Darker Than Any Shadow - By Tina Whittle Page 0,19

me once. Of the dirt.

The sun rode high, and I moved into the shade under a purple cloud of crepe myrtle. There was no grin on Adam’s face now, no sign of his usual effervescence. He pulled off the other glove.

“Wait here. I’ll get us something to drink.”

***

He fetched lemonade and a plate of butter cookies from the kitchen, then joined me on the grass. He sat with his legs stretched out in front of him, one hand absently combing the rosemary. I waited, but he didn’t speak. I knew I had to be patient for this part. Too often I rushed it, like a dirty blond bulldozer, piling mounds of earth all over the information I was seeking, and sometimes over the person I was seeking it from. I nibbled a cookie, drank more lemonade.

Finally, he spoke. “You’re his best friend, right?”

“From junior high on. Our families were in the same social club too, if you can believe that.”

Adam finally smiled a little. “Rico calls it the Guilty Liberals with Money Club.”

I returned the smile. “As opposed to the Closet Racists with Property Club, which met on Thursdays.”

Clouds had tamped the knife-edge of the sun, but there was no rain in them. They were as bleached as bone, more like gathered dust than water. This happened every afternoon, sometimes displaying spits of fitful lightning on a dark horizon. But no rain. Never rain.

“Tai? Do you think he could kill somebody?”

This question again. I gave the standard answer.

“Any of us could kill. But do I think Rico killed Lex? No.” I put my lemonade down and wiped the cool condensation on the back of my neck. “There’s something he’s not telling me, though. And that worries me.”

“There’s something he’s not telling me either. But I do know one thing, a big thing.” He got up and started deadheading the plants, cutting down the withered buds with an assassin’s focus. “Rico came home without his shoes last night. The cops kept them.”

“Why?”

“Because he had blood on them.”

I put the cookie down quick. “Blood? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I noticed it right before the performance, when he got back from wherever he’d been. I thought maybe it was mud or red wine. But he’d been drinking champagne, not wine. And there’s not a speck of mud in Fulton County right now.”

“Did he tell you what happened?”

“No. He called me about four in the morning, from the station. He told me to bring new shoes. I did. And then he rode home without saying a word. And when we got back to the apartment, he went right to the bedroom, shut the door, and wouldn’t talk to me. And then he left this morning and didn’t tell me where he was going or what he was doing.”

Damn. That didn’t sound good. “Have you called him?”

“He’s not picking up.” He tilted his head back and stared at the sky. “Something’s been wrong ever since Vigil got out of jail. You noticed too, right? That something was wrong?”

No, I hadn’t. I’d been busy tracking down Bernadelli rifles and black powder and getting fitted for my latest red dress. I stifled a pang of conscience.

As we sat there, the sun burned through the cloud cover, becoming once again bright and merciless. Even the shade was no respite against it. Even the shadows were dense and close and stuck to the skin.

Adam looked glum. “So what do we do now?”

He left the question on the table like a bill nobody wanted to pay. I knew what I’d be doing, for sure—after this revelation, I was going to find Rico and drag the story out of him come hell or high water. But I had no idea what Adam should do.

I reached over and put my hand on his. “We’ll figure something out. I promise.”

I squeezed his fingers. He didn’t speak, just sat there staring off into the middle distance.

“Fuck,” he finally said.

“Fucking right,” I agreed.

Chapter Eleven

I found Rico at the edge of Piedmont Park. He was hard to miss in his baggy shorts and Converse, topped with a black tee-shirt, dark eyes hidden behind opaque shades. He faced the far end of the park, where the grass edged into verdant stands of trees. Beyond that, Midtown flared skyward, as if it too had sprung from the fertile earth and climbed toward the yellow sun, which was burning as hot and steady as a stove eye.

He didn’t react when I sat down next to him and handed him