Page 28 of Joker's Ghost
Then it buzzes three more times in succession. Not normal and definitely not good.
I jam my hand in my pocket, retrieve it, and swipe at the messages. Three pictures pop up, and my heart beats fast and then dangerously slow.
“What’s the matter?” Derek asks, but my eyes stay glued to the phone.
“Nothing.” I meet his gaze. “I want you to go home, understand?”
My order had nothing to do with Derek disobeying me and everything to do with the pictures on my phone.
“What’s on your phone?” Derek leans in, but I swipe at the screen.
“Nothing, just go home, now.”
I move through the crowd, desperate to find Daisy, andPython steps in my path. “Hey, help me get some more cases of liquor from the basement.”
“Can’t.” I try to move past him, but he grips my biceps.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” He moves me to the side of the room by the cellar staircase. “You’ve been jumpy all night.”
I hold up my phone and show him the screen.
He swipes through the pictures. “Who sent these?”
“Good fuckin’ question.” I take the phone back and examine the pictures again, then the message:
We have eyes on you.
Python dismisses it with a wave of his hand. “Just some asshole trying to rev you up.”
“No, man, this is serious. They brought in my fuckin’ family just like the note that came with that damn black stone.”
“Whoever is trying to fuck with you, no doubt, but we’ve been though shit like this before, and it’s usually just bullshit.”
“It wasn’t bullshit five years ago when I missed the signs from that psycho, Harold, who ended up kidnapping Daisy. I almost lost her and Deana because I wasn’t paying attention.”
That sobers Python. “All right. Help me bring up these cases, then we take it to Cobra.”
I turn toward the crowd, but I still can’t locate Daisy, and when I turn back to Python, I sway slightly. Probably from pounding all those shots earlier.
I follow Python down the stairs, and the same eerie sensation washes over me. The same prickle of doom I’ve been getting all week when I come down here.
Python hoists a case of vodka and tequila on each shoulder, and I lift up two cases of beer. Python goes up ahead of me, and as I hit the middle of the staircase, I hear the whiningsound again, only this time it’s so loud and high-pitched, it stings my eardrums.
“You hear that?” I shout over the noise, but Python keeps going.
My vision clouds, and I force myself to focus, but the room spins out of control. I try to steady the cases, but they slip from my shoulders as I grab for the railing. The cases of beer crash to the concrete floor below, but I hardly hear it over the piercing, shrieking vibration surrounding me. I try to steady myself, gripping the banister harder in an effort to escape this overwhelming vortex. Like being caught in a whirlpool, I sink lower, swallowed up by the swirling turbulent storm raging around me.
CHAPTER 10
JOKER
I squint against the light. Lids fluttering as I try to make out the faces hovering above me. Foggy and blurry, like a camera out of focus.
“Joker, hey, you all right?”
Why was my head pounding? I draw in a deep breath, then carefully touch my head praying I don’t feel a deep gaping hole.
“Shit, man, he’s lucky he didn’t break something.”
