“No,” Nick said. “What you did isn’t the kind of thing you only do once. It’s the kind of thing people like you keep doing and no. No. I am not property and I will not give up my friends to make you happy.”
Crash’s eyes narrowed and he started to smile. Nick hated that smile.
“I guess not, no,” Crash said. “You spend a lot of time with good old Wes lately, after all. I mean, really, Nick, what do you see in that little shit anyway?”
“I see a much better person than the one I’m looking at right now,” Nick said.
He didn’t let his surprise show though there was an alarm ringing in the back of his mind. The only way Crash could know that Nick had been spending time with Wes was if he had been watching him. Nick hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Crash; he had been stunningly, refreshingly absent from all facets of his life. Except he apparently hadn’t been any such thing.
“He’s cute, I’ll give him that much,” Crash said with a nod. He took a step toward Nick, still smiling, hands balled into fists at his sides, shoulders held back stiffly. “But is that really enough? For crying out loud, Nick, he’s such a fucking dork. All you have to do is look at him to tell that.”
“He’s decent,” Nick said. “He’s nice. He’s not unstable.”
“He’s weak.” Crash spat the words as he closed in on Nick, the madness in his eyes bright as a conflagration. “The weak get eaten, Nick.”
God how Nick loathed the sound of his name being bitten to pieces every time Crash said it. He was the crazy one for ever agreeing to date Crash in the first place. Then like the stupid fucking whore he was, he had screwed him, too. He knew better. Never have sex without payment up front and always, always read the john. If you read the john and something doesn’t sit well then don’t go with them. Nick had ignored everything he had ever learned about having sex that wouldn’t end with his body stuffed in a dumpster because he was going to live the honest life. He was going to abide by the law and that meant no more solicitation. By golly, he was going to be normal.
Crash standing in front of him, glaring and trembling with pent-up rage was what he got for his effort.
“Wes is a hell of a lot stronger than most people since he’s the only one that’s still alive.” Nick spread his hands to the side and backed away from Crash, never taking his eyes from him. “Do you think you could live through that, Crash?”
“Oh, my dearest heart. I could survive the fuck out of that.” Crash bared his teeth at Nick in what Nick thought was meant to be a smile.
Before Nick knew what was happening, Crash was in his face. He twisted his fingers tight in the collar of Nick’s shirt as he yanked him so close their chests touched. Nick could smell the cheap vodka on his breath, a smell a lot like nail polish remover. Crash kissed him, a brutal push of his lips against Nick’s, before he could even react. At the touch of his mouth, Nick’s stomach flipped, confirming what he already knew: he was done with Crash. The act of kissing him left Nick feeling slimy with disgust.
At the same moment Nick shoved him away, Crash bit his bottom lip hard enough Nick felt the skin split. Crash made an inhuman sound of anger as he went stumbling backwards, teeth slamming together hard enough that Nick heard them clack. Like everyone else, Crash was glued to his cell phone and it clattered to the ground as he pinwheeled his arms to try and keep his balance. The phone spun away, sliding over the concrete and coming to rest against the toe of Nick’s boot.
His immediate reaction was to kick it away when he saw it, but instead he stared. Nick didn’t know a lot about art, but he knew what a woman sitting with a unicorn looked like. The maiden and the unicorn. The story most people didn’t know anymore, but Da Vinci had sketched it in one of his notebooks. Nick looked back at Crash who was watching him with such cold, calculating anger that Nick’s skin pebbled with goosebumps.
“Hand me my phone, would you?” Crash asked.
Nick could see him struggling to regain his old jocular attitude, but he was failing. He was trembling all over, hands opening and closing at his sides, teeth sunk into his bottom lip. A trickle of blood began to wend its way down Crash’s chin and he licked it away with a low sound in the back of his throat.
“Get it yourself, you freak,” Nick said.
He backed away from Crash until he felt like he could turn around and make it back inside. All the way back to the doors, he could feel Crash’s eyes on him. Nick had seen angry people before and he had seen crazy people. Hell, he had seen angry crazy people many times throughout the course of his life and the less than apple pie path it had led him down. Even still, Nick had never seen anger like Crash’s before, rage so deep and pure that it was not beyond the realm of logic to call it evil.
“Goodnight, sweetheart.” It was said in a whisper, a puff of warm breath tickling Nick’s ear and smelling a lot like nail polish remover.
Nick whirled around, nearly falling backward through the automatic doors of the emergency room entrance as they slid open. Crash was right behind him, smiling his sly old bastard of a smile. He wiggled his fingers at Nick and Nick was fed up and done with his shit. He punched him in the face.
Crash yelped in surprise and pain and cupped his hand over his bleeding nose. Then he began to laugh, bending over at the waist and hugging himself. Nick could see his phone clenched in the hand against his middle.
“You are feisty,” Crash said as he looked up, blood dripping down his face. He hiccuped and giggled as he stepped away. “I positively adore it.”
Nick could think of nothing to say—there was nothing he wanted to say. All he wanted was to be as far away from Crash as he could get at the moment. So he crossed over the threshold back into the hospital and walked away as quickly as he could.
Crash’s laughter followed him through the ER lobby, the place like a ghost town tonight. For the first time since coming to work here, Nick wished it was a packed house so he wouldn’t have to be even a little bit alone with the lunatic right outside the door.
24
The office of The Era Leader was not a bustling hub of information and news. Between Hylas, Nick and the potted ivy that was slowly overtaking one wall of the office, there wasn’t a lot going on. There was trance music playing from an iPod docked on the corner of Hylas’s desk. He was spinning his chair around in lazy circles, arms outstretched and head bobbing to the beat of a song that sounded like a dozing computer to Nick. Hylas was grooving on his medication and as awake as he ever got, which was good for Nick’s purposes.
“This town is so boring when no one’s getting murdered,” Hylas said, coming to an abrupt stop to look at Nick over his cluttered desk. “There’s been nothing of interest for weeks, Nick. Weeks.”
“Yeah, it really sucks when people have the nerve to stop dropping dead,” Nick said.
“I know,” Hylas said. “But not really. I mean, dead people make me sad and all. It’s just… good for business.”
“Something has to be going on,” Nick said. “It’s not like we live in Pine or anything.”
“Pine.” Hylas snorted. “Pine is a street and a bunch of meth labs in the woods. Huh. Now that I think about it though, I bet the meth labs would yield some interesting news.”
“Maybe one will blow up soon,” Nick said.
“Maybe.” Hylas sounded wistful and it made Nick smile.
“So, hey, you know how to use the internet, right?”
“Don’t you?”
“Yeah, some,” Nick said. “I figure you’re probably way better at it than I am. Also, you can type; I just poke at the keys and hope for the best.”
“That’s sad, Nicky,” Hylas said. “I am a Google master though and today I shall take up the mantle and become your sensei.”
Nick did at least know what Google was. Christ, he really needed to get off his ass and stop watching television all the time so he could learn other important crap like internet skills. There had been computers at the prison and even the occasional random computer education cl
ass that Nick had never bothered to go to. He regretted that now when even rudimentary computer skills would have been a step up; the computer at work that he used to clock in still foiled him at least three times a week. It made him feel stupid and reminded him that he was outdated. He thought maybe the more appropriate current phrase was that his system needed an upgrade because he was an analog man in a digital world.
“Well… Can you look something up for me?” Nick asked.
“Only if you call me Sensei Dunwalton,” Hylas said.
“No,” Nick said. “Come on, Hylas.”
“Eh, fine,” Hylas said. “It’s not porn is it?”
“What would I do with porn, man?” Nick said.
“That’s true,” Hylas said after a moment’s consideration. “You kinda live the porno, huh?”
“Sure,” Nick said. “Bow-chick-a-bow-bow and all that. Are you going to do it or not?”
“Yes, yes, I said I would,” Hylas said. “Now tell me what it is.”
“I need you to look up a Da Vinci sketch for me,” Nick said. “The one of the maiden and the unicorn.”
“You getting into art now?” Hylas asked.
“Heh,” Nick said. “That’s it exactly. I am an aspiring painter.”
“Hey, you could be,” Hylas said. “You are artistically inclined. I remember when you drew that thing that one time.”
It took Nick a second to work out what Hylas was talking about because he did not remember. That happened to him though. Thanks, drugs! Not to mention, what Hylas said was vague enough that it would give even someone who had not done a lot drugs a moment’s pause. When what Hylas was talking about did surface, Nick snorted out a laugh.
“Dude,” Nick said. “I spray-painted the fucking bat signal on the side of Fussell’s bus. That doesn’t count.”
“It totally counts,” Hylas said with a grin as he clicked something then began to type. He tapped another key after a second then pushed his chair back and stood up. He swept his arm out with a flourish. “Dun-a-dun-a-dun-a-dun-a… Here you go, art lover.”
“Thanks,” Nick said. He got up and took Hylas’s seat while Hylas fiddled with his iPod. He hadn’t even gotten comfortable before he looked at the images on the computer monitor that Hylas had found for him. “Shit,” Nick said under his breath.
The second picture from the left was the same as the one he’d seen on Crash’s phone case.
Since he’d seen the thing, it had bothered him so badly he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He had thought maybe it was the wrong picture, the wrong artist, the wrong everything. Crash didn’t strike him as the type to be into unicorns though and Nick couldn’t think of a single reason why he would have something like that. Unless it hadn’t belonged to him first. Crash did seem like the sort to steal. After a couple of days, he had started to wonder if Crash was the sort to kill. Even the thought opened up an endless stream of additional questions.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Hylas asked.
“Yeah,” Nick said. He leaned back in the chair and stared at the monitor.
“It’s kinda ugly, huh?” Hylas said as he came to stand behind Nick. “I really do not dig that dress.”
“It’s old,” Nick said. “It’s all right though. She’s not much to look at, but the dress is just an old dress.”
“Renaissance art was all about the ugly women because all women were apparently ugly back then. Men, too, though to be fair,” Hylas said. “Da Vinci was cool people, for real though. And seriously, why are you looking at this stuff?”
“Just curious,” Nick said. “Someone mentioned it to me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t remember,” Nick said.
He rubbed a hand over his face and peeked through his fingers at the Da Vinci sketch. Damn and double damn. Nick was not a fan of alerting the authorities about anything, but this was something that should be looked into. Except there was a problem: He had no evidence. He didn’t know much about the internet, but he did know a little about how the law worked. Meaning that he could call the police about Crash having the phone case, but no one would take it seriously and they damn sure wouldn’t arrest Crash on suspicion of phone case theft. Even if the cops did for some reason (boredom, probably) look into it, all Crash would have to say was that he bought it off the internet. If Wes had found it online then anyone else could find it there, too.
Nick was nearly positive he was barking up the right tree, though he worried that he might not be. If he was wrong then he was accusing someone of murder, if only in his mind for the time being. If he went so far as to say it out loud and someone listened then a mere suspicion could blow up into a bona fide Big Deal. One that could forever impact Crash’s life in the negative if it turned out Nick was mistaken after all. It made his skin crawl with chills to think he might be right though and because he might be right, he had to try. He had to know.
It took him several minutes to remember Crash’s real name and when it came to him, he called Hylas back over. He stopped pruning the ivy to wander back to Nick who waved at the computer screen. “How do you look for people on here?”
“You google them,” Hylas said.
“And I do that by typing Google in the address bar, right?” Nick asked.
“Or you could just click the word Google there in the upper right hand corner,” Hylas said. “Or you can type whatever it is you’re looking for directly in the address bar and it will take you to Google, search results already sorted and ready for you.
“Oh,” Nick said. “I didn’t know that was a… uh… thing.”
“There are many things the internet can offer you nowadays,” Hylas said, clapping Nick on the shoulder. “It’s a wonderful place full of violence, nudity, furries and whiners. Plus there’s other crap, too. Because internet. Anyway. Who are we googling?”
“I am googling Calvin Newman,” Nick said as he began the slow task of typing the name into the search bar. He paused afterward, looking for the little arrow or whatever thing that would make the browser do what it was supposed to do, which was go where he wanted it to. Hylas reached over his shoulder and tapped the enter key. Nick grunted his thanks and filed that information away for later. Baby steps all the way, even now.
“So, who’s Calvin Newman?” Hylas asked.
“A guy,” Nick said.
“Wow, a guy? Like a real one?” Hylas said.
“Yeah,” Nick said. He looked at the search results and frowned. There were a lot more Calvin Newmans in the world than he would have thought. Maybe if he narrowed it down. “How do I tell it to look for Calvin Newman in Michigan?”
“Just type the name and add ‘Michigan’ to the end,” Hylas said. “What are you doing? Are you expanding your business? What? Come on, tell me, this is driving me crazy, Nicky. The only big story I have this week is that some girl from around here won a beauty pageant. I have to interview her this evening and it’s going to suck because she’s a high school girl with a rhinestone tiara. It’s terrible.”
Hylas’s curiosity made him a lot of fun—and trouble—usually and it also made him good at his job, probably too good for Sparrow Falls. Right then Nick didn’t feel like dealing with it; not because he didn’t want to tell Hylas or because he didn’t trust him, but because he didn’t feel like it would be safe for him to know.
“Don’t worry about it, Hylas,” Nick said. “Go… do… something.”
“I am doing something,” Hylas said. “Hounding you.”
Nick hit enter to search for Calvin Newman in Michigan and the search engine returned with his results in a blink. Internet speed was one thing that had improved vastly during Nick’s absence from the real world.
“Who is—”
“Jesus fucking God, Hylas,” Nick said. “Fine. Calvin Newman is that guy Crash who works at the hospital. He’s a fucking creep and I was looking him up to see if he’d been arrested for anything.”
“Crash… Crash…” Hylas rocked back on hi
s heels and Nick tensed, hoping he didn’t choose that moment to nod off or he would fall over backwards. Then Hylas snapped his fingers. “He’s that guy you were seeing, right? Dawn Marie told me when I went over there the other day. I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.”
“It was a bad idea,” Nick said. “A really fucking bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you hear the part where I said he’s a creep?”
“Yes, but…”
“But nothing,” Nick said. “He’s a creep and I wanted to check him out, see if he got up to anything in Michigan.”
“Like hijinks?
“Yes, Scooby, like hijinks,” Nick said. He clicked a link that seemed promising.
Hylas massaged his head and Nick relaxed in his chair. Hylas was better than a handful of Somas when he wasn’t hounding the hell out of a person.
“Ruh-roh,” Hylas said when the Calvin Newman he had clicked on turned out to be a ruddy-cheeked, middle-aged man wearing camouflage suspenders and holding a dead duck. “I do not think this is the Calvin Newman you are looking for.”
“No,” Nick said.
An idea had begun to form in the back of his mind though, one that had nothing to do with looking up Crash himself. It was something he could do at the newspaper office, but wasn’t going to due to Hylas hanging over his shoulder. There were computers at the local library though and he thought he would go over there and muddle his way through on their system.
Once he’d had the idea, Nick’s search through the Calvin Newmans in Michigan lost its appeal. He kept up appearances for Hylas’s benefit, but after the fourth link presented him with a picture of a guy using a spatula in a very inappropriate manner, Nick gave up. The spatula was bad enough, but the caption was what really did it: Who wants sausage?
“But why?” Hylas asked after Nick had found the red X to close the window.
“You’d be amazed at what people do with the most harmless things,” Nick said.
“Ooh, like what?” Hylas asked. “You haven’t told me one of your hooker stories in years. Please?”
Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1) Page 29
