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“What?” I asked.
“We have to go.”
“Now?”
“Now.” He frowned as he looked at Gretchen. “I’m sorry. Really. But it’s an emergency.”
She eyeballed me curiously and then him. “Is this part of the ‘running’ you all were talking about.”
“Exactly,” he said. He pulled out his wallet quickly and handed her a single credit card. “Whatever we owe you, here, use this. Hang on to it for me. I’ll be back for it.”
Before I could ask, I was practically carried out by Marc, wearing the jean and sweater combo and him carrying the boots of his that I’d worn into Tissu Deux.
I AM NOT WAITING
We got to the SUV and pulled out of the parking spot.
“Gotta go, gotta go,” he said, his arms shook, and he rocked his head forward and back as he steered.
“What happened?” I asked.
“It’s Coaltar,” he said. “Sorry. I mean Blake. You know all that traffic this morning?”
My heartbeat sped up. “Was he…in an accident?”
His lips pursed for a moment, like he debated telling me. “His house…there was some explosion. I don’t have the full details, but...His house is kablooey.”
I was up on my knees in the seat and reaching for his shoulder to tug. “What about him? Was he inside?”
“I don’t think so. But I don’t have full details yet.”
I was in there at least an hour, and who knew how long ago it started if it affected traffic downtown then. I put my hand on the wheel. “Let’s go find him.”
He shoved me back into my seat. “Are you crazy? We can’t go there. It’s a crime scene right now. We can’t be anywhere near it.”
“The police don’t know who we are,” I said, suddenly in a panic. “We have to find out where he is.”
All I could picture was Blake’s face earlier. I’d gotten the sense that something was wrong. He was worried. He said not to trust anyone but each other.
I aimed my body at the door, ready to pull the handle. “Get us there, or I’ll walk there.” We were already headed down the road, slow traffic but still, it would hurt to jump.
He reached for me again, holding my arm. “Don’t you dare.”
“Just drive by,” I said. “As close as you can get.”
“We’ll not be able to get anywhere near it. And even if we could, no one will tell us anything.”
“Try. We need to find out…”
He blew out a breath between his lips and stared at the traffic ahead.
Then suddenly, he was turning around across a double yellow line and barreling the SUV through an alley.
I got a little lost when he made turns, but before I knew it, we were backed up along the road. It seemed all of the South of Broad area was a confusing mess of traffic, people making illegal turns to try to go back the other way, only to get caught in the middle of halted traffic.
“We can walk faster,” I said.
“I can’t leave the car,” he said.
“I’ll go scout ahead?” I touched his arm, trying to get his attention. We weren’t moving, and it’d take forever to get there this way. “Find a place to park and come find me.”
“We’re not supposed to separate right now, not in public.”
“Isn’t public safe? Who would come after me now? Alice? I could scream bloody murder and there’s a thousand witnesses.” I gripped his arm a bit more. “Just let me go look. I just want to make sure he’s not hurt.”
“Corey is trying to locate him,” Marc said slowly. “Blake had his phone stolen by Alice earlier, remember? He’s even harder to track down now.”
The weight of guilt made it hard to breath for a second. “This could have been Alice. She was aiming for him. And we did this to him. She’d no idea who he was until I dragged him into our mess.”
Marc sighed. “Go,” he said. “I’ll park the car.” Before I could turn to jump out, he tugged my arm to get me to sit still a minute. “Don’t disobey the cops there. Usually, there’s a crowd around looking at what’s going on. Blend in with them. Don’t cross the line. Don’t get noticed.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out his own cell phone and passed it to me. “Whatever happens, you answer this phone if it rings. It’s probably Corey calling with info.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll come find you. And there’s a spare cell in the car. I’ll use it.”
I jumped out, tucking the cell phone into my back pocket and made a dash down the road. The new clothes were light weight and didn’t impede my jog. I was immediately grateful for Gretchen.
The smell of acidic smoke became stronger the further down the road I got.
Tell me it was an accident.
Tell me it was a stupid experiment.
Tell me Raven blew up the kitchen again and it just got too far.
It was stupid to think about, but I went through scenarios like that, hoping it was something crazy and Blake was okay. That this wasn’t Alice. That this wasn’t a murder attempt.
Or that he was dead inside.
Axel’s words echoed in my mind. That they were smart and realized we were, and that this time they, would be smarter and it would be permanent.
Blake’s white house was on South Battery, just across the street from White Point Garden at the tip of the Charleston Peninsula. Once I was close, the number of people on the sidewalk increased, some going to check out what was going on, and some walking away like they’d seen enough of what was happening. A small group had crossed the street to the park, looking on and talking to themselves.
There was a barricade, like Marc said, and police trying to tell people to go home, that if they lived beyond the barrier, they needed to talk to him.
I stopped to ask a random person in the crowd. “Is anyone hurt?”
“There’s an ambulance but it’s still here, so they haven’t found anyone hurt, I think,” the elderly woman said.
I tried to blend into the crowd like Marc had said, but most people weren’t moving and I couldn’t get close. I circled to get to the park side of the street and assess the damage. I stood up on a nearby bench to look over the people.
But there was nothing to look at.
My heart stopped as I looked at the hole in the neighborhood, the spot that used to be Blake’s house.
There was nothing but black ashes, some still smoldering. It was an odd blank hole in the ground, surrounded by a bit of yard. The wood frame was crumpled on itself. There was a pile of something in the back, all black, I was pretty sure that was where the kitchen was. Pieces of broken wood and glass were in the neighboring lawns. Everything was dripping with water, but nothing was left to salvage.
However, it wasn’t bad. The homes next door weren’t blown out. They were clean except for the flying debris.
It was almost too perfect. Blowing up the house without destroying the ones next to them.
My heart in my throat, I tried to swallow.
The destruction…if he was inside, it could be they hadn’t found a body of any sort yet. He could be black ashes amid the rest and it would take a while to find.
I tried not to think like that, but the complete missing house left me in a panic mode, growing as the moments went by and I didn’t have any answers.
I moved in a daze toward it, until the barriers around the street were at my stomach. I was at the very front of the crowd, looking in.
A police officer gave me an eyeball, and I couldn’t help but ask, “Did they find anyone?”
It was the first time I’d ever spoken with a police officer in my life in such a way. I needed him to let me know. For once, I wasn’t trying to hide from him. I needed his help.
He looked at me with a frown. “No.”
“Not a body in…there?”
“No. Did you know who lived here?”
I nodded.
He seemed sympathetic to this. “There doesn’t appear to be anything to indicate any
one was inside. But…you should stay back.”
I looked beyond him, to the blacked-out bit of property that now was the only indication anything was ever there. My heart was in a grip in my chest. For the longest time, I couldn’t move.
I didn’t believe him. How could they know?
I held to the phone in my hands, hoping it would ring, hoping Corey would tell me he had found him. He called in. Maybe the police took him in to talk to him about his burnt down home.
I hoped Marc would come, to see the damage and to share the anxiety I felt, as if it would make it better.
My mind was blank, what to do, where to go.
How to find him now?
Doyle. Blake’s Irish friend. The hacker.
He’d know.
He’d tell me. He knew everything about Blake. I needed to find him.
I continued to wait because I didn’t know where Marc might have parked the vehicle and suspected he’d be here at any moment.
When too much time had passed and with no new information at the barrier, I realized Marc hadn’t arrived and backtracked the way I’d come.
At the corner of each road, I checked up and down the cross street. At the end of one lane, traffic was once again piling up by a black SUV. The vehicle was getting pulled up into the bed of a tow truck. There was a policeman talking to the driver.
I double checked the vehicle, but I was almost sure the SUV was the one we’d come in on.
