Game (Jasper Dent #2)(126)

He ripped the sleeve off his shirt and wrapped it around the bullet hole. Then, to be safe, he twined a length of duct tape over it, then again. A crude bandage, but better than nothing.

He would just have to hope that it would be good enough. That it would stem the blood loss. That infection wouldn’t set in from the bullet. That he wouldn’t lose the leg.

You’re assuming you’ll still be alive to miss it, Jasper.

Dog’s laptop bag lay on the floor next to him. Jazz went through it, finding another small knife, some rags, latex gloves… and a big butcher knife.

Come to Papa, he thought, hefting it. It felt good in his hands. If Hat came back, Jazz would at least give him a scar for his troubles.

There was no longer blood streaming down his leg, but his thigh still throbbed and complained. Jazz had checked the entire unit, but hadn’t found any sort of painkiller. He had watched Morales get ready for this little excursion into hell—he knew she didn’t have anything on her that would help. Her purse—probably stocked with all kinds of goodies—was out in the car. Might as well be on the moon.

Was there anything he’d missed? Anything in the unit that he hadn’t explored? Yeah. Yeah, there’s one thing.

Jazz turned to Dog’s body. He wasn’t squeamish about touching a dead body. He’d touched plenty of them, many in worse shape than Dog’s. Hat’s shots had left small holes in Dog’s body. Blood glistened in the light from the cell phone, no longer pumping and flowing, now tracery rivulets staining Dog’s coat and shirt. Jazz spent a moment gazing into Dog’s vacant eyes and didn’t bother closing them.

Dog had collapsed against the workbench and still leaned partly upright. Jazz eased the body onto its back on the floor. Rigor mortis hadn’t started yet—and even when it did in ten or fifteen minutes, it would start with the small muscles—so the body was still pliant and easy to maneuver. A slick of blood welled out from an exit wound, pumped along by the motion of the body. Jazz wrinkled his nose. It bothered him more for the mess than anything else.

Hat knew there was nothing in here that could help me escape, but he couldn’t know if Dog brought anything new in. At this point, all I’m hoping for is a friggin’ aspirin.

He frisked the body, then went pocket-diving.

Come on, Oliver. Tell me you get migraines and you carry a bottle of Advil everywhere you go.

No wallet or ID, of course. Never carry any of that nonsense when you’re prospecting, Billy had told him. You can always claim you lost it or got mugged, if you have to.

A key ring, including—Jazz surmised—the key to the padlock that locked unit 83F. Nice to have. Even nicer if he had a way to reach the lock.

Some scraps of paper, covered in illegible scrawl. No doubt Dog’s prospecting notes, scribbled down while stalking his next victim.

Really? No aspirin? Nothing? The crazy people talking in your head never give you a headache?

Last thing he found: a cell phone.

A phone with as much signal strength as Jazz’s, which was to say none.

Jazz sat on the cold concrete floor, his back against Dog’s workbench. He propped his leg up on Dog’s corpse, keeping it elevated in an effort to prevent further blood loss.

There was nothing here and no way out and no way to stop the insistent, persistent ache from his leg, the pain that reminded him that he could die of infection, that he could end up an amputee, that—

Stay calm. You have water. You have two cell phones now. You just doubled your time to find a signal.

Oh, let’s throw a party, then! You bring the water; I’ll bring the bleach.

He opened Dog’s cheap, disposable cell. Yeah, no signal.

But there was a little envelope icon. A message. Must have come through before Dog came inside and lost his signal.

Jazz opened the message. It was a photo.

Why are you here? he had asked Billy. Who did you come to New York to find?

Oh. My. God.

And Billy had said, I’m gonna tell ol’ Doggy. I’m gonna let him in on the secret. And then you can ask him.

And Billy had told Dog. Had told him with a thousand words, with one photo that screamed at Jazz’s eyeballs.

It had to be a trick of the light. Or, rather, of the darkness.

Or his vision, gone bleary and illusionary from pain.

I’ve already passed out. I’m dreaming. This is all a dream as I lay dying.

He deliberately squeezed his leg just below the bullet wound and the pain jolted him into full wakefulness.

If there had been any doubt, the pain sluiced it away. He was awake. Conscious. Fully aware.

And he knew this woman. She was older, but he knew her.

On Dog’s phone, a photo sent—Jazz knew—by Billy.

A photo of his mother.

She was alive.





Acknowledgments


Per usual, I have to start by thanking everyone at Little, Brown for making Game happen: Alvina Ling (editor extraordinaire), Bethany Strout (her thoroughly desensitized assistant), Megan Tingley, Victoria Stapleton, Melanie Chang, Jessica Bromberg, Andrew Smith, Zoe Luderitz, JoAnna Kremer, Barbara Bakowski, Alison Impey, Amy Habayeb, Kristin Dulaney, and those whose names I have unforgivably neglected to mention here. Thank you, one and all!

Then there is my agent, Kathy Anderson, and everyone at Anderson Literary, as well as the fine folks at Jody Hotchkiss and Associates.