“Don’t you feel even the least bit responsible?” My hair stuck in the corners of my mouth, muffling my words. I swatted at it, feeling clumsy and childish.
Lonny’s face lit with something I could almost mistake for affection, his own sinister brand of warmth. “I like you, Boswell. You’ve got guts. A lot of people wouldn’t talk to me like you do. Even fewer while threatening me with a baseball bat.” Lonny lowered his head to mine, brushing back the stubborn wet lock of hair. My flinch didn’t faze him as he tucked it behind my ear.
“Because I like you,” he said, “I’ll tell you a secret.” His goatee tickled my cheek when he leaned in close. I shivered, completely aware that we were alone. His confession was a whisper in my ear. “I do feel responsible. And someone’s going to pay for that.”
Lonny pulled back slowly and reached behind himself. A voice inside me screamed “Run!” but it was too late.
Lonny retrieved a single black rose from his back pocket and held it delicately poised between his fingers. I fell hard on my knees, legs numb with fear. Lonny strode past me, stopping just short of Kylie’s grave.
He tossed the rose onto the clump of dirt, near where her headstone should’ve been. It could have been mistaken for such a callous gesture, but his shoulders sagged. He paused a moment, lowered his head. His arm moved almost imperceptibly in an up-down-side-to-side motion. Blessing himself, I realized, stunned that he might recognize a power higher than himself.
“Be careful, Boswell,” he said, head bent over the grave. “It might have been a game before, but now it’s gone too far.”
“What do you mean?” Knees still watery, I pulled myself up and followed him through a winding maze of headstones, stubbing my toes on the low plaques that Lonny seemed to float over like a ghost.
“Think about it,” he said without slowing. “Steckler? Washington? Marshall? . . . Kylie? . . . They only had one thing in common.”
Like I needed to be reminded.
I gritted my teeth and scrambled after him. “I didn’t do this.”
His laugh rumbled through him. “Don’t have to be a genius to have figured that out.” He paused beside a gleaming white stone. Slipping his hands in his pockets, he eased back against it, leg stretched out to the side like he was leaning on a barstool. He pushed and pulled the barbell through his lip while he studied me, a catlike curiosity behind his eyes. “You didn’t do this, but you know who did. Someone’s trying to frame you. It’s personal.”
“I don’t have any enemies. And if I knew who was doing this, I’d have told the cops.”
“If I’ve learned anything, Boswell, it’s that you can’t trust criminals or cops. You can never be sure whose side they’re on.” Lonny kicked the headstone with the heel of his boot, drawing my attention down. Ryan Whelan. Beloved Son. July 13, 1995–March 25, 2013. The stone was crowned with a sagging thistle and said nothing about a beloved brother, though it was large enough for the sentiment. Reece’s brother’s grave. He’d been telling the truth when he said he didn’t have any family . . . not anymore.
“Thistle.” Lonny massaged his knuckles, watching my face. “Interesting choice.”
I looked again between Lonny and the stone. Lonny knew something about Reece. Something I didn’t know. His eyes lit with a crooked smile at the curiosity he must have seen on my face.
“Old legend . . .” Lonny studied his fingernails and looked past me, over the flat expanse of a thousand graves. “Norse soldiers planned a night raid on Scotland. They infiltrated barefoot, which might have worked except one stepped on a thistle and screamed. That one thistle”—Lonny lifted a single finger—“one insignificant thorn in the heel—alerted the Scotts. The Norse were slaughtered.”
I touched the thistle’s hanging head. “Ryan Whelan was a thistle?”
“Ryan Whelan was a narc. His little brother, Reece, was trying to break himself in as a dealer. Reece was young and full of himself. He never thought his brother would turn him in. A little over a year ago, Ryan blew the whistle on a deal his little brother was involved in, and the police set up a team of undercover cops to make the buy. Reece figured it out and got spooked and blew big brother’s cover. The bust became an ambush. Shots were fired, and Ryan took a bullet for some undercover lady cop.”
An undercover lady cop? I think he’d take a bullet for me. It all made sense. Gena was more than a narc, she was a cop. She said she’d met Reece a year ago, and they both worked for Nicholson. That was why she was so protective of him. Why she treated him like a little brother. Reece’s brother had taken a bullet for her.
“Reece’s brother saved her life?”
“He died doing it. And Reece got nine months in juvie. He was only supposed to serve six for the drug charges, but rumor has it that the lady cop’s boyfriend came after him during the trial, and Reece got an extra three months for assaulting an officer.” Lonny’s eyes were adrift in a memory. “The thistle doesn’t get to win, Boswell. Doesn’t matter who steps on him first, he gets crushed.” Lonny scratched his chin and shook his head. “A lot like us, you know. Stuck by the roots. Up until a few nights ago, I wasn’t sure what side your boy was on. An enemy can make himself look like a friend. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
I kept quiet, determined to hold Reece’s secrets close to the vest. He’d been responsible for his own brother’s death, lost his family, and now he’d thrown away his future trying to make it right. Trying to balance the equation by protecting me. I didn’t care whose side Reece was on. I only knew he was on mine.
“I know who he is, Boswell.” Lonny stood up slowly, rolling his shoulders. “It’s not hard to figure out. Reece sold his soul to Nicholson to get even with anyone who had anything to do with his brother’s death. He wanted revenge. He’s setting us up and rubbing his hands together as Nicholson hauls us off to jail. Reece Whelan is my wolf. My thistle. Who’s yours?”
Lonny watched me, his brows arching up.
“Don’t you get it?” he said. “These murders are a set-up. It’s about revenge. Someone’s sold his soul to get even with you. Whoever it is, he’s close. He’s close enough to know you, to watch you. Maybe even someone you trust. He’s setting you up for a reason. It’s personal.” Lonny shook his head while I struggled with his theory.
Lonny handed me a card, empty except for a number. “Call me when you figure it out.”
42
The bell jangled and Bao looked up from the coffee station. “D-Day, huh?” he said over his shoulder as he dumped out
the cold grounds, consolidated the half-empty pots, and set them back on the warmers with a mindless rhythm. My Twinkies sat beside the register, on top of today’s paper.
D-Day. More than any other Friday, today felt like an ambush. The last Friday of the school year. I’d either won the scholarship or I hadn’t. There was either an ad in that paper, or there wasn’t. It was only the certain knowledge of either that awaited me. And the twisty feeling in my gut told me that I probably didn’t want to know the answer to either one.