Nearly Gone (19 page)

We parked in a narrow alley. Brick walls loomed on both sides, cloaking us in shadows. At the mouth of the alley, bodies passed under streetlights, their silhouettes shuffling to a distant beat.

I startled when Reece caught my chin and lifted my head. “Listen.” His fingers were ice cold and his anxiety leeched into me, an echo of my own. “I don’t want you to eat or drink anything—nothing—no matter who gives it to you. Do you understand?”

I nodded.
“And I never want you out of my sight. Ever. Promise me.” I nodded again. Then he took my hand and we followed the sound of the music.
To anyone else, we’d look like a couple. But his grip was too tight, his posture too rigid. A cluster of boys whistled and called out to me. Reece shot them a warning glance, his body inclined slightly ahead and protectively close to mine, but never too close.
We stopped in front of a rusted door. Reece slipped the bouncer some cash and the door slid open. Strobe lights pierced the pavement. The music, barely a heartbeat through
the door, roared out. I clamped down on Reece’s hand as we stepped into an inferno of color and sound and the steel mouth slammed shut.

He dragged me through a flashing sea of unfocused colors and lights, people dancing on ledges and platforms, and crowding the floor. I scanned the room for Kylie. Reece kept to the perimeter, clear of the mass, and stopped at a bar covered in tiny plastic cups. Our fingers strained to stay clasped as he leaned in to speak with the bartender, a kid I vaguely recognized as the gas pump attendant at the Bui Mart. The kid disappeared into a swale between bodies and I took long steadying breaths while we waited.

Lonny Johnson emerged a moment later. Kylie stood behind him, her hand draped over his shoulder. Her heroinchic eyes narrowed over my dress and she pressed tighter against him. Lonny jerked his shoulder, dismissing her. I craned my head, anxiously watching as she vanished into the crowd. Reece squeezed my hand, as if reading my thoughts, forbidding me to follow her.

Lonny stepped in close, watching me the way a cat watches a bird through a window.
“Nice. Very . . . very nice,” he said over the music, and yet low enough to be a dirty secret in my ear. “I had no idea you had it in you, Boswell. Not bad for a girl from the park. I’m beginning to understand Reece’s interest in you.” Lonny stroked his goatee and leered. The flashing lights illuminated the hard angles of his face and the tattoos around his neck. I took a step back.
Reece’s grip tightened, and he shifted in front of me. I felt his temper flare through our joined hands and swallowed back the coppery tang it left. Without a word, Lonny jerked his head toward a hallway behind him. Reece returned it with a tight nod and he leaned in close to my ear.
“Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll be back in five minutes.” Then he slipped into the crowd.
I stood, the room in rhythmic chaos around me, hundreds of bodies flashing under the strobes. I stood on my toes, searching for Kylie’s magenta hair, but the bodies on the dance floor reflected back the color of the changing strobes. The effect was disorienting and I pushed in closer to the dance floor, struggling to find her.
A deejay worked high on a platform in the center of the room. The dancers moved in syncopated rhythms around him. A light caught my eye in a high corner of the room, white and quicker than the strobes. Jeremy stood on a catwalk, snapping pictures. His telescoping lens fanned slowly toward me, found me, and paused. The camera dropped slowly from his face. He stared at me with a pained expression, then turned, shoving people aside until he disappeared from view.
I wanted to follow him. I wanted to explain. But I didn’t have a choice. Keeping Reece from going back to jail meant keeping Jeremy in the dark. And keeping Kylie alive meant I had to let him go.
I brought my attention back to the floor, to the wall of moving bodies in front of me. I didn’t see Kylie anywhere. I had five minutes to find her before Reece came back. To make sure she was safe.
I drifted closer to the dance floor, careful not to touch anyone. I jumped when a warm hand reached for me, slick with sweat, and tried to pull away as it drew me into the current of bodies.
The touch sent a surge of heat through my veins. Hot and electric and sweet.
I shouldn’t be here,
I thought, fighting to hold on to myself. Skin was all around me, touching me, until I was light, floating. I waved my hands in front of my face, watching them paint trails in the air. Someone grabbed me and pulled me close and I absorbed his buzz until I was numb with it.
I was one of them. Somebody. Part of something. Connected and touching. I pushed into them. Against them. Drinking them in. Drenched in their high. Promises drifted to me through the music.
Stay here. Five minutes.
The room was spinning. I giggled, laughter erupting within me until there was only dancing and music and the beat of the room. An arm snaked around me, strong shoulders curling over my back.
“What do we have here?” said a deep voice in my ear. “I had no idea little Nearly Boswell was so hot.” I shivered under his breath.
I fought to open my eyes, willing the room to stop spinning. Large hands steadied me as I gave in to the sway. He was tall, his designer shirt closely cut over a muscled chest and rolled at the sleeves. Honey-blond hair fell over his forehead in the most appealing way, and he smiled at me. A small voice in my head whispered warnings, but his hands were warm on my waist. He smelled good, like expensive cologne.
I leaned into him, pulling his head low to my ear. “I know you,” I purred, barely recognizing my own voice. “You’re dangerous.”
Vince growled into my neck, making me laugh. “You have no idea.”
He drew me into the sea of dancers, to the very center of the writhing mass.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” His face burrowed into my hair, tickling my shoulders. I shook my head and looped my hands around his neck, feeling dizzy.
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
His hand slipped under the hem of my dress and worked slowly up my thigh. A delicious shudder rocked through me, sweet like cherry syrup with a burn that licked at my throat. My head rolled back, loose, and Vince nuzzled my collarbone.
“That’s too bad. Whelan doesn’t know what he’s missing.” The name scratched at the edge of a memory, then disappeared in the fog. Someone caught Vince’s attention behind me. Vince looked over my shoulder and grinned.
“TJ, I think we owe Leigh an apology,” he shouted over the music. “We haven’t been very nice. Let’s make it up to her. Go get her a drink.” Vince winked over my shoulder, his big hands roving higher. Something soured his touch, turning inhibition into something choking and greedy. Promises fluttered at the edge of my consciousness.
I don’t want you to eat or drink anything—nothing—no matter who gives it to you.
“No, I shouldn’t . . .” I pushed at his wrists. The room spun and I stumbled into him. His arms circled my waist.
“Leave it alone, Vince.” TJ’s voice hardened behind me. “I saw Whelan here a few minutes ago.”
Vince’s face tensed. “I said the lady needs a drink, gimp. You gonna get in the game or sit the bench with your damn brace on all night?”
“Fuck off. I’m not your water boy.”
A crowd of glassy eyes turned toward us and away and the moment passed. TJ was gone. My head was heavy and I let it fall against Vince’s chest. Through fluttering eyelids, I could just make out a dark-haired boy, coming closer, pushing dancers out of his way.
“Leigh is leaving. Now,” said his clipped voice behind me.
It picked at the corners of my mind. I pressed my fingers to my temple and wished the floor would stop moving. He held out his hand.
I reached for it, but Vince dug thick fingers into my shoulder. “I don’t think Nearly wants to go anywhere.”
I blinked and the room swam.
“She comes with me.”
I squinted against the strobes. He stepped toward me, hand outstretched, and I swayed into his arms. His skin sent a chill up my spine and his touch tasted like violence. He grabbed me and the world turned upside down. My head fell, missing the floor as he swung me over his shoulder. Gena’s shoes slid off my feet and clattered to the ground.
“Put me down!” I squealed, and pounded his back. My hair grazed the floor and I kicked at the sky. The room spun wildly as I bobbed up and down while he struggled through the crowd and my stomach turned in nauseating circles. I forced my eyes open, tried to focus on a single point. Someone was following us. I reached back and grabbed his wrist for leverage, trying to pull myself up to see his face. His hatred coursed through me, acidic and burning as it climbed up my throat. It was all too much. My heart raced, my stomach lurched, and the room spun faster. Then it all just disappeared.

Cold air crept over my body. I woke up in darkness, curled against wet asphalt. Rain pelted my skin and trailed over my legs. I looked down at my dripping hands, sobering as the storm washed away the lingering high and a blinding headache exploded between my eyes.

Reece picked me up under the arms and stood me roughly against the wall. Water pooled at my bare feet. His touch was electric with panic reeking like fear.

“What did you take, Nearly?” He shook me, fingers digging into the bruises on my shoulders and rattling my brain.
“Ow! That hurts!”
“Did you drink something? Did you take something?” He held my face in one hand, forcing my lids open and shining a penlight with the other. I blinked hard against the glare and shoved his chest when he stepped in close to smell my breath.
“I didn’t take anything!” I slammed my palm into his shoulder. “Don’t touch me!”
Reece reeled back, his face twisting as he squinted against the rain. “What the hell happened to you back there?”
Wet hair clung to my cheeks and I scraped it away. “I don’t know! I don’t know what happened. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” he shouted, so close I could feel the heat of his breath. “Sorry is all you’ve got?” He mopped sheets of water from his face, pacing in short, agitated strides. I flinched as he stepped toward me, bending close. “Do you have any idea how I felt when I came back and you were gone?”

His fists braced the bricks on both sides of my head, caging me in. “And you were . . .” He spun on his heels and paced, threaded his hands behind his head, unable or unwilling to look at me. He kicked the Dumpster and I jumped. “I don’t know what the hell you were doing!”

“Well, I do!” My body shook with fine tremors. I wrapped my bare arms around myself, clutching at the guilt and humiliation inside. “Someone had to keep an eye on Kylie! He was there!”

He blinked away water. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “The person who killed Marcia and Posie and Teddy was there! At the rave!” I looked back at the warehouse, trying to make sense of what I remembered, but it was all so fuzzy. I remembered being upside down. I remembered being followed. Someone walked behind me. The one I touched before I passed out. I’d known it when I’d felt him. The killer. He was there. In the warehouse.

I turned toward the opening of the alley. “We have to go back!” My numb feet caught on the pavement and I stumbled, bracing a hand against the wall. Reece stepped in front of me, blocking my way.

“We’re not going back! Damnit, Leigh, I thought you were dead!” His face was haunted. “I’m not going back there again. Not with you!”

Not with you.
I’d screwed up. The deal was off.
I let my shoulder fall against the wall.
“When are you going to tell me what’s really going on?

When are you going to start trusting me?” he said.

A tear slid down my cheek. It was all just slipping away. Jeremy, the scholarship, my mother’s trust, my friendship with Anh . . . I looked in Reece’s eyes. I was losing him too.

“I can find him, Reece!” It roared out of me. Not a whisper. Not a scratch. It clawed its way up and ripped me apart. “I can feel him!”

He shook his head. It rippled with questions. “What do you mean, you can feel him? Feel who?”
I wanted him to understand without having to explain. Without seeing that look on his face. “I can feel you! I can touch you and know exactly how you feel! And I can feel the person who’s doing this! I can solve this! I can find him. Without Lonny’s list! Without your alibis!” My head thundered. I gripped my temples and doubled over, sick with the pain. I braced myself against the wall, unsteady on my feet.
Reece grabbed my elbow, fearful and confused. “Are you sure you didn’t take anything?”
“Don’t touch me!” I tore my arm away. I’d just come clean, confessed my deepest secret, and he thought I was high.
He shook his head and turned away. Rain beaded like mercury over his leather coat, fell in rivers down the back of his neck. He pulled out his cell phone and bent low over the screen, shielding it from the downpour.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Calling you a cab.” He made the call and stuffed the phone back in his pocket with a curse.
I shivered. A steady slap of footsteps and the clicks of heels grew louder as a stampede of wet bodies rushed past the mouth of the alley. Reece watched them, his eyes narrowing.
“Hey!” he shouted. The brick walls on both sides echoed, and a fleeing boy with a drooping Mohawk turned toward us. “What’s going on?”
“Someone called the cops. Party’s over, man.” The kid shrugged and took off running.
Reece swore. “You need to get out of here.”
“Why? I’ve got nothing to hide. I was with you all night.”
He scraped the water from his eyes and tipped his head, incredulous. “With me all night? When I came back from my meeting with Lonny you were gone! I’ve been looking for you for an hour! When I found you lying in the alley I thought you were dead!”
I stared, openmouthed. “What do you mean, you found me in the alley? You carried me out.”
A yellow taxi cruised past the alley, stopped, and reversed slowly. Its headlights swung toward us, blinding us and silencing our fight. It parked behind Reece and I shielded my eyes against the glare. Reece’s eyes widened and he rushed toward me. His face was frantic as he lifted my hair, turning my cheek toward the light.
“You’re bleeding.” His hand came away with a red, watery smear. We both watched as it melted away in long pink streaks, pooling in the grooves of the pavement where he’d found me. I touched my neck, my shoulder, my face. No cuts. No breaks. My hair was thick and sticky against my bare shoulders. I pulled my fingers through it and held them up to the taxi’s light. They were red and slick. Reece knelt, angling his body out of the light’s path. A red stream bubbled along the base of the wall behind the Dumpster. He stepped slowly, arms spread and palms back, holding me behind him as he tracked the source. I followed, watching the river thicken, glossy and almost black where it rounded the Dumpster. The air smelled like wet pennies and I clapped a hand over my mouth.
The Dumpster cast a shadow over a mound beside it. Reece flicked on his penlight and stumbled back. The body lay broken and wet, in a puddle of red. Blood-soaked hair plastered her cheeks, obscuring her face. It was a girl, her wrists and ankles tied together, making a crude triangle of her body. Her skin shone white where the rain smacked against it, except for one forearm, where angry red lines cut deep enough to expose tendons, but no longer bled. She was empty. The last of her life gurgled over the street. Stuck in my hair. I’d been lying in Kylie’s blood.
I spun around and clutched my stomach as it reeled. I sucked in shallow breaths and swallowed hard. I couldn’t look anymore.
“It’s a number cut in her arm, isn’t it?” I called over my shoulder. I shut my eyes, waiting.
“Seventy-six,” Reece answered, hoarse and shaken.
The taxi leaned on his horn and flashed his lights, oblivious to the gruesome scene we’d discovered. Reece grabbed me by the arm and dragged me toward the cab. Opening the door, he tossed me inside.
Sirens screamed in the distance. Reece dug inside his jacket, dropped my glasses in my lap, and slammed the door. Then he leaned inside the passenger window. He eyed the cabbie as he peeled a bill from a roll of cash.
“This is to take her home.”
The cabbie nodded, taking the money.
Then Reece handed over the remaining stack. The cabbie’s eyes grew wide as he closed his hand around it. “And this,” Reece ordered in a thick, rough voice, “is for not asking questions. You were never here.”
He gave me one last look, beat a fist against the roof, and the taxi took off.