Page 168 of Not Quite Dead Yet

She sank back on her knees, sorting through the chaos of metal and rubber with her one hand, moving the saw, under the screwdriver heads, searching, searching.

It wasn’t here.

‘No, no, no.’

There was no hammer.

‘Jet, what are you doing?’ Billy said, framed in the doorway.

Jet turned, fell back, the knuckles of her dead arm dragging on the floor as she backed up against the closet.

‘It’s yours,’ she said, voice almost gone, joining her heart in the pit of her stomach. ‘The murder weapon. It’s yours, Billy.’

She kicked out at the empty tool kit, so he could see the yellow logo stitched on the side.

Billy narrowed his eyes, shook his head.

‘Coleby,’ Jet said, bile rising with the word. ‘A sixty-piece set. But the hammer isn’t here. The murder weapon. It’s yours, Billy.’

She couldn’t breathe, no air here, stuck between these two worlds, two Billys moving toward her.

‘It was you.’

‘What?’

He took another step.

‘Don’t come any closer!’ Jet shouted, and pushed herself to her feet, stumbled, tripping over the abandoned tools. ‘Stay back!’

Billy didn’t stay back, he kept coming.

‘Jet, what are you talking about?’

‘It was you,’ she said, her head trying to catch up to her heart, pounding, not the trickling of spiders anymore, a drumbeat. ‘You killed me.’

Billy’s pale eyes went cold.

Now he stopped.

‘No, Jet.’

‘It was you.’

The world went blurry, until she blinked, tears hot and fast, falling into her open mouth. The taste of salt.

‘I didn’t, Jet!’

Billy kept shaking his head, tendons branching across his throat, eyes wide, full of ice.

‘It had to be you. The murder weapon is yours.’

‘No, Jet. I didn’t know about that. I would have told you if I knew. I’ve never used those!’

‘The red hair. It transferred to you from Andrew Smith, when he pushed you at the fair.’

‘Jet, stop!’

‘You had time, if you were running, to take my phone and the hammer. Your hammer, the one you used to kill me. You had time to get over to the site on North Street, then come back to find me, kick down the door.’