by Lisa Henry
He thought about calling Val.
No.
He needed to find Henry first, to catch him before he’d run too far.
He hoped that Henry would stop for a breath at some point and give himself a chance to listen to that little voice in his head that maybe said, “Henry, you promised you’d stop running.”
And then he pictured Henry’s flash-in-the-pan grin. “Bird gotta fly, and fish gotta swim.”
So of course Henry had run, and of course he’d keep running. Except this time Mac knew exactly where he’d go.
Altona. No way in hell would he run without Viola.
All Mac had to do was beat him back to the farm.
He was about to get into his truck when the prepaid phone buzzed in his hand. He recognized the number.
Frank’s.
Shit. Why the hell not? It wasn’t like this day could get any more fucked up.
“McGuinness?”
“Yeah.” Mac eyed the street.
“Did you try and call earlier? I missed a call. I was in the john.”
“Yeah. You got anything for me?”
“As a matter of fact I think I’m about to get a call on that. You wanna meet up?”
“Yes.” Mac wrote down the address that Frank gave him.
“It’s a dumbwaiter,” Cory said.
“Huh?” Viola had never seen one before. The space beyond the secret door was dark and narrow. And there were spiders. But she liked spiders.
“I read about them in Club Werewolf number nine.” Cory poked her head out. “Dumbwaiters are from the 1840s. They’re elevators, and you can put food or drinks in them and send them upstairs or downstairs.” Cory retreated back into the dumbwaiter. “This one’s big. And it has a motor! You press this switch and it goes down.” She stuck her head out again suddenly. “Maybe this was where my great grandpa hid his booze!”
“Your great grandpa hid booze?”
“Uh-huh! He used to make it, illegally. So there’s lots of hiding places in this house, Papa says.”
“Does your family know about it?”
Cory shrugged. “Maybe.” She gestured to Viola. “Get in.”
“Can it hold both of us?” Viola could hear it creaking as Cory moved.
“We can both fit. We’ll just be a little squished.”
Cory backed into the corner to give Viola room.
Slowly, Viola climbed into the dumbwaiter. She crawled next to Cory. Sneezed from the dust. It reminded her of hiding in the closet with Sebby and Mac. “I think I’m getting your grandpa’s suit dirty.”
“Who cares? We have a secret room!”
Viola laughed. “Yes!”
“No one will find us here. And when they notice we’re gone, they’ll be sorry they didn’t pay more attention to us.”
Viola felt a thrill. Could she and Cory really vanish through a trapdoor, like the witches in Macbeth?
Cory leaned out the door, straining to grasp the handle of the trunk.
“What are you doing?”
“Disguise,” Cory said. “Nobody will suspect we’re here if the room looks the same as always.”
Viola was a little scared—as the trunk covered more of the small hatchway, it got darker inside the dumbwaiter. But she loved the idea of a secret room.
She heard the front door open.
“Quick!” Cory said. “It’s Papa.”
Viola helped Cory pull the trunk back to where it had originally stood. Now, when the door was lowered, the trunk would conceal the handle.
“Cory!” Cory’s grandpa called from downstairs. “Time to head back. There’s a storm coming.”
Cory reached for the cord and tugged the dumbwaiter door down.
The secret room was completely black.
“Cory? Viola?”
Cory whispered, “Shhh.”
Viola grinned in the darkness, and together they listened to Cory’s papa’s footsteps on the stairs.
“Cory!” he called again. He entered the sewing room.
Viola held perfectly still, like she had last night when the bad lady, Janice Bixler, had been looking for them.
They heard him leave the sewing room and go down the hall. “Cory? Where are you?”
“Maybe we should come out now.” Hiding was fun, but she felt sorry for Ian.
“Why?” Cory asked. “This is fun.”
“He sounds scared.”
“But we want people to notice us, right? They’ll all have to notice if we’re gone.”
Viola didn’t answer. Ian’s footsteps were in the bedroom for a while; then they went down the stairs. “Viola and Cory!” He sounded angry. “If you’re in this house, you need to answer me right now!”
Viola didn’t want to come out anymore. Because what if they got in trouble for hiding? Viola used to get in trouble sometimes for wandering away from St. Albinus.
And she didn’t like Cory’s grandpa yelling for her to answer right now, like she was a little kid.
They stayed in the dumbwaiter until they heard Cory’s grandpa go outside. He was still calling for them, but his voice got fainter.
Cory pawed the dumbwaiter door up again, and crawled out, giggling. “That was awesome! Now no grown-ups will bother us while we do theater.”
Viola climbed out behind her. “Our secret room works!”
Cory went over to their pile of costume pieces. “And now,” she said, turning to Viola. “What are my lines?”
Henry had tried Stacy four times with no answer. He didn’t know where she hung out when she wasn’t at the Court. Where she’d run if she lost her sanctuary.
He stopped and leaned against the side of a bank building. Made himself breathe.
Think. Fucking think.
He rolled his head against the granite.
All he could see was Remy.
He half wished he’d turn and see Mac running toward him, arms a-flapping. Wished Mac would order him to come home with him, lecture him for fleeing.
Because fuck it all. I don’t know what to do.
The pain in him was too big, gave him no room to think. If he didn’t have the Court, didn’t have Remy, if he couldn’t find Stacy—then what else did he have?
A guy rode by on a bicycle with what looked like about twelve pounds of rainbow chard in a basket on the back. Across the street, someone was walking a white fluffy dog.
No fucking way was he going back to Lonny Harris’s apartment.
Where, then?
He stared at his phone. He could call Mac.
And say what?
What could Mac possibly do to make things okay? To make Henry okay?
Things were a whole lot easier before I met that bastard.
“You all right?”
A young woman had stopped a few feet away and was looking at him. ISU tank top, sweet face.
Nope.
“Yeah.”
“You look kind of sick.”
“I’m fine.”
She walked on.
He glanced at the sky. It had been a dull gray when he and Mac drove into the city, but now dark clouds swooped over the buildings. It’d be all right with Henry if a tornado or some shit came and flattened all of Indianapolis.
Think. Thinkthinkthinkthink.
He could leave Indianapolis. He could leave Indiana. He could leave the country.
But that wasn’t running to anything. No matter where he went, he was in for a lifetime of donning and shucking disguises, wandering a maze of streets, until he ended up in prison or dead.
You had one chance. One fucking chance at something different.
And he’d just bailed on that chance. For the zillionth time.
He stuffed his phone in his pocket.
He wasn’t going to call Mac. Wasn’t going to hang around toying with some fantasy that meant nothing except that Henry Page was losing his edge.
He’d get the hell out. If he was going to start a new life, he sure as shit didn’t need to build it in the ruins
of the old one. But first he needed Vi, which meant he had to get back to Altona.
And he had to get there before Mac did.
He straightened and looked around. No car. Stealing one was too risky. Indianapolis was shit for cabs, and no cabbie would take him all the way to Altona anyway.
So that left either hot-wiring Mac’s truck, which could take a while and would guarantee Mac showed up while Henry was in mid-hot-wire . . . or hitching.
A number 34 bus rumbled down the street, and he hurried to catch it. Climbed on and sank into a seat, and let the bus carry him away from Mac. And from Remy.
He stared out the window at the streets and tried not to cry. Crying would just bring attention to him.
He hated Indianapolis.
It was hot in the summer and freezing in the winter, and he’d spent too many hours studying the cracks on East Washington and smiling at narrow-eyed married men in cars. Standing close to Remy when it was so cold he couldn’t even shiver anymore, and Remy taking his hands and breathing warm air onto them. Their cold noses touching.
Then, when they’d been at the Court, they’d sworn they’d never go back to that life. Sworn it.
“‘Woe,’” Henry whispered at the scratched bus window. “‘Cry woe, destruction, ruin and decay; The worst is death and death will have his day.’”
Shakespeare brought him comfort, usually. A mental game he played, a quote for any situation, ritual and poetry worth more to him than any stupid prayer. Not today.
Remy was gone, and the Court was gone, and Henry had nothing left in Indianapolis.
He punched in Stacy’s number on his phone again, and got the message it had been disconnected. Again.
He squeezed his eyes shut as fresh tears threatened. Saw Remy lying there on that ugly carpet.
Eyes, look your last.
His breath caught. He opened his eyes again. The woman in the seat in front was looking at him. She turned around when he caught her staring.
Henry had thought, once, that anything he needed to know about people he could find in Shakespeare: their heroism, their frailties, their idealism, and their villainy. But now it all felt hollow, Shakespeare’s undiscovered country as hackneyed and dull to him as any cliché. There was nothing wise or knowledgeable about being able to parrot those words. Nothing comforting.
Words, words, words.
His best friend in the world was dead, and he was fixated on fucking words.
He was a piece of shit.
Remy should have hated him. Should never have loved him at all. Should never have wrapped his arms around him to try and make him warm. “You okay, babe?”
No.
He scrubbed his cheeks with his hands and stared fixedly out of the window.
The bus took him to the depot on South Illinois Street. Henry didn’t have enough cash to make it to Altona, or even as far as Fort Wayne.
Didn’t matter.
He’d head out onto the highway and hitch.
“Well,” Frank announced as he led the way through to his office. “You’re right, McGuinness, you’re being set up. Take a seat.”
Mac looked at the place dubiously. It was full of stacked newspapers, shelves of old VHS cassettes, and, for some reason, boxes of dog biscuits. A calendar showing a topless Miss January 1993 straddling a motorcycle was hanging from the wall. He expected the crew from Hoarders to burst in at any moment.
He sat down and stared at a box of dog biscuits. The words on the side of the carton were possibly Cyrillic. “I’d love to know what truck these fell off. Are they even legal to sell here?”
Frank tapped the side of his nose. “What dogs don’t know won’t hurt ’em.” He levered himself down into his chair and squinted at him. “Now, you are in a world of shit, aren’t you?”
Succinct.
He nodded. “Yeah. I am.”
He checked his watch. It’d been over an hour since Henry had ditched him at Lonny’s apartment. He could be halfway to Altona by now. He should call home, and get his parents to try to keep him there. Lock him in the basement if they had to, just until Mac could talk to him. Convince him to stay.
When he was eight, Mac had caught a stray cat. The thing was feral. He’d locked it in the old barn for three days straight, with enough food and water to fatten it up, because you couldn’t deal with an animal that frightened and wild. You had to wait until the panic wore off before you could even start to coax it into tameness. The process had been long and arduous, particularly for an eight-year-old. His first real lesson in patience.
Best cat he’d ever had.
Mac wasn’t sure the strategy would work as well on Henry, but he was willing to try.
God. He shouldn’t have let him run. He’d been in a blind panic when he left the apartment. What if he’d run straight into fucking traffic?
He drew a deep breath.
No. Because Henry wasn’t a terrified cat. He was a human being. An adult, even.
Frank huffed. “You got somewhere else to be, McGuinness?”
“Sorry. Little distracted.” He pulled off his cap and rubbed his forehead.
“Yeah, well.” Frank leaned back in his chair. It squeaked. “I’ve been asking around about your little problem with the Office of Professional Responsibility, and you are not going to like what I’ve found.” His chair squeaked again as he shifted forward to open a drawer. He slapped a folder on the desk and pushed it over to Mac.
He opened it.
Lonny Harris’s crime scene photographs. “Where the hell did you get this?”
“I’ve got my sources.”
“In Homicide?”
“Every-fucking-where. It’s why you come to me, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He sighed.
“So, there’s Harris.” Frank jabbed a stubby finger at the photograph. “The guy who made a complaint against you that you were dealing drugs and roughing people up. And someone conveniently got rid of him before he could give evidence.”
“Yeah.” He stared at Lonny’s photographs, but only saw Remy’s face now. “And it’s going to look like I did it.”
“Of course it is,” Frank said. “Why the fuck would someone go to the trouble of setting you up and not see it all the way through? An asshole like Lonny would have crumbled on the stand. He’s much more useful as a corpse than as a witness.”
“Comforting.”
“You’re not here for fucking comfort, you’re here for answers.”
“I am.” Mac looked him the eye. “You got any?”
Frank leaned back again—squeak—and folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah. I know who’s setting you up.”
“Who?” he bit out.
Frank’s eyes were dark. He smiled slightly. “Flora.”
Hitchhiking was the same as a con. You had to pick your mark. In a perfect world, Henry would have gone with families with kids every time. But in a perfect world, families with kids didn’t stop for single guys on the side of the road. So he went with truckers. They were usually straight talking. If they wanted a blowjob for the price of a ride, they were up front about it. It had been years since Henry had done that, but desperate times and all. Except there was very little room for any big rigs to pull over. He was out of practice. He should have hit a truck stop instead of heading straight out onto the road.
Oh well.
The first car that pulled over was a blue pickup.
“Where you headed?” the guy asked.
Something about his narrow look gave Henry the chills. He’d worked the streets long enough not to ignore his instincts.
“Nashville,” he lied.
“That’s south,” the guy said. “You’re heading north. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Sorry, man.” He showed the guy his palms and backed away from the car.
It sped off.
And fuck you too.
He kept walking.
The next car that pulled over was a BMW. Three occupants: a man and a woman in the
front, and a second man in the back. They looked like business people, he figured, colleagues on their way to a conference or something. He straightened his tie.
“Where are you headed?” the woman in the passenger seat asked. She smiled at him.
“Altona.”
“We can take you as far as Fort Wayne,” she said.
“That’s perfect.” He tried for his best smile, but he wasn’t sure he could manage anything much. God. He just needed to get Vi and get the fuck out of Indiana. For good. “Thanks so much.”
He slid into the backseat, already dreading the small talk he was sure was coming his way.
So, what is it that you do?
It’s not safe, you know, hitchhiking.
Have you found Jesus yet?
Because he wouldn’t have been surprised if the conference these people were going to was that sort of conference. He had the feeling they were going to try to proselytize him at any second.
But they didn’t say anything.
Eventually he got tired of the silence. Even small talk was better than thinking about Remy.
Or thinking about leaving Mac.
“Nice car,” he said. “This the 2012?”
“2013 3 Series,” the woman said.
“You like the reverse camera system?”
“Took a little getting used to. But it’s saved me a couple of times.” She was petite, with platinum-blonde hair that had seen too many dye jobs. She stared straight ahead for the most part, but every now and then Henry caught her looking at him with the side mirror.
“Love the leather seats,” he said.
“Me too.”
He didn’t know what to say next. He thought about his first ride to Indianapolis with Mac, when Mac had collected him from the Dayton police station. He hadn’t had to think about what to say; he’d just opened his mouth and said whatever popped into his head. And it had been wonderful, because everything he said had annoyed Mac, and Mac was so funny when he was pissed off.
He’d always had an easy time talking to people, telling them what they wanted to hear, or what they didn’t want to hear, depending on what reaction he was going for. But lately he felt like he was thinking about everything he said or did. Questioning shit he’d never thought relevant, like who he was or what kind of a future he wanted.
