parties or football games on this front yard. Hell, she couldn’t have felt safe crouching behind the tiny dwelling’s bar-covered windows. The empty bullet casings twinkling in a patch of weeds by the van tires said as much.
He took a deep breath and smoothed over his expression. She’d lose her shit if she thought he was pitying her, and get all kinds of embarrassed if she sensed his disgust for the ramshackle house. This wasn’t her fault. She’d had no control over this. And the fact that she’d made it out alive told him she could make it through anything. He was damn proud of her, when it came down to it—something he would tell her when they were away from the broken crack pipes and human feces. At the moment, he didn’t trust that sadness wouldn’t leak into his words. His childhood had sucked, but compared to this, he’d grown up in Wonka’s chocolate factory.
“Is that a chalk outline?” Rod took four steps down the sidewalk and bent down to take a closer look. “It is. Holy shit.”
Dillon and Cole both peered at the cement.
“I didn’t realize they did chalk outlines—I thought that was only in the movies,” Steve said, leaning up against the van with one ankle crossed over the other. His pose said boredom, but his flicking eyes, touching each window in every decrepit home surrounding them, said he was on high alert. He felt the danger of this place, and the lion in him was securing the territory.
Charity’s eyes hadn’t left the weather-beaten front door. A strange rigidity had crept into her body. “They do it when it’s a homicide. If they feel like looking into it, that is.”
“Let’s get this done.” Devon lightly grabbed Charity’s arm and directed her along the disheveled walkway toward the blackened front stoop.
“Is it always this quiet?” Cole said.
“Not when you’re present,” Steve replied.
Charity looked at the sky before letting Devon lead her forward. “At this time of the day it usually was, yes. Later in the afternoon it’ll get busier, then the evening and night will see the most action. I was always behind a locked door at that point, not that it would’ve helped if someone had decided to come in.”
Devon barely kept from rubbing her back in support. From the sound of her voice, she didn’t need it. This had been her reality, plain and simple. She probably recognized the horror of that, but she clearly hadn’t given in to it. His pride rose in tandem with the sadness.
“A couple people looking out their windows,” said Barbara, sounding like a SWAT team member.
“They won’t bother us. It’s the guys loitering or strolling up the street you have to worry about.” Charity stopped in front of the door. “I hate being here.”
“It’s okay,” Devon whispered. “A quick chat and we’re gone.”
Charity’s smile held no humor. “I don’t think this is going to go how you think it will go.” She rapped on the door. “You all will want to clear to the side. He’s got shit aim, but that won’t stop him from trying.”
“This is a level of crazy I wasn’t prepared for,” Rod said in a wispy voice, stepping off the walkway and onto the mostly dirt yard.
“Real sensitive, dick,” Andy muttered.
“This isn’t the half of it,” Charity said before rapping again with hard, angry pounds. “You haven’t met my old man yet.”
“What the fuck do you want?” came through the door.
“Open up or I will bust this door down, Walt,” she hollered.
“You don’t call your dad ‘Dad’?” Andy asked.
“He didn’t do a lick of fathering—why should he get the title?” Charity rapped again. “Last chance, Walt.”
Tinkling sounded before a deadbolt turned over. The door opened a crack, revealing two long barrels.
“I’ll take that.” Fast as sin, Charity rammed the door wider with her shoulder, grabbed the end of the gun, and yanked it toward her, wrenching it out of the old man’s hands. She kicked the door, catching the side of his face on its trajectory toward the wall.
The man in the doorway had ruddy cheeks from years of drinking and a shiny bald head surrounded by tangled gray hair. His spindly arms and thin, slightly bow-shaped legs didn’t match the round gut half hanging out of a stained and ripped white T-shirt. Jeans hung too low, and his fly gaped open.
His bloodshot eyes narrowed when he saw her. He surveyed Devon next, then glanced behind them. “Get off my yard,” he rasped.