Page 171 of Cold, Cold Bones
Then I waited. Ten minutes. Fifteen. I knew vandalism would be low priority. Still.
I was rummaging for plywood in the attic when a fist pounded the kitchen door.
Finally. Those who serve and protect.
I raced downstairs. Passing the parlor, I glanced through the newly fractured window. Spotted no cruiser. Assumed the cops had pulled onto the driveway behind my car.
Entering the kitchen, I saw a single head beyond the door’s small square of glass, dark against slightly thinner dark. A head sitting on a tall body. A head not wearing a peaked cap.
Flash memory of a similar scene. Katy?
My asshole neighbor come to follow up with more vitriol?
I shouted loud enough to be heard outside. “I’m done, Alasdair. This time I press charges.”
“Hey, Doc. You okay in there?”
“Detective Henry?” I queried, shocked that a detective had been sent to answer a complaint about property damage.
“Just me. Not your eyeball freak.”
Was that supposed to be funny? I didn’t laugh.
“You have some kinda sitch going here?” Henry asked.
“Hold on.”
I crossed to release the dead bolt, then cracked open the door.
Henry was all in black—wool jacket, jeans, mid-calf Uggs. Her lipstick stood out ebony against the over-tanned skin.
“They sent a detective?” I asked, bewildered.
“I was cruising on Selwyn and heard the property damage call go out over the radio. Being just a block over, I told the dispatcher I’d swing by. Didn’t know it was your place until I got here. So what’s this about a rock-chucking prowler?”
“My volatile neighbor.”
“Volatile. Good one. You want to give me a statement, then we can scare up something for a temporary patch job?”
I didn’t.
A thought was beginning to form. Was I being paranoid? Phone still in my hand, I pressed a speed dial button and dropped the device into a side pocket of my cargo pants. Though the ringer was silenced, if Slidell answered, his voice would still be audible. Unless Skinny was canny enough to stay mute and just listen.
As I turned my head to track where Birdie’s frightened meow was now coming from, I heard the door slam inward behind me and hit the adjacent wall with a loud crack. A throaty expulsion of air. Thudding boots.
Before I could pivot, hands shoved my shoulders and I pitched violently forward onto my knees. My arms were wrenched backward. Cold steel mashed my left, then my right wrist.
Air rearranged behind me.
The world exploded into a million nanopixels.
Went dark.
I felt hard-packed soil beneath one cheek. Grit.
The scent of moist earth filled my nose. Of things left underground far too long. Decaying paper. Rotting fabric. Dead vegetation.
I opened my eyes to pitch black.
