As long as she’s okay, we can figure out the rest.
“Mateo, what the hell?” Autumn’s voice is muffled against my shoulder, and bewildered enough that I know Cal hasn’t had a chance to explain anything. “Are you all right?”
“I am now,” I say, releasing her. “But we have a lot to talk about.”
MATEO
“Ow!” Autumn shrieks, shaking her wrist. “Goddamn it, that hurts.”
“Stop punching the wall, then,” I say as Ivy and Cal stare at my cousin with twin expressions of alarm. We’re all sitting in the back of the murder van, surrounded by boxes of knives and sharpening tools, because the windowless interior feels safer than Cal’s car.
And also so Autumn can lose her shit in private.
“I can’t,” Autumn grits out. “I’m too. Fucking. Upset!” The last word is a scream, and she lets her fist fly again with another yelp of pain. “Boney, oh my god, Boney.” True to form, Autumn hadn’t checked her phone all day, so we had to be the ones to break the news about Boney to her. She’s not, to put it mildly, taking it well.
“That poor, stupid kid. Oh my God, I hate this. I hate myself. I hate you.” Her voice rises on the last word as she turns and punches me in the arm, hard enough that I’ll have a bruise tomorrow. “I hate you, you asshole! Why did you let me do this?”
I don’t answer her, because she doesn’t need an answer, but Ivy pipes up, “You can’t blame Mateo for—”
“I know that, Ivy!” Autumn yells, hammering her fists on the floor.
“Seriously, you’re gonna break something,” I say. “Either your hands or the van.”
Ivy and Cal are both gazing around as though they’re trying to figure out how to escape while simultaneously hiding all the knives, but the thing is—this is how Autumn deals. Ma was constantly patching up the drywall in her room when she first moved in. It used to freak me out, too, until I realized that you have to let her get it out of her system.
“I tried so hard to be careful,” Autumn says. Her voice chokes off on the last word, and she takes a few deep breaths before continuing. “I only have one customer. One of the guys I work with at Ziggy’s Diner gets migraines that his doctor won’t treat, so he takes the Oxy for that. I thought I could keep an eye on him, make sure nothing bad happened, and everything would be okay.” She lets out a frustrated moan and pummels the floor again. “And I told Boney not to go to Boston. That deal was all kinds of sketchy. He promised he wouldn’t!”
“Yeah, well, apparently the guy convinced him otherwise,” I say. “According to Charlie, Boney said you were holding them back.”
“Arghhhhh.” Autumn finally stops punching things long enough to bury her face in her hands, muffling her voice. Not enough that I can’t hear her next words, though. “I’m turning myself in.”
Alarm hits me, fast and hard. “No you’re not,” I say.
“Yes I am!” She lifts her head to glare at me. “The police need to know what Boney was involved in if they’re going to catch the creep who killed him.”
I glare right back. “If you turn yourself in, you’ll go to jail.”
“I should go to jail!”
“And then what happens to Ma?” I ask, and that finally shuts her up for a second. “Listen. We’ve been doing things your way for a while now, and I think we can both agree that your way sucks. Right?”
Autumn scowls. “Shut up.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. So it’s time to do things my way. Here’s what you’re going to do.” I’ve been thinking this through the whole time she’s been ranting. “You’re going to drop off the murder van, Uber to South Station, and take a bus to the Bronx. Text Ma and tell her you want to surprise Aunt Rose for her birthday.”
“That I want to…” Autumn stares at me in astonishment. “But the party will be over before I get there. Aunt Elena and Christy will be driving home by—”
“Tell her you want to stay overnight. You both need to be out of town, because whoever killed Boney probably knows where we live.”
Autumn tries again. “But what if—”
“And you can’t go home to pack,” I interrupt. “Buy a toothbrush at South Station or whatever. See if you can convince Ma to stay a few days. Maybe by then, the police will have solved this thing.”
“Not if they don’t have any clues, they won’t,” Autumn protests. “Since you’re sending the clues out of town.”
“I have to,” I say. “Someone was looking for you.”
“Maybe it was Gabe,” Autumn says.
“Then why wouldn’t he tell Mr. Sorrento his name? Check your phone. Do you have any messages from Gabe, saying he’s trying to find you?”