In truth, no, I didn’t. I stood there baffled while Ema moved around the tombstone, using the light from her cell phone to see. The music still came from the house. It was past midnight.
What kind of old lady plays rock music after midnight?
One who still plays old vinyl records. One who keeps a weird tombstone in her wooded backyard. One who has strange visitors in a black car with a license plate number engraved on that same weird tombstone. One who told a teenage boy that his dead father was still alive.
“What’s this?” Ema asked.
I snapped back to the present. “What?”
“Behind here.” She was pointing to the back of the tombstone. “There’s something carved into the back.”
I walked over slowly, but I knew. I just knew. And when I reached the back of the tombstone and shined the light on it, I was barely surprised.
A butterfly with animal eyes on its wings.
Ema gasped. The music in the house stopped. Just like that. Like someone had flicked the off switch the moment my eyes found that dang symbol.
Ema looked up at my face and saw something troubling. “Mickey?”
Nope, there was no surprise. Not anymore. There was rage now. I wanted answers. I was going to get them, no matter what. I wasn’t going to wait for Mr. Shaved Head with the British accent to contact me. I wasn’t going to wait for Bat Lady to fly down and leave me another cryptic clue. Heck, I wasn’t even going to wait until tomorrow.
I was going to find out now.
“Mickey?”
“Go home, Ema.”
“What? You’re kidding, right?”
I turned and stormed my way back to the house. I pulled out my wallet and started searching for my thin card to open the lock again.
Behind me, Ema asked, “Where are you going?”
“Inside.”
“You can’t just . . . Mickey?”
I didn’t stop. Yes, I was going to break into this house again. I was going to poke around and search that basement—and if I had to climb those stairs and break into Bat Lady’s bedroom to get answers, well, I would do that too.
“Mickey, slow down.”
“I can’t.”
Ema grabbed hold of my arm. I turned. “Just take a breath, okay?”
I gently shook off her hold. “That butterfly or whatever the heck it is? It was on a photograph in Bat Lady’s house—a photograph that must have been forty or fifty years old. It was on a placard on my father’s grave. I’m not waiting, Ema. I need to get some answers now.”
I reached the back door and prepared my credit card. I tried to slide it in the crack, just like last time.
No go.
There was a new lock, new doorknob, and what looked like steel enforcements in the door. I looked back at Ema.
“That was fast,” she said. “Now what?”
“Now you leave,” I said.
She faked a yawn. “No, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
I shrugged. “Okay. You asked for it.”
When I knocked on the door, Ema actually gasped out loud and took two steps back.
There was no answer. I pressed my ear against the door and listened. No sound. I pounded harder. No answer. I pounded harder still, and now I added a shout.
“Hello? Bat Lady? Open up! Open up right now!”
Ema tried to stop me. “Mickey?”
I ignored her. I kicked the door. I hit it again with my fists. I didn’t care. Add all the steel enforcements you liked. I was getting inside and I was getting answers.
Then a giant beam of light hit me from the side.
I know beams don’t “hit” you, but that’s how it felt. The light was so sudden and bright that I actually jumped back, raising my arms like I was warding off an intruder. I heard a swoosh to my right and realized that Ema was running away.
A voice shouted, “Don’t move!”
I didn’t. I didn’t know what to do. I wondered if it was my guy with the shaved head, but no, there was no British accent. The light came closer. I heard footsteps behind it. There was more than one guy—maybe two or three.
“Uh, could you lower the beam?” I asked.
The light stayed right on my face, moving closer and closer. I shut my eyes. I wondered whether I should just run. I didn’t know who this was. I was fast. I could get away, right? But then I thought about Ema. If I ran, whoever this is might have heard her and take chase. They might catch her. This way, with him focusing solely on me, Ema would be safest.
“Don’t move,” he said again, only a few yards away now.
As he took another step, I heard the sound of a radio or walkie-talkie. There was static. Then two men talking. I heard more of the radios behind him. Another light shone on me.
“Well, well,” the voice said. “Look what we got here. Is this another attempted break-in, Mickey?”
I recognized the voice now. Police Chief Taylor. Troy’s father.
“I wasn’t breaking in,” I said. “I was knocking.”
“Sure you were. And what’s the card in your hand?”
Uh-oh.
Another cop came over to him. “Need help, Chief?”
“Oh, I think I got this one under control. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
I did as he asked. I guess I should have been expecting it, but suddenly I felt the snap of handcuffs on me. Chief Taylor leaned in close and whispered, “Heard you jumped my boy when he wasn’t looking.”
“You heard wrong,” I said. “He just got his butt kicked for picking on the wrong underclassman.”
Chief Taylor pulled on my arms a little too hard. Pain shot up my shoulders. He led me around front. I saw two cop cars. We started toward them. The back door opened. Chief Taylor put his hand on my head and pushed me in. I looked back at Bat Lady’s house, up at the window where the bedroom light still shone.
The curtain moved—and suddenly, Bat Lady’s face appeared.
I almost screamed out loud.
Somehow, even from this distance, even through the back window of the police cruiser, I could see that she was looking directly at me, directly into my eyes. Her mouth was moving. She kept saying the same thing over and over again, like a mantra. I watched her while Chief Taylor got in the front seat of the cruiser. Bat Lady kept mouthing the same words to me. I tried to make them out.
The car started up. We pulled away from the curb. Bat Lady’s mouthing got more urgent now, as if she was trying to reach me before I vanished from sight. And as she did, as she mouthed the two words yet again, I thought that maybe I had figured out those two words, the two words that Bat Lady was trying so desperately to tell me:
“Save Ashley.”
chapter 15
MYRON GOT ME OUT.
I sat in a holding cell. The cop who unlocked the barred door looked sheepish, as if he couldn’t believe Chief Taylor had actually stuck me in there. Myron approached as though he wanted to hug me, but my body language must have warned him that it’d be the wrong move. He gave my shoulder a quick pat instead.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
Myron nodded. On our way out, Chief Taylor blocked our path. Myron sort of pushed me behind him, taking the lead. He and Taylor stared each other down for what seemed like an eternity. I remembered my last run-in with the police chief, at the Kents’ house: “Smart mouth. Just like your uncle.”
“Now that your nephew has an adult with him,” Taylor finally said, “I’d like to ask him some questions.”
“About what?” Myron asked.
I could not only see the dislike between the two men—I could actually feel it.
“There was a break-in at the Kent household. Your nephew was found in the immediate area of that crime. We want to ask him about that—as well as about tonight’s attempted break-in.”
“Break-in,” Myron repeated.
“Yes.”
“Where he knocked on a door and never even entered the residence.”
“I said attempted break-in. He was also trespassing.”
“No,” Myron said, “he wasn’t. He was knocking on a door.”