“Never.”
I paused before I asked, “Do you think he did it?”
Zoe took a deep breath and leaned back in the scratchy lawn chair. I took a really good look at her. She’d always been tall and skinny, something I used to envy, but she somehow seemed thinner, even boney. She’d tied her black hair hastily, with flyaways sticking out all over. Zoe usually liked to keep her appearance overly clean-cut, whereas I’d go with whatever was quickest.
“Do I think he’s capable of doing it? Yes. Do I think he actually killed these two people … no,” Zoe said.
“Did you tell anyone else that he was gone last night?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone else.” I stared her down. “Is there something else you’re not telling me?”
She stopped tapping her leg with her hand. “No.”
“You’d tell me, right? If there was anything else?”
She gave me a hurt look. “Of course. You’re my best friend. And you’re one to talk, holding out on me about Ethan and you.”
“To be fair, it’s not like we’ve had a chance to talk this morning,” I said.
“All right, I’ll give you that.” She slapped her hands down on the wooden arms of the chair. “I have to go help with the funeral arrangements for Reina. There’s going to be a town gathering at the clubhouse tonight to honor her.”
“Yeah, Roy told me. Will everyone be there?”
“Mm-hmm, it should be like last time. There was food, music, and mingling. You have to come.”
“I’ll be there.” I didn’t mention that it would be just long enough to make an appearance and make it seem like I’d been there the whole time. Like Roy had suggested, the celebration of life would be the perfect opportunity to poke around Wyatt’s condo.
We said goodbye, and by the time I walked back inside, Roy had put everything away. Perfect timing.
I decided to keep Zoe’s tidbit about Darren’s tendency to wander in the middle of the night to myself. I was biased; I didn’t want to think that we’d brought the killer with us.
For the rest of the day, Roy and I planned our trip back to the apartments in Gretna and our digging up dirt mission on Wyatt. At the peak of the memorial tonight, we’d sneak out and poke around Wyatt’s condo. Roy made sure he had his tools ready to go by the front door. We couldn’t just kick in Wyatt’s front door; we didn’t want him to know we’d been in there.
We left our condo to find John. He was standing below one of the guard towers, chatting with the guy on duty. We flagged John over and in hushed voices, started filling him in. He volunteered to help us gather the people from the apartments.
“I’ll be drivin’ though,” John said.
“Well it is your car after all.”
“I see there are some new dents and scratches on it.”
I grinned sheepishly. “Kind of a hazard of the zombie apocalypse.”
“We could always hit up a dealership and get a new fleet of cars,” Roy suggested.
“We’ll have to keep that in mind,” John said.
An hour before supper, the community was roundup and ushered by Byron to the lot at the back of the cul-de-sac, where a freshly dug grave was waiting for Reina’s body. Wyatt and an older gentleman stood beside the grave. Judging from the Bible in the older man’s hand, I assumed he was a priest or someone to do with the church.
A round of gunfire went off from one of the watchtowers, making me and a few others jump. Sounded like more infected had sidled up to the walls. Hearing random gunfire and
not
having to run for my weapon was unnerving. Soon, we’d be getting lazy.
After about ten minutes, Grant, Byron, Ethan, and Oscar carried the body over in a bare-bones plywood coffin. Using flat ropes spread across the hole, they lowered the coffin into the grave. The hole wasn’t six feet deep; the coffin’s lid was about a foot lower than the lip of the grave.
“We are here to honor the life of Reina, a teacher, a friend, a sister, and a pillar of this community,” Wyatt thundered over the hushed voices. “Benjamin will lead the service with a verse from the Bible.”
The elderly man stepped forward and opened his red tome. He cleared his throat. “I will read from Psalm 46. ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gave way and the mountains fell into the heart of the sea.’”
At that point, I tuned him out. I wasn’t one to draw comfort from religion. Instead I peered around at all those attending Reina’s burial. Most people had their heads down while they listened to Ben recite the passage from the Bible. The children from her class were present, some visibly distraught. A few adults comforted them. I had no way of knowing if the adults were the kids’ parents or their adoptive guardians.
Wyatt and his groupies stood by, their hands clamped in front of them. Ethan joined us after they’d lowered the body and stood beside Chloe with his hand on her shoulder. Grant appeared stone cold as he listened to Ben, nothing in his expression giving away what he was thinking. Byron and the surgeon looked sullen as they stared at the coffin. Oscar wiped away a tear. He’d had it pretty bad; as the town’s resident doctor and medical examiner, he was the one who’d had to look at the body up close and personal.
When the ceremony finished, Wyatt guided everyone to the clubhouse, where dinner and refreshments would be served in memory of Reina. It almost sounded like a party. The funeral precession took up the entire street, not one person must have been absent.
The clubhouse smelled like roasted meat, and the cooks hurried to the back of the building to finish preparing dinner. Music played over the speakers, just loud enough to hear over the voices. They wouldn’t have dared turn it up to rock-concert levels.
Once we picked up our food, we sat at one of the last empty tables. I ate slowly, buying time and making sure people saw me. I made eye contact with Wyatt as he passed me by. John waved to add to the illusion.
After an hour, once the “party” was in full swing, John gave me the signal. I nodded slightly to let him know I’d seen. John walked to the front doors, smiling politely at people as he passed and even stopping once to strike up a conversation. He was good at acting inconspicuously. Must have been all that military training.
Next to leave was Roy. He walked over to Amanda, who barely paid him any mind while she played with the other kids, and told her he was just going back to the condo for a bit. She shooed him away. She most likely wouldn’t have noticed his absence. Ten minutes after he left, I told Zoe I was having stomach issues and that I was going to use the bathroom back at my condo.
She told me to take some Pepto, and I was in the clear.
Before I could make it to the door, Wyatt stopped me.
“Where are you taking off to?” he asked, his tone friendly but firm.
I placed my hand on my stomach, fearing our plan would end before it even began. “It’s kind of embarrassing, but I need to use the washroom.”
“Why not use the one here?”
“I’d rather use a more private bathroom, if you catch my drift,” I said, feigning embarrassment.
“I’m sure Oscar can grab you some medicine after,” Wyatt offered.
“We have some Pepto back at the condo.”
“I hope it helps so you can hurry back. Do you think you’ll still be able to make your trip tomorrow?” Wyatt asked. Byron must have filled him in.
“I think so. It’s not the flu or anything.”
“Well, I wish you good luck on your expedition.”
I guess he wouldn’t be seeing us off in the morning.
With that, he turned to another person who’d caught his attention. Looked like I’d have to come back to make sure Wyatt saw me. I hurried out the door, the fresh air slapping me in the face. The clubhouse had been stifling with all the bodies packed inside and the heated food.
Walking at a faster than average pace, I hurried to meet Roy at the condo. The sun was starting its nightly descent, casting shadows all over the road. It would’ve been better had the sun been completely down, but we only had a small window to do this.
“Finally!” Roy said as I opened the door. He’d been in the middle of the living room, pacing.
“Sorry. Wyatt stopped me and I had to make up an excuse about why I was leaving.”
“Think we should continue with the plan?”
“If you want out, you can stay here,” I said.
“No way. Besides, you need someone to get you inside.” He lifted up his small sack of tools.
“All right then, let’s go.”
We took the long way around to Wyatt’s condo to avoid anyone seeing us. We dashed into his backyard, where John was crouched, waiting for us.
“’Bout damn time,” John whispered.
“Anyway,” I said, ignoring his comment. “Is it clear?”
“There’s no movement or lights on inside, and no one’s come or gone since I’ve been waitin’ here.”
Roy went up to the bedroom window and popped out the screen. He jimmied the window latch with the screwdriver and after a few tries, he slid the window open. Once again, I was glad I’d lost weight—it would make it easier to fit through the window.
“I’ll give you a boost,” John said, dropping to one knee and clasping his hands together on top.
I stepped on John’s hands and scrambled inside as he raised me up, knocking over a lamp during my entrance. I managed to dive and catch it before it smashed on the ground. Roy came through as I was putting the lamp back, hopefully in the exact same spot.
John stuck his head inside the bedroom. “I’ll knock on the window if anyone approaches the house.”
Roy handed me a flashlight from the tool bag he’d brought. I shot the beam across the room. Wyatt’s bedroom was bigger than the ones in our condos. We rooted through the closet and dresser drawers, coming up empty handed. I headed into the hallway, spotting the door to the other bedroom, which was closed, and the bathroom. Roy tried the handle to the other bedroom, but it was locked.
He put down his tool bag and positioned the screwdriver at the apex where the door met the frame by the handle. With a stiff smash of his hand, as if he were working a chisel, the door swung open.
“You have to teach me how to do that,” I whispered.
The door was unscathed, but opened. We flashed the beams inside, revealing a smaller bedroom filled with junk. Radio equipment covered a desk and electrical odds and ends littered shelf after shelf. It looked like the room of a crazy person trying to contact aliens.
Roy whistled. “I think we’ve hit the jackpot.”
We examined the gear on the desk. It all seemed to be in working order. Two metallic, black boxes and a microphone dominated the middle of the desk.
Roy pointed to one of the black boxes. “This piece is a radio repeater, sometimes called an extender. It takes a weak signal, amplifies it, and then rebroadcasts the signal. Wyatt’s also got a transmitter, a stockpile of batteries.” Roy tapped one of the emergency batteries under the deck with his foot. “There’s even a spectrometer. Basically he has all the fixings to create a pirate radio station.” Roy sounded impressed.
“That’s great, but how do you turn this stuff on?” I prodded him.
He flipped a silver toggle switch and the room filled with the hiss of an empty radio frequency. Roy quickly turned a dial and the volume dropped. He turned another set of knobs, scanning to see if we could pick up a transmission. While he did that, I thumbed through the scribbler on the desk.
Various speeches were written in a neat scrawl. They read like the announcements Wyatt had described. I came across a page with a bunch of numbers, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. The hand with the eye drawing did.
“Roy!” I grabbed his arm.
“The symbol.” Roy leaned over the scribbler, shoving me out of the way.
“What are all those numbers?” I asked, pointing to the page.
“They’re more than likely frequencies.”
“Think these are for the mercenaries?”
“Only one way to find out.” Roy fiddled with the equipment again, turning dials and mashing buttons. He picked up the mouthpiece and hit the talk button. The hissing cut out.
“Hello,” Roy said into the old-timey microphone.
He released the talk button and the hissing resumed.
We waited for a good five minutes before Roy tried again. “Hello?”
No reply.
“Can anyone hear me?” Roy asked.
We waited again, barely breathing, as though if we did, we’d miss the reply.
When none came, I turned to Roy. “Probably for the best. We don’t want Wyatt to know we were using his equipment.” We didn’t want the mercenaries tipping off Wyatt that someone was in here.
Roy’s shoulders slumped. This was his only way of finding out where the mercenaries had taken his wife.
“Just give me a few more minutes,” Roy said, his voice barely a whisper.
I sighed and decided to look around the room while Roy chased a ghost. I scanned the shelves, most of them filled with old equipment, making Wyatt look like a hoarder. His personal appearance was so neat and freshly pressed, but this room was the exact opposite of his persona. The closet was so full of random junk that it barely opened. I cleared some debris, revealing a medium-sized chest at the bottom.
My hands flew to open it, only to be stopped by a brass padlock.
Dammit
.
Chances were Wyatt had the key to it on his person.
“Roy, you know how to pick a padlock?”
He put down the microphone and shuffled over to me with his tool bag. Roy kneeled before the chest and inspected the lock, turning it this way and that.
“I think I can open it.”
He pulled out two small metal tools, one looking like tweezers and the other like a dentist pick. Placing one tool in the center and the other at the top of the keyhole, Roy tried to turn the lock. After a few seconds, the lock clicked and popped open.
“Were you a criminal before all this?” I asked, impressed with his skills.
“I did some stupid stuff as a teen,” Roy admitted with a shrug.
He removed the lock and opened the lid of the chest, pointing his flashlight inside. An acrid smell hit my nostrils, and I crinkled my nose. An old afghan covered the top, so I pushed it to the side. Underneath were bloody clothes, tossed haphazardly like an incriminating laundry basket. That explained the sour smell that had wafted out when Roy opened the top.
“You have gloves in that tool bag?” I asked.
“No, but I have tongs.”
That seemed like a weird thing to have in a tool bag. He passed me the tongs, and I fished around. The clothes had belonged to a woman. I lifted a bloody, ripped shirt, uncovering a sharp, curve-tipped knife. John had once explained to me the differences between certain knives. This one looked like the kind used to gut a fish.
“There’s dried blood on that too.”
Roy and I exchanged a grim look. We’d just found some very incriminating evidence. Either Wyatt was the killer, or he was hiding evidence for him. I jumped, almost dropping the tongs and clothes they were holding when the radio equipment crackled.