Page 3 of Crown of Death
I nod, drying my hands off. I wander back over to the table, a dated, round thing we picked off a curb with a piece of cardboard taped to it with FREE written in blackmarker.
I don’t really understand what Eli does for a living. Something with security companies. Something with computers. Something that’s during the day, a nine-to-five that must pay him fairlywell.
“What are we eating tonight?” I ask. I lean back in my chair, kicking my feet up on another. I watch Eli as heworks.
“Teriyaki chicken with a balsamic salad and jasmine rice,” he explains. “I was going to make this earlier, but when I got here, Amelia said you’d been called inlate.”
“Thanks for waiting,” Isay.
He only makes an affirmativegrunt.
I live in Greendale now, but I grew up in Cherico, the next town over, twenty minutes outside of Denver, my entire life. The same two-story brick house from the time I was a baby until I graduated high school two yearsago.
When I was a freshman, Eli Rath moved into the cute, little white house across the street and down threehouses.
To say he stood out was anunderstatement.
It was a family neighborhood, with kids and boring housewives and overworked dads. Eli was young, single, with a little bit of a dangerous edge tohim.
But somehow he became a part of our family. He became friends with my parents. They’d stand out in the driveway talking for a long time, smiling and laughing politely. Soon he was invited over for family barbeques. Next it was Easter dinner, and by my senior year of high school, it was every holiday and most Sundays that he was in our house, like that was where hebelonged.
And then I graduated. I moved here to Greendale for school, even though it’s only thirty-five minutes from my parents’house.
Just a month into school, Eli had texted, telling me his office had moved here to Greendale, and he’d bought a new condo not too far from theschool.
My best friend, the man who had always been there for me, for my family, was now only a few blocks from me at alltimes.
Over these past two years, he has always showed up once or twice a week with bags of food and an even smile on his lips. He’d cook for Amelia and me, and we’d spend the night chatting and laughing over dumbstories.
Eli looks over at me and I give him a littlesmile.
It’s hard to classify Eli. Protective as a father. Wise as a grandfather. Loyal as abrother.
He’s always been there forme.
I try to do the same. But I see it there. A little flicker of…something in hiseyes.
Something a little dark. Something a littlesad.
Something a littlewithdrawn.
But I’ve known Eli long enough now to know he’ll never share whatever put that darkness in hiseyes.
Chapter 2
“Hello?”I groggily say into my cell phone Friday morning. My eyes squinting against the bright light, I check the time. Five-freaking-twenty-one in themorning.
“Logan, I need you down here now,” Emmanuel’s voice cuts through the phone with an edge to it. “We got an…interesting one downhere.”
I groan and roll over onto my stomach. “Can’t it wait until I’m supposed to come in atnine?”
“They’re wanting to bury the poor woman tomorrow morning,” he says. “And this one is going to take some…seriouswork.”
I moan again and roll into a sitting position. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll be there intwenty.”
Emmanuel doesn’t even say anything else, just hangsup.
Rubbing my palms against my eyes, I stagger from my bed, into thebathroom.