Dead Silence (31 page)

Any echoes or imprints.

“That’s the opening band,” Sam shouted above the noise of the cheering crowd, drawing her attention. The band on the stage was just finishing up. “Safe Word’s up next.”

Violet nodded, still glancing around her. She caught a giant man watching her. Glaring was more like it. His head was shaved and practically polished, his scalp shone beneath the flashing lights. His neck was wide—nearly as wide as his head—making it hard to tell where jaw became neck, and neck became body. His massive arms were crossed in front of his chest as he stood against the wall by a doorway.

He looked like a bouncer, and probably was, Violet realized, as she guessed that the doorway might lead backstage. Or maybe outside, to another club entrance, and the giant was meant to keep stragglers from sneaking in the back door without paying their admission.

Violet couldn’t imagine anyone trying to sneak past him, though.

She smiled at the enormous man, and was just about to raise her hand—to wave possibly—when Rafe nudged her. “Knock it off, V. I thought the point was to go unnoticed.”

The bouncer frowned at first, and Violet wondered if she wasn’t supposed to bother him while he was working, but then his expression changed, and he flashed a huge grin back at her. There was nothing menacing about him then. He was just a guy, a
big
guy, standing by a door.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Rafe muttered, dragging her away. “What kind of detective are you?”

Violet shrugged, letting Rafe lead her toward the front, near the stage, as the next band was setting up. “You never know who can help.” And then her eyes widened and she lowered her voice. “Besides, maybe he knows something . . . about the symbol.”

She felt Rafe’s grip on her wrist tense. “What symbol?” he asked, and for the first time she realized she hadn’t told them, either him or Sam, about the brimstone cross she’d noticed on the flyer.

“That one,”
Violet said, drawing Rafe’s attention away from her as she pointed at the drum set already onstage. It was there too, in the center of the large drum that faced outward. That very same symbol . . . the brimstone cross.

She heard Sam draw in a sharp breath from behind her.

“Violet,” Rafe said, using her full name now, his voice quiet and filled with warning. “Tell me what you feel. Right now, when you’re looking at those guys up there . . .”

He didn’t point, didn’t move so much as a single muscle, he just held on to her, his fingers clamped around her wrist. But she knew who he meant.

Them . . .
the band.

She turned her gaze upward, her eyes roving over each and every one of them as they took their positions, taking in everything about them. She spent time on each of them, studying them individually, making sure to separate them not just from one another, but from anything around her that might interfere. It was easier now, with just the prerecorded track playing in the background—still loud, but not shattering her eardrums.

There were five of them in all. Five possible suspects wearing leather and spikes and chunky boots and tight jeans. They looked like everyone else in the club.

Everyone but her. And Sam.

She took a step back, Rafe’s hand still clutching her as she shook her head. “Nothing,” she whispered at first, and wondered if they’d heard her. “I don’t feel anything at all.”

Violet washed her face and changed out of her smoke-infused clothes. For a nonsmoking club, there’d been a
lot
of smoke in the air. Short of showering, there was nothing she could do about the smell that clung to her hair, so she pulled it back into an elastic, keeping it as far from her face as she could.

In her room, she huddled in her bed, nesting in the jumble of blankets as she started poring through the pages of her grandmother’s journals once more. She’d already read these entries—in fact, she’d already read all of them now—but she hoped against hope that maybe she’d missed something the first time through.

After nearly an hour of scanning the same entries and not learning a single new bit of information, she slammed the book she was holding shut.

It was useless. There was no more mention of the Seven in her grandma’s diaries.

In fact, after that ominous entry about Muriel,
Muriel is dead
, she’d never mentioned her team again.

Not once.

Ever.

It was the strangest thing, Violet thought, trying to imagine what possible reason her grandmother could have had for not writing about them.

Had she quit the team? Had it disbanded after Muriel’s death?

Had she been too afraid to put anything else on paper?

Whatever her reason, there was nothing more about them, just page after page of mundane entries about her everyday life, including Violet’s mom’s graduation and her move to college, her wedding to her dad, and the birth of Violet herself.

Okay, so it wasn’t all mundane.

There was another section that interested Violet as well—or rather a non-section. A large chunk of Violet’s grandmother’s life that seemed to be missing, when she’d stopped journaling . . . just after Violet’s grandfather had died.

It was nearly a year before she’d journaled again, and when she did it was just a quick entry about a doctor’s appointment she’d had that day. They were all quick and sporadic after that, nothing significant or interesting, until it was more like looking at a calendar than a diary.

As if she’d lost that passion she’d had for documenting her thoughts and emotions and the events that shaped her life.

Violet finally gave up and laid the diary on her nightstand. As she did, her hand brushed the silver turtle Jay had given her. She picked it up, holding it up and inspecting it.

As strange as it seemed, she sometimes missed the intrusive imprint that used to fill her every waking thought. Times like now, when it was quiet. When her mind was restless, flitting from one place to the next.

The imprint had at least given her a place to land.

She turned the silver key at the turtle’s belly and lifted the silver lid, closing her eyes as the first lyrical notes of
Moonlight
Sonata enveloped her.

And her thoughts, which had been harried, tripping over one another uneasily, settled at last, onto the musical bough of the familiar song.

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED

“WHAT ABOUT HER?” EVAN ASKED, LIFTING HIS chin toward a girl wearing a sundress and sandals. She looked young, especially in the flowered dress, fifteen at the most. But young had never stopped Colton before. “Colton’d like her, don’t’cha think?”

Bailey touched his arm. “Evan . . .”

He scowled at her hand. “If you don’t like her, just say so,” he snapped. And then, because he recognized how curt he sounded, he softened his tone. “You’re right. She’s not really his type. We’ll keep looking.”

He turned, but not before catching the look that flashed between Bailey and Boxer. A look laced with meaning. He told himself to ignore it . . . to ignore them. But he couldn’t. His temper soured as he got to his feet, reaching for his guitar case. “You’re wrong,” he shouted down at them, not needing to hear either of them say it out loud to know what they meant. “He’ll be fine. He’s a fighter. This is Colton we’re talkin’ about . . . he’s a fighter,” he repeated, but his voice cracked as their doubts started to creep into his conviction. He shook his head, backing away from them, from the uncertainty on their faces.

“Evan,”
Bailey said again. She had to struggle to get to her feet, but this time she came after him. She clasped his hands in hers. “You can’t know that for sure.”

He ignored the way her fingers trembled and how skeletal they were, telling himself she was fine, that she wasn’t getting sick again. She had to be okay because he didn’t have anything to give her right now. “He’s family . . .” He’d meant to say more, but he couldn’t. Words were insufficient to describe how he felt about losing another member of their small clan. Losing Butterfly had been hard enough, and he’d barely known her. Colton was another matter altogether.

Boxer stood too, joining them, turning them into an unusual trio as they huddled together near the edge of the park. “You’re right, he
is
family. But he’s hurt. Bad. We can’t know he’ll make it.”

Evan thought of Colton back at the apartment, unconscious on his mattress. Struggling for each and every breath. Somehow, he’d managed to haul Colton all the way back, even through the narrow sewer drain, where he’d delivered the nearly lifeless boy in a bloodied heap.

None of them had reacted to Colton’s blood the way they had the night at Butterfly’s house. This wasn’t a cause for excitement, for celebration.

This was a time of sorrow.

Yet no one asked who’d done this to their friend—their family member.

And none of them had even mentioned taking him to a hospital where he could get real care from real caregivers.

Instead, they’d rolled up their sleeves and cleaned him up as best they could, mindful of his moaning, and taking it as a sign of his discomfort. They’d given him drugs, not the legal kinds the hospital would provide, but ones that were just as effective for the pain. More so, maybe.

And he’d lain quiet ever since, receiving his doses as regularly as they could manage, with both Boxer and Kisha sacrificing their shares for Colton. Because that’s what family did.

Bailey gave up what she could, but he couldn’t have both of them sick. Not at the same time.

Colton had to make it, Evan told himself. He had to so he could tell him they were good now. That the slate had been wiped clean between them.

And maybe the answer was to find Colton that girl he’d always wanted.

CHAPTER 16

“VIOLET? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” DR. LEE asked, looking around the small parking lot in front of his office.

She was glad he sounded confused; she’d meant to catch him off guard.

“I wanted to talk to you. Alone.” She stepped away from where she’d been waiting for him near his dark sedan—not quite black, but not really blue either. Nondescript. The kind of car you’d have a hard time describing in a pinch.

“You could’ve made an appointment,” he told her, still frowning. “Do you want to go inside?”

She shook her head curtly. “It’s not that kind of talk.”

Today he looked like the old Dr. Lee, wearing his cozy cardigan and canvas sneakers. This was the doctor who’d persuaded her to open up to him, to share her deepest darkest secret with him. This was the doctor she’d trusted.

But she knew the truth . . . this Dr. Lee was a fake.

His eyes narrowed, and even his stance changed as he approached her, his posture becoming more rigid and self-assured. “What kind of talk is it then?” His voice was lower too, laced with warning. She understood the meaning well enough:
Watch your step.

But she was past watching her step now.

“Who are you, Dr. Lee?” She didn’t tell him why she was asking, or reveal what she knew, she merely asked that simple question.
Who are you?
“Or should I call you Jimmy? Who are you really?”

He stopped where he was, and his body tensed. Violet realized she’d crossed a line and was now wandering into tricky territory. She watched him as he considered her question, and she couldn’t help noting the way his nostrils flared ever so slightly, and his hands—probably without even realizing it—curled into fists.

She felt every bit as strained as he looked, and she wondered if her nostrils flared too. Her chest was constricted, squeezing the very breath from her lungs.

“What do you know?” he asked, his words whisper quiet. “What is it you think you know, Violet, because, trust me, this isn’t a road you want to go down.”

Without meaning to, she took a step back, stung by the vehemence in his tone. Maybe he was right, she thought. Maybe this was better left alone.