Page 76

When all of us stared at him blankly, Black made exaggerated, annoyed motions with his hands and arms to the body.

“Well? This is murder. This must be the crime he wants us to solve!” Black sounded extremely put out that he had to say it out loud.

“Oh!” I raised my hand, and Black called on me.

“Yes, Miriam?”

“Those people!” I said, motioning towards the other room. “They were murderers, right? Didn’t we think they were maybe Brick’s parents? Maybe they got blamed for the dead person! Maybe Brick wants us to clear his parents’ name!”

“Or maybe he’s just fucking with us,” Jax muttered.

“OF COURSE he’s fucking with us,” Nick snapped from his musty leather chair.

We all turned and stared at him.

“Well you could come over here andhelp,you know!” Kiko snapped. “You’re the only HOMICIDE DETECTIVE here!”

All of us turned again, staring at Nick.

Kiko had a point.

Nick stared back at us, clearly feeling cornered.

Slowly, when we didn’t look away, he rose to his feet. He straightened cautiously, and began walking towards us with slow, deliberate steps. Dalejem met him before he made it halfway across the room. The tall seer dusted off and patted Nick’s dark blue suit with his hands, clearly unhappy with how much crap had come off the cracked leather chair.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I heard Jem murmur.

Black heard it, too.

“Thefuckhe doesn’t,” Black growled. “All hands on deck. Every port in a storm. Nick hasfriendsback in New Mexico. He hasfamilythere. Just like the rest of us. On the off-chance Brick is actually telling the truth about letting us go if we manage to solve this… Nick is helping. We areallhelping. But especially the homicide cop. Especially him.”

Black pointed at Nick, his mouth hard.

Nick looked back at him silently, his mouth curled in a faint frown.

The frown looked more thoughtful than annoyed that time.

“He’s telling the truth,” Nick said. His voice sounded slightly more uncertain than his words, but he still sounded pretty certain. “Brick. I think he is, anyway.”

He glanced around at the rest of us, his eyes nervous.

He plowed on anyway.

“Brick is big on pretending to keep his word in all things,” Nick explained, still watching us warily. “I don’t think he’d lie about something like that. I’ve never known him to lieoutrightwhen it comes to a contract he’s made. He’d make shitty, coerced, manipulative, no-good-choice deals… but he liked to maintain the conceit it’s all a ‘gentleman’s agreement,’ that he always upholds his end of the deal. He would never just renege totally. He’d play with words, find ways to twist what he’s agreed to, poison it in some way… but not welch entirely.”

Black frowned at Nick’s words.

I could see him thinking about them, relating them to his own experiences with Brick.

After a few more seconds, Black nodded.

“Agreed,” he said. “I concur. With everything you just said.”

“So we should solve this,” Jax said, looking between them and me. “That’s what you’re saying? Even if he’s fucking with us, we should solve this. And hopefully he’ll let us go.”

Nick nodded.

“Yes,” he said.