Page 57 of Fire Fight

The grass out front was slightly overgrown along the path, brushing my boots and the hem of my jeans as we made our way toward the house. Lane climbed the two crumbling concrete steps and pounded on the peeling door, the damn thing so flimsy, a stiff wind could easily knock it down.

Beyond, footsteps creaked against the floor before the sounds of several locks, chains, and deadbolts disengaging reached us, the door cracking open a moment later.

I staggered back a step.

Even back in my wild youth, Chris hadn’t been in the best shape, but the years since I’d last seen him had been even less kind than I anticipated. He was rail thin, his skin hanging off his bones, making him appear at least twenty years older than heactually was. His watery grey-blue eyes squinted into the harsh sunlight, sizing us up.

“The fuck you want, pig?” he asked my brother.

“Got a few questions about prom night, Mr. Taal. May we come in?”

Chris’s gaze shifted to me, the fog seeming to lift momentarily.

“Well, well, well. Look who found himself on the right side of the law after all.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“Nah, but you still got the stink.”

I rolled my eyes.Whatever that meant. “Can we come in or not?”

Chris shifted out of the way, opening the door wider as he went. “Be my guest.”

Lane went ahead of me, and it took everything I had to lift my foot and place it down on the other side of that threshold, like I was crossing some invisible demarcation line between the old me, the life I’d left behind, and the one I lived now, which I’d worked my ass off to build for myself.

But now, I was stronger mentally. I wasn’t some kid searching for any high that would take me from my reality, and this visit to the past wouldn’t change that.

Chris’s grin was positively feral as I moved past him, like a lion welcoming prey into its den. Little did he know, I was no longer a lamb.

The place hadn’t changed a bit in the last fifteen years other than falling even further into disrepair. I guaranteed I could walk into the kitchen and easily locate cups and bowls, silverware and plates.

The air was hazy with weed smoke, the pungent scent stuffing itself up my nostrils and burrowing deep so I knew I’d smell it for hours after we left. Despite the odor, there wasn’t any paraphernalia laying around. I glanced at my brother. Sure enough, hiseyes scanned the room with that cop’s assessing gaze, searching for anything he could use to pinch this guy and at least bring him to the station for formal questioning. Chris had been at this for a long time, and he wouldn’t allow a random drive-by compromise his business. The house was littered with hidey-holes.

Chris was always high as a kite on weed, but he never dabbled in the harder stuff. Claimed it “muddled his senses.” I snorted at the memory, and both heads snapped toward me.

“Somethin’ funny, pig?”

“I’m not a cop,” I said for the second time, kicking an empty beer can out of my way so I could wade deeper into the room.

“But I am,” Lane said. “You mind if we ask you a few questions?”

“About what?”

“Prom night,” my brother repeated.

Chris groaned. “Why is it when some bad shit goes down in this town, you people always think it’s my fault?”

“Because you’re the perfect suspect,” my brother sneered, pointedly scanning Chris up and down.

“Not helping,” I murmured.

Ignoring me, Lane cut straight to the chase.

“Where were you the Friday night before prom?”

Chris scrunched his eyes, clearly thinking hard. “Meeting a…clientat the Swallow.”

That pulled Lane up short, and he reached into his pants’ pocket to withdraw his phone, the device emitting soft clicking sounds as he tapped around on the screen, pulling up a photo of Aspen. Then he held it up in front of Chris’s face.