Page 48 of Not Quite Dead Yet

Owen glanced up from his feet, an unasked question on his face.

Jet exhaled. ‘On Halloween, someone hit me over the head, and now I’m going to die in five days, so it would be really great to look at those photos so we can figure out who killed me. Or we can all stare at our feet some more.’

‘Oh, that’s you,’ Owen said, a little more life in his voice.

‘Yeah, that’s me.’

Owen’s eyes shifted behind Jet, to Billy, trailing up all six feet, two inches of him, across those wide shoulders. He shrank inside his hoodie even more, like he had any reason to.

‘I’m just Billy,’ Billy said.

He forgot thepoorandsweet.

‘OK, these are all the files. Six hundred and twenty-eight in total.’

They were in the teenager’s bedroom, Owen sitting at his desk in his spinning chair, two large curved monitors glaring over him, Jet and Billy hovering behind.

‘Did you get any drone footage that night too?’ Billy asked.

Owen shook his head. ‘Just photos. Didn’t take her out that night.’

Her.Urgh.

‘OK great, we’ll have a look through these, thank you so much.’ Jet gestured toward the door.

Owen didn’t budge, hand still cupped around the wireless mouse.

‘OK, Owen, that’s great,’ Jet said, harder. ‘We’ll have a look at these now. You can go back to playing with your girlfriend in the backyard.’

‘I don’t have a – Oh.’

‘Yeah,’ Jet said. ‘Up you get.’

Owen got reluctantly to his feet.

‘OK,’ he sniffed. ‘Well, don’t delete anything.’

‘Won’t, I promise.’ Jet took his chair, eyeballed him until he left his bedroom, disappearing down the stairs.

‘He’s definitely got some kind of weird porn downloaded on this computer,’ Jet said, turning to the monitor, fingers finding the mouse.

‘Stop traumatizing teenage boys.’ Billy leaned his elbows on the desk beside her.

‘I do not traumatize teenage boys.’

‘You did.’

She double-clicked on the first file, and the photo opened full screen. A jack-o’-lantern, glowing eyes and an eerie too-human smile. Jet pressed the arrow, through many more artsy overexposed shots of the pumpkin, until they reachedthe fair, the sun setting, early darkness, before Jet had even got there.

Kids at the face-painting stall, missing teeth and gummy smiles for the camera. A vampire carrying two pies in foil dishes. Gerry Clay in his full cat costume, holding up two furry peace signs for the camera.

A lot of knockoff superheroes at the costume contest, a shitty plastic gold medal for the winner: Spider-ish-Man.

Jet paused. A photo of Mom and Dad at their stall, grinning behind a huge pile of bagged-up candy corn. Mom’s smile was tight, and Dad’s was pained, his skin a little yellow in the flash, too shiny across the forehead.

‘Your dad doing OK?’ Billy asked, noticing it too.

Jet dipped her head. ‘His kidneys are starting to fail. It was always going to happen, once he reached sixty. Might have to think about dialysis or a transplant soon.’ She pressed her lips together and clicked on. ‘Shame my kidneys are no good either.’

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