Darker Than Any Shadow - By Tina Whittle Page 0,18

a little detective work.

He examined himself in the mirror while I filled in the invoice number on the ledger. As he preened, I reached under the counter and pulled out his new shotgun—a barely used Bernardelli Mississippi .58 reproduction with bayonet and scabbard.

I handed it to him. “Here. Just in time for the big event.”

Bobby almost hemorrhaged with glee. He immediately opened the stock and checked the particulars. “You sure you can shoot live ammo in this?”

“Absolutely sure. I checked with the gunsmith.”

Bobby grinned, and I got the warm sense of satisfaction that comes from making someone happy…and from knowing my bills would get paid that month.

He pulled out his checkbook. “Boonsboro here I come!”

Bobby’s big event was a big one indeed—the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Second Manasses, known to the North as the Second Battle of Bull Run. General Stonewall Jackson himself fought there, and he described the fighting as “fierce and sanguinary.” The skirmish ended in a Confederate victory, and it was happening once again in Boonsboro, Virginia, one hundred and fifty years after the fact. And every single one of its participants needed weapons and ammo and chronologically-appropriate uniforms.

My phone rang before I could take Bobby’s check, however. It was Adam. I felt a sudden punch of foreboding as I shoved the paperwork across the counter.

“Hang on a sec, Bobby, I gotta take this.”

But Bobby had already popped his weapon on his shoulder, its sights set on an ancient invisible enemy. He barely noticed when I took the phone into the office and answered it.

“Adam! Have you heard from Rico?”

His voice was shaky. “He’s home.”

“Is he okay? Did they arrest him?”

“He says it was just for questioning, but…” There was a long pause. “Is it okay if I meet you at the shop? I get off at three.”

Adam worked near Inman Park, in a boutique bed and breakfast run by some friends of his. I checked my watch.

“How about I meet you there instead? I’m headed back to the city in an hour or so.”

I poked my head out the door and peered at Bobby, who was trying on the hat and the gun together and examining the effect in the mirror. His round face, soft and pale from a life under fluorescents, seemed even more babyish in contrast, like a little kid playing dress-up. I flashed on Lex, exactly the opposite of Bobby—so young at a distance, so much older up close.

“Will Trey be coming with you?” Adam said.

“No.”

He exhaled in what sounded like relief. “That’s good. I mean…it’s not that I don’t trust him, but I don’t want to get the cops involved.”

“Trey’s not a cop anymore.”

“Still.” He sighed. “Look, there’s something Rico’s not telling you, something big. And you need to know about it ASAP. And I’d rather it be just the two of us, okay?”

***

The B&B was two doors down from a church made of Stone Mountain granite, one of the hundreds of such structures in the metro area. Adam took care of the greenery for both, inside and out. I recognized his handiwork in one of the vases on the check-in counter. When he’d tried to teach me the art of flower arranging, I’d ended up with a selection of stems that looked like an abandoned game of pick-up sticks.

“Colorful,” he’d said.

I wished I’d had Trey along, especially considering Adam’s reluctance to have him there. People with things to hide tended to avoid Trey, even if they didn’t know what it was about him that made them feel so unzipped. Adam’s relief at his absence pinged my suspicion into the red zone.

But there were upsides to working alone. Without Trey, I could maneuver around the edges a little more easily and not have to worry about running afoul of his Boy Scout meter.

I found Adam in the garden, tidying the late gardenias. His blond cowlicks were molded into sweaty peaks, and a smear of soil marred one cheek like an amateur attempt at tribal decoration. He carried an arsenal of spray bottles and tools, shiny silver with wooden handles, and he smelled of dirt and sweat and the chemical pong of insecticide.

I walked over and stood beside him. “You look like a page from a seed catalog.”

He stood up and pulled off one glove. He was as slender as a sapling, but his hands were strong and—at the moment—clean, even though I’d seen them grimy, black loamy soil ridging his fingernails. The name Adam came from the Hebrew Adama, he’d told