Secrets of the Hanged Man (Icarus Fell #3) (An Icarus Fell Novel)

by Blake, Bruce

She breathed a gentle sigh and returned to her room, careful not to bump the hall table on the way. After pulling the covers tight under her chin to dispel the chill of getting out of bed, Meg listened to the monitor’s blank static for a few minutes before the peacefulness of believing everything to be right in the world lulled her to sleep.

  ***

  Morning came and Cory opened his eyes, more refreshed than usual, though he didn’t know why at first. It seemed like sleep took forever to come after he crept out of bed to whisper to his sister and then his mother came in to check on them. Yet, once he fell asleep, he slept well, without dreams or waking. A minute later, he realized what a good night’s sleep meant.

  The baby didn’t wake me.

  He climbed out of bed and went to the cradle where Kaitlin slept with her bum stuck up in the air in the silly way she did. In the light of day, it looked sort of cute; he thought he might be able to put up with her if she looked this way instead of crying all the time, and stealing his mother. He opened his mouth but stopped before speaking and looked at the monitor sitting on the change table beside the cradle. The red indicator light was on, which meant his mother and Ugly Robert weren’t up yet, either. Strange for him to rise before them; the baby usually woke his mother for feeding long before he wanted to wake up.

  Cory’s breath caught in his throat with a noise like a mouse. He leaned in to look closer at this being they insisted on calling his little sister. The position she slept in made it difficult to see much. Cory put his hand between the cradle’s wooden bars and touched his finger to Kaitlin’s cheek. Cold.

  A jolt of dread and excitement made Cory’s heart leap.

  I did that.

  She looked so peaceful, she might have been sleeping. But she wasn’t, and he’d known it before he touched her.

  A floorboard creaked in the hallway, jarring Cory’s attention away from the cradle. He sprang back across the floor, jumped under his covers and closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep and listening to his mother’s footsteps hurrying down the hall, then the creak of the floor inside his bedroom door.

  He continued his pretense of sleep when his mother rushed to the side of the cradle and screamed.

  Chapter Eleven

  The bell rang, but Trevor didn’t move. He thought it possible he might be the only fifteen-year-old in the world who considered the end of the day the worst part of school. Not because he loved it the way the smart kids did, and not because he didn’t want to go home.

  Like every day, today held a good chance Manny and his gang of wannabe thug friends awaited him.

  The other students in Trevor’s socials class collected their books and spilled out of the classroom in a commotion of runners squeaking on linoleum, laughter, and Mr. Reeve calling after them to remember to do the questions on page forty-two. When they were gone, Trevor remained slouched at his desk while the teacher shuffled papers into his briefcase. Mr. Reeve looked at him over top of his glasses and put his hands on his hips.

  “Mr. Fell, are you not telling me something?”

  “Uh, no. No, sir. What do you mean?”

  He shook his head and pursed his lips. “I’ve never seen a student like you stay after class. Is everything all right at home?”

  A student like me?

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “Do you have a way home?”

  “Yeah.” Trevor sat up in his desk and collected his books, jammed them into his knapsack.

  “Then it must be my worst fear,” Mr. Reeve said. The expression on his face softened and he pursed his lips comically. “You have a crush on me.”

  “Uh, no. Definitely not.” Trevor stood and pulled one of the backpack’s straps over his shoulder. He liked his social sciences teacher, wanted to tell him about Manny and his gang, and Mr. Reeve was the kind of guy who’d believe him and take action, but there was no point. Anytime anyone tried to stop them or said anything, it made things worse.

  “I’m relieved,” the teacher said and went back to paper shuffling. “Whatever it is can’t be so bad. Run along and enjoy life.”

  Enjoy life. Right.

  Trevor left the classroom, his untied runners scuffing against the floor as he went. The hallway bustled with students sorting out their lockers and social lives, stowing books and texting friends. He slipped into the flow of teens, hoping to blend in and go unnoticed, and his plan worked fine until he got out the door.

  Manny and his party of punks loitered at the edge of the school ground, smoking cigarettes and laughing. One of his cohorts, a kid they called Gonzo, though Trevor didn’t know if he got the name from Hunter S. Thompson or the character on the Muppet Show, noticed Trevor, slapped Manny on the shoulder, and pointed him out to the gang’s ringleader.

  “Hey, Fell,” Manny bellowed across the school yard. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Trevor stopped with some distance between them, looked at them, then across the road at the park and back again.

  If I can make it to the park, I might be able to lose them.

  Trevor hesitated; fleeing might enrage Manny and make their bullying worse for him tomorrow. During his indecisive pause, the older boy gestured and his posse began making their way toward Trevor, cigarettes hanging defiantly from the corners of their mouths as their feet touched school property. Trevor’s legs took over before his brain had a chance to weigh the pros and cons, carrying him toward the park as fast as they could go on the muddy ground and with his loaded pack weighing him down. He bolted into the street and horns honked, tires squealed.

  “Stupid kid,” someone yelled, but he didn’t look back or wave in apology.

  He darted into the park, weaving his way between the other school kids also cutting through; they got out of the way when they saw him coming or, more likely, when they glimpsed the group chasing him.

  Trevor hammered down the path toward the duck pond, the slap of runners heavy on the ground behind him. Ahead lay the willow tree overhanging the pond and beyond it the barren rocks leading to the forested part of the park.

  If I can make it there, I ca--

  Something solid striking his legs and tangling his feet cut the thought short. Trevor flew forward, jerking around as he fell to take the brunt of impact on his backpack. He skidded along the ground, dirt and mud plowing ahead of his shoulder, and by the time he righted himself, Manny and his pals loomed over him. He scrambled to get up but Gonzo planted his foot on Trevor’s chest and sent him back to the ground.

  “Avoiding us, Trev?” Manny said. “Going home to your Mommy?”

  He snorted and spit on the ground a foot from Trevor’s head. Trevor flinched.

  “I’m going home, like you and everyone else. Why can’t you leave me alone?”

  “Because you’re a freak.” He punctuated his words by kicking a spray of mud across Trevor’s chest, then signaled to Gonzo. “Get him up.”

  Gonzo put a hand under his left armpit while the third member of the group—a kid named Tom doing grade twelve for the third time—grabbed him under the other. His fingers dug in deep and Trevor winced with pain.

  “Gonna cry, pussy?” Manny taunted. “Gonna tell your Mom? Or maybe your dead loser dad?”

  Trevor jerked away from Tom and swung a wild hay-maker at Manny, but the bigger boy moved back a step, avoiding the punch. Before Trevor thought about swinging again, Gonzo and Tom grabbed his arms and Manny punched him in the gut. Trevor doubled over, gasping for breath.

  “Don’t like it when I talk about your asshole, deadbeat dad?”

  Struggling against the panic building in his gut, Trevor glared up at the other boy, hating him with every atom in his body. The knowledge his father was no longer dead did nothing to quell his ire; he couldn’t say anything about it to Manny or anyone else, not that it would have helped him if he did. Who’d believe him?

  The two boys holding him pulled him up and Manny moved in close, digging his hands into the pockets of Trevor’s leather jacket.

  “Wh
at you got for me, Trev? You rocker guys have always got good shit.”

  “Nothing,” Trevor breathed.

  “Give me his pack.”

  Gonzo grabbed the strap of Trevor’s backpack and yanked it hard; Trevor bent his arm and kept him from wrestling it off.

  “Leave him alone.”

  Gonzo stopped pulling and all the boys looked toward the sound of the voice. Trevor noticed Manny’s face change to an expression resembling innocence in case they discovered a teacher or a cop approaching, but it turned back to anger when he saw neither to be the case.

  Trevor’s eyes widened when he spied Cory standing under the branches of the willow tree, hands jammed into the side pockets of a dark gray overcoat and resembling an avenging angel out of some horror movie.

  “Scarecrow. I haven’t seen you around in forever. What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Leave him alone,” Cory repeated.

  Manny laughed, a sound closer to the bray of a donkey than anything meant to convey humor. The other boys joined him. Trevor gawked.

  “A freak coming to save one of his own kind. How romantic.”

  Gonzo and Tom laughed again, but Manny didn’t, his eyes fixed on Cory stalking toward them. He’d taken his hands out of his pockets and they hung at his sides, clenched into fists. Tom and Gonzo stopped laughing.

  “This’s got nothing to do with you, Scarecrow,” Gonzo said. “You should--”

  “Shut up,” Manny snapped. “If he wants to stick his nose in, I’d be happy to break it for him.”

  Without warning, Manny spun around and punched Trevor in the gut harder than he’d ever been hit. Unprepared, his breath wheezed out of his chest and, when Gonzo and Tom let go of his arms, he folded in half and crumpled to the mud. He lay on his side, unable to breathe, struggling to direct his eyes toward Cory as the three boys swarmed him.

  Manny swung a looping right hand and caught Cory in the side of the head; two more punches sent him to the ground without defending himself. Trevor watched, gasping and horrified, as Manny, Gonzo, and Tom hammered Cory with punches and kicks.

  “Fucking Scarecrow,” Manny shouted over and over again, each word punctuated by the dull thump of his foot hitting Cory’s ribs, or his fist contacting his body, his face.

  Trevor didn’t attempt to get up. He watched, ashamed with himself for the relief he felt at not being the one on the receiving end of their beating. When his breath returned and the rhythm of the boys' blows began to diminish, someone shouted.

  “Stop!”

  Manny looked up. “Let’s get out of here. Beat it.”

  They took off across the park, headed for the forest the way Trevor had when they’d been chasing him. He got to his hands and knees and crawled across the space between him and Cory, who lay on the ground, shaking. Crying, Trevor thought.

  He peered over his shoulder to find out who’d chased their tormentors off and saw Mr. Reeve coming across the park in what a man of his age and weight might consider a run, but anyone else could match at a quick walk. Trevor dragged himself to where Cory lay on his side and pulled on his shoulder, rolling him onto his back.

  Cory wasn’t crying, he was laughing.

  Blood on his teeth and lips made his face resemble a Halloween mask, and a half-moon of dark bruise was already beginning below his right eye. Each time he took a breath to laugh, it was evident the effort caused him pain.

  “Jesus! What did you do that for?”

  “I owed you,” Cory said between laughs. “You saved me, now I saved you. We’re even.”

  “Are you...boys...okay?” Mr. Reeve called out between gulping breaths of air. He’d stopped yards away and stood bent at the waist, hands on his knees.

  Cory laughed again, quieter this time, a private laugh for the two of them, Trevor thought.

  “We’re fine, Mr. Reeve. Thanks. Just fuc...playing around.”

  Trevor got to his feet and offered Cory his hand; the other teen took it and needed the help getting up. They waved at the teacher and smiled fake smiles, then set out across the park, Trevor still struggling to take a full chest of air and Cory leaning on him like a wounded soldier pulled from battle.

  That’s kind of what he is.

  When Mr. Reeve gave up on his good deed and headed back toward the school, they laughed again.

  “Thanks,” Trevor said when they both ran out of breath to laugh. “You didn’t need to do that.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “They might have killed you.”

  He shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  “They won’t let this go, you know. They’ll come after you. Me, too.”

  Cory stopped, dragging Trevor to a halt with him. He straightened and looked him in the eye.

  “Trust me, Trevor Fell. Manny will never hurt either of us again.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I went back and forth over the tragedy of dying so young versus Dido’s higher-than-average annoying factor—and the recollection of her sending a perfectly good bottle of Grey Goose gurgling down the bathtub drain to a premature death—but my internal debate didn’t rage for long. The argument might have dragged out for a week or so, if a memory hadn’t come to mind to settle it.

  I remembered how I felt the day I woke up dead.

  I woke up to an archangel, and what did she get? Me. Another noticeable difference between our circumstances: people saw me—they might not know me, but they saw me—but not her. They left her alone, like when she sat at the bar at the Caffeinated Cowboy, with no one but me to converse with, no one but me to annoy. I put a good effort into portraying myself as a heartless, selfish bastard, but the truth of the matter is my heart is a few sizes bigger than the Grinch’s. Not many, but a few.

  And so I found myself standing outside a bungalow with dark green paint flaking around the windows and a loose board set askew in the fence, figuring it the most logical place for Dido to go.

  If whoever redecorated my motel room didn’t take her.

  The yellow police tape hanging from the gate at the end of the path fluttered and snapped in a gentle wind. I surveyed the street for a few minutes before deciding cars passed too often for me to mosey on up to the front door, so I opted for a rear entrance and felt a little dirty for thinking of it in those terms.

  I hopped a low fence and found my way along the side of the Trounces' neighbor’s house, ducking under windows and holding my breath, hoping not to find a large, ferocious dog in the backyard. Instead, I found a swing set rusted with disuse, a plastic patio chair with a cracked leg, and a vegetable garden overgrown with winter weeds, but no dog.

  Unfortunately, the fence was higher here. The bloody thing came to the top of my head.

  I peered up at it, regretful for my nasty fast food habit and lack of discipline I’d shown in using my membership to Rocky’s 24 Hour Fitness. What’s the saying regarding hindsight?

  I huffed an exasperated breath and grabbed the top of the fence, the wood rough under my fingers. My puny arm muscles tensed, ready to give it the old college try at heaving me up and over; I paused to ensure no one was watching what would surely be my embarrassment. Luckily, I spied a compost pile in the back corner of the yard.

  “Bingo.”

  I released my vice-grip on the fence and wandered to the far end of the lawn, glancing back over my shoulder to complete my surveillance; no one was peeping at me.

  A fence bounded the compost on the back sides while a three-foot high brick wall contained the rotted fruit, old coffee grounds, and moldy grass clippings from spilling onto the lawn. All the joints and ligaments my body needed to stretch and use to climb over a tall fence breathed a collective sigh of relief.

  I put one foot on the brick wall and lifted myself up high enough to peer over the fence into the Trounces' backyard. Nothing in it, not even a rust-encrusted set of swings for Dido to play on when she was Dallas. I wondered if she ever came over to the neighbors' to use theirs, as I stepped up onto
the short wall, took a deep breath and threw one leg up to the top of the fence. The heel of my shoe thudded against it with a heavy clunk and, rather than wait for someone to come see the cause of the noise, I clambered up and over with the grace and speed of a one-armed, blind chimpanzee.

  Okay, I probably made the chimp look like an Olympian.

  I did my best to land on my feet but ended up plopping onto the ground, my ass squelching in the damp grass.

  “Damn it.”

  I picked myself up and wiped moisture off the back of my overcoat, then surveyed the rear of the house. A red door to my left and a set of sliding glass doors opening into the dining room to the right. The door would be locked, but would the Trounces or the cops have remembered to lock the sliders? Probably my best shot.

  I climbed the three steps to the small deck past due for replacement. Overall, the place wasn’t in the kind of disrepair as Rae’s neighborhood was, but Mr. Trounce didn’t appear the handyman type. Mind you, I shouldn’t talk—Rae’s house got in that state because of my neglect. Perhaps Ashton, her new man, fared better. The thought brought a sourness to my mouth, so I spit and wiped it from my mind.

  The sliding door turned out to be unlocked, but sticky. I slid it open, cringing at the metal-grinding squeak, and stepped through, but left the door open, both to prepare for a hasty retreat and because I didn’t want to hear the teeth-grating noise again.

  The interior of the house held the off-putting aroma of spilled blood. I crept past the dining room table with a half-built jigsaw puzzle set on a piece of cardboard on one end and peered through the doorway into the kitchen as I did. Empty.

  Good.

  The dining and living rooms joined in a semi-open concept, allowing me a view of the blood smeared across the Berber. I stepped into the living room, hoping to find the soul of an eight-year-old girl curled up on the couch where she died and having a cry for her lost parents. No spirit on the couch, only more evidence of their deaths, and more blood spattered on the wall behind it in an abstract painting random enough to make Jackson Pollock proud. Pieces of stuff I’d rather not recognize hung from the TV screen; the once beige carpet now sported a crusty, brick red spot the shape of Alaska.