The Old Wheel, page 23
part #2 of The Adventures of Holloway Holmes Series
I flipped through my wallet, waffled between my Albertson’s card and my CVS card, and went with Albertson’s. Back in September, Holmes had used a Café Rio card, which just went to show that he had absolutely zero priorities. The plastic was stiff with a little give to it, and after two tries, I got it between the door and the jamb. It was tight, and I had to slide the card up with short, hard jerks. As soon as it slipped between the latch and the strike plate, though, the door popped open. Fresh air wafted in with the smell of gunmetal. I rested my head against the jamb and took a few deep breaths.
For a minute, I stayed where I was, listening. Nobody shouted. No alarms went off. Nothing went boom. I nudged the door, and it swung open a few more inches. The basement’s main room was dark, bulky with the outline of shelves. Nobody was aiming a laser sight at me.
I stepped out of the room and started toward a door across the basement. That was where Holmes and I had come in, and odds were good Kazen hadn’t noticed yet that someone had sawn through the latch and disarmed his landmine.
When I was halfway across the basement, though, a high-pitched whine began. I stopped. A cold sweat broke out over me, and in that first moment of reaction, I stayed exactly where I was—I’d obviously triggered something. Then, after another second, realization caught up with me: it was the sound of a printer. The office must be right overhead, and the sound had carried through the ductwork.
I had to press my hands over my mouth to stifle another of those hysterical laughs.
Kazen’s voice shattered the moment. “Yes, I got it.” He was silent. His steps rang out in the kitchen, measured but hard. “Don’t give me ultimatums; I’m not a child.” More silence. “I don’t know. I should tell you no. I should tell you it’s too late.” Another of those pauses. “I said I don’t know. I’ll see what I can do.”
The silence that followed felt charged, a buildup of some kind of emotion that I could feel even in the basement. Then those heavy steps hammered across the floor, fast. I shrank back, turning toward the room I’d escaped. But before I could reach it, a door crashed shut, and a moment later came the unmistakable sound of the garage door rolling up.
He was gone.
He’d left.
I could walk out the front door.
Why?
That seemed to be an important question. Kazen had told me he wanted me so he could get to Holmes. (Stand in line, buddy.) I thought I could see the chain of reasoning there: Aston had told Kazen that Holmes and I were investigating the blackmail, and now Dawson was dead and Aston had probably been arrested and Paxton was in the wind, all of which Kazen would know if he’d been watching Aston as obsessively as those recordings on his computer suggested. Securing me and Holmes until he knew what was going on was understandable, even if it didn’t seem particularly bright or, in this case, well executed.
But something had happened. Someone had called and sent him something. Yes, I got it, he’d said. And they’d demanded something. An ultimatum, Kazen had called it.
I looked at the door to my escape. I looked at the stairs that led up to the kitchen.
Jesus Christ, I thought as I started up the steps. Maybe everyone’s right. Maybe there is something wrong with me.
The lights were off upstairs. The kitchen smelled like trash that needed to be taken out, and a scum of protein shake lay across the bottom of the sink. He’d taken apart my phone, and it lay in pieces on the counter. I replaced the battery and snapped the case shut and said a silent prayer until the screen lit up and it began powering on.
The dead eyes of the photographs on the walls followed me as I moved toward the office.
Several pieces of paper lay on top of the desk. Photographs of a house taken from different angles, focusing on a second-story window. In one picture, you could see the name on the mailbox: Young. I wondered for a moment why Kazen had printed the pictures out instead of looking at them on his phone. Old, maybe. Old people loved to print stuff out. Dad printed everything out on the printer in the maintenance office.
But when I got to the final page, I understood. It was a rough floor plan drawn by hand and showing two stories. Windows and doors had been marked in the printout, and in red marker, Kazen had added arrows outlining different possible paths through the home. In one of the second-floor bedrooms—the one the pictures focused on—he’d drawn a large, red A.
Shit.
I tried calling Aston. I got nothing again, but I left him a message: “Kazen just left his house, and I think he’s going after you. He’s got a map, notes. It’s a plan. You’ve got to call the cops and tell your family to get out of there.”
I hung up and tried again. Then I texted him.
Still nothing.
Maybe he was in jail, I thought. Maybe he was safe, getting processed.
But he wasn’t. Someone had called Kazen. Someone had set this up for tonight because they knew Aston’s family had money and influence, because they knew Aston would be home.
I tried Holmes. Nothing there either.
I wanted to scream. Something bad was going to happen. Was going to happen soon, since Kazen had left in a hurry, no matter what he’d said on the phone. And Aston wasn’t answering, and Holmes wasn’t answering, and if I called the police, I had no idea how to explain this mess.
Wait a second.
I found my best bud Rivera in my phone and placed the call.
“Jack—”
“Kazen Bates is going to kill Aston Young tonight if you don’t stop him.”
The silence only lasted a beat, and Rivera said, “Who’s Kazen Bates?”
“The guy with the truck. The one who tried to shoot us. He’s got it all planned out. He’s going to break into Aston’s house—his family’s house, I mean—and kill him. Tonight. He just left. I think he’s in his truck, but—” And then it hit me. “Oh my God.”
“Hold on, hold on. This man, the one who shot at you—you know his name? And you’re in his house? Where are you right now?”
“Send somebody to the Youngs’.”
“Jack—”
I disconnected. I took a few pictures of the photos and the floor plan, making sure to capture the address inked in the corner, and then I ran to the bedroom. If Kazen were like most guys, his keys would be either somewhere in the kitchen or—
On his dresser, in one of those little organizer trays.
I snagged the keys and ran to the garage. The smell of gasoline and frozen concrete met me. The little red sportscar was still there—a Mazda MX-5. Fun to drive until it snowed; then it would be like sitting in a block of greased ice.
Since I had so many great options, I got in the car and started driving.
Chapter 21
That’s Kind of Insulting
By the time I got to the Youngs’ home in Heber and then buttonhooked back up into the mountains (per the GPS instructions), the sun had set. The sky was a cinder gray that hadn’t quite turned black, and the pines were pencil sketches until the headlights touched them and they sprang into 3D. At least the roads were clear. The MX-5 had handled fine—a lot smoother than the truck.
My phone buzzed again in the cupholder. I checked the screen, expecting another call or text from Rivera. Instead, Dad was calling.
I slowed the car, and then I nosed over to the shoulder, close enough that I scraped the snow packed along the side of the road. The phone continued to buzz. If Rivera called him, he’d be worried. Afraid.
Of course, if I picked up, what was I going to say? Sorry you’re scared, but I’ve got important shit to do?
I compromised with a text message: Can’t pick up now, but I’m ok. Call you soon.
A text came through from him almost immediately: Where are you?
And then another: Detective Rivera sent someone with a warrant to search your room. Call me right now!
I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to smack my head against the steering wheel. Off the top of my head, I could make a list: some fairly good weed, a lot of addies, condoms (not that those were illegal), unopened vapes (those were), this rare tentacle porn manga that Ty Bryce had paid me for but asked me to hold on to. After I got out of prison in thirty years, I already knew, Dad was going to make me have a super awkward sex talk.
Another text came through: Jack, call me!
I locked the phone and shoved it in my pocket.
It had been stupid to hide stuff in my room again; I should have learned my lesson. But I’d assumed getting caught up in a murder investigation would be one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Plus sometimes it was really cold outside, and I didn’t want to walk to the maintenance building if I had to get something from my stash. Of course, being homeless and jobless and unable to pay for Dad’s meds was going to be a lot more inconvenient.
Pushing it all away, I tried to get my head in the game. Stop Kazen first; everything else later. I needed to get into the Youngs’ home. And then I needed to—what?
I guess I could tell Aston. Or, maybe better, his father. But what would I say? I got kidnapped by your son’s crazy hookup, and I think he’s coming here to do something serious, although I don’t know exactly what or when, but probably tonight.
Very convincing. Jack Moreno, Toastmaster.
First things first: get inside.
Farther up the road, cars were parked on the shoulder, which suggested the Youngs’ guests had been forced to walk. I left the Mazda where it was and hurried up the hill. The cold stung my ears and the tip of my nose, and when I breathed, I tasted snow and pine sap. After a hundred feet, music reached me, and light showed through the trees.
When the house came into view, I shook my head. It was massive, even by Utah standards: gray siding with white trim, fieldstone accents, windows lit up like a gingerbread house. Something glittered in the air, and I realized it was starting to snow. I huffed a laugh, my breath clouding up in front of me. Of course it was starting to snow.
I stayed where I was for a moment, trying to gauge the best approach. A middle-aged white couple was making their way up the driveway ahead of me. When they reached the front door, they knocked, and it opened immediately. A white guy with no neck and, I guessed from his face, no sense of humor said something, and the woman handed him a piece of paper. He stepped aside.
Invitation only. Great. One of the perks of having Dad and Grandpa be big, important muckety-mucks at church, I guess, was you got to throw parties that were invite only. And I had a theory that No-Neck had dealt with his share of raving lunatics before—people who had to see Dad or Grandpa right now because it was an emergency. If I went up there, demanding to see them, telling them they were all in danger, I’d be lucky if all they did was slam the door in my face.
I cut up to the right, climbing over the bank of snow that had been plowed to the side of the road. It was slick underneath me, where it had melted and refrozen, but once I got past it, fresh snow crunched underfoot. I kept to the tree line. The glow from the house gave enough light to see by: the blue-green of spruce, the reddish-brown of cedar bark, a shadow moving at the corner of my vision. I stopped and waited for it to move again, but after a minute, when nothing had happened, I started walking again. An animal. A rabbit. Or a—I don’t know. A badger. Did badgers live up here? But it had definitely been bigger than a badger. And coyotes lived up here. And mountain lions.
Ok, so, I was going to get eaten by a mountain lion while trying to save Aston Young’s life. That was probably karma.
I stopped at the side of the house and consulted the photos on the phone. Whoever had sent them to Kazen, they had focused on a second-story window on this side of the house. In theory, it would be a fairly easy climb to get on the roof of the porch and, from there, get to that window. The only problem was that tonight, the porch was crowded with people. Kerosene heaters hissed, a hint of their smell drifting to me, and someone in catering apparel was manning what appeared to be a hot cocoa station.
With one last glance for the mountain lion—nope, nothing—I reversed course. This time, I moved toward the opposite side of the house. The three-car garage looked invitingly dark, and although the downspout was ice cold, it was solidly attached. I took a few deep breaths, exploding each one out into the night—oxygenating the blood and, more importantly, psyching myself up. Then I grabbed the downspout and hauled myself up.
I made it on the first try—when I reached the garage roof, I hauled myself up, the shingles scraping my chest and belly as I dragged myself over the edge. Then I lay on my back, the snow melting in my hair, my breath glowing as it dissolved against the stars. My face was numb with a hint of heat behind it that made me think of sunburn, and even through the coat and shirt, my chest and belly felt raw. What are you doing, part of my brain asked. What in the world are you doing?
Instead of answering it, I flopped over and got to my feet. At least two inches of snow made the shingles slippery, so I moved at a diagonal until I reached the ridge of the roof. Ahead of me, several darkened windows on the second floor suggested access points. I scrambled toward the house proper, careful to keep myself centered over the ridge—a good idea, as it turned out, since my feet threatened to slide out from under me every few feet.
The rattle and creak of a storm door made me stop moving. Steps clipped against pavement, and the familiar sound of a vape reached me. Then the storm door rattled again. I recognized Camdyn’s voice when she said, “You’re going to freeze to death out here.”
“I can’t do this. I can’t…pretend.” That was Aston. “All those fucking faces smiling at me, like they don’t know I’m all over the internet taking it up the ass.” He let out a sharp cry and then, in outrage, “You made me drop my vape!”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m telling you to watch what you say. Not everybody knows, but they will if you stand out here shouting about it.”
In the silence that followed, the frozen air seemed to crackle. Finally, in a low voice, he said, “I’m so fucking sick of pretending.”
“I know. A couple more years, though. You can do it.”
The silence lasted longer this time. “I’m going to my room.”
“Mom and Dad want us on parade tonight.”
“Fuck Mom and Dad.”
“At least say hi to the Smiths—”
But the storm door crashed shut, and Camdyn bit off the rest of the sentence. A few moments later, the door creaked once more. I counted to thirty before I started moving again.
The closest window was a vertical slider, double hung, and I wiggled it a few times and got absolutely nowhere. I had no tools. No plan. I was probably going to die of exposure if that mountain lion didn’t get me first. The next window was farther down the roof, which meant abandoning the safety of the ridge. I sat and scooted slowly down the shingles, one hand braced on the second-story wall to control my speed. When I got to the window, I used the sill to steady myself as I stood. Another vertical slider, double hung. Even if I’d had a screwdriver, I probably couldn’t have gotten it open. I gave it a shove, more out of annoyance than anything else, and the bottom sash slid up.
I stared. And then I decided not to overthink it. The window was open; that was what mattered. Maybe it was good karma, although I had no idea how I’d generated that. Maybe it was God; maybe he wanted to keep Dad and Grandpa Young safe, so he’d paved the way, or whatever you were supposed to say from the Bible. Whatever it was, I had a chance, so I hoisted myself up, wiggled through the opening, and landed hard on the other side.
I scrambled to my feet and shut the window. The thump from when I’d landed had been loud. Loud enough to be noticed? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way. I had a moment to take in the room: even in the dark, I could tell it was an office, complete with a desk and club chairs and the smell of leather and wood polish. A door near me suggested a closet, and another door probably led to the hallway.
Maybe ten seconds had passed, and I was starting to tell myself nobody had heard me. That’s when footsteps moved in the hallway.
I ducked toward the closet. The door was locked. I turned back to the window, and I made it two steps before the office door opened, and lights blazed to life. I put my back to the wall, my eyes still adjusting to the sudden brightness, my brain rapid-firing suggestions. Maybe I could dive out onto the roof. Maybe I could brain him with that bust of Jesus.
“Jack? What are you doing here?”
I took a moment to process that. And then to process the rest of it: Holloway Holmes standing in front of me, dressed in a knit blazer and a white button-up and dark slacks and polished wingtips, every stitch tailored to show off the perfectly worked lines of his body. Then I frowned.
“You realize that’s kind of insulting,” I said. “Right?”
Chapter 22
A Game Afoot
Holmes still hadn’t recovered. He stared at me. The corner of his mouth trembled. And then he said, “Jack, you can’t be here.”
“You’d better shut the door.”
He shut the door and leaned against it. It had been less than a day since I’d seen him; it felt like it had been months. He’d shaved. His hair was back to its Ivy League perfection, the color softer and burnished in the mellow office light. His jaw. His throat. Had I seen him in a tie before? It was distracting, but not so distracting that I didn’t get an eyeful of the rest of him. When I got back to his face, I noticed the shadows under his eyes.
“You have to go,” he said. “Now.”
