The Familiar Dark(44)

EIGHTEEN


I came to on the ground, stars above me, fire roaring in front of me, the sound of shouting in the distance. Everything was muffled, though, as if my head was encased in thick cotton. I rolled onto my side, and the world spun off its axis, bile rising in my throat. I lowered my head slowly until my forehead touched the grass, breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth until my stomach eased back down to its rightful position.

It took me a minute to remember where I was, what had happened. I pushed myself up onto my knees, one hand starfished on the ground for balance, and looked at the spot where Matt’s trailer had been. All that was left of it were a few burning hunks of metal, pieces scattered across the ground, fire burning along the tree line on the other side of the clearing.

“What the fuck?” I said, my voice a hoarse croak.

I knew I needed to get back to my car, get out of here, but I couldn’t seem to make my body follow the commands of my brain. From behind me, I heard the sound of running, and even as I stumbled to my feet, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to outpace whoever it was. A man scrambled down the path toward me, slipping a little on the grass, and I steeled myself for what would come next. It was bad enough to trespass on Jimmy Ray’s land. It was another thing entirely to be there when one of his men got blown to shit.

I squinted against the smoke blowing into my eyes, relief flooding me when I realized it was Cal coming toward me, not Jimmy Ray. Cal grabbed me as I stumbled forward, holding me up when my legs wanted to buckle.

“Eve,” he practically shouted. “Jesus Christ. What the fuck is going on? What happened?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I came to talk to him and . . .” I threw my arm out. “And it exploded. I never even saw him.”

Cal looked over his shoulder. “You need to go,” he said. “Before Jimmy Ray gets here.” He gave me shove. “Go!”

“But—”

He shoved me again, harder this time. “For once in your life, Eve, don’t argue with me! Go! Now!”

I stumbled away from him, legs jerking along about a half second behind my brain’s instructions. Behind me I could hear Cal on his police radio calling in the explosion, asking for backup and an ambulance, although it was too late for Matt, or what was left of him. I’d cleared the edge of the woods when a pickup truck crested the rise. I stopped, hidden behind the trunk of a tree, and watched a half dozen of Jimmy Ray’s men tumble out, shouting and racing toward Cal.

Part of me wanted to stay and make sure he would be okay, that Jimmy Ray and his men wouldn’t take their anger out on him. But I had to assume Cal’s badge would protect him, at least until backup arrived. And he was right: I needed to get out of here. The longer I lingered, the greater the chance someone was going to find me.

I didn’t really remember the rest of the walk back to the car, tripping over tree roots and stumbling in the dark. My hands were shaking so hard it took me three tries to get the key in the ignition, jaw clacking as I drove too fast out of the compound in a race to beat the cops I knew were on their way. When I got back onto the main road, I passed two of them, lights and sirens screaming as they headed toward Jimmy Ray’s. I watched their taillights in my rearview mirror until they were out of sight, half expecting to see them turn around and come after me instead. My hands didn’t unclench and my jaw didn’t loosen until I’d pulled into a spot in my apartment complex. When I finally unwound myself from the driver’s seat, my whole body felt like it had taken one of Jimmy Ray’s beatings, and I walked hunched over and limping to my front door.

I locked myself in the bathroom and peeled out of my clothes, wincing as my shirt stuck to the gash on my shoulder. My face was streaked with soot, and I had a bruise starting on my left cheekbone, probably from where I hit the ground after the explosion. I held the edges of the porcelain sink to stop my hands from shaking, tried to wrap my brain around the last hour. Matt’s trailer blowing up just as I was coming to talk to him made no sense to me. If Matt had been the one to kill Izzy and Junie, then why would he blow himself up? Remorse didn’t seem like it would be a big concern to someone like Matt. Unlike Jimmy Ray himself, Matt, I suspected, didn’t live by any kind of code. Killing two preteen girls probably wouldn’t cost him a single second of sleep. And if he hadn’t killed them, then why would the killer care if I talked to Matt? If anything, that would give the police someone else to focus on. Matt alive and having to explain his relationship with Izzy could only be a good thing for the killer. All eyes focused in the wrong direction.

Something was nagging at me, some tidbit of information that floated out of my reach whenever my brain tried to clamp down on it. But my entire body hurt, my brain most of all, and I knew the harder I pushed, the more elusive it would be. I stood in the shower for a long time, until the water washing over my shoulder turned from red to pink to crystal clear. So long the hot water gave out to a lukewarm spray. And still the thought wouldn’t crystalize. Maybe a decent night’s sleep would send whatever it was to the surface. Or maybe it was nothing at all.

I wrapped myself in a towel, double-checked the gash in my shoulder to make sure the bleeding had slowed before I covered it with a patch of gauze and a couple of Band-Aids, and then stepped out into the hallway. A floorboard creaked to my left, and as I turned my head, something heavy hit me from the side, slammed me back into the wall, my head smacking against the doorjamb. A hand around my throat, fingers calloused and rough.