Gift From The Bad Boy

I was on John in a single pounce. I grabbed the front of his shirt in my hands and roared into his face, “Why don’t you know? Why don’t you know, John?”

“He was wearing a mask! He was wearing a mask!” he screamed. He was blubbering all of the sudden, fat, pathetic tears rolling down his face.

I dropped him back in the chair, disgusted, and wiped my hands on my jeans.

“Please don’t hurt me,” he moaned. “I’m telling you everything I remember, I swear.”

I sighed and plopped back down on the couch, my head in my hands. The dog jumped back into my lap. I was too depressed to shoo it away.

Ivan’s tip was useless after all. This sorry bastard had actually seen the motherfucker who did it, the man who killed Olaf and James’s wife, but I was no closer to figuring out who it actually was than I had been this morning. All this for nothing. Not a damn thing.

“He jumped over the desk and hit me with the gun,” he continued in a low voice. “I blacked out. When I woke up, the ambulances were there and the people were already dead. I swear, that’s all I remember.”

“Thanks,” I said. I stood up and started to walk towards the door, dropping Noodle back into John’s lap as I passed him.

“It was funny, though. The paramedic said he’d never seen such a weird bruise before. Looked like the outline of a big knife in my forehead.”

I froze in my tracks with my hand on the doorknob. “What did you say?” I asked cautiously.

John twisted in his chair to face me. “On my forehead, where the guy hit me. It left a big outline of a knife in the skin. They actually tested it and said there was red paint flakes in the wound. Weird. Never did figure out what that meant.

Red paint. A knife imprint. A memory hit me. Jay tossing a gun on my desk. “Duncan and Spark took this from one of the guards.” I looked at the butt of the weapon—a red knife was printed in the handle.

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“Scout’s honor,” he said, eyes round with seriousness. “Just one of those weird things, you know? It never led anywhere.”

I stared him down for a moment. As far as I could tell, he was telling me everything he knew. There was no reason for him to hold back. The police had finished interrogating him a long time ago. Besides, being unconscious during the crime made one neither a liability for the murderer nor a suspect for the police. They’d probably figured he was useless. I would have, too, if I were them. But now he was telling something that might take me one step closer towards finding this son of a bitch and doing what should have been done a long time ago: getting my revenge.

“Thanks, John,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful. If you remember anything else—anything at all—you come on down to the Dark Knights’ headquarters and you tell me.”

“Will do.” He nodded furiously. I was about to leave when he added, “And I’m sorry about your friend, by the way.”

“I am, too, John. I am, too.”

Chapter Nineteen

Carmen

I was on my knees, working away at a stain on the bottom edge of the oven that refused to yield an inch to my furious scrubbing. I heard the door squawk open and slam shut, followed by heavy, booted footsteps thumping into the room. Only men walked like that, as if they needed the whole world to hear them before they were seen. Men like Ben—full of enough testosterone and bravado to make a whole high school’s worth of teenage boys swoon in jealousy—were the worst offenders.

I was so close to peeling away the stubborn top layer of whatever vile substance had managed to cake itself on the stainless steel when I heard the footsteps come to a stop behind me. I set the sponge down with a sigh, rocked back onto my heels, and blew away the hair that had fallen over my face. Turning around, I saw Ben was standing and staring at me with his mouth agape.

“If you don’t close your mouth, something’s gonna fly in there,” I remarked.

He blinked hard and came to his senses. “What are you doing?” he asked dumbly.

“Well, what does it look like, Einstein?” I teased. “It’s not like I’m composing a symphony or doing brain surgery over here.”

“You’re cleaning.”

“I thought it was my job to state the obvious around here.”

He closed his mouth, opened it again as if he were going to say something, then stopped and frowned.

“You look way more confused than I would have expected,” I said.

“It’s just…I don’t even know. I never clean.”

“You didn’t have to tell me that. This apartment is a pigsty. How long did you say you’ve had this place?”