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I hated being assessed. “What’s with the creepy clown stare?”
“When’s the last time you went on a date, Ms. Prude?” Cassie’s narrowed eyes and half grin told me that she meant business.
Escaping Cassie was no small feat, but I had to in order to go to the shithole that Quinn needed me at regarding a possible drug bust. Cassie said her boyfriend was supposed to have that meeting, and it hadn’t taken a genius to put two and two together.
DET QUINN: Fine, Ella, go. But that’s a shady place.
If anything weird goes down, you call me.
Quinn’s next text said it was a known spot for meets and deals, and that was all I needed to know to go off-book. I didn’t want my sister or Quinn roped into all of Lenn’s illegal shit.
Finally arriving at the place, I glanced around. It was a diner. A really old diner that must have shut down at least thirty years ago, if I had to guess. Weirdly, there was still a whisper of the scent of pancakes in the air. It could have been my imagination, but the sickly, sweet scent made shivers run down my spine.
It was dark outside, and my shitty flashlight didn’t do much to help me see.
I felt blind.
Clearly, this place was a haven for either horny teens looking for a ghost-buster story or maybe just the homeless trying to find shelter from New York’s cruel weather. Graffiti, random trash, and disgusting used condoms were littered around on the barstools, the old cracked dining tables, and the rubber floors.
I lifted the creaky part of the bar table, swinging it up on its hinge. I missed my step, and the board smashed down, taking me with it.
“Okay. Noted. Not a friendly ghost, then.” I cursed as a plume of dust surrounded me.
Once I finished hacking from the tornado of debris, I assessed my body. Using my flashlight, I could see that my foot landed on a beam about twelve inches down. With my heart pounding, I glanced at my legs, but there were no tears in my slacks, nor was I in pain. I was okay. Truly okay. I carefully used my arms to push my body up and onto my knees. God, that could’ve been so much worse as I peered back at the significant-sized hole in the floorboards. Shaking things off inwardly and outwardly, I got to my feet. Pushing my investigation onward, I walked back into the kitchen area.
I didn’t see a thing except the usual pans hanging over the light fixture and some stale water in a basin. If a deal had been made here, it had to have been successful and long since over. Moving toward the back door that led out of the kitchen, I noticed the broken glass littered around the exit.
Now, it could have been from the kids who had broken in here to get a quickie with Casper as their audience, or it could mean that the deal didn’t go as smoothly as it had seemed initially.
I stepped out into the foggy night, my heels crunching on the broken shards.
I better not cut my foot. I swear if I needed to get a tetanus immunoglobin injection from these disgusting tweakers, I will kill them, myself.
After walking about ten feet away from the building, my feet splashed in a damn puddle by the dumpster shoved against the far wall and a Big John Deer green machine. It stunk like rotten meat. There was garbage in there that probably hadn’t been touched since the place closed down.
Swallowing the last shred of my decency, I poked the lid of the dumpster with the end of my flashlight, cracking it open. For the second time, swirls of dirt and flies swarmed my face, making me cough and back away. The noise of the falling lip on the moldy metal was as loud as a gunshot.
I cursed and tried to cover my nose from the stench.
Why not add dusty maggot stink to my already perfumed scent tonight?
I steeled myself to look inside the dumpster. What I found sitting neatly on top of a ripped bag made me pause—a bloody serrated knife. The pattern on the hilt of the handle was beautiful, intricate, and a gleaming red color.
Beside it…was a folded origami apple.
How strange….
Glancing to the right, I saw a pile of chopped-up limbs and gagged. Pulling away from the dumpster, I emptied the contents of my stomach. Finally catching my breath, I spat on the ground.
Ugh, disgusting…
God, it was too dark outside. Pulling in another gulp of air, I stared down at my feet. My flashlight aimed at what I thought was a puddle, but I had not stepped into water. No, this puddle was sticky and bright red.
It was blood.
I was standing in a pool of blood.
“Where, oh where, are you going, my Little Shadow?” I tsked in the darkness, watching the painfully annoying but admittedly efficient little killer.
