Page 8 of Find My Way Down to You

The sterile hospital room fades. So does London’s body. My shaking hands clutch at empty air, desperate to hold on to him a little longer.

I’m back in the alley behind Viva Catalina’s. The stench of rancid trash clogs my throat again. Yellow tape ropes a barrier around the area. Red and blue lights from a SBPD patrol vehicle cast weird shapes along the brick wall in front of me.

I focus on the ground. Hal’s corpse is gone. Crime scene markers map out where he was. They tell the story of what the policethinkhappened. No one truly knows, not even me.

“You were saying?”

Detective Rosado looks as if she would rather be anywhere but in a fetid alley behind a pizzeria at 5:53 p.m. on a Thursday.

“I—” It hurts to swallow. “What now?”

Rosado sighs. “You said you saw someone else here.” She consults her notes. “Another boy? Cary?”

A shiver ripples through my muscles. I refuse to blink. If I do, his face will be there. Sculpted stone. Shimmering eyes.

An impatient knot forms on Rosado’s light brown forehead. “Cary as in…Grant? Like the actor?”

Max sidles up to me. “More like Elwes. FromThe Princess Bride.”

It’s one of her favorite movies. Her warmth is welcoming. She eyes Rosado, her lips curling with obvious intrigue. The detective is at least a decade older than us. That’s never stopped Max before.

Rosado doesn’t return the interest. “And this Cary? You saw him—”

Max half turns to me. “What happened with him?”

I recognize her curious expression. “It’s not what you think.”

“Butyouthought he was hot, right?”

Rosado pinches the bridge of her nose, annoyed. “Sorry, am I hearing this right? You were flirting with thepotential suspect?”

“I wasn’t,” I insist.

Despite Max’s hopes, I have no interest in Cary. How could anyone? He’s as cold as the Pacific just after sunrise.

He’s also a murderer. At least, it looks that way.

“Auggie, I don’t think it was him,” Max says. “He was still sitting at his table when you—” She bites her lip. But I know what that pause means. What she’s trying to hide from me.

Pity dressed as sympathy.

My eyebrows knit. “I saw—”

Rosado cuts me off with a raised hand. Her partner, a short and stocky white man, approaches. He whispers in her ear.

“We have another witness,” Rosado announces. “The manager from the coffeehouse next door. He said he saw Mr.Clarke having a panic attack?”

My mouth goes impossibly dry.

Rosado’s eyes scan me for a second longer before she moves on. “He didn’t see anyone else. Just Mr.Clarke. And the body.”

Panic flares under my rib cage. A cornered beast trying to escape. I’m familiar with the potent stare she gives me. There was a dead white man left in an alley. The only other person around was a young Black boy.

I’ve heard this story before. I know how it ends.

On instinct, my fingers reach for the threaded bracelet around my wrist. I pull hard. My breaths sync to the mild sting.

“I didn’t—”