Game (Jasper Dent #2)(62)

“This is for Jazz,” she reminded him. “It’s about him, at least.”

“ ‘I know something about your boyfriend,’ ” Howie quoted. “That could be anything. That could be someone who knows where he buys his underwear. Or it could be that jackhole Weathers trying to lure you into an interview. Cell number was blocked, so it could be coming from somewhere around here for all we know. Probably is.”

Connie hadn’t considered that. Doug Weathers was just the sort of devious, bottom-feeding scumsucker who would plant a string of clues to pique her curiosity and try to trap her into some kind of compromising position that he could splash across a newspaper: BILLY DENT’S SON’S GIRLFRIEND IN CONTROVERSY! Or maybe just lure her into an interview. “If that’s what it is,” she said with measured cool, “then all he’s gonna get is a pissed-off sister all up in his grill.”

“I love when you go all hard-ass.” Howie shot her a pleased smile.

She returned it. “So does that mean you’ll stick around and see this through?”

“Well… I mean, if you’re gonna do something stupid, I guess I should stick around. That seems to be my function. And besides, Sam went to bed already.”

“Sam? Is that what she goes by?”

“It’s what I call her. If you give a girl a nickname, it’s endearing and forges a bond between the two of you.” He glanced over at her. “I read that on the Internet.”

Connie melted. Howie was so desperately pathetic in so many ways that she could never stay angry or disgusted for long. She reached out to pat his shoulder, but he flinched and said, “Whoa! Careful.”

“I’m going to be gentle,” she assured him, and then stroked his shoulder so lightly that even his hemophiliac blood vessels didn’t rupture. “You’re a good guy, Howie.”

“Will you tell Sam that? I also read that women trust other women more than men.”

She sighed. “Help me out tonight and, yeah, I’ll put in a good word for you.” Not that it would help. She couldn’t imagine a woman Samantha’s age hooking up with Howie. Although stranger things had certainly happened in the world.

“Score!” Howie fist-pumped. “What did the text say again?”

“It said ‘go 2 where it all began.’ ”

Howie frowned. “Where is that? Where what began?”

“That’s what I’ve been wondering. But it first said that this was about Jazz. So I’ve been thinking about Jazz’s past. Where it all began for him.”

“Hospital where he was born?” Howie asked.

“Too literal. I think it’s his house.”

“I just came from—ah. Oh, right.” Howie nodded grimly. “Got it.”

He flipped a uey and gunned the engine.




According to the dashboard clock in Howie’s car, it was three in the afternoon. Connie mentally subtracted the fourteen-plus hours by which the clock was always wrong (thirteen-plus during the summer) and decided that it was twenty of one in the morning when they pulled up to what had once been the Dent house. Not the house where Jazz lived now, the house Billy had grown up in—that was Jazz’s grandmother’s. The short gravel drive Howie’s wheels now crunched led to the house owned by Billy Dent himself.

“Don’t go chasing…”

Billy Dent, Connie mentally substituted. The rhythm still worked. Don’t go chasing Billy Dent. Please stick to the normal and the sane that you’re used to….

Denuded tree branches seemed to clutch at the car as they drove along, almost as though the spirit of William Cornelius Dent possessed them.

Stop thinking like that, Connie.

“How long do we have?” she asked Howie. Anything to break the silence.

Howie shrugged. “My parents think I’m spending the night at Jazz’s grandmother’s house.”

“Your parents? Your overprotective parents?”

“They know Jazz is out of town. They figure it’s safe.”

“Yeah, but… with his aunt?” Connie was shocked. Howie’s parents, letting their son (try to) shack up with an older woman?

“Oh, that. They think she’s an ugly old crone.” He shrugged. “This might be because I told them she was an ugly old crone. I’m not entirely sure. Man, it’s been a while since I’ve been here….”

The spot where Jazz’s childhood home used to be was marked out by a series of stakes with caution tape strung between them. A sign read NO TRESPASSING! Another read PRIVATE PROPERTY.

Finally, one read: THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED.

Condemned. Yeah, in so many ways, really…

Where the house had once stood there was now a blank, a blighted sore on the face of the earth. A wealthy father of one of Billy Dent’s victims had bought the house at auction after Billy went to prison. Then, to great fanfare and with the press in attendance, he’d had the house bulldozed and the wreckage burned to ash in a controlled fire. Connie hadn’t lived in Lobo’s Nod at the time, but Jazz had told her about it. He’d watched his home go up in smoke on the evening news.

“It was like a party,” Howie said, his voice a mixture of memory and rage as he gazed through the windshield. “Watched it on TV with Jazz. People treated it like a Memorial Day barbecue. Brought hot dogs and marshmallows and roasted them over the flames. Kegs. It was nuts. Like burning the guy’s house brought any of them back.”