The Dangerous Edge of Things - By Tina Whittle Page 0,32

was entirely unflattering, and I suspected the entire Beaumont PR machine would roll out first thing in the morning to eliminate it from the blogosphere.

So the same guy who was following us in the Explorer was also the erratic photographer at the Mardi Gras party? But why was he taking pictures of me and Trey in the Ferrari? And even though he was seen on Phoenix property when the security cameras were destroyed, what possible reason could he have for doing such a thing? It made no sense.

I was scrolling though his blog when my cell phone rang—a local number, one I didn’t recognize. When I answered, I heard the muted echo of traffic in the background.

“Rico?”

“Look,” said a female voice, “I don’t know who you are, but I am telling you, do not trust those people, especially not that asshole manager. Or that bitch Janie, do not believe a word that comes out of that crazy redneck’s mouth.”

Who was Janie? And which cop guy, which manager? Garrity? Jake?

“Who is this? How did you get this number?”

“Listen, I’m not playin’ here. This is for real, you hear what I’m saying?”

“I can’t help you unless—”

“Shit, baby, I’m trying to help you, so you’d best listen—don’t trust nobody, don’t believe nobody. I’ll let you know what you need to know when you need to know it.”

A loud fading honk, like a semi passing close by, then the click of the connection being broken. I stared at the phone, utterly at a loss. This was the kind of crap that only happened to people who knew what to do about it. Nice innocent people like me didn’t get “trust no one” phone calls at midnight.

Besides, this midnight warning didn’t make sense; I only knew of one cop guy—Garrity. Hmm…What did I really know about him? Quickly, I typed “Dan Garrity” into the search box.

The first entries were the usual APD stuff. Some articles about his recent promotion, a press release or two about his work with computer fraud. Nothing personal, no blogs or weird fan fiction sites, just a slew of professional accomplishments.

And then a series of articles with a familiar name paired with it—Trey Seaver. I clicked on the first entry, an archived Journal-Constitution from almost two years before.

And that’s when I saw the word “fatal.”

It’s a hard word to move beyond. But there was Garrity’s name, highlighted in blue, and the text of an article that I assumed at first to be about Trey’s collision with the eighteen-wheeler.

But when I saw my brother’s name, I looked twice. And I saw that the word after “fatal” wasn’t “accident” or “crash.”

It was “shooting.” And I knew what it was that Garrity had been hiding from me.

Chapter 17

Come Sunday morning, I was feeling a twinge of guilt at not telling anyone about my mysterious phone caller. In fact, I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t want to. Rico, however, had an idea.

“It’s something you have that they don’t,” he said. “You’re spiteful that way. Always gotta have something in pocket.”

He’d called me as I was getting dressed, his voice rough with exhaustion and a night of talking too loudly. And he was right—I did like to hoard my secrets. After all, I wasn’t telling him what I’d discovered about Trey the night before, and I told Rico everything.

I took the phone outside to a secluded area off the lobby where the valets hung out on their breaks. They were a wholesome-looking bunch, young and well-scrubbed. They all smoked. I tried to stay upwind, but the spiky bite of secondhand smoke found me anyway, curling into my nose. I shoved two pieces of gum into my mouth and took a seat on the edge of a planter.

“Hey, can you trace a call backwards, from a phone number?”

“Depends. Residential, cell phone, payphone?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

“Of course you don’t. But yeah, I can give it a shot.”

“I knew you could. You busy this morning?”

“Got nothin’ but time.”

“Cool.” I hopped down off the planter. “How about giving me a lift? My car is still at Phoenix, and there’s this field trip I’m dying to take.”

***

I waited for him in the lobby. When he arrived, the two women sitting opposite me checked him out like he was some rap singer they should have recognized. Or perhaps a criminal from a wanted poster.

He did look startling. Baggy black pants flowing over high-top Converses. A red Falcons jersey with a black 69. Gold hoops in each ear, a diamond stud