Page 9 of Broken Bird (The Last Picks #4)

Deputies came. It was Salk and Dairek again. They took my statement. They looked around. Salk insisted they’d try to lift prints from the cellar and the butler’s pantry and the den—places where we knew the intruder had touched surfaces. I tried to explain that it didn’t matter because the intruder had probably been wearing gloves.

After my third, lengthy explanation—somehow, I felt the need to re-enact the part where I’d tried to tip over the shelves—Bobby put his hand on my arm and said, “I’m going to get him settled upstairs.”

Salk gave a commiserating nod. Dairek was trying to pick his nose without anybody noticing.

When we got to my room, Bobby sat me on the bed and turned on a single lamp. The glow washed over his face and threw long shadows.

“I should probably tell them about the peepholes—” I said and started to get up.

“You already told them about the peepholes.”

“I should tell them I didn’t see the intruder, though. Not their face, I mean.”

He pressed me back down. “You already told them that too.” I opened my mouth, but Bobby spoke first. “What you need to do is take a few deep breaths, have some hot chocolate, and let the adrenaline wear off.”

“What hot—”

Bobby produced a thermos as if by magic.

“Where did that come from?”

“Indira put it up here for us.” And that us was so disorienting that I couldn’t follow up on the comment. Bobby continued, answering the question I hadn’t asked, “You probably didn’t notice, but she came to check on you. That was while you were trying to show Salk how fast you could run.”

The manic energy that had been pumping through my body since the attack began to wane, and a vague memory surfaced of me forcing Salk to watch as I sprinted down the hallway. I groaned and dropped onto the mattress.

“I believe there was a stopwatch involved,” Bobby said.

“Bobby!”

He didn’t laugh, but I could sense his amusement in the soft sounds of his movements. He unscrewed the thermos’s cap. The sweet, rich, earthy aroma of chocolate bloomed. I took a deep breath, like Bobby had suggested, and then another. The muscles in my back and shoulders began to relax. I was suddenly aware that my hoodie had ridden up to expose an inch of skin, and I tugged it back down.

“Upsy-daisy,” Bobby said.

At his instructions, I wiggled around until I was propped against the headboard. He handed me the thermos’s cup, filled to a Dash-safe level. The hot chocolate was exactly what you’d expect: silky sweet decadence. As the sugar hit my bloodstream, more of that adrenaline-infused energy dropped off. The reality of the evening—the sudden darkness, the shadowed figure, the chase—suddenly pressed in on me. My hands started to shake.

Bobby took the cup from me. He wrapped a blanket around me. Then he stood there, his face lost in shadows. His breathing sounded like it was high in his chest, and the lamp’s weak light gave back only the glint of bronze from his eyes. Finally, he sat on the mattress, and for a single instant, when the lamplight touched his face, I saw the expression that had been hidden until now. Stiff. Blank. The look of someone who didn’t want to be here.

I closed my eyes against the sudden sting of disappointment. It was ridiculous, sure. I mean, I’d been chased through my own house by someone who probably wanted to kill me. The manuscript, which was clearly somehow significant, was gone (which, in hindsight, didn’t seem like such a big deal—I could print another copy). This glimpse of Bobby’s…annoyance, for lack of a better word, should have been nothing, compared to everything else. But it didn’t feel like nothing.

“How are you doing?” Bobby asked.

I swallowed. I even managed to sound like a real boy when I said, “Great. I invented a new form of cardio. It’s called murder-run. All the kids are doing it.”

It felt like a long time before he said, “Do you want to try that again?”

“Nope.” The threat of tears had faded, so I opened my eyes. “Please don’t tell me you picked up another shift and that’s why you came back. Or were you listening to the scanner? Or did you forget your, uh, weightlifting shake?”

“My weightlifting shake?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a thing.”

“I came back,” Bobby said, “because I wasn’t happy with our conversation.”

I let my head drop back to rest against the headboard. “Ah.”

“With either of them, actually.”

“Got it. And let me guess: you want to continue those conversations?”

“Not right now.”

“Great, we’ll save them for later.”

“I’d like to know how you’re doing.”

“I told you: I’m gr-r-reat!” (Just like Tony the Tiger.)

“I want you to answer my question seriously. You’ve made a joke twice now, and that’s not what I’m interested in.”

“Oh. Sorry. It’s been such a silly, goofy night.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of his face. Annoyance looked like it was the tip of the iceberg.

“You should drink your hot chocolate.”

“I don’t want it.”

“You don’t want it.”

“Yeah, I don’t want it. Is that a problem?”

Bobby took a breath. “Why don’t we pack you a bag, and you can stay somewhere else tonight?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“What’s going on right now?”

“Nothing. What’s going on with you?”

He was silent for what felt like a long time. The rhythm of the waves moved into that space between us, and then Bobby stood.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You can still make it to the gym.”

Now he wasn’t making any effort to mask his emotions. “I understand that you’ve had a bad night—”

“Don’t do that.” I sat up straight. “You were right. Is that what you want to hear? I was stupid to get involved, and I was stupid to agree to help Pippi, and I was certainly stupid for making it so easy for Pippi to tell the killer exactly what I’m doing. There, I said it.”

“I didn’t want to hear any of that. I didn’t say anything like that.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“Why are you angry with me?”

“I’m not!” If that wasn’t a mixed message, though, I don’t know what would be. “I’m not,” I said again.

Maybe I should have said more, but I didn’t.

“I’m going to go,” Bobby said.

That made me laugh.

“If you need anything—”

“I won’t.”

He stood there, not quite looking at me. And then he left.

When the door shut behind him, I turned off the lamp and lay there in the dark, listening to the wind and the waves and the old, empty house. Maybe not so empty; Bobby was moving around, old floorboards creaking under his steps until, eventually, even that sound faded. A while later, I got up to lock the doors (the one to the hall and the one to the jack-and-jill bathroom). Movement in the hall made me freeze. And then I heard sounds that had become familiar over the last few months: breathing, the rustle of bedding, music playing so softly I might have been imagining it. It was Ariana Grande, of course.

I opened the door. Bobby had changed into pajamas (plaid bottoms and a gray shirt that was soft from millions of washings), and he was in the process of making himself a pallet on the floor: several blankets, sheets, and then more blankets. He knelt to straighten the corner of his makeshift bed. I must have made a sound, because he looked up at me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Sleeping in the hall.”

I covered my eyes. “Bobby.”

“What?”

“Go to bed, please.” I dropped my hands. “In your bedroom.”

“I locked the doors; no one will be able to get into your room that way, not without making a lot of noise. I thought it made more sense for me to be out here.”

“You thought it made more sense.” I took a deep breath and managed to say, “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have gotten so worked up. And I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I was—” Disappointed, I almost said. Or maybe devastated was closer to the right word. After all those weeks of distance, to have a moment where it felt like Bobby and I were back to…whatever we’d been. Friends, I guess. And then to catch that look on his face. To realize he didn’t want to be there. That was why he was never here; because he didn’t want to be. But that was way too much crazy to unpack, so I said, “—upset, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I know you were trying to be kind.”

He adjusted his tee mechanically as he studied me.

“I’m terrible, by the way. To answer your earlier question.”

For some reason, that made him smile, but only for an instant. Then his expression softened. “I’m sorry too.”

“What are you sorry for, numbskull?”

His hesitation was actually adorable. “Going to the gym?”

“Oh my God. Please go sleep in your own room. In a real bed. I do not want to trip over a hunk of man when I stagger out of my room at some ungodly hour tomorrow.”

Bobby’s eyebrows shot up.

I heard what I said.

Spontaneous human combustion, I decided in that instant, would be a wonderful way to go.

“And on that mortifying note,” I told him, “goodnight.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, I got that real Bobby smile—the huge one that made him look like a total goof. “Goodnight, Dash.”