Lost Boy - Ker Dukey Page 0,26

did over a decade ago. The first couple years after my mother’s death, he would visit my aunt’s. He started showing up less and less, and eventually, I forgot about him or he did me. “Ms. West.” He holds his hand out to me.

“I remember you,” I tell him, refusing the hand he offers.

“I wasn’t sure if you would.” He looks bashful between Barnett and me. “I’d like to ask you some questions if that’s okay,” he says, dropping his hand.

“Okay.”

“Do you think you’d be okay coming to the station?”

Shrugging off the blanket, I stand. “Sure.” Stepping down from the ambulance, I move toward the car he gestures to, slipping inside the backseat. I feel guilty of something. It’s wriggling around inside me like a virus. The side of my neck heats, and I just know before I turn my head Green Eyes is in the gathering crowd. I feel him. Our eyes meet, and the pulse in my wrists flicker, the old scars coming to life. Who are you? I want to scream it, shake him, slap him. It’s madness. Am I crazy?

“Where is Charlotte?” I croak out when Detective Hernandez gets into the car.

“She’s being taken by my colleague.”

Why are they separating us? Because this is about you, not her.

Pulling away from the curb, a tug in my heart makes me check behind me to see if Green Eyes is still there. It’s impossible to see from this distance. Settling into the leather seat, I allow my eyes to close.

Blood. Pain. Gore.

A jarring panic forces them to open. The lights from the world flicker past the window like fireworks. “You okay back there?” Detective Hernandez asks.

“Fine,” I lie. I’ll never be fine again.

The florescent lights hurt my eyes. The small square room is cold and dull. I’ve been waiting for ages. Just me, these four walls, a table…I wish I’d kept the itchy blanket now. I can’t breathe. I’m drowning, sinking deeper and deeper into nightmares. Finally, the door opens, and in walks Detective Hernandez holding a cup. “I hope black is okay.” He smiles, placing the cup of coffee in front of me. My hands wrap around it, stealing the heat. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting so long.” He places a folder on the table and inserts a tape into a recorder device.

“Am I in trouble?” I croak.

“Why would you think that?” He looks at me, intrigue alight in his brown eyes.

“I’m not a child anymore, Detective. I know you leaving me is what you do to criminals when you want them to sweat.”

Holding my gaze, he offers a half-smile. “That’s not what I’m doing with you. I was honestly gathering facts and information. I’m sorry you were left waiting.”

Silence.

“Where’s Charlotte?”

Looking to the door, he says, “She’s here too, helping us with our investigation.”

I rub a finger over my scars as the cold rinses through my body, settling like an iceberg in my chest. “Did you find him inside?”

“Who?” he steeples his fingers, and I want to reach across the table and slap him.

“The person who killed that man,” I choke out, pissed off I have to clarify. Games, testing me—why?

“We believe he may have fallen. There was no one in your apartment.”

The words hit me like he’s struck out and slapped me. How can they think that? We saw someone in the apartment.

“What about Charlotte’s date?”

Nodding his head, he flicks through a folder. “Trey Royce. We located him. He left your apartment just after the two of you. He went to meet up with someone.”

Shaking my head to try and clear the jumbled thoughts, I ask, “What about the note on the window?”

Shifting through some bags, he scoots a clear evidence bag across the table, a small sliver of paper sitting inside, one word written in what looks like blood. Polo!

“We’re having it tested.” My lungs seize, I reach for the cup to wash the lump expanding in my throat. Thud. Thud. Thud. “Everything okay? Does this mean something to you?”

“It’s…” I try to breathe, to get my throat to open. “It’s what Jack and I played.”

He jots the information down. “Would anyone else know that?”

Shaking my head, my mother forms in my brain, then pops like a bubble being poked. No. No one alive.

This is a targeted attack. That man was murdered because he was with us—me. “But you’re saying the guy fell?” I scoff.

Drumming his fingers on the folder, he jerks his head. “We go by the evidence presented, and there was no