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“We’ve got trouble,” McCord said. “Someone’s dead.”
CHAPTER 16
“Dead?” Gina repeated. “Who?”
For an instant she thought of Isaac, of Fanny, and she couldn’t breathe. Then she realized that if Jase’s granddad or his mother were dead, he certainly wouldn’t be questioning her and punching Teo.
Would he?
The Jase she’d thought she knew wouldn’t. However, the Jase who’d emerged lately, the one Teo insisted had been there all along … him she didn’t know at all.
A shadow passed over Jase’s face. There and then gone, disturbing because she’d never seen that expression before. It made him appear young and uncertain—a boy’s expression, not a man’s.
She couldn’t help it; she reached out and took his hand. “What happened?”
His fingers tightened around hers, clinging, also something he’d never done. “We were camped by the stream. We had to go around and then it was late, getting dark.”
“We were there,” Gina said, hoping to speed things up. Who was dead?
“Everyone was headed to their tents. Mel had taught us a new song.”
“Uh-oh,” Gina murmured, and Jase’s lips tilted just a bit before they stopped, straightening again into that tight, stressed line.
“Yeah. The first one was about a guy named Frick who tried to balance on his—”
“Got it!” Gina interrupted.
“I made him teach another. ‘Ghost Chickens in the Sky.’ It was catchy. People liked it. They were still singing, which made it easy to hear when—” He broke off, gulped. “They stopped.”
“What do you mean they stopped?” T
eo asked.
Jase’s hand in hers jerked. He’d forgotten Teo was there.
“They stopped,” Jase snapped. “First singing, then not.”
“Okay,” Gina soothed. Had Jase’s hand begun to shake? “What’s so bad about that?”
“That wasn’t the bad part. The bad part was the screaming.”
“The bad part is always the screaming,” Teo muttered. “You probably should have started with that.”
Jase shot him a glare. Gina squeezed Jase’s fingers until he returned his attention to her. “Go on.”
“The screams were coming from all directions. I—I didn’t know which way to run first. I went to the As because, well—”
“They were the loudest?” Gina guessed.
“No.”
“They weren’t?” Gina asked. “No way.”
“Not they. When I got there, only one of them was left.”
“Which one?”
“Who knows?” Jase put the heel of his free hand between his eyes and pressed. “Who cares?”
