Page 28 of Death and Do-Overs

The town was painted black. I wore black. Whywouldn’the think this place suited me? Or was it possible that he personally knew everyone in town, and didn’t believe any of them would be interested in befriending me? There had to be something else, some other reason.

“No.” I again offered an honest but minimal answer. “Why areyouhere?”

“My best friend is missing.” Levi smiled a small, sad smile. “I’m trying to find out what happened to him.”

That hit me straight in the center of my chest. I didn’t want to feel anything for him, least of all empathy. But there it was, creeping its way into my heart anyway.

“Caramel?” he said.

“What?” Had he decided to stop calling me Marshmallow in favor of a different sweet?

“Would you care for a caramel, Marshmallow?”

I guessed not.

With a flourish of his wrist, a wrapped candy appeared in his palm, just like my wallet had this morning.

“Are you an eighty-year-old grandmother?” I asked.

“Do I look like one?”

Absolutely not. “Maybe.”

He grinned, and it was a full-out dazzling smile, the kind that sold expensive cars to people with no money. All of my I-will-not-be-charmed thoughts faded into a murky cloud in the back of my mind, which set my conscious brain on even higher alert than before.

“Grandmas are the only ones allowed to offer caramels,” I said. “Grandmas and perverts.”

His brows shot up. “You’re thinking of butterscotch. Caramels are for all people with good taste.”

Butterscotch is for perverts. I almost smiled at that.

Instead, I guided what was quickly approaching friendly conversation back to direct, relevant, and safe territory. “Does your friend live in Nevermore?”

“No, but he was here before he disappeared.”

Exactly like what had happened to Nie. I hoped Levi’s friend had fared better in Nevermore than Nie had.

I said, “Good luck with…”

A strip of yellow caught my eye and killed the words on my tongue. The tape was strung between two otherwise unremarkable buildings, with the wordsCrime Scene Do Not Crosswritten over it.

Levi took off without a word and slipped under the tape. I’d hardly had a chance to blink, let alone decide to move.

Stunned only for a moment by his quickness, I followed. His expression was blank, his demeanor completely calm. Was he not surprised to see a crime scene, not hesitant about what could wait behind that line?

A metal trash can lay on its side, a huge dent on the skyward facing surface, the lid twenty feet away. Scattered between, trash littered the cobblestone. Splattered burgundy stains coated everything in such volume I could only hope someone haddropped a keg of wine from the second story of one of the flanking buildings. But the twist in my gut suggested otherwise.

Something horrible had happened here.

“It’s blood,” Levi said, as if reading my mind.

He said it with such certainty, I wondered if he had more information than I did.

I asked, “How do you know?”

Levi remained silent as he walked around the alleyway, studying the ground. I took a breath and scanned the garbage for evidence.

My bag jostled at my hip. I froze.

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