Chapter Twenty-Seven Goldie #4
Noah
I look down at the little map on my phone and back up again, my brow drawing together.
“What the hell. It’s a brick wall,” Chase blurts out, speaking my thoughts.
My eyes narrow as I look around. “We know he hasn’t been masoned in, so I guess he could be across the street?”
We both look, but that’s just a yarn store.
Chase taps the dot on my phone. “These things can be off, though, right?”
I nod, turning around and looking toward the only car with someone inside, but it’s a woman and her small dog.
Chase starts walking again, and without a thought I follow his lead as he says, “If he’s not a part of the building, maybe he’s inside and sitting all the way in the back?” He points toward the alley. “We can cut through here.”
He turns the corner, but as I do the same, I almost run into the back of him.
“What are you doing?”
Chase turns sideways, motioning with his head to a car about ten feet away and speaking under his breath. “Look.”
A beat-up brown Camry sits idle, humming but not moving. I don’t like this. My gut’s already saying this is a bad idea. I hit his shoulder with the back of my hand. “Let’s just get out of here . . .”
He shakes his head. “No, dude. Besides you wanting to be a hero for Goldie . . .” He stops himself and adjusts his hat. “Sorry, I forgot, no names . . . Besides all your good intentions, he could help you. So if he’s in his car tugging one out, he’s just gonna have to table it.”
Chase takes off before I can stop him, closing the distance between us and the car. He lifts his hand to rap on the passenger-side window.
“What are you doing?” I grit out and yank his arm away, making him face me as my pulse races.
I hectically look around, my mind a mush of paranoia.
It has been, ever since I realized Billy was back.
“This is what I meant by signing your own death warrant. You don’t even know who’s in the car . . . Anything could happen.”
Chase leans back, his eyes narrowed as he looks through the window.
“I do know what could happen . . .” He turns toward the car, ignoring what I’ve just said, and barks “Hey” as he knocks hard on the window. “We could wake him up.”
“Fuck,” I breathe out, but Chase looks up at me.
“Relax.”
I bend to look inside and see that the driver’s side seat is slightly reclined. It does look like the guy’s sleeping—his face is turned away from us—but there’s just something . . . I don’t know.
“Wakey, wakey,” Chase sings as he knocks more insistently, but a frown’s growing on my face.
“Do you think he’s okay?” he adds as I put my hand on the door before pushing past him and hurrying around the hood.
“I don’t know.”
Chase looks over his shoulder and pulls down his sunglasses to see better.
“Leave it to us to find some dude who’s passed out or on drugs while we’re looking for a fucking psycho.”
“Try the door,” I shoot out as I see how close he’s parked to the wall.
I can get to the window, but I won’t be able to completely open the door. I narrow my eyes as I try to see past the tint of the front window, and hear the passenger-side door open.
“Hey, man . . . you good?” Chase says just as I take two steps closer. The reflection clears, and a business card on the dash comes into view.
Origins Investigative Services.
Chills rocket down my spine because I already know what’s coming before I see it.
Chase leans inside, then nudges the guy and says “Oh fuck” at the same time my body jerks to a stop.
“Noah . . . oh fuck.”
I’m breathing a mile a minute, my heart pounding out of my chest as fear courses through me. Chase scrambles out of the car, his hand covering his mouth as he begins to dry heave, but I take a step closer.
I need to see.
Bile rises in my throat because he’s not just dead. His eyes have been gouged out, the sockets left empty with only spiny bits of macerated tissue dried to his skin. And his mouth’s been left opened, his tongue cut out, the half left thick and swollen in the cavity.
I can almost hear him choking on his own blood in my mind. That’s when it all hits me fast as I use the brick wall to help me back the fuck up and away from the car.
“Holy shit,” I breathe out, repeating it a few more times.
“Dude.” Chase is breathless as he turns in circles. “He’s not new dead . . . He’s not fucking new dead.” He stabs a finger at the door. “That guy’s cold, Noah.”
My mind is running fast, a thousand warring thoughts pleading to be heard. I glance at both entrances to the alley, then back at the guy.
Chase dry heaves again, then takes his hat off to put it in front of his mouth. “Oh fuck, that’s evidence . . . I’m gonna go to prison.”
“Why would Billy kill him?” I say to myself, but Chase is full-on panicking.
“I touched someone old dead . . . oh god . . .” His hands hit his knees as he breathes hard. “Noah, I’m an LA six, but a prison twelve . . .”
I’m only half listening because, Why would Billy kill him . . . other than to send me a message.
Goldie. That’s the only reason.
My phone’s already burning a hole in my pocket as I start back toward Chase. “I need to call killer.”
But he isn’t listening, still mumbling about the guy being “old dead” and what’s going to happen to him in prison. I grab him by the jacket and bring his face to mine.
“Get it together. We need to get the fuck out of here and find Goldie. Right now, Chase.”
He lets out a steadying breath. “Yep. Got it.”
I let him go and look around again as he rushes back over to the car.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He’s talking while rubbing his ass all over the door handle of the car. “Listen, this is serious shit. Your fucking dad gutted some dude’s eyeballs . . . I don’t even know what you’d use for that . . . an ice cream scooper? He’s fucking deranged. We gotta call the cops.”
I shake my head as I pull out my phone because the only thing I’m doing is calling Goldie. “No, we need to get the fuck out of here before someone sees us.”
The call goes straight to voicemail, so I try again. Voicemail.
Chase groans. “Am I the only one who watches crime shows? Our fucking fingerprints are all over this car.”
I look down at my phone, quickly scrolling to Evie’s number. Fuck. Voicemail.
He leans sideways and uses his shoulder to try and rub where my hand was. “They hate you, remember. She probably lied about where Goldie would be too . . . That’s what I would do if I wanted you to stay away. Throw you off the scent.”
I run my hands through my hair before trying her mom . . . voicemail. Then her dad. The same.
“Fuck,” I grind out, feeling my body going numb.
If something happens to her . . . I look up at Chase, who’s still wiping the car using his hands from inside the trench coat pockets.
“Chase, if Billy did this, then he knows where Goldie is. None of this other shit matters until we find him. But it starts with finding her first.”
Chase stills, his eyes locked with mine. “How the fuck are we supposed to do that?”
My phone dings.
I drop my eyes quickly as he closes the distance between us, and we both stare at the photo populating the text.
Goldie’s standing next to a tree, her fingers touching the bark as she stares directly into the camera.
“Who sent that?” Chase whispers just as the message populates again.
Unknown: I don’t think Mommy would approve.
Our eyes meet and I blink. “My father.”