The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,13
order of fries, and a Coke roughly the size of Utah Lake.
Jem glanced at Tean, his eyes sharply curious, as though he had sensed Tean’s scrutiny. He very well might have; he had an uncanny degree of instinct. A smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth, and even though his lips didn’t move, his eyes said, Busted.
Tean flushed and stared straight ahead.
For a while, they just walked, and Jem did what he was good at: he seemed to be talking, but mostly he was listening, asking questions, using Hannah’s name. Making her trust him. Tean wasn’t even sure that Jem knew he was doing it—at least, not anymore. It was second nature to him now. And there was no malice in it; it was just Jem being Jem. Put Jem in a roomful of people, and they’d all be writing him checks and trying to set him up with their daughters—or sons—by the end of the night. Put Tean in a roomful of people, and by the end of the night they’d all be scrabbling at the doors and windows, trying to claw their way out.
Something in the conversation caught Tean’s attention, and he tuned back in as Hannah said, “This is what I wanted to show you.”
The trees grew close together here, casting thick shadows; Tean was surprised to realize he could hear nothing of the city, although suburban homes were probably only a few hundred yards in every direction. The air was chilly and, for Utah, humid; Jem was chafing his arms through the ridiculous turquoise-and-pink windbreaker he insisted on wearing.
“I can’t really see anything,” Tean said. “Let me turn on my light.”
“No,” Hannah said. “Don’t. I want you to see it the way I saw it. I was standing right here, around this time of night, about two weeks ago.”
“Do you remember what day?” Tean asked.
“Friday or Saturday. A weekend night because I wasn’t worried about getting up for work the next day.”
“Ok,” Jem said. “What happened?”
“I looked behind me. Go ahead and do it.”
Tean glanced back. The sodium-vapor lamps from the playground threw off a hazy cloud of light where the trees thinned and the path climbed back up away from the creek. The effect was like looking along a dark tunnel and spotting the relative brightness at the mouth. A bird moved nearby in the trees—a nightjar, Tean guessed—twigs crackling to announce its passage. Jem swore, and then he laughed, scratching his beard, when Tean and Hannah looked at him.
“Well, I’m not a Super Scout like you two,” he said. “And this place is creepy as hell.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Hannah said. “I’d never thought of it that way. When I looked back, I saw someone standing there. Just an outline, silhouette, you know.”
“Man or woman?” Tean said. “Tall or short? Bulky or thin? Distinctive clothing, hair, physical traits—”
“Oh, yeah, like was it the Hunchback of Notre Dame?” Jem asked.
Tean tried to punch him, but as always, Jem was too fast.
“I really don’t know,” Hannah said. “I couldn’t make out any details.”
Jem and Tean shared a glance, and Jem jogged back the way they had come.
“What’s he doing?” Hannah asked.
“Just wait,” Tean said. When Jem had positioned himself at the end of the trail, he was nothing but a silhouette. “Was the person facing the trail, the way Jem is right now?”
“I think so.”
“Profile,” Tean shouted.
Jem turned to the side.
“No,” Hannah said. “They were definitely facing the trail.”
“As tall as Jem?”
She shook her head.
“Shorter,” Tean shouted.
Slowly, Jem squatted.
“Like that,” Hannah said.
“Stop,” Tean called.
Jem froze.
“About the same width?”
“Definitely not,” Hannah said.
“Bigger?”
“No, definitely thinner.”
“Ok,” Tean called. “We’re good.”
Jem contorted himself into a Quasimodo-style pose and shuffled toward them.
“You’re embarrassing yourself,” Tean called.
Jem, however, was committed, and he shuffled the rest of the way back.
“I’m not going to be embarrassed for asking if this person had a distinguishing physical trait.”
“Of course you aren’t,” Jem said, laughing as he straightened up.
“Both congenital and acquired traits are important ways of identifying—”
“Yep, it makes perfect sense that the Hunchback of Notre Dame would be hot on Hannah’s trail.”
“I didn’t say—”
“It’s really good detective work, Doc. A-plus.”
Tean decided to wait this time. He needed the advantage of surprise.
“Five-four,” Jem said to Hannah, “or five-five. That’s my guess based on how far I had to hunch—get it?—before you said it looked like the right height.”
“I’m five-six,” Hannah said.
“So maybe a little bit shorter than you,” Tean said. “Either a woman of average height or a man who’s below average.”