Darker Than Any Shadow

Chapter Five

Trey shielded his eyes and looked around. “It’s the fire alarm.”

“I don’t see smoke. You think somebody pulled it for laughs?”

“The sprinklers are triggered by heat, not a switch. We need to evacuate.”

“We?”

He was suddenly in motion, the security expert taking charge. “I’ll clear the main room and check the kitchen, you clear the back. No one stays in the building until this gets resolved.”

“But—”

“Don’t forget the restroom. Then meet me in the parking lot. And call 911.”

Then he was gone, swallowed up in the throng of people. No one seemed frightened. Instead they were adrenalin-juiced and impossible to herd, like intoxicated goats. Through the din and surge, I saw Rico jump down from the stage and make his way to Adam.

Most people streamed out the front door, but some took the side exit into the alley, some cursing, others clinging to each other and laughing. As they pulled open the fire exits, more alarms went off, carving another facet of noise into the din.

I kicked off my heels and slung my purse more securely across my chest. Then I pushed my way toward the back, moving upstream against the crowd. The smell hit me from out of nowhere—smoke, bitter and noxious—and the first pang of fear struck.

The hallway loomed dark, water already puddling on the floor. I moved left, toward the restrooms, one hand against the wall for balance. Water lapped my feet, and I tripped on a box of CDs someone had abandoned in the hall, sending the plastic cases skittering. The smoke thickened, and I quickly realized why. It was pouring from the small restroom, the door ajar.

I kicked it open and saw the trash can next to the sink ablaze with a column of yellow fire. As the smoke cleared, I saw an even more disturbing sight—someone sprawled in front of the sink, legs crumpled, arms flung sideways.

I yelled for help, but my voice was lost in the screeching alarms. So I dropped to all fours and crawled inside, coughing and sputtering and wheezing, reciting grade schools chants.

“Get down and go. Stop, drop, and roll.”

Wet tissue and paper towels clotted the floor in a sodden ashy mess. I gagged, choking on smoke and sour bathroom smell as I scrambled forward. Eventually my hand closed on a pair of black leather boots.

Lex.

I realized I’d have to stand up to get him out of there. Cursing some more, I took a deep breath, rose into a hunch, and then dragged him by his feet into the hallway. At that moment, Jackson materialized from the darkness, fire extinguisher in hand.

“Get out of the way!” he yelled.

“I’m trying!”

I lugged Lex into the hall as Jackson shouldered his way inside the bathroom, spraying the extinguisher in wild desperate arcs. And then in the chaos of hissing foam and sheeting water and screaming noise, I dropped beside Lex.

“Get out!” Jackson yelled.

“I can’t leave him here!”

Jackson stood there dripping, like he was seeing Lex for the first time. The fire was a smoking sputtering mess, but it was out. I knelt beside Lex and placed two fingers against his neck, the floor hard under my stockinged knees. His eyes were glassy and staring, his face bruised, his lip split. No pulse beat under my fingers.

He was dead, very dead.

But not from the fire. In the center of his chest, a red bloodstain soaked through the thin layer of his white tee-shirt.

Jackson held the empty fire extinguisher. “Is he okay?”

“No, he’s not.” I straightened, throat burning. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

“But you said—”

“That was before I knew he was dead.”

Jackson stared. The fire alarm still split the air. The sprinklers continued full force, up and down the hall, the stale metallic-smelling water showering down in torrents.

Jackson looked at me, bewildered. “So we just leave him like that?”

“We have to. It’s a crime scene.”

Or what’s left of it, I thought, as Jackson moved down the hall toward the parking lot exit.

“You go,” he said. “I’ve gotta turn off these sprinklers.”

“I don’t think—”

“I gotta shut the damn things off before everything’s ruined!”

He went back inside, and I didn’t argue. The first person I saw in the parking lot was Rico, phone out. He waved frantically at me, and I jogged over and hugged him. He smelled like mud and sweat and liquor. Behind him, Adam sat on the hood of Rico’s Chevy Tahoe, skinny arms wrapped around his knees.

“Are you guys okay?”

Rico nodded and kept talking on his phone. Adam stared. I put a hand on his leg, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Trey appeared from the doorway and headed my way, a dozen people in his wake, half of them on cell phones. In the distance I heard the wail of sirens.

“All clear?” he said.

I grabbed his elbow and dragged him to the edge of the parking lot. “We’ve got bigger problems. Lex is dead.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Dead. In the bathroom. Checked his pulse. Dead.”

“How?”

“Not from the fire. Fires don’t cause bloody chest wounds.”

My words ran together in a machine-gun patter. I shook myself, and my vision blurred at the edges. Suddenly it was hard to catch a breath. Trey’s hands went to my shoulders, and I heard him calling my name as if from very far away.

“Tai, look at me.”

I met his eyes. “What?”

“Take a deep breath, in and out. Slowly.”

I did as he said. He kept his eyes locked on me, cool and professionally detached. When he decided that I wasn’t about to pass out, he said, “Call 911. Report a possible homicide.”

“I know what a dead body is called.”

He turned to go. I grabbed his arm.

“You can’t go back in there!”

“I need to secure the crime scene.”

“No, you don’t. You’re not—”

But he’d already disappeared into the crowd without a backwards glance, as if he were a cop again, as if that were the side of the line he stood on. Clear the scene, secure the scene. Trey knew how to do this—he had the flow chart in his head. But I had nothing.

I heard the crowd babbling, growing, thronging. Wet people on cell phones everywhere, including Frankie, her hair wild about her face. Cricket sobbed in Jackson’s arms, and he rocked her against his chest, his eyes on the restaurant. Rico and Adam sat shoulder to shoulder on the hood of Rico’s car, shell-shocked.

The wail of sirens drew closer, like a live thing closing in. And all I could think was, please not this again. Not with me in the middle. Not again.

I wrapped my arms tight across my chest. Then I punched 911. When the operator answered, all I could think to say was, “Help. We really need help.”