A Friend in the Dark - Gregory Ashe Page 0,47

have been dismissed as the result of the most recent transaction, other clues told the rest of the story as the woman moved into the light: the shoulders, the hands, the hips. “Who’s asking?”

“My name’s Rufus. I’m a friend of Jake’s.”

Juliana froze. Slowly, one of her hands moved to press against her leg, fingers trembling at the hem of the short skirt.

Sam didn’t actually do anything so crass as lean forward and whisper, She’s got a knife, but the way the big man started rumbling and rustling, it was pretty close.

“Who’s Jake?” Juliana said.

Rufus held his hands up in an act of submission. “The cops ask for my help now and then. I keep an eye on the nasty fuckers in the city, and Jake kept an eye on me in return.” Rufus’s voice caught a little and he had to clear his throat. “Something terrible has happened to Jake.”

Juliana had to be past forty, but she moved on kitten heels without a hint of a wobble as she scurried toward the path. “Look, I’m sorry about your friend, but I don’t know a Jake. You guys should… you should clear out of here.”

Rufus took a shot in the dark and called out, “What about Sergeant Heckler?”

“She’s going to run,” Sam said quietly.

Juliana’s face blanched, and she managed two long strides before one of the heels snapped and she tumbled sideways. She came down hard on her knee, swearing, “Shit, shit, shit.” And then she scrambled up, covering her leg where road rash from the asphalt peeled it open, and faced them, limping back and away. “Stay there, ok? I don’t know Jake. I don’t know Heckler. I don’t know anybody, ok?”

Rufus still hadn’t moved, still hadn’t lowered his hands. “Jake mentioned your name, Juliana. Now he’s dead and Heckler tried to take me out too. What’s going on? Whatever it is, we’ll help you, I promise.”

“Tell her about bringing them in from the north,” Sam said, bending to speak the words low into Rufus’s ear.

Rufus nodded and quickly said, “He told my friend ‘they were brought in from the north.’ What does that mean?”

Indecision twisted Juliana’s face, but she stopped moving. “You can’t—you can’t just make me disappear. People know me. My girlfriend’s coming right now to check on me, so you just—just stay right there.”

Her fear was palpable, so viciously relatable, that Rufus felt a very physical pang in his heart. “I’m not going to allow anyone to make you disappear. But I have to know what you’ve seen and heard.”

“I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. You say you helped Jake?” Juliana scoffed. “Look how he ended up. You want that? I don’t. I shouldn’t have told him, shouldn’t have opened my mouth. Let this go, walk away. Christ knows I’m going to.”

Rufus tugged his beanie off. “Juliana,” he tried once more, voice thick. “Hang on, please. Daisy didn’t say anything and look what happened to her.”

At some level Rufus expected what happened next: the chain reaction of confusion, recognition, disbelief, sorrow, and then all of it burning out like a magnesium strip. “Oh, child,” Juliana said, which was a silly way to talk to a man in his thirties, but still hit Rufus hard, harder than he would have liked. Struggle worked its way across Juliana’s features once more, and then she nodded. “Ok. But let’s sit down. My leg is killing me, and don’t get me started about my knees.”

Rufus took a few steps backward and pointed in the direction of a wooden bench along the edge of the path and nestled up against the tree line. He took a seat first, on the far right, allowing Juliana plenty of space.

She perched on the end of the bench, crossing her legs at the ankle and massaging the edges of the scraped flesh. Between hisses of pain, she looked at Rufus, dark eyes buried under a mountain of foundation. “I haven’t thought about Daisy in a long time,” she said, her massage slowing. “I don’t mean anything bad, but life moves on, you know? How’d you get caught up in this mess?” Then, nodding at Sam, “And who’s this big brutal bite of a man?”

Rufus leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. He eyed Sam briefly before smiling and saying to Juliana, “He’s pretty cute, right? He got an e-mail from Jake, who mentioned meeting you, and now here we both are, trying to figure out who would have wanted Jake