It was all bad as far as Nick was concerned, but Crash’s casual mention of Hunter was the worst part. Messy. Because Crash had seen what remained of Hunter and Nick had the horrible urge to ask him to describe it because maybe if he had some idea he could stop picturing what had been lying on the satin lining of the coffin.
“What can I do for you, Crash?” Nick asked.
“I’m just looking for a little conversation, some distraction, a bit of chit-chat.” Crash grinned and bit his lip as he rolled his eyes to the side to look at Nick. “About this and that.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s really hard to stop now I’ve started,” Crash said. “I told you I don’t like it.”
“You managed fine just then,” Nick said.
“I did, didn’t I? Oh boy, oh boy,” Crash said. He took out a cigarette and lit it then leaned against the side of Nick’s truck.
Nick wasn’t content to watch Crash from the corner of his eye; he turned and leaned against the opposite side of the tailgate so he could keep both eyes on him.
“What are you looking at, Nick?” Crash asked, corner of his mouth turning up in its near-constant smile. Only stupid people or insane people smiled that much and Crash didn’t strike Nick as stupid.
Crash made him uneasy because he was really off his rocker, any moron could see that. He was a pretty, crazy boy and those were the absolute worst kind because it was easy to overlook their craziness because of how pretty they were. It wasn’t shallowness, Nick didn’t think; he thought it was like a type of camouflage some of the really woo-woo crazy ones had. Like bright colors on poisonous creatures it should have acted as a warning, but instead it drew people in like the scent of pitcher plant nectar.
“Just keeping an eye on things,” Nick said.
“I see,” Crash said. His smile got bigger. “You don’t trust me, do you? No, no, you don’t, not a tid or a tad or a drip or a drop. Is there even a speck of trust in you for little ol’ me, Nick?”
That way he had of biting out his name made the hair on the back of Nick’s neck prickle and crawl. Crash looked down in the bed of the truck and traced the letters in UNHAPPY. Then he lifted his head and pinned Nick with his mad, frost-glittering eyes.
“I like you, Nick,” Crash said. “I really do.”
“You don’t know me,” Nick said.
Crash nodded solemnly and mulled that over, lips pursed in thought. He made a soft ah sound. “That’s probably why I like you,” Crash said. “I have a proposition for you though.”
“What’s that?”
“Have drinks with me this weekend, let me get to know you,” Crash said. “That way I can learn to dislike you and we’ll be even.”
It took Nick a second to catch on to what he meant by that: he knew that Nick didn’t like him very much. He knew—and he didn’t seem to care one whit.
“I don’t think so,” Nick said.
“Don’t make me beg,” Crash said. “I really, really want to hate you, Nick and the only way to solve that problem is over drinks and maybe dinner. If it still hasn’t worked by then, well… we’ll probably have to fuck, but that’s sure to do the trick. I bet you’re a terrible lay, so I could totally hate you for that.”
Nick choked and gaped at Crash who looked absolutely sincere.
“No,” Nick said. “Just no.”
“No, you’re not a bad lay?” Crash asked.
“No to all of it,” Nick said.
“Now I’m going to have dirty dreams about you for sure,” Crash said.
“This is sexual harassment,” Nick said.
“What, honesty?”
“You know what, don’t play dumb, man,” Nick said. “You’re not.”
“You’re right,” Crash said. “I’m not dumb. I am really interested in getting you naked though. That face, that body… Damn.”
Nick glared at him, slid off the tailgate and slammed it closed so hard Crash jumped. “I don’t think you could afford me,” Nick said.
He really wasn’t that expensive, but for Crash his going rate would be really high. Nick didn’t do crazy, not Crash’s kind of crazy. Guys like Wes, sure, they were all right—weird, definitely damaged, the kind of damaged that Nick occasionally found himself wondering just who in hell had loved them wrong, but they weren’t certifiable. Crash was and Nick had no idea how he had gotten the job in the morgue because he didn’t do anything to really try and hide how crazy he was. Maybe he stuffed it in a box long enough to smile and charm his way into employment then he let it go again once the powers that be stopped looking.
Nick walked away, leaving Crash staring after him with his pretty cocksucker’s mouth open a little bit. Then Crash grabbed his arm and jerked him to a halt before Nick could yank away from him. Crash was strong, his fingers felt like iron bands on Nick’s arm for the brief instant he touched him. He whirled on Crash, glaring and ready to lay his ass out on the concrete.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Crash said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I haven’t got the best social skills in the world, blame it on poor upbringing or loose screws or growing up under power lines. Whatever.” He looked at Nick, not smiling now, but his eyes gleamed in the light of the sodium arc lamps like strange mirrors that Nick did not want to look into. “I do think you’re interesting though and I thought maybe we could be friends or well, yeah, fuck like bunnies. Hey, maybe both. That would be fun, right? Just fuck each other stupid then go out for pizza, like you do with friends.”
“You don’t have many friends, do you?” Nick asked.
“I have exactly zero friends,” Crash said.
“Gee, I wonder why,” Nick said.
“I have no idea,” Crash said. “I’m charming, witty and handsome. You would think…”
“You just said you have shitty social skills and yeah, you do,” Nick said. “So you’re not charming or witty.”
“But I am handsome,” Crash said.
“Fuck off,” Nick said.
“But Nick.” Crash’s voice was low, grating, like there was something wrong with his throat. He narrowed his eyes even as he smiled and that too was wrong. “I really like you, Nick.”
“I told you—”
“Excuse me.”
Nick jumped and Crash hunched his shoulders up and lowered his head, eyes still narrowed to shining slits as he looked around Nick. Then he snapped upright and took an unsteady step backward. Nick knew the voice, so he knew why Crash stepped away.
“Hey, Tobias,” Nick said as he turned away from Crash. For the first time in his life, Nick was glad to see Tobias. He stood in the cone of light thrown by one of the lamps, the sick orange glow like a nimbus around Tobias where it hit his white-white skin and disappeared into the fabric of his nice dark suit.
“Good evening, Nick,” Tobias said with a nod. He turned his black-eyed gaze to Crash. “You must be Calvin. I was told you might be out here. I’m here to pick up Ms. Linda Young, which I need you for as the morgue is locked.”
“I’m… Yeah,” Crash said.
Nick took sick satisfaction in seeing Crash so thrown off by Tobias’s presence that he didn’t even bother to correct him about his name. Even he wasn’t immune to the man and he was having a harder time controlling his reaction than Nick did because Nick had practice; Crash did not. Nick still didn’t like being sandwiched between crazy and creepy, but he found himself taking a few steps nearer to Tobias—and away from Crash. Tobias was creepy, but he was harmless; Nick was positive that Crash was not the least bit harmless.
Something struck Nick as odd though and he said, “You haven’t met Calvin yet, Tobias?”
“Mr. Greene usually fetches the pick-ups,” Tobias said. “If he needs help then he brings Dawn Marie. He likes to keep busy and keep his personal touch on the business. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to attend this evening and Dawn Marie is late as usual. I’m afraid it is up to me to bring Ms. Young in tonight. I’ve not yet had the pleasure of making our new morgue atten
dant’s acquaintance.”
Crash was shaking a little bit. He hadn’t been before and that was odd; it was cold out and Crash wasn’t wearing a coat. He made a miserable sound in the back of his throat that made Nick raise his eyebrows.
“What the fuck are you?” Crash asked as he backed up another step.
Tobias tilted his head to the side and frowned. He looked tired: This shit again. “I am Tobias Dunwalton, co-director of Greene’s Funeral Home here in Sparrow Falls and I’ve come to make a pick-up,” Tobias said. “Which, as I said, I need you for, Calvin. So, if you please, can we get on with it? The sooner we do it, the sooner you can be rid of me and I’m willing to make an educated guess that you’d very much like to do that. Yes?”
Crash curled his lip back and made another unhappy sound. He sounded like a scared animal; a scared, angry animal. “Yeah, sure,” Crash said. “Come on.”
He whirled around, back toward the brick building attached to the main hospital and walked away at a clip so quick it was almost a jog. Nick had just started to let out a sigh of relief when Crash slowed and looked at him over his shoulder. “Later, Nick.”
Tobias walked by him and gave him a curious look that he followed with a frown. “You have peculiar friends, Nick.”
“He is not my friend,” Nick said.
“Be that as it may, you should watch yourself with that one,” Tobias said. Across the lot, Crash was fighting with his keys to unlock the morgue’s outer doors. His hands were still shaking and they made the keys jingle like clumsy bells in Crash’s hand. Watching him, Tobias said, “I don’t like him, Nick.”
“Neither do I,” Nick said.
Tobias made a noncommittal sound, but gave a slight shake of his head like he didn’t think Nick was really getting it.
Crash yanked the heavy morgue door open and Tobias said, “That’s my cue to be on my way. Have a good night, Nicholas.”
“You, too, Tobias,” he said.
“And Nick?”
“Yeah?”
“Do be careful of him.”
11
LaAsla couldn’t sleep. She was too excited; a lot of fun new things had been going on lately. Her mommy had told her that once they moved out of the rental place that she could have a pet. Four days ago, Mommy had picked her up after school and told her to look in the back seat. LaAsla had only seen a box and said so, which made Mommy laugh. She said, Open it up, pumpkin nose.
When LaAsla had pulled the box into her lap—gosh, it was heavy—and opened it up, she had squealed with delight. Inside had been her new friend, the pet she had been promised. A cute, fluffy grey bunny; LaAsla’s favorite animal. She loved rabbits so much. They were so cute with their little twitching noses and hippity-hoppity way of getting around. She thought with her new bunny, every day would be like Easter, only better because she could see this bunny. She asked if he would leave her presents, too, but Mommy said that the Easter Bunny was the only one who could do that job. LaAsla didn’t care though because having a bunny of her own was way better.
Her sister, DeShaunda, really liked bunnies, too and when she saw their new family friend, she had squealed as well. Mommy and Daddy had laughed and laughed and that made LaAsla and DeShaunda laugh, too. Because DeShaunda liked the bunny so much and because she was the best big sister in the whole wide world, LaAsla had offered to let her name the bunny. She thought about it for a while and finally said they should call him Goliath because that was funny. LaAsla didn’t understand why it was so funny, but she said sure. Goliath sounded like a really good name for the bunny.
That evening, they had put him in his bunny house that Daddy built for him even though LaAsla begged and begged for him to be allowed to stay inside. Mommy and Daddy said they were sorry, but no, because bunnies pooped all over the place. It had made LaAsla sad, but she liked to be a good girl and so she had nodded anyway.
Later that same night, she had sneaked outside to visit Goliath. She had woken up from a dream where she and Goliath were on a great adventure together. They had been riding ponies through the rainforest and everything was sparkling and bright with color and treasure! After some thought over whether or not Mommy and Daddy would wake up and be angry with her, LaAsla decided that if she was super quiet, they would never know, not if she was careful and didn’t stay gone for very long.
LaAsla had gone to visit Goliath and found another friend, too. At first she had been scared and thought her new friend would hurt her and Goliath. She had started to cry, but then her friend had licked her face like it was just a big puppy. LaAsla had ended up giggling instead of running away and said, Good puppy. They had played chase in the dark and hide-and-seek. He always found her when it was his turn, but not right away and LaAsla thought that was because he was letting her win. It was the same when she found him, too, because she couldn’t see good in the dark like her friend could, but he always made a sound that let her know where he was hiding.
Every night since then, LaAsla had gone outside to visit her bunny and her other friend. Sometimes he wasn’t there though and that made her sad, but a lot of the time he showed up and they played for a little while before he went away again, back into the forest. Once, LaAsla had tried to follow him, tugging at his long tail to make him wait up, but he’d pushed her back and made whuffing sounds at her. She didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but she thought it was probably something like, You stay here.
The next day, LaAsla had thought really hard on a name for her new friend. She didn’t know if he was a person or a doggy, but he needed a name either way. She asked DeShaunda what she thought a good name for a puppy was and DeShaunda said, Daisy. Definitely. So, LaAsla named her new friend Daisy, even though she was pretty sure that wasn’t a boy’s name at all. Though really, she wasn’t sure if Daisy was a boy; it just felt more right to say that for some reason.
She lay in her bed a little while longer and finally, certain everyone was sound asleep and wouldn’t hear a peep, LaAsla pushed back her covers. She climbed out of bed and put on her shoes as quietly as possible then opened her bedroom window. It didn’t have a screen on it and was close to the ground; it was the easiest window in the world to climb out of. LaAsla was tall for a little girl and her mommy was always telling her she was going to be so tall and pretty when she grew up, like a supermodel. LaAsla kind of wanted to be a veterinarian though and she didn’t tell Mommy, but being tall and pretty kind of worried her. If LaAsla had to be a supermodel when she grew up then she couldn’t make all the sick bunnies better. It worried her a lot.
She tiptoed across the lawn and around to the back of the house, toward the shed where Goliath’s hutch was. LaAsla was already smiling and her grin only got bigger when the dark shape crept out from behind the big old fig tree near the shed.
“Hi, Daisy!” LaAsla whisper-called to her best friend in the world.
His big, pointed ears pricked up high on his head, dark outlines against the bright silver-white of the still nearly full waning moon. He chuffed at her, Hello, LaAsla.
She ran the rest of the way to him and hugged him, her head only reaching to about his hip. Next to Daisy, LaAsla did not feel even a little bit tall and knew she would probably never-ever be as tall as Daisy was. She thought Daisy was so tall because he was special; no other kinds of doggies walked on their back legs and had smart eyes like Daisy’s. Her friend, Trisha, had a pit bull named Smiley that was probably the smartest dog in the world, but only after Daisy. LaAsla wanted to tell someone—even if it was only DeShaunda—about Daisy, but she wasn’t sure how. She’d get in trouble for going outside so late at night and Daisy was like her secret. He only came to visit her and LaAsla liked having him all to herself. It was selfish of her and she felt a little bad about that, but she just didn’t want to share Daisy, at least not yet.
LaAsla pulled her head back and smiled up at Daisy. He patted the top of her head, the barrettes on the ends of her braids clacking together softly as he did. LaAsla giggled then stepped away. H
is big, bushy tail stirred up a breeze when he wagged it and that only made LaAsla laugh more.
“What do you want to do tonight?” she asked.
Daisy cocked his head and snorted softly in thought. Then Daisy covered his eyes, spreading the long, weird fingers over one to reveal one of his shining silver eyes. Hide-and-seek.
LaAsla nodded and said, “Okay, but when we’re done with that, can we play chase before you go?”
Daisy nodded then reached out and lightly touched her shoulder. You’re it.
LaAsla covered her eyes with a smile and began to count. She barely heard Daisy when he moved away from her; she wished she knew how to be that sneaky. If she could be as quiet as Daisy then she would be able to catch Santa when he came to leave presents. She was certain of it.
She cheated a little bit, skipping ahead to seventy after she reached fifty, but she didn’t think Daisy would mind. He was good at hiding, but that was okay because LaAsla was good at seeking. She was the best in her whole class, though she did know she wouldn’t be able to find Daisy if he didn’t give her a hint. It was so weird, too, because Daisy was so huge-mongous that LaAsla could hardly believe he could hide like he did. He was still and dark though, he melted into the shadows thrown by all the old outbuildings on the property. It used to be a farm, her mommy said and she and Daddy were thinking about making it into one again. LaAsla thought that might be fun and had already put in her vote for it to be a bunny farm. With ponies. Lots of ponies.
“Ready or not, here I come,” LaAsla called out.
She clapped her hand over her mouth, shoulders hunching up around her ears at how loud her voice was. She stood very still, listening for Mommy or Daddy to call out, ’Asla, you get your tail inside right this second. When a couple of minutes passed and no one came barging outside to bust her, she turned in a circle, looking around the moon-washed lawn.
Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1) Page 10
