Jake pointed at Jane. “Stay right here.”
But no. She could not be here, this was potentially a disaster. He had no idea what DeLuca needed or why, but it was no place for Jane. He couldn’t even process what she’d just told him-she worked at Channel 2? Since when? Right now, it made not one shred of difference.
He pointed the other way, toward the alley entrance. “No. Get out of here. Now. Go!”
“Jake!” DeLuca’s voice again. “Hewlitt!”
He turned, drew his Glock again, and powered back into the dead end.
Hyoolit? What did DeLuca mean by Hyoolit? Like, haul it? Hurry? Had he wanted Jake to hurry? What was going on down there?
Jane watched Jake’s back for about ten seconds. She contemplated his order to get out. Stay? Or go? Safer to go back to civilization, but safe didn’t make headlines. She checked the camera. According to the digital readout, it still had forty minutes of power.
Stay or go? She frowned as she leaned against the wall again, trying to hear, closing her eyes as if that would make her other senses more acute. Nothing. No noise from the dead end. No yelling. No gunshots. That had certainly been DeLuca’s voice calling for Jake. So they had been the “two cops” Bobby had seen. But what-or who-led them into the alley? Whatever or whoever it was, seemed like someone had been carried away in an ambulance, and someone was still down there. If she stayed right here, behind her friendly neighborhood air conditioner, she could wait, keeping still, and see what happened. She nodded, agreeing with herself. Jake would have no way of knowing she’d ignored him until whatever happened was already over. And then it would be too late for him to care. Hiding was the answer.
Her phone rang.
Kidding me? She had turned the volume to the highest possible level to make sure she didn’t miss a call. Now the stupid thing was giving her away. She pawed into her bag with both hands, managed to whap the thing to vibrate before it could ring again. So much for her plan to hide.
She paused, listening again. Voices, certainly, even raised. In anger? In fear? But nothing she could understand. Traffic rumbled from the surface road a block away, a few seagulls yelled at each other, the air conditioner’s droning now familiar. She dropped back into her crouch, behind the black metal, seeing a swipe on the side where a coating of grime no longer existed. Grime most likely now on her suit jacket.
No sign of Jake. Either he hadn’t heard her phone or was too busy to check it out.
She took a calming breath, then another, balancing one hand against the warm cobblestones. She was fine. At least she had a moment to collect-
Her phone now vibrated like an angry bee in the side pocket of her tote. She looked up, scanning the alley in both directions. She turned the phone off again. Whoever it was would have to wait. The newsroom, no doubt. Some journalism realities never changed, no matter where she worked. Those people, cocooned safely in their buildings all day, had no idea what it was like in the field. They’d call every ten minutes asking what’s new. Well, if something were new, wouldn’t she be calling them? And all the time spent answering the phone was time she couldn’t spend getting the story.
Two hours ago she’d been discussing journalism theory with a pompous-ass news director. Now there was no more theory. Now there was reality. Baking sun, complaining thigh muscles, ruined suit, shredded heels, and a semi-twisted ankle. And a murder-maybe two-that was still a mystery.
DeLuca had told Jake to “haul it.” Why?
Was something wrong? Or was something right?
Two of the people back there were good guys, that she knew for sure. But that was all she knew.
13
Tenley felt the air change around her. So dumb of her to think about going into that alley. She’d been sitting in the same spot on the curb for several minutes, elbows on knees and chin in hands, eyes closed, trying to decide how to handle her feelings. Trying to disperse the shadows, like her therapist always advised her to do. When Tenley felt herself spiraling down, Dr. Maddux always said to let the sunlight in. Feel the touch of the breeze, open your eyes to beauty and possibilities. Tenley didn’t feel like opening her eyes to anything.
But the change in the air meant someone had sat down beside her. Part of Tenley’s brain said, Leap up, run, don’t look back. But that was silly. Figuring if she kept her eyes shut, no one could see her either? Like an ostrich? A million cops were here. She could open her eyes, and all would be normal and fine.
“Craziness, huh?” a voice said.
A female voice. A girl. Okay, then, not scary.
“What happened?” the girl was asking. “Did you see that ambulance come out of the alley? It was hauling ass.”
Tenley turned her head a fraction, enough to see a smiling girl with tanned skin. A little older than her. Lanna’s age. With short-short hair, a cascade of silver earrings, pretty cool, actually, cute, and a Nirvana T-shirt. Vintage. Her sister Lanna had one just like it, except this girl was half the size of Lanna. Lanna’d never fit into this one. It wasn’t Lanna’s, Tenley assured herself. Probably fifty million T-shirts like this one. And a million other cute girls Lanna’s age. People who were not dead.
“If you don’t want to talk, that’s cool.”
Tenley felt the girl shift her weight, as if she was going to stand.
“I know you, right? From school? No biggie. Sorry to bother.” Her jeans were like the ones Tenley usually wore when she wasn’t working, ripped knees and low-rise. Tenley saw a little of the girl’s creamy skin above the waistband and a tiny tattooed star disappearing beneath.
“No, it’s okay,” Tenley said. Did she know her? She could pretend she did until she figured it out. So many kids at school, and she hardly ever connected. “But I just got here. Kind of.”
“I’ve seen you on the bus in the mornings? Right? You work around here, too? I work over at…” She gestured across the street.
Quincy Market, Tenley guessed. Maybe at the Gap, or American Eagle. “Yeah, I work at-” Tenley began. The girl did look familiar. Kind of.
“I’m Brileen,” the girl went on, rolling her dark eyes. “B-R-I-L-E-E-N. I know, huh? Why-Try-Bry they always used to say back in middle school. Drove me nuts.”
She was sitting so close Tenley could see the glisten of her clear lip gloss, see the scattering of not-quite freckles across her cheeks.
“I’m named after an ice-skater,” Tenley said. Why’d she say that to this girl? To make her feel better about her name, Tenley guessed. Although there was no reason to do that. Except to be nice, right?
“Skater? Is it Nancy?” The girl guessed. “Oh, I know. Tanya. Kristi?”
“Tenley,” she said.
“Who?”
“Never mind.” Tenley’s mother had named her after some skater, now a doctor, who lived in Marblehead or wherever. “Tenley Albright was an ice-skater.”
“You skate?” Brileen asked.
“As if.”
“Looks like the cops are packing up. Did they talk to you?” Brileen stood, brushing off the seat of her jeans. “Hey. Wanna go get coffee? It’s my lunch hour.”
“Did they talk to you?” Tenley tried to keep up. Say what cool people would say. Did she? Want to go get coffee? “Coffee?”
Tenley looked up at City Hall, saw the white-globed camera just under the eaves, attached to the concrete below the mayor’s office window. If someone inside were monitoring the right screen, screen number seven, they might be watching her. What if her mother was looking out the window and saw her and wondered who she was talking to. “Tenley has no friends.” She’d heard her mom say those exact words to her father, not realizing Tenley, in the downstairs hallway, could hear every word.