Chapter 17 #2
The chair was several feet from Bowie opposite the door. Casey didn’t think Alfred was behind Bowie’s reaction, and he couldn’t believe that Gabe did either.
“That’s his ‘there’s something out there I don’t like’ stance. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if he did distrust that chair, I think he heard something outside,” Casey said quietly.
Gabe stepped around him and made for the door, then opened it an inch or so and peered outside.
Based on the bit of outside that Casey could see above Gabe’s head, dark had fallen hard.
The sky was cloudy, not even a sliver of moon peeking out.
The only light came from the few close-by porch lights that residents had flipped on.
Bowie crowded Gabe’s legs, scrabbling to get past him, but he held tight to the doorknob, for which Casey was grateful.
He so much did not want to chase after Bowie in the dark.
“I don’t see anyone out—”
“Shh!” Casey whispered as he crossed the six feet or so to Gabe and slammed the door shut again.
Casey would never be able to explain the sense of impending dread he felt in that second.
“Get down!” Lunging at Gabe, Casey dragged him to the floor while he stretched for the overhead light switch and flipped it off. They were plunged into near darkness, with only the ambient light given off by the stove and microwave displays for light.
Then there was a sharp pop sound, and the front window shattered and glass fell to the carpet.
“What the fuck?” Gabe hissed, outraged instead of terrified by the shooter. “Did some fucker just shoot out one of my windows? This is war. I’m fucking pissed off now.”
He started to stand, but Casey kept a firm grip on his belt. “Wait.”
The sound of rapid footsteps heading away from Gabe’s home reached their ears.
“The fuck they’re getting away.” Gabe jerked out of Casey’s grasp and surged to his feet. “The fuck somebody is coming here and fucking around with my house.”
Before Casey could grab him again, Gabe had shoved his feet into a pair of Crocs—Casey wanted to point out that they might not be the best footwear for chasing after a gunman but kept his mouth shut—jerked the door open and was jogging past their parked cars out to the access road.
Bowie, not to be left behind, was at his side.
Casey hastily jammed his work boots back on and raced after the two of them. In Gabe’s own words, what could go wrong?
A fucking lot.
He caught up with Gabe a couple of hundred feet away from his house, out of breath and standing with his hands on his hips, staring toward the main road. Bowie was just a few feet away, still on alert but at least not sprinting into unknown danger.
“Did you see anyone?” Casey asked.
“No, dammit, I fucking did not. I’m not exactly Usain Bolt, especially not in these.” He lifted one Croc-encased foot. “Look at you.” He poked Casey in the chest. “You’re not even breathing heavily.”
Casey ignored him. Someone had taken a shot at Gabriel. Unacceptable.
“What the fuck was all that about? Why would anyone shoot at me? Or was it for both of us?” He scowled. “Fine, yeah. We both know it was me they were aiming for.”
Across the road, Bill’s living room light came on. Casey figured Gabe would rather not have to explain the shooting to his neighbor. Or he’d make up an outlandish story that no one would believe anyway.
“I can’t begin to imagine what’s behind this. But let’s get back to your place. We left the door open.”
“Crap.” Gabe turned around and started back, Casey and Bowie hot on his heels.
“I don’t think anyone got in,” Gabe said, glancing around once they were back inside. “Does it look like it to you? We were only out there a few minutes. Shit, I didn’t even hear a car driving away. Did you?”
Casey shook his head, hands on his hips. “Nope.”
No car meant the guy either lived nearby or had parked close and the shooter had walked into the park. Sure, the shooter could have been a woman, but statistics said the likelihood of that being the case was pretty damn low. And Casey needed the stability of statistics right now.
If the point of the shooting had been to get them out of Gabe’s house, it had been a failure. They had been drawn outside but not far enough away that someone could have easily snuck into the mobile home.
Gabe’s place looked the same to Casey, everything exactly as they’d left it. But he did a quick sweep of the rest of the rooms to satisfy himself that there was no one hiding in any of them.
“Okay, I think we’re good. Exhibit A, leftover pizza still sitting on the counter. If someone did get in here, it wasn’t hungry teenagers. And if it had been, they could have knocked. I would have shared the leftovers.”
“Hey,” Casey said, stepping into Gabe’s space and settling his hands on Gabe’s waist. “Do you want to stay at mine tonight? We’ll have to do something about the window though.”
Gabe may have been a grifter most of his life, but Casey was fast becoming a Gabriel Karne expert. He could tell that Gabe was shaken. And so was Casey.
“Remember, I have a nice, quiet sailboat moored behind a locked gate.”
“Yeah. And look how well that gate kept out Rizzi and whoever.”
He had a point.
“If the mysterious ‘they’ are after something here, it’s not happening. The hell I’m hiding on The Barbara. I’m mad now. Pissed fucking off.”
“And you’re not gonna take it anymore?” Casey said, one eyebrow raised. The last thing he needed was Gabe on a rampage. Who really knew what kind of trouble he could get into.
“Something like that.”
Casey only had to angle his head a tad to press his lips against Gabe’s. He was rewarded with a little puff of a sigh, then Gabe loosely wrapped his arms around Casey’s shoulders while they kissed.
Gabe, Casey had learned, very much enjoyed the act of kissing, and by proxy, Casey now did too. Having Gabe in his life was akin to opening an unexpected present every day.
Sometimes Gabe was wild and out of control, which, ironically, Casey had never thought he wanted in a partner, but he couldn’t imagine Gabe any other way. Other times, like this one, he needed to be held and protected. Not worshipped, coveted. And Casey was happy to oblige.
“We’ll stay here for tonight, then,” Casey said. “Together.” Stepping away from Gabe, he added, “But we need to secure the window and call TCSO’s non-emergency number to notify them first. Do you have any plywood?”
“In what universe would I, Gabriel Karne, have plywood randomly sitting around? I don’t even have a fucking saw.
” He spun around and pointed at Alfred. “That’s the closest thing I’ve got, and with no saw, we are out of luck.
And you don’t know how sad that makes me right now.
” He threw in an extra glare at the monstrosity.
“How about the pizza box?” Casey suggested mildly.
“That’s good enough for me. I’ll hide it with the shade.”
Casey blinked, then squinted against the light that had dragged him awake. He was alone in Gabe’s bed, the sheet and blankets tangled around his legs as if he’d gone several rounds with an imaginary opponent.
He lay there for a moment, listening for Gabe. The man wasn’t particularly quiet, but he’d managed to get out of bed without disturbing him—except he’d left the bedroom door ajar and the light from the living room had woken Casey. Also the click-clack of Gabe tapping on a keyboard.
Casey rolled to the edge of the bed and sat up, his joints cracking and snapping as he stretched and set his feet on the carpet According to his watch, it wasn’t even five a.m. yet. Slipping back into his jeans but deciding against a shirt, he padded out to the living room.
Gabe sat on the couch, his laptop balanced on his thighs and a cheap pair of blinged-out reading glasses perched on his nose. Whatever he was reading, it had his full attention, so much so that he didn’t hear Casey’s approach.
“What are you doing awake?” he asked.
“Jesus!” Gabe’s head jerked around toward Casey. “Don’t scare me like that again, you’ll kill me.” Gabe snatched the ridiculous glasses off his face. He insisted that he’d bought them as a joke, but Casey’d caught him wearing the garish rhinestone-festooned frames more than once.
“Well?” Casey said.
“Well, what?”
Oh, they were playing this game, then.
“Well, what are you doing up before daylight?”
“Couldn’t sleep. I had to see if I could find anything. You know, research and so forth.” Gabe set the glasses on the arm of the couch and started to get up. “You want coffee?”
“Yeah, but you stay where you are, I’ll make it. Have you found anything interesting?”
“I don’t know what I don’t know, which makes this extra difficult.” He slid the reading glasses back on and leaned close to the laptop screen again. “We’re so used to everything being online these days, but not everything has been digitized, even if I wish it was.”
Casey nodded and busied himself making an espresso. While he was at it, Keith emerged from hiding to wrap around his ankles. “Trying to assassinate me, are you?” Casey asked. Keith rewarded him with a gravelly meow, which Casey was taking as a solid yes.
“I miss physical phone books. Back in the day, a person could just flip through one and see how many people, say, named Pritchard had Westfort addresses, give a person something to start with. But noooo. Now I have to slog through this crap. And most of these asshole companies want me to pay for a subscription—fucking outrageous!—for information that used to be free. They steal our information and sell it back to us, which is a scam I never considered. I’m rambling, but I need to know what I’m looking for first—and I do not.
” Gabe sat back again, arching his back and rolling his shoulders.
“Did you try the library archives? I think they’re available online. Or the newspaper? I think the state archives also sometimes stores old phone books if that’s what you’re focusing on.”
“Yeah, but what I want is before 1982, and I’m really trying to avoid adding a trip to Olympia in. It might be worth a try though. And I do have a fancy new library card in my possession. Well, a temporary one.”
Picking up his cup, one with a Smokey the Bear graphic on it and the phrase Please Help Smokey, Casey crossed the room to sit down next to Gabe, unintentionally jostling the computer as he did so.
“Oops, sorry.”
“No worries,” Gabe murmured, focused on the screen. Casey took a sip of his coffee and skimmed the web page in front of Gabe.
“Have you searched like, uh, news headlines in Westfort from the late 1970s?” Casey asked him.
“Or around the time of the yearbook? I mean, most likely Heidi-slash-Holly wouldn’t have been in the news back then, at least I hope not, but what if something big happened, and that set off a chain of events?
Maybe somehow the event was connected to her or to the name Pritchard.
Could that have eventually led to her leaving town and changing her name? ”
“Sure, why not? I was looking for Pritchards in a haystack. At this point, I’d use a damn Magic 8 Ball.”
“Good luck. I’m going to put some more clothes on.”
“Such a shame,” Gabe said.
Casey chuckled. “You may appreciate the lack of clothing, but Greta will not.”
“Fine,” Gabe huffed. “Go ahead and get dressed if you insist.”