Endless (Shadowlands 3)

Joaquin nearly drove over the curb at the north end of town, but he turned the wheel at the last second, sending me slamming into the door. Tristan started to roll off the seat, but I grasped his shirt and steadied him before he could fall.

“Where the hell is Pete?” Kevin demanded.

“He’s in the other car!” I said.

“Call them,” Joaquin demanded, slamming on his brakes in front of the police station. “Do it now!”

Kevin fumbled for his walkie-talkie. “Lauren! Come in! Is Pete with you? Over.”

Joaquin was out of the car and storming toward the Jeep when the answer came.

“No. Why? We thought he was with you. Over.”

In the side mirror I saw Joaquin brace his hands on the top of Bea’s Jeep and bow his head. I looked at Kevin, my heart sinking into my toes. “Do you remember seeing him in the room at the house?”

He shook his head. “No. Do you?”

I closed my eyes and took a breath, cursing my own stupidity. But how could I have known? There was no way I could have known what we were going to find, let alone that one of our friends was the perpetrator. “He left the door open behind him. I thought he did it to keep from making noise.”

“I don’t understand,” Kevin said. “What the hell is going on?”

Tristan moaned again and turned on his side. The back of his head was a crater of blood and hair and shards of bone. I swallowed back a heaving breath.

“Pete knew what we were going to find in that room,” I said grimly. “He left the door open so he could run.”

“I don’t understand. If Pete had already found them, why didn’t he just tell us when we bumped into him on Magnolia?” Lauren wondered as we trudged across the sopping grass toward the mayor’s house. She had just radioed all the Lifers, telling them to be on the lookout for Pete. “Why did he let us walk in there all clueless?”

“Because clearly he had something to hide,” Kevin said. “He had his walkie-talkie. If he wanted to, he could have reported it right away. But instead, he attacked them and left them for dead.”

Dead. My brain still couldn’t wrap itself around the fact that we were using that word. Nadia was dead. And Tristan…

I looked ahead at Joaquin and Bea. Tristan’s body hung limply between them as they shoved through the back door of the house. Cori, Kevin, Lauren, and I hung back while Fisher walked past with Nadia slung over his shoulder. Cori’s head was bowed and her shoulders shook. I barely knew her, but I put my arm around her as we followed the others inside. She’d lost her best friend. I knew the sucking void that opened inside you—I was experiencing it right now with Darcy gone—and I wished there was something more I could do.

Every light was on in the kitchen and the wide-open great room beyond it, making for a blinding contrast to the dark night from which we’d come. The clinic had officially closed down now that the last patient had checked out, and the beds had been replaced with the original, beach-chic couches and chairs. The mayor was sitting in the living room in conference with Dorn and Grantz, while Krista stood in the kitchen wearing a yellow dress, making some kind of smoothie with a very loud, very grating blender. She blanched when Joaquin and Bea tromped past her, and the noise died.

“Tristan?”

Her eyes fluttered closed and she leaned forward, her hips pressing against the kitchen island as her hands flattened against its surface, as if she was clinging to this place, willing herself not to faint.

Fisher trudged across the hardwood floor, his massive boots leaving muddy footprints, and gently deposited Nadia onto the one empty couch. Joaquin and Bea shuffled toward the opposite one, which was occupied by the mayor and Dorn, who both stood up to scuttle out of the way, startled into motion. Neither could take their eyes off Tristan as Joaquin and Bea laid him down. His skin was noticeably paler than it had been at the gray house. When his head fell sideways, exposing his wound, the mayor’s mouth set in a grim line.

“What happened?” Dorn asked.

“Nadia’s dead,” Fisher said in his blunt way. He stepped to the side of the couch and took a wide-legged stance, like a soldier reporting for duty. I was starting to notice that when things got hairy, he reverted to this no-nonsense posture, his own personal defense mechanism.

“What?” Grantz snapped.

“And Tristan’s just barely alive,” Joaquin added. He shoved his hands through his wet hair and flung his bloodstained jacket onto the floor. It slid across the wood planks and gathered in a heap near the wall. Joaquin braced his hands on the mantel over the fireplace and leaned into it, blowing out a loud breath. Then suddenly he turned on the mayor, his eyes as fierce as a rabid dog’s. “Do you want to tell us what the fuck is going on?”

The words hung in the air as we each struggled for breath. In the distance, thunder rumbled. The only other sound in the room was the incessant even ticking of the elegant grandfather clock.

The mayor turned away from us and stood as still as granite.

Chief Grantz was the first to speak, rising slowly from his chair

for the first time. “She’s dead? She can’t be dead.”

“I was afraid of this,” the mayor intoned. Joaquin and I looked at each other.