Page 119 of Long Way Down

Doug’s head snapped around so fast that, at first, she thought he’d injured himself. Or that she’d stepped onto the set ofThe Exorcist. She hadn’t bothered to look at him closely before, but now she saw that his pupils were blown, and that his hair clung to the sheen of sweat on his face. His foot started bobbing on the floor, a fast up-down jiggle that rattled the change in his pocket.

“Who called you?” he asked. And his voice was not the slurred, indifferent tone he’d used with her before, but taut as a piano wire; he bit his lower lip, afterward, until the skin of it turned white.

Oh, she thought.Shit.

Her phone buzzed again in her pocket, an incoming call, but the little flinch in Doug’s face, the restless shifting of his gaze across her, told her she didn’t dare reach for it.

~*~

He called her once. Twice. Three times. It rang out to voicemail each time. Pacing the short width of the room behind Scribe’s chair, he tapped out a text, relaying the urgency of his intel. She and her partner were at the school now, taking one of the vics to class, conducting interviews. This was huge, this was…

Slowly, an icy droplet of fear snaked down his spine. He halted, and when he picked his head up, saw that Kat was watching him, half his face illuminated by blue computer light, his gaze sharp and perceptive.

“What?”

“She’s not picking up.”

“She’s working. She probably can’t.”

“Nah. She’s at the school. At the art college. She’s…” He swallowed, but was unable to push down the ball of worry steadily forming at the base of his throat. Dixie was smart, and tough, and capable. Was armed, and had her partner there, and Rob Contreras seemed like a good guy.

But someone driving Donald Waxman’s car had dumped a dying prostitute on the street tonight; had cut her up and left her like garbage.

Kat fished his keys out of his pocket. “I’ll drive you.”

~*~

Melissa’s phone stopped buzzing, was still, and then started up again.

Doug hadn’t blinked once.

A glance at Daniel proved that he was frowning at his classmate, just as caught off guard by his sudden swing in behavior as her.

Doug’s febrile, too-wide stare shifted to her jacket pocket, where her phone buzzed and buzzed. His lips parted, and he breathed out in a sharp, short pant. “Who was that?” he repeated.

Her pulse throbbed in her chest, in her throat, a quickening drumbeat in her ears. “Nobody important. A friend.”

His upper lip peeled back off teeth that looked like they hadn’t been brushed in a few days. “Fucking liar,” he snarled, so venomous it was an effort not to take a step back from him.

How did she handle this? Was it the phone call that had set him off? Or something else? Something internal?

“Doug,” she said, “you seem…a little worked up.”

On his thighs, his hands curled and then opened, curled and opened, the veins and bones standing stark, the nailbeds bitten and chewed; they flexed like agitated white spiders, and the sight ratcheted her pulse up another notch.

“Dude,” Daniel said, frowning, “what’s your problem?”

Doug lurched to his feet, movements jerky and uncoordinated, breathing out in a harsh, audible rush.

Melissadidtake a step back, then, and rested her hand on the butt of her gun. “Doug,” she said, firmly, though a high whine had started up in her ears like a warning siren, “you need to take a breath and calm down. Whatever’s got you upset we can talk about it. Okay? Sit back down, please, while we wait for Detective–”

He whirled on her, and his face was awful. Twisted and furious, eyes rolling side to side, searching, teeth bared and gritted. He lookedinsane. In that moment, Melissa realized her terrible oversight. Her assumption and subsequent dismissal. Douglas Waxman was not a dullard. Was not indifferent and disengaged. All the pot he smoked, its scent clinging to him like a second skin, was an effort at self-medicating. He fixed her with a look that fizzled and glinted, and her lungs filled with the scent of honeysuckle and brackish water; with mildew and dirt floors; with dried fear-sweat and blood; and, worst of all, the rank breath of a man who’d done something unspeakable.

She knew evil, had looked it in the eye years and years ago – just as she looked at it now. Adrenaline flooded her system, and for one ugly moment, it gripped her by the throat and rendered her useless and numb; too terrified to move. She was six-years-old, and there was a thunderstorm, and she was so small, and he was so big, and–

A flash outside the window drew Doug’s attention; his gaze darted that way, and in the fading glow of the lightning flash, she saw his bad skin, and the puppy fat under his chin, and reminded herself that this wasnow, and notthen.

Her years of schooling and training took over, then.

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