“B and E, darlin’,” he answered casually. He was wearing a flannel shirt and work gloves and pushing all the glass away from the window pane.
“You can’t break someone’s window! We should have tried to jimmy one open.”
“Quit your squawkin’ and get in there.” Then he grabbed me by the waist, picked me up and threw me through the window like I weighed no more than a bag of flour.
“Careful of the glass,” he called.
Too late, I’d landed on the glass and rolled away, hoping nothing cut me but I was too wired to feel a thing. I got to my feet and looked around in the darkness a little hysterically. Something smelled seriously funky and not in a good way.
Tex heaved himself in behind me and I spun around to glare at his hulking shadow.
“Are you crazy?” I asked a crazy man. “You just threw me through a window.”
“You looked like you were gettin’ second thoughts.”
“It’s dark, you can’t see me.”
He tapped his goggles. “Night vision.”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Don’t like that smell,” Tex remarked, and I could hear him sniffing the air because I couldn’t see a thing. “That’s not a good smell.”
He was right, it was a terrible smell.
“You stay here, I’ll have a look around.” Then I saw his shadow move off.
“Don’t leave me here!”
“Don’t be such a girl,” he returned, already somewhere else in the house and I found it odd such a big man could walk on such quiet feet. He barely made a sound.
I stood in the dark, thinking we’d probably made an awful lot of noise breaking the window and I listened for the sirens that would mean my doom. Dad would be seriously hacked off and Malcolm would make sure Kitty Sue didn’t invite me to the Fourth of July barbeque. I didn’t even want to think what Hank would say.
Then I wondered if one of the other teams in the Rosie Hunt would have the same and come, say tonight, say at that exact time. Say that team was the shooters, say it was the shooters with guns drawn.
“Tex, where are you?” I whispered. Loudly.
I started to make my way through the shadowy rooms and the further I got into the house, the funkier the smell was.
“You don’t wanna come in here.” I heard Tex say when it seemed I’d hit ground zero on the smell.
I put my hand over my nose and mouth. “What is it?”
His shadow was still as a statue and the way he was holding himself scared me.
“Is it Rosie?” I asked, looking around the dark room which I could tell was a kitchen but not much else.
Tex moved, he took off the goggles and then settled them on my face. My hand fell away from my mouth and everything went green. I could see much better, but unfortunately this included the body of a man, his butt on the floor, back to the cupboards, legs splayed out in front. He had dark stains on his face, the origin of which came from what appeared to be a hole in his forehead.
“Oh. My. God,” I breathed and then everything went bright, so bright it blinded me and I cried out in surprise.
A hand came over my mouth and the goggles were torn from my head.
“Keep quiet, for f**k’s sake.”
It was Lee. He’d turned on the kitchen light and when he was certain I wouldn’t yell again, he took his hand from my mouth.
I turned and looked at him and he was staring down at the body, his face tight.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Yeah? What’re we? Havin’ a party?” Tex asked.
Lee turned cold eyes to Tex and Tex said no more.
Then Lee turned to me.
“I followed you.”
“No one followed me, I kept checking.”
He gave me a look.
Fucking Lee.
“You with her?” Tex ventured.
“Yeah,” Lee answered.
I wanted to scream I was not with Lee and he was not with me, but the situation kept my mouth shut. Instead, I turned back to the body and there he was, in the not-eerie-green-night-vision but lit up and easy to see not only him, but all the blood and gunk that had come out of the back of his head to splatter all over the kitchen wall.
Not Rosie.
It was disgusting. I’d never seen anything so foul. It was a nasty, awful, horrible, smelly, sad death.
I gulped, almost sure I was going to hurl. Lee heard it, grabbed my arm and pulled me through the house and out the backdoor.
“Lean over. Deep breaths,” he ordered.
We were standing in the backyard and he pressed his hand to the back of my neck to force me over. I put my hands on my knees and gulped deep breaths of fresh air, leaving the Death Air behind. With some effort, I fought back the nausea and stood up straight.
Tex had followed us out.
“Was that Tim?” I asked Tex.
“Yep.”
“Ohmigod.”
“Please tell me you didn’t touch anything in there,” Lee said to me.
I shook my head.
“Please tell me you didn’t break that window,” Lee went on.
“I did the breakin’ and the enterin’ for both of us. After I did the breakin’, I threw her through the window,” Tex offered this information and Lee’s eyes cut to Tex.
“I’m sorry?” Lee asked and his voice was scary.
Tex seemed not to notice it. “She was gettin’ second thoughts.”
Lee stared at Tex for a beat.
“Jesus,” he muttered then he pointed at me. “Stay here. Don’t move.” His finger moved to Tex. “You come with me.”
Lee tossed the goggles to Tex and they re-entered the house. I was a little surprised that Tex followed Lee’s command but then again, Lee was using that “brook no argument” tone again.
I sat down on the grass, too freaked out to stand any longer and I put my forehead on my knees.
I feared this did not bode well for Rosie and I feared more that this did not bode well for Duke.
They came back out, Lee closed the door, fiddled with the handle and then walked toward me, removing surgical gloves.
“No Rosie,” he told me.
“Thank God,” I said on a whoosh and didn’t realize I was holding my breath.
He put a hand on my upper arm and hauled me up.
“I’m callin’ Hank in on this one.”
My eyes nearly popped out of my head.
“You can’t! He’s gonna freak that I’m here!”
“You weren’t here, Tex was here. Tex, the concerned neighbor,” Lee replied.