“They have ice cream sandwiches,” Roddy said, pointing to a sign in the window showing a Fat Boy ice cream sandwich propped up on a Chipwich. “Buy one get one free,” he explained. “I can’t resist an ice cream sandwich. Want me to grab one for you?”
“I’m good,” Zig said.
“Mr. Elijah?”
“I’m fine, too,” Elijah added from the passenger seat.
“I’ll probably get an extra anyway. Y’know, buy-one-get-one,” Roddy said, heading toward the minimart.
For a moment, Zig and Elijah sat there, watching through the windshield as the crowd of twentysomethings took a look at Roddy’s police uniform and parted around him. Roddy disappeared inside without acknowledging any of them.
“His belt doesn’t quite go through all the loops, does it?” Elijah asked.
“I like to think he’s got the parachute, but he might be missing the rip cord.”
Elijah started to laugh, but his face was serious. “You sure you trust him?”
“Who? Roddy? He’s . . .” Zig paused. “It’s complicated.”
“It shouldn’t be. I get that he’s worried about his sister, but where we’re going . . . this security guard Axel . . . if he’s even there . . . if he knows something about the twenty-two million . . . You really think we should put Roddy in the center of that?”
There was a click from the gas pump—the tank was filled—then a loud knock at the window. Zig jumped at the sound of the attendant—a curly-haired kid wearing an Elliot in the Morning button on his surprisingly clean Sunoco shirt, and yet another backward cap—knocking on the window. “Thirty-seven twenty-seven,” Curly Hair said.
Zig gave him two twenties, pantomiming to keep the change.
“At the bar, when you said you spoke to Nola, the way he jumped at you . . . exploding instantly,” Elijah added. “When someone’s got a fuse that short, you don’t sit them next to the dynamite.”
“I’m not saying he’s not weird.”
“Weird is fine. We’re all weird, brother. Back in the day, his sister was weird, too. But Roddy and his little fuse? Lemme say it like this: When we’re trying to talk our way inside Grandma’s Pantry, you sure he won’t detonate?”
It made Zig think back to Roddy gripping his shoulder—that empty look in Roddy’s eyes, when a switch seemed to flip. Or when the Reds attacked, and Roddy savagely pummeled Seabass’s face over and over and over. Was that normal behavior? Of course not—though the attack on Seabass probably saved Zig’s life. That had to count for something, right?
Zig took a breath, eyeing Roddy in the minimart, heading for the freezer. From day one, Roddy had been working this case as hard as anyone. Their interests were aligned—and if Zig was being honest, without Roddy, they might’ve never gotten this far, much less found Elijah.
In the end, though, Zig kept coming back to what he always came back to: Nola. To see her at the funeral home, hiding in the bathroom, scrambling to open the window, practically smashing through the glass to get away from her brother . . . She was running from him. And Nola never ran from anyone.
“You don’t know who he is at his core,” Nola had warned.
It was an overdramatic thing to say, but the question remained: Who did Zig believe?
Inside the minimart, Roddy opened the freezer case, letting the cool air waft over him, his arms wide, like he’d just conquered Everest.
“Elijah, how much farther did you say Grandma’s Pantry was?”
“Twenty minutes, tops,” Elijah replied. “If it makes you feel better, we can call him an Uber or a—”