You'll Be the Death of Me(43)

The bat dangles in Cal’s grip, as though he’s about to drop it, so I grab it from him and hold it firmly in one hand. “We have to,” I say, and push the door open.





MATEO


Charlie can’t be all that scared for his life if he doesn’t even bother locking his door.

I step into a spacious, empty foyer and close the door behind me. “Charlie? You there?” I call, moving farther into the house. “It’s Mateo Wojcik. I need to talk to you.” Then I catch sight of the St. Clairs’ kitchen through the doorway ahead of me, and freeze in my tracks.

All the cabinets are wide open. The counters and floor are strewn with boxes, bags, and broken dishes. I creep farther into the foyer, every muscle tense, and stop at a set of French doors that lead into what looks like the St. Clairs’ living room. It’s a chaotic mess: tables upended, cushions pulled apart and tossed onto the floor, lamps and vases smashed. The built-in bookshelves at one end of the room are completely empty. Even the curtains have been torn off the picture window, the rod dangling haphazardly to one side.

    The entire place has been ransacked. And if whoever did it is still around, I just announced myself to them.

Obviously, the smart thing to do would be to backtrack out the door and directly into Cal’s car. But I can’t. Because now I really, really need to find out whether Charlie St. Clair—the guy whose name was circled on a list with me and a dead kid, and who just called that kid in a panic—is the same Charlie who popped up on Autumn’s phone this morning.

The less you know, the better, she’d said. Not anymore.

I move back toward the kitchen, ears straining. The house is silent except for the quiet hum of central air-conditioning. Up close, the kitchen is an even bigger disaster. There’s so much crap on the floor that I’m about to give up on going any farther when I notice a door across from the pantry that’s slightly ajar. I pick my way toward it and ease it open, and I catch a faint rustling sound from somewhere below.

There’s a set of carpeted stairs leading down. I stand there for a moment, considering just how bad of an idea it is to follow the noise. I can hear Autumn’s voice in my head as clearly as if she were standing next to me: Extremely, Mateo. Literally the worst decision of your life.

Yeah, well, she’s one to talk.

I descend as carefully and quietly as I can, my footsteps muffled by the thickness of the rug beneath my feet. When I reach the bottom, I’m in what looks like a finished basement that’s been torn apart as thoroughly as upstairs. But there’s less furniture here, so it’s mostly a wreckage of toppled shelves and scattered sports equipment. I count four doors spaced evenly throughout the room; one is open, leading to what looks like a laundry area, and the rest are closed. Everything is just as eerily quiet as it was upstairs.

    There’s a basketball directly in front of me, and I ease it to one side with my foot. It spins harder than I intended, and hits the edge of a metal shelf with a soft thud. Damn it.

The faint rustling sound comes again, from behind one of the closed doors. My nerves flare up, and I push them down as I scan the contents of the floor for something I could use to defend myself. There’s not much, unless—

“Arghhhhhhh!”

The door flies open and a screaming blur comes at me. All I see is a flash of silver before my skull explodes in pain and I’m on my knees. Another blow lands on my shoulder, weaker than the first. My vision gets hazy as something warm trickles into my eyes. I lunge forward blindly, and my hand connects with the cold metal of some kind of rod. I grab hold of it and pull as hard as I can, grunting in pain when whoever was holding it crashes on top of me. I lose my grip on the rod, and I hear it clatter against the wall. Adrenaline pumps through me hard and fast as I think with a savage kind of triumph, He’s down and unarmed.

For a few seconds we’re a tangle of twisted limbs and flailing fists, throwing punches that don’t land hard enough to do damage as we grapple on the floor. I haven’t been in a fight in years, but it’s like riding a bike, I guess—you don’t forget how. I dodge and shift, trying to pin him down while he keeps slipping away.

I still can’t see and my head is throbbing. When I feel one of his fingers stabbing into the flesh right next to my eye, a bolt of white-hot anger courses through me. I manage to catch hold of his wrist and bend it sharply backward, causing him to go limp with a scream of pain. I’m on top of him in a flash, blinking furiously to clear my vision, one arm pressing across his neck while the other hauls back in preparation for what I hope will be a knockout blow.

    “Stop!” a girl’s voice screams behind me. “Mateo, Charlie, stop!”

Charlie? I freeze, then swipe a hand over my eyes. It comes away red with blood, and my vision clears enough to see Charlie St. Clair shove hard at my chest from below. I let myself roll off him and turn to see Ivy a few feet away from me, a baseball bat dangling from one hand. “What the hell?” I rasp. Then I turn back toward Charlie, who’s writhing on the floor, clutching his wrist and whimpering. There’s a golf club lying a few feet away from him, and Ivy steps over me to pick it up.

“Shit, Charlie, sorry,” I say. “I was trying to help you.”

“You got a weird fucking way of showing it, dude,” Charlie moans. “I think you broke my wrist.”