The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson #12)(27)

“Rocket.” I put my hand through the opening.

He reached up and took hold of it. “I can’t find Blue. I have to find her. She’ll be so scared, Miss Charlotte. You have to come help me.”

He tugged on my arm. Rocket, completely oblivious to his own strength, could pull it completely off if he were scared enough. Or suck me down into the debris.

“Rocket, I can’t get down there.”

“I’ll help.” He tugged again, and the debris shifted beneath my weight, lowering at least a couple of inches.

I had to wrench my hand from his grasp, peeling my fingers out of his meaty fist, or be pulled under.

“I can’t go down there, Rocket. It’s too dangerous.”

“But I can’t find her, Miss Charlotte.”

I lay my forehead on a slab of concrete in frustration. I could summon the departed, but only if I had a name to summon. Everyone called his little sister Blue, but that wasn’t her real name. I couldn’t call her.

Or could I?

I may not have been able to summon the little doll, who’d died of dust pneumonia at the age of five, but I could certainly call her.

“I’ll be right back, Rocket.”

With each move carefully calculated, I eased off the pile of rubble, slipping once and almost falling to my death—or to the rest of my horribly maimed life. After regaining my footing, I noticed the kids were back, only they’d brought reinforcements. There was now a veritable hoard of bicycle-laden street urchins, watching my every move from beyond the chain link.

My next moves would probably seem a little silly, but that was my middle name.

“Blue!” I called out her name, which seemed a little old-school, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. “Blue, sweetheart, where are you?”

Rocket appeared at my side. “Is she here, Miss Charlotte?”

I threw myself into his arms. “Rocket, honey, are you okay?”

Putting him at arm’s length, I pressed my palms to his face to check him over.

“I’m okay, Miss Charlotte. I didn’t say nothing. I promise.”

“What?”

“I didn’t tell him. Not nothing. He was so mad.”

Gooseflesh erupted over every part of my body. “Who are you talking about, hon?”

“I didn’t tell him, Miss Charlotte. I would never. That’s breaking rules. No breaking rules. But now I can’t find Blue.”

“Rocket, sweetheart.” I tried to bring him back to me. “Was it Reyes? Did Reyes do this?”

His impaired gaze landed on me in confusion. “No, ma’am. Not him.”

Relief flooded every cell I possessed. But then who? “Do you know who did it?”

“It only looked like him. He was so mad, Miss Charlotte.”

My lungs seized when I realized what he meant. It only looked like Reyes but wasn’t him. This was not happening. “It looked like Reyes?”

“Reyes Alexander Farrow,” he said with a nod. “Only not. Not anymore.”

I sank onto a concrete slab, the edges jagged but also burned. Parts of the surface had been charred. Narrow black strips lined parts of the crumbled walls with tiny burst patterns. Almost as though the building had been struck by lightning over and over.

Reyes had been covered in live electrical currents when he came out of the god glass. Could he use it as a weapon? Is that what did this?

Rocket spun in circles, calling out his sister’s name to no avail. I stopped him with my hands on his shoulders. “Rocket, I need to know, is Reyes in there anywhere? Is there still a part of him inside?”

Rocket’s expression turned grave. “I didn’t see him, but I wasn’t looking neither. He’s not dead. Reyes Alexander Farrow. He’s not dead and gone. Not yet.”

“Not yet?” I asked, elated. “Is … is his time coming?”

He bowed his head and went to work. When Rocket searched his data banks, he sometimes blinked in rapid succession. He was doing that now, and I realized I was holding my breath in anticipation.

“His time is moving. It won’t stop.”

Okay, no idea what that meant, but I was going to take it as a good sign.

“Blue!” he called out again.

I followed suit, calling out his sister’s name. The kids looked on with both curiosity and apprehension, not sure what to think of my conversation with Rocket, an entity they could not see.

Most of them, anyway.

I noticed one of the bicyclists’ coloring was a little off. He was one of the younger ones, his bike, a dark maroon, now only a faded version of that once vibrant color. The boy looked alarmingly similar to the smaller kid I’d spoken to earlier.

When my gaze landed on him, he raised an arm, extended an index finger, and pointed to a copse of trees on the north side of the property.

I turned and saw a slight discoloration behind a row of bushes.

“Blue?” I said, stepping closer.

Rocket followed, hope burning in his eyes.

“Blue?” I asked as I got closer.

Suddenly and without hesitation, the little girl whirled around and ran into my arms. My arms. I knelt down and caught her, wrapping said arms tight around her tiny body. She sobbed onto my shoulder as Rocket ran toward us.

“Blue?” He stumbled beside me and wrapped us both in his cool embrace.