Page 20

I dig the phone out and slap it into his palm.

He reads it out loud. "Hooped and domed and made of tin. A little girl is locked within. She called for you, she screamed for me. How long before she starts to freeze?"

I shrug. "What other place could it be?"

Then he lifts the flashlight and runs the beam up the silo wall. Rivets. Rust. Steel. "Well, this place isn't made of tin."

I look up, realize he's right. We just… accepted it because it looks like a tin can from a distance.

"It's something else," Cash says.

I grab my head, wantin' to pull my fuckin' hair out. But I got no hair to pull. "I can't think," I say. "I can't fuckin' think right now."

Cash pulls out his phone, punches the glass, puts it to his ear. "Wyatt, where are you?" Cash stares at me and growls into the phone. "Fuck. You worthless piece of shit. Savannah is in danger and I need you to sober the fuck up right now, you hear me? Narcan yourself, or whatever the fuck you addicts do when you're crashing. Our sister is about to be killed."

I can faintly hear Wyatt on the line. Protestin' and whinin' like a bitch.

"Shut up," Cash barks. Then he cups the mic on the phone. "Where is she, Legion? Where did you leave her?"

"In her bedroom. I left her in the bedroom with a shotgun."

I left her. Marcus wanted me gone, and I went.

"Go up to Savannah's bedroom," Cash orders. "Take a shotgun. If you see Marcus, shoot him on sight. Call me back when you get there."

He ends the call and looks at me. "It's all we can do. I can't bring a hand in on this, not right now. We're this close, Legion." He holds his index finger and thumb together. "We're this fucking close. Everything we've planned—everything Eleanor planned for the last twenty fucking years—snaps into place tomorrow at seven-thirty a.m. when the market opens. Wyatt is all we've got."

"Will he shoot him?" I ask. "If he sees him?"

"Oh, fuck yeah, he will," Cash says. "My middle brother might be a piece of shit addict, but he's been trigger-happy since he was eight. Now put Savannah out of your mind, Legion. One thing at a time. That's how we get through this night. One thing at a time. Think. Mercy, OK? What did he mean hooped, and domed and made of tin, a little girl is locked within. He knows you can solve this riddle, that's why he wrote it. He wants you to know something."

"Wants me to know what? That he was watchin' us?"

Cash nods, agreeing. "Yes. Yes. Exactly. Think. Where were you and Savannah recently? Something domed and made of tin. Something a little girl could be locked in."

I let out a long breath. Thinking back before Jackson. And as soon as I remember, I know Cash is right. He was watchin' us. He saw us go into…

"The covered wagon," I say. "Savannah and I were in the covered wagon a couple days ago. The night before we confronted Marcus. We went to Miles City the next day, but that evening, Savannah took me out to the wagon and we…"

I don't elaborate on what we did in there.

"But that's not made of tin, Cash."

"No," Cash agrees. "The wagon's not. But the trunk at the foot of the bed is."

Hooped and domed and made of tin.

A little girl is locked within.

She called for you, she screamed for me,

How long before she starts to freeze?

She's in the trunk.

CHAPTER 6

I stand there in the mouth of my own closet, lookin' at that empty elevator—the one that leads straight down into the dark, into the cold, into the part of the house that has no windows and no way out—and I feel the full weight of what is happening to me settle across my shoulders like a yoke.