Run Away(24)

He turned and looked down at the blood on the floor.

“The devil could even be a man,” Cornelius said.

“I assume you knew Aaron too?” Simon asked.

Cornelius just kept staring at the blood. “You know all my talk about the devil getting into your bloodstream?”

Ingrid said, “Yes.”

“Sometimes he don’t need to do any poking or prodding. Sometimes a man does it for him.” Cornelius looked up at them. “I don’t like wishing someone dead, but I tell you—there were times I came up here and he’d be so wasted, Paige too, lying in their own stink, and I’d look at him, at what he done, and I’d daydream…”

His voice faded away.

“Did you talk to the police?” Ingrid asked.

“They talked to me, but I got nothing to say to them.”

“When did you last see Paige?”

Cornelius hesitated. “I kinda hoped you guys would tell me.”

“What do you mean?”

There was a noise in the corridor. Cornelius stuck his head out. A young couple stumbled toward them, arms wrapped around each other, limbs so entwined it was hard to say where one began and the other ended.

“Cornelius,” the young man said, a lilt in his voice. “What’s happening, mah man?”

“All good, Enrique. How are you, Candy?”

“Love ya, Cornelius.”

“Love you too.”

“You cleaning out the place?” Enrique asked.

“Nah. Just making sure it’s all okay.”

“Dude was a turd.”

“Enrique!” Candy said.

“What?”

“The man is dead.”

“So now he’s a dead turd. That better?”

Enrique peered in the door, saw Simon and Ingrid, and asked, “Who that with you?”

“Just some cops,” Cornelius said.

That changed their demeanor. Suddenly their slow saunter became more purposeful.

“Uh, nice to meet you,” Candy said.

They unwound their limbs and hurried their step, both disappearing into a room at the end of the hall. Cornelius kept the smile on his face until the couple was out of sight.

“Cornelius?” Ingrid said.

“Hmm.”

“When did you last see Paige?”

He turned slowly, his eyes taking in the sad room. “What I’m going to tell you,” he said, “well, I didn’t tell the police this for obvious reasons.”

They waited.

“You have to understand. Maybe I’ve been sugarcoating, telling you how nice Paige was to Chloe and me. But fact is, she was a mess. A junkie. When she was in my place—I mean, like when she came by to play chess or get a bite to eat—truth is, and I don’t like saying it, I kept an eye on her. You know what I’m saying? I always worried she’d steal something because that’s what junkies do.”

Simon knew. Paige had stolen from them too. Cash went missing from Simon’s wallet. When several pieces of Ingrid’s jewelry disappeared, Paige claimed innocence in near Oscar-worthy performances.

That’s what junkies do.

A junkie.

His daughter was a junkie. Simon had never let himself articulate that, but hearing it come from Cornelius’s lips just made it land with a horrible, undeniable thud.

“Two days before Aaron got killed, I saw Paige. Down by the front door. I was coming in. She was flying down the stairs. Almost tumbling. Like someone was chasing her. She was going so fast, I thought she’d lose her step.”

Cornelius looked up and off now, as though he could still see her.

“I put my hands out, like to break her fall.” Cornelius lifted his arms, palms up, demonstrating. “I called out to her. But she just sprinted past me and outside. Didn’t even break her stride. I mean, that’s happened before.”

“What’s happened before?” Ingrid asked.

Cornelius turned his attention to her. “Paige just sprinting by me, like that. Like she’s so out of it, she doesn’t know who I am. Lots of times, she runs to that empty lot next door. You see it when you come in?”

They both nodded.

“Got that razor wire up front, but there’s an opening around the side. Goes there to get her fix from Rocco.”

“Rocco?”

“Local dealer. Aaron worked for him.”

Ingrid said, “Aaron dealt drugs?”

Cornelius cocked an eyebrow. “That surprise you?”

Simon and Ingrid exchanged a glance. It did not.

“Point is, when a junkie needs a fix, you could put NFL defensemen in her way and she’d break through. So what I’m saying is, that part—her sprinting out like that—that isn’t what made it strange.”

“So what did make it strange?” Simon asked.

“Paige had bruises on her face.”

Simon felt a rushing in his ears. His own voice sounded far away. “Bruises?”

“Some blood too. Like she’d taken a beating.”

Simon’s hands tightened into fists. The rage crawled up him, heating his entire body. Drugs, junkie, strung-out, whatever—somehow he could either deal or block on all that.

But someone had punched his little girl.