the orange markings on the lawn. “I’m putting in a pond,” answered Zmira. “Or was, till my back gave out a week ago.”
“I could dig the hole,” volunteered Adam.
Zmira squinted thoughtfully, paying particular attention to Adam’s arms. “Maybe you could at that. But what would it cost me? As if I can’t guess.”
“The box—which is rightfully mine,” Adam hastened to add.
Mr. Zmira gave a snort. “We’ll see. Come back next week and I’ll put you to work, only this time don’t let yourself in. I’d hate to shoot you and then have to pay someone else to do the job.”
“Yes, that would be a crime,” said Adam, so straight-faced that I nearly busted up again.
Zmira frowned. “Did you crack a joke?”
“Did I?”
“Guess not, if you have to ask.”
He walked us to the front door, but I was still puzzled about what he’d said earlier. “Mr. Zmira, you said you haven’t seen the boy next door in years. What did you mean?”
Adam pulled up short.
“Just that. One day the funeral home came to pick up a body. Too small for an adult,” said Zmira. “Didn’t see the boy after that—well, not till now—so I assumed it was him. Obviously I was mistaken.”
That made no sense. If there’s a sudden death at home, an autopsy is required by law, and a death certificate is mandatory for cremation. I found no record of either. “Which funeral home was it? Not us.”
“No. It was that other one. UPS.”
“You mean EMS?”
“Yeah. That one. They’ve been by a few times before.”
“How would I know? Maybe the Lassiters had friends at EMS. Now if you two don’t mind, I’ve got a poker game waiting for me.”
And we have a party.
“See you next week,” said Adam.
“Good.” Mr. Zmira pointed to the doorbell. “And see this? Use it next time.”
Adam gave it five presses before Zmira lifted his finger from the button. “Okay. Okay. That’s enough.” He shot me a look as if to ask, What’s with this guy?
I shrugged. I wish I knew.
RULE #15
ALWAYS SET THE BRAKES ON THE GURNEY.
“Will you hurry up!” shouted Evan from downstairs. “I’m not getting any younger, you know.”
Or any more patient. “Hold your hearses,” I hollered back. “I’ll be right there.”
I sucked in my breath to pull up the zipper on my skirt, then added one more coat of mascara and refined the arch of my left brow. This was as good as it was going to get. I took a deep breath and wobbled down the stairs in the ridiculously high shoes Mal dropped off earlier in the day. This was what friends did for each other, risk life and limb, right? I wished the skirt weren’t so tight. I felt like a bratwurst.
“Finally,” said Evan. “If we don’t get a move on, the traffic’s going to be impossible.”
Adam stepped out from the hall shadows. His tussled hair looked as if it had never seen a comb. We weren’t exactly on the best of terms, not since I reminded him on the way back from Zmira’s that nothing was resolved between us. He had one week to prove himself to me. One. And if that entailed going back to Zmira’s for the lockbox, then he was on his own. He called me unreasonable. I called him a liar.
But tonight was not about Adam. It was about getting my friendship with Mal back on track. I sensed she was outgrowing me. Why else would she spend so much time with Aslyn, Vega, and Melissa?
Adam was having his own doubts about the party. “Maybe I should stay here tonight.”
“You kidding? Girls, music . . . Trust me, Adam, you’re going to thank me tomorrow,” said Evan. “Besides, it’s time you got out and experienced a bit of the real world.”
“It’s just a house party, Evan,” I reminded him.
“If that’s so, then what’s with the duffel bag?”
“It’s not a duffel bag, it’s my purse. I like to be prepared.”
“This isn’t a scouting expedition.” Evan turned and gave Adam a wink. “Then again . . .”
“That is such a totally sexist thing to say!” I snapped. “Adam, don’t listen to him.”
A newly minted Mallory pranced in, and of course she looked amazing in her clingy knit skirt and camisole. Next, it was time for my inspection. “Give us a spin,” she directed. I extended my arms and did the kind of twirl you might expect from a super-stoned ballerina. “See. I told you that skirt would look amazing on you. Adam, am I right?”
Adam looked to Evan like a seaman to his captain. “It does not make her look fat,” he said stiffly.
Evan slapped his forehead. “That wasn’t what I told you to say.” I rolled my eyes.
“Dickwads,” said Mal with a chuckle. “Lils, what do they know?”
“It’s not too much?”
“Trust me, with that outfit you’ll get noticed.”
Since when was attention a good thing? I gave the sides of the skirt a tug. “Can we go?”
Evan cleared his throat. “So, I have good news and bad news.” This usually meant there was mostly bad news. “The good news is Mom and Dad went to see a show. They won’t be back till late. The bad news is they took the van. We’ll have to take the stiffmobile.”
“But there aren’t enough seats for all of us,” complained Mal. “And I’m not sitting on the rollers!”
“Then sit up front with me,” offered Evan. “The other two can sit in the back.”
We could argue all night, but Hayden Jornet’s loft was near the downtown theater district. The later we left, the less likely we’d find parking, and I didn’t feel like walking any farther than I had to in these torture devices. I locked the house and we loaded up.
Evan barreled through every yellow light and weaved from lane to lane through traffic like he was navigating an obstacle course. Twice he came to an abrupt stop, and both times Adam and I rode the casket rollers and slammed into the front seats. It was all I could do to keep down my dinner.
“Are you okay?” Adam asked. He pointed to the red crescent marks on my arms where my nails had dug into my flesh.
“Oh, I’m great,” I said. “I love bouncing around the back of a hearse like a pinball.”
He had to think about that a minute, his sarcasm radar not yet fully calibrated.
Evan took a sharp left. Adam braced his legs across the width of the van, stopping me mid-slide. I had enough momentum that I nearly ended up in his lap. “Awkward,” I said, and squirmed away. In the process my skirt rode up my thigh, exposing one of many jagged scars. It was a hideous thing, white and puckered. Totally gag-worthy. But if Adam saw, he was careful not to react.
I yanked the skirt down and punched the back of Evan’s seat. “Take it easy on the turns, will ya? This thing’s an eight-thousand-pound weapon. You’re going to kill someone.”
At the next light I took a peek between the drawn blue-velvet curtains. We were a few blocks from downtown. Here buildings crowded out the sky, and the few trees lining the sidewalks were stunted and girded by metal bands. Large signs with missing lights advertised liquor or GI LS! G RLS! GIR S! Trash clogged gutters and vacant lots.
As expected, all the public parking lots were full, so we had to keep circling the knot of one-way streets. By the time Evan found a spot, I was queasy from a mixed cocktail of anxiety and motion sickness. I couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. I checked myself in the side-view mirror, then indicated where the front tire met the curb. “Evan, you’re too close to the fire hydrant.”
“Thar she blows!” he shouted, throwing his arms into the air.
He was always forgetting I knew where he slept.
“Lils, it’ll be fine,” said Mallory, reining in a smile and patting my back in sympathy. “You worry too much.”
I wonder why.
A six-pack of young girls—each looking like she should be babysitting instead of wandering the streets on a Friday night—turned down the nearest alley. “Must be that way,” said Evan.
Steam rose through grates in the sidewalk, bringing a smell of sewage with it.
“Nice painting,” praised Adam.
“That’s graffiti,” Mallory corrected.
“Graffiti? I don’t know the word.”
“Unsanctioned art,” she explained. “The kind that can get you arrested.”
I hadn’t considered how new and overwhelming this might be to him. I wondered if, after so many years of longing for his freedom, it wasn’t all a bit disappointing.
“Here we are,” announced Evan, stopping in front of a large brick building. The distressed paint on the wall read HEARTLAND BREAD COMPANY. A cacophony of loud voices and blaring music leaked from a broken window several floors above.
The back door swung open, and a blast of screeching guitars assaulted us. I experienced a moment of panic. My arms and chest started to itch. “Mal, I thought you said this was going to be a small affair, not a full-on rave!”
“A rave?” asked Adam. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“It’s a great thing!” cheered Mallory. “Dancing, techno. What’s not to love?”
“The crowd,” I said. “And if a fire breaks out, how will everyone escape in time?”
Mal and Evan shut me down with condescending glares. Evan I understood. He fed on this kind of stuff—music loud enough to make your ears bleed, raucous hordes of potential DUIs. Mallory not so much, or at least she didn’t used to.
“If you don’t want to go in,” Adam said to me, “I’ll stay and keep you company.”
It was a temptin
g offer, but this was my chance to show Mal that I could step out of my skin and prove to them all that I was more than that girl.
“No, I’m fine.”
“All right Lils!” cheered Mal. She led us up a loading ramp to the door, where a large, barrel-chested man—a double-wide, in my profession—checked his clipboard and waved us in. Together we passed through the converted delivery door and emerged into a swirling vortex of people, light, and music. Instant sensory burnout. It reminded me of this ride at the county fair called the Spinout. It spun so fast that when the floor dropped away, you stuck to the wall.
Well, my floor just dropped.
I motioned toward where it was less crowded, but Evan was fixated on a tall blond who’d emerged from a back room. It was Dana Blackwell, and she was weaving like the drink in her hand was not her first, or even her second. She motioned for Evan to join her and, like a good dog, he obeyed.
Mallory’s upper lip curled. “What’s he see in her, anyway?”
Then it hit me: For Mal this night was never about hanging with Hayden’s crowd, or even about the studio. It was about getting Evan to notice her. Leave it to Dana to knock Mal off her horse, but, true to form, Mal got right back on.
“Come on,” she said, linking arms with Adam and me. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
We waded through the vast room hazy with grape- and tobacco-scented smoke. Hookah, Mallory explained to Adam. Sure enough, a cluster of people was tethered to a water pipe perched on the edge of a glass table the size of Manhattan. Around a bar, half a dozen more revelers hovered beneath a mural of a guitarist touching fingers with Carlos Santana à la the Sistine Chapel’s Creation of Adam. “How can Hayden even afford this place?” I asked.
“I heard he’s renting it from his uncle,” said Mal. She glanced at Evan, who was at the far end of the bar throwing back a brew and getting all chummy with Dana, and ordered a couple Long Island iced teas—one for her and one for Adam. I passed, figuring someone needed to keep their wits about them tonight.
Adam mistook the drink for the stuff we serve at home. He took one gulp and made a face like he’d swallowed lighter fluid. “Want it?”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.”
Mortal Remains Page 11
