His chest brushed my back. Too close. “There are a lot of things about Whelan you don’t know.” He whispered into my hair, making me shiver. “Everyone has secrets.”
“Was Reece too close to your secrets? Is that why you beat him?” I met his reflection eye to eye.
“I beat Whelan because Lonny doesn’t trust him. Lonny trusts you. So why weren’t you at his party on Wednesday?”
I wanted to tell him to screw off, but it felt like a test. Like Reece might pay the price for the wrong answer. “I had two funerals to go to, and I was tired.”
“Reece said as much when we asked him. But make no mistake, Lonny’s expecting you to be with Whelan tonight. No excuses. No tricks. If you care about him, you’ll come.” His cheek brushed my ear as he whispered, “But be careful.” He pushed off the bulletin board and backed away, leaving a chill on my skin and the nagging aftertaste of sour mints. He believed me, but there was an acidic undertone to his unease. I watched his reflection disappearing in the map. A pink flyer hung by a thumbtack where his hand had been. The bottom edges lifted in the breeze of his departure.
I pulled the thumbtack. The flyer was drawn in code. A rave flyer. I ran my hand over the map, finding the pin-sized hole where Oleksa had placed it. A strip of warehouses in Cameron Run. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The Missed Connections clue was leading me to the rave. That’s where the killer would strike next. Where he wanted me to be. Where Kylie would be.
I spun around, but Oleksa was gone. I slumped against the wall, feeling completely screwed.
? ? ?
I called Reece as I walked home and told him Kylie might be in danger. We talked about going to the police, but Kylie would probably stick close to Lonny and we couldn’t risk drawing a swarm of undercover cops to the drug deal. If the Homicide team knew Kylie was a target, they’d hover way too close and step on Narcotics’ toes. And Narcotics wanted that list as badly as I did. If Lonny got spooked or if the deal went bad, we might not get the list of ketamine buyers at all, and that was the whole point of being there. Besides, if I went to the police now, to report another crime that hadn’t even happened yet, they’d have no choice but to hold me for questioning.
No, we would do this ourselves. This time would be different. This time, we’d be ready. We’d be close to Lonny, and Lonny would be close to Kylie. Between the three of us, she’d never be out of sight.
“I’ll keep an eye on Kylie,” I said.
“No,” Reece argued. “The only person I’m worried about keeping safe tonight is you. Lonny can take care of his own. We make the sale. We get the list. We use the list to prove you’re not involved. That’s it. I can’t be responsible for Kylie, and neither can you. Remember, you agreed to do this my way.”
“Right.” I let it go, sensing his doubt. I couldn’t let him change his mind. Not when we were so close. This whole nightmare could be over in a matter of hours. “I’ll be careful.” And hopefully I’d find the killer before the killer found Kylie.
? ? ?
At home, Mona was awake, hair dryer blaring on the other side of the bathroom door.
I slipped into my room, fell onto the lumpy mattress, and threw an arm over my face. Jeremy and I hadn’t spoken all week, despite the fact that we’d essentially gone to the funerals together. Even Anh was growing distant. Studying together was becoming awkward, each of us looking over the other’s shoulders, wondering what the other was doing to gain an edge. The silences in our conversations seemed to say more than we did. I’d clammed up when she’d asked me to dish on my relationship with Reece, and neither one of us wanted to broach the topic of the murders. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to spend more and more time with Jeremy. I’d kept my promise to Reece by protecting his secret, at the cost of my relationship with my best friends.
It hurt to think about it. A peculiar feeling fluttered low in my stomach when I remembered Reece’s lips. I rolled onto my side and curled my body around the frayed comforter. I squeezed my eyes shut and dreamed.
? ? ?
I woke to the sound of a man’s voice. Strange, because Mona never brought men home. I blinked, trying to place it in the dark, and bolted upright in bed.
Reece.
I fumbled with the lock and threw open the door.
Reece stood in my living room, his height more pronounced under the low ceiling, his features more severe in the dim light. Mona paced a slow circle around him to shut the door, and then came around his other side, giving him a stern once-over.
She didn’t look at me. Her rhinestone eyes rested squarely on Reece.
“This boy . . .” She drew the word boy into a question. “Says he’s a friend of yours?”
Reece lowered his eyes. Mona’s stare took in all of him.
I swallowed hard.
“I can explain.” My mind reeled for a plausible story. One that might explain why he was standing in my living room.