Page 27 of Looking Grimm

Swallowing, I stared across the lot, looking at the rings of light from lampposts dotting the dark landscape.

“I need a minute,” I murmured.

Ripley didn’t wait, instead passing me to the driver’s side and popping the trunk again. When the lid swung open against my back, I cringed but didn’t budge.

“We don’t have all night, Farrow,” Ripley said as he stomped over. “They could come back, you know. Looking for you, or me, or these two. Or someone may have phoned the Capitol…” He trailed off, then came back with a statement that was more of a groan. “Aw, bugger.”

He stepped in front of me. He was a couple inches shorter than I was, so I didn’t have to raise my head to meet his eyes. He must have seen the blood because a rare sympathy softened his face.

“We’re gonna take care of that,” he said. “But first, we have to take care of them. You need me to load him up?” Henudged Ezrah’s slumped form with the toe of his tennis shoe.

I shook my head. “I’ll do it.”

Ripley stepped back and gave a nod of his own. “Good man.”

After a few minutes of heaving and bending and forcing the unconscious man’s body into the crowded trunk compartment, I closed the lid again and climbed into the driver’s seat next to Ripley.

He didn’t stir to my arrival, too busy thumbing through the apps on his cell phone. “Do you have an idea where to put them?” he asked without looking away from the screen.

I slouched behind the wheel, physically drained and as emotionally bankrupt as ever. “Not a clue,” I replied.

“Back to the hotel, then,” he said. “We just got new neighbors.”

I’d thought it strange that Ripley and Maggie’s hotel room had a connecting door. For as reclusive and suspicious as Ripley was, anything less than a solid wall between him and the outside world was a potential weak spot. That was probably the reason they’d pushed one of the bedside tables in front of it, lamp and all. It remained there even after Ripley and I unloaded the twins into the adjoining room, gagged them with hand towels from the bathroom, and bound them with electrical cords ripped out of the alarm clock, coffee maker, and hairdryer. I’d gone for the one on the television, but Ripley was already bitching about having to pay fordamages, so we stuck with low-cost electronics.

With our new captives secured, Ripley insisted we take care of the Porsche’s trunk situation before turning in for the night. It was past midnight, and I yawned through every turn on the way to a quarter-machine car wash near the suburbs. If I’d learned anything during my brief time in Capitol employ, it was to stay clear of street cameras in the city proper when conducting suspicious activities. Or if you drove a distinctive, red sports car.

Exhaustion weakened my mental fortitude and, by the time we pulled into an empty bay, I couldn’t will myself to get out of the car. Ripley lingered, too, crushing candies on his cell phone and not saying a word.

When I had finally pushed enough deep breaths through my lungs and mournful thoughts out of my mind, I killed the engine and plucked the keys from the ignition. I thought Ripley had changed his mind about helping until he reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a folded knife.

“Best thing to do is cut out the carpet.” He flipped the knife open. Its blade glinted in the scant light. “Unless you want to be here all night scrubbing.”

Nodding, I pulled the trunk release, and then stepped out of the car. Ripley followed suit.

I stood back while he sliced through the scrubby gray carpet, drawing a box along the metal floor. He closed and pocketed the knife, and together we ripped up the fabric and the thin layer of foam beneath it, both dried stiff with muddy brown blood.

A smear remained on the exposed floor, and I stared at it while Ripley rolled the carpet and padding and wedged it behind the front seats. He said he knew of a dumpsite wherewe could drop it.

After plugging the machine, the hose kicked on. I sprayed the trunk bed, trying and failing to avoid splatters that bounced back and soaked my shirt and jeans.

By the time I was satisfied with the cleanliness of the trunk, the cold air and my damp clothes had chilled me through. I dropped the hose, then piled into the car, where I cranked the heater.

Ripley returned to his seat in a much more leisurely fashion. As he sat and buckled, I cracked my window a few inches and dug out my cigarettes and lighter.

I assumed from Ripley’s side eye that he wanted to protest but, when he spoke, it wasn’t at all what I expected.

“You know, I wanted to do right by you,” he said in a low voice. “By both of you.”

I took a slow drag and savored it, holding the smoke in my lungs as long as I could stand it. “Whatever you’re talking about, it’s fine,” I told him. “You don’t owe me anything. Donnie, either. I’m sure you tried to save him.”

“I was too weak…”

I rolled the cigarette between my thumb and forefinger, watching the ash end flare. The night Donovan died, Ripley had been in terrible shape, injured and half-starved. I couldn’t fault him for not doing more to stop Jax’s attack. I couldn’t blame him for surviving, though part of me wanted to.

Ripley leaned back in his seat, fixing his gaze out the windshield where the cinderblock structure formed a tunnel into the darkness outside. “It’s more than that,” he said. Cigarette smoke clouded the air between us despite the cracked window.

“When you first came to the gang, I knew what Grimm was going to do to you. He looked at you like a wild animal set on its prey.” His features twisted at the thought. “He wanted to destroy you, and I… thought I could stop him. I thought the Capitol could, given the right information.” He huffed a sorrowful laugh. “So, I told them everything. I gave up everything. But nothing changed.”

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