Stray Fears - Gregory Ashe Page 0,66
smell shrimp and lime. My stomach rumbled.
“How is that even possible?” Elien muttered. “You ate most of a chicken.”
My face heated.
“I’m just teasing,” he whispered. He was still holding my arm, and he squeezed lightly now. “Are you mad at me?”
“No.”
“Would you tell me if you were mad at me?”
“I think I’ve been pretty good at telling you when I’m mad.”
“But you’re upset.”
Slowly, I worked his fingers loose from my arm. “Enough, Elien. Let’s do what we came here to do.”
The hurt on his face only lasted an instant. Then he nodded. “How good are you with computers?”
“I know how to turn them on.” I frowned. “Some of them.”
“Jesus. Ok, well, I guess I’m the genius hacker of this duo. How good are you at acting?”
“I played the Big Bad Wolf in third grade.”
Elien groaned. “I can’t do both parts of this plan.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“We need to get Zahra’s room number. And Richard’s, I guess. One of us needs to look on the computer while the other one creates a distraction.”
“You don’t really think Richard is involved in this whole thing with the hashok, do you?”
His hazel eyes were clear as he said simply, “He lied to me.”
“I’ll create the distraction,” I said.
“Pretend to slip,” Elien said. “Then you say something like, ‘Oh my God, I think I broke my leg.’”
I hemmed.
“Let me hear,” Elien said.
“Oh my God, I think I broke my leg.”
Elien groaned again. “A little more emotion, please.”
“Oh my God, I think I broke my leg.”
“Ok, but not like you’re at your third-cousin-twice-removed’s bat mitzvah and you’re trying to convince your mom to let you go home.”
“Um. That is a very specific scenario.”
“Let’s hear it one more time.”
“Oh my God, I think I broke my leg.”
“You know what?” Elien said. “Just sit here. I think I can do both parts.”
“No,” I said. “I can create a distraction. I’m a fucking sorry excuse for a deputy, but I can do this.”
“Please, Dag, earlier, I didn’t mean that—”
“Get ready,” I said, nudging him away.
I headed for the closest restaurant, which was called Pete’s. The lighting was low, with candles at each table, and the smell of shrimp and lime was stronger, mixed now with the fragrance of garlic and hot oil. Most of the tables were empty, and I spotted only two waiters: one at the back, talking to a pair of older women, and one who was passing me toward the kitchen.
“I’ll be right with you,” she said.
“Just looking for a friend,” I said.
As soon as she had passed through the kitchen’s swinging doors, I snagged a candle from the closest table. I turned to go. Then I stopped.
I had only seen Richard once, when he’d picked up Elien after Ray’s suicide. But I recognized him at the corner table in the back, and although I didn’t recognize the guy he was with, I knew the type: a tight t-shirt, tight jeans, the hint of a jockstrap’s blue waistband when he leaned forward, laughing at something Richard had said, touching Richard’s arm. Richard’s other hand was between the guy’s legs. Hard to misunderstand that kind of signal; the way Richard was working that guy, he’d have nothing but pulp down there by morning.
Then I remembered what I was doing, and I cupped a hand around the candle and carried it out to the lobby. I made my way behind one of the seating areas, set the candle flame to the hem of one of the gossamer curtains. When it caught, I blew out the candle, tossed it in a trash can, and walked away.
Then little tongues of fire. Little puffs of smoke.
And nobody noticed.
The flames were licking their way up the curtain, and the lobby was still empty except for me on one side and Elien on the other and a guy behind the reception desk. From a distance, it looked like his name tag said Enrique.
Still nothing.
I decided to help things along, and I shouted, “Fire!”
Enrique got hopping. He grabbed a walkie, shouted something into it, and then he came sprinting around the lobby with a red fire extinguisher in his hands. Elien slipped behind the reception desk.
“Fire,” I said again, and this time I pointed helpfully. The flames had climbed almost all the way up the curtain now.
“Holy shit,” Enrique was shouting over and over again. He aimed the extinguisher’s nozzle, pulled the lever, and powder sprayed out. The extinguisher suffocated the flames quickly, and Enrique stepped around and around like he