“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
Cedro’s gaze whipped in his direction, a small spark lighting in his eyes. Grim let out a slow breath. Okay, not gone, just temporarily extinguished.
“Why’d you do it?” Grim asked. “You shouldn’t have.”
The kid was silent for so long Grim thought he was going to ignore him. Finally, he asked, “The day you shot that dog . . . you said something over her. Like . . . a prayer or something. What’d you say?”
Grim paused. He hardly remembered that day. But he probed his memory. He owed the kid at least that. He’d heard the dog’s moans before he’d seen it. Someone had left it lying in the street. Suffering. He knelt down next to it and stroked its fur and . . . “I said the prayer of Saint Michael.”
Cedro let out a slow breath as though he was relieved in some way. As though Grim’s answer had satisfied two questions instead of the one he’d asked out loud. “My mother used to say that prayer,” he told Grim.
Ah. His mother. Was that why he’d sacrificed himself to save Grim’s eye? Because he’d thought he’d heard him say the same prayer his mother had once said? Grim didn’t pretend to understand that. Nothing about this horror show made sense.
“You know you’re gonna get yourself killed if you keep stealing from dangerous men,” he said as much to change the subject as to needle the kid a little so he’d produce some bluster. He’d need to know it was still possible.
“The only men with wealth are the dangerous ones,” Cedro told him, lifting his chin. “What choice do I have?”
Grim shrugged. True enough. There were no tourists in their town. The regular folk were dirt poor. He wouldn’t argue the point because the kid was right. “Your English is good,” he noted.
“My mother taught me and my brother,” he said. “She wanted us to go to the USA.”
Grim turned at the clanking sound that indicated the roll and cup of water were arriving. He moved to the back of his cage. He was so fucking thirsty.
The small door in the wall opened, and he reached for the food and the water. He saw Cedro doing the same next to him. Grim was surprised to see that his roll was on a tray this time, whereas before it’d arrived on nothing. He pulled it forward, lifting the white napkin that sat next to the roll, his heart giving a jolt at what he saw lying beneath it. A paper poppy, the red-orange tissue delicate, the stem made of a pipe cleaner wrapped in green floral tape. He ran his finger along the stem, encountering a series of very small bumps. They almost felt like—
“I got some candies,” Cedro said from next to him. Grim looked over to see Cedro holding up two red-and-white-striped peppermint candies in clear plastic wrappers.
What the hell is this?
He ran his fingers along the stem one more time. “What do peppermints mean to you, Cedro?” Grim asked.
“Mean to me?”
“Yeah.”
Cedro looked confused. “My dad used to bring them home sometimes,” he said.
His dad. Okay.
“Why do you ask? What does that flower mean to you?” He pointed at what had been delivered to Grim.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just something pretty, I guess.” He bent the stem around one of the upper bars, decorating his cage. He didn’t tell Cedro that Poppy had been his nickname for his daughter, and someone wanted him to think about her. Someone was sending a message. Why? And who?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The door to the storage locker let out a high-pitched squeal as it rolled upward, revealing the contents Noelle had hastily unloaded with Paula and Paula’s parents eight years before. She took a deep breath of the still night air before stepping into the small musty space piled with furniture and boxes.
“Where should we start?” Evan asked from behind her.
She dragged a finger over a cardboard box, disturbing the layers of dust. She’d considered telling Evan she wanted to do this alone. But when she really thought about it, she realized she didn’t want to do this alone. She wanted him with her. Once, she’d all but been turned inside out in his presence. He knew the all of her, and vice versa. It seemed that comfort level hadn’t quite faded as much as she’d imagined, because she found she wasn’t the least bit concerned with showing her emotions in front of him. It felt like second nature. Interesting. Slightly concerning. But true.
“His organizer would have been with the things I cleaned out from his bedside table. Most of the boxes are labeled.” He hadn’t had an office, nor had he needed one. His equipment and tools had been stored in his truck. Paula had very kindly listed those things for sale, including his vehicle, and sent her a check from the proceeds. She’d used the money to pay off the last of her father’s bills and the rest to fund her relocation to South Carolina. The other more personal items, including some furniture, Noelle had moved here, intending to go through it all one day, possibly keeping some of the pieces that reminded her of her mother. That had never happened, and she’d instead continued to make the seventy-nine-dollar-a-month payment that kept her from being where she was right that second.