“Hey!”
“You’re not exactly a kid, and you still seem winded from earlier.”
“I’m not keeling over yet, either, young man. If we’re following the dog, we’re following the dog.”
“And I’ll be right here with him—just in case we need last rites,” Father Ryan teased.
“Watch yourself, Father, or you’ll be the one in need of last rites,” Billie threatened with a smile. “Come on. Let’s follow Wolf.”
The dog lit out the minute Quinn opened the door and started toward the Quarter.
He finally stopped by a hedge on Rampart Street and started barking. Quinn looked closely.
There was blood on the leaves. And as he carefully moved the branches aside, he spotted a bit of fabric. Denim. He pulled out his phone, got hold of Larue and told him to get Grace down to the hedge. “I don’t know whose it is, but we’ve got blood and fabric,” he said.
“On it,” Larue promised him.
“And we’re moving,” Quinn said.
Wolf was barking insanely. He wanted to cross Rampart, but the traffic was too heavy, and Quinn held him back.
Father Ryan moved into the street as soon as there was a slight break in traffic. He held up his hands and brought cars screeching to a halt. “Go!” he shouted. “Thank God I’ve got the collar on. Even atheists think twice about hitting a priest.”
*
Danni automatically excused herself when her phone rang again. She was anxious, but she wanted to hear what was happening before she told anyone else, whether it was good news, bad news or no news at all.
She was stunned, glad she had stepped out of the kitchen, when she heard the voice on the other end.
“Danni?”
“Gus?” she said incredulously.
“Danni, I didn’t do it. I’m being framed.”
“Gus,” she said, thinking as quickly as possible, “Gus, if that’s true, you’ve got to get to the police. Tell them—”
“Tell them? What makes you think I’ll have time to tell them anything. They’ll shoot me down like a rabid dog!”
“No, Gus.” Was that the truth? she wondered. “Gus, Quinn is out with Father Ryan, Billie and Wolf. If you call him and find a way to meet him, he’ll make sure you get to the station safely.”
“He came to my house. The killer came to my house. I ran, and the next thing I knew, I was being hunted by the cops. Danni, I didn’t do it. I saw the news on my phone, and I’m being set up. I’m being framed by the real killer. I barely got out. See, I ran, panicked, then went back—I was running blindly, probably in circles half the time, because I thought the killer was still there. I cut myself, and I’m sore from crawling over fences. Danni, please, you have to help me.”
“If it’s not you, Gus, who is it?” she demanded. “Did you see him?”
“Her.”
“No, Gus, it was a costume. So you don’t know who it was?”
“Well, he looked like a dark-haired woman.”
The same disguise he’d used at Steve’s house.
She’d never believed it could be Gus. Of course, this could just be his way of tricking her.
“Gus, you’ve got to go to the police.”
“Danni, I’m scared. If he sees me before I can prove my innocence, I’m dead. He’s magic or something, Danni. He gets in.”
“How did he get into your house?”
“He had a key! I heard my door opening. I looked out a window and saw the woman. I ran out the back.”
Looked at logically, she had to admit that the story sounded preposterous.
“Where are you, Gus?”
“Danni, you have to believe me,” he insisted.
“Then you have to trust me. Where are you?”
There was silence for a long moment.
“I’m here, Danni. I’m in the house. I slipped into the shop with some customers, and then I sneaked into the house and hid. It’s the only place I feel safe.”
*
It was too easy. Ridiculously easy. In the end he hadn’t even needed a costume, because he was invisible. Invisible in plain sight. He stepped right up to his friend.
“You’re scared out here, too, right?”
“Yes. There’s safety in numbers, right?”
“Safety in numbers.”
At the courtyard gate, he hit a buzzer. A female voice answered carefully. Danni, he knew.
“Can we come in and stay with you and everyone else?”
“Hang on,” she said.
He smiled. So many of them were there...
The precious Survivor Set. Amy and Woodrow Watson. Jessica...
And Danni.
He was invisible. But tonight they would see him.
*
Danni had frozen when she heard the courtyard bell, but now she was glad of the new arrivals.
Her gun was in her bag, which was in the kitchen.
Gus was in the house. But where, exactly?
He must have come in after Quinn had left with Wolf, because the dog would have barked his head off if he’d known a stranger had come in unaccompanied.
He claimed he was innocent.