Page 76 of Always Murder

“What the fudge?”Bobby said under his breath.

(Uh, kind of.)

And then, miraculously, his hand relaxed.I got up into a crouch.(I wasn’tliterallyspitting out foam peanuts, but you get the idea.) Bobby was peering around our improvised cover.After a moment, he whispered, “Stay.”And then—quite rudely—“I mean it, Dash.Wait for me to clear it.”

Before I could point out that this felt like a couples decision—not quite of the same caliber as buying matching Christmas pajamas or talking about our dream washer-dryer combo (not conversations in which Bobby typically provided much input), but a couples decision nonetheless—Bobby sprinted away.

I knew Bobby worked out.I knew he ran.Not to get into the weeds about it, but I knew firsthand the benefits of all that cardio and all those muscles.

I didnotknow, until that exact moment, that my boyfriend could haul, uh, butt.

Faster than I could believe, Bobby reached the wall that divided the warehouse proper from the office space at the front of the building.He hunkered down behind a metal desk that had been shoved up against the wall.He had his gun in his hand now, and his face was set in that same focus that was so intense it blanked out everything else.He must have been high on adrenaline, but he didn’t even seem to be breathing harder.After a few seconds, he called, “Clear.”

I ran to join him.And I tried not to make the comparison.

From where we hid behind the metal desk, we had a clear line of sight down the row of shelving that abutted the offices.Two things drew my attention: first, the door to Luz’s office was open; and second, a forklift was idling at the end of the row of shelving.The lift was raised to the topmost shelf.But something must have startled the driver, because the lift was turned toward the shelving unit at an angle, and the forks were pressing against the shelf itself.The result was a long, ugly scratch in the metal—which explained the sounds I’d heard earlier.

Bobby gave the warehouse another considering sweep.Then he slid out from behind the desk and signaled for me to stay.He ran in a crouch toward the door to Luz’s office.As he reached the doorway, I couldn’t help picturing what might happen: the muzzle flash, the bark of a gun.

Nothing.

He gave the office on the other side of the door a quick, considering look.And then he shut the door and kept moving down the aisle.

That was when I remembered I was supposed to be watching Bobby’s six, or whatever people said.I checked, but nobody was trying to sneak up behind us.

“Clear,” Bobby called from the end of the aisle.

I jogged over to him.The smell of gun smoke was stronger here, mixed now with the exhaust from the idling forklift.

“I need you to go back to the Pilot and wait,” Bobby said.The rumble of the forklift’s engine meant he had to speak at a normal volume; no more whispers.“I need to clear the offices.”

A beat passed before what he was saying sank in.“Bobby, you can’t go in there alone.”

“It’s one thing in the warehouse.We’ve got room to move.But it’s going to be tight in there, and if something happens, it’s going to happen fast.”

“You need help—”

“And you’re not trained.”

I ground my teeth.

“I’m not going to take any risks.I want you to watch from the parking lot in case they try to run out the front.I’m going to keep an eye on things in here.”

I wasn’t sure about that.He’d gone fromIt’s going to be tight in theretoI’m not going to take any riskspretty dang fast, and if I knew one thing about Bobby Mai, it was that he wasn’t going to let Paul die because Bobby didn’t want to go in alone.But I also didn’t know what to say.Bobby was right: I wasn’t trained.And even though I wasn’t a police officer, I’d read enough (and heard my parents talk enough) to understand how dangerous it was to clear a building.I’d be worse than a liability; I’d be a complication.

That was when that dang pigeon decided to make itself known.

Above us, a flutter of wings exploded out from the rafters.I reacted the way any sane person would when a highly evolved mini-dinosaur suddenly surprises you: I looked up.

And that was when I saw the hand.

A woman’s hand.

It hung off the side of a pallet on the topmost shelf, visible only from this end of the aisle.I suspected, until a few minutes ago, it hadn’t been visible at all—the hand had probably been jarred loose by the impact of the forklift with the shelving unit.

She’d been up there for days.Hidden.No one even knew she’d been missing.

Millie’s ghost.The victim who had started everything.

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