Page 6 of Bad Seed
I put on a smile, recognizing a funny moment but not feeling it. Even that llama gets to eat eggplant.
Look, I’m proud of Ann. Getting onto the stage isn’t easy. There’s a fee and everything. And if she wins, she’ll have bragging rights for a year. It’s just…
Every other day of the year Loomis is a perfectly acceptable place to live. Quiet compared to Sacramento, where people are more easygoing and less likely to split in half if someone forgets their donut order at the counter. It’s perfect for me. My family’s a little over forty-five minutes away so I can see them every weekend if I want. Or not if I don’t. My friends are here. My job…
Well, my job can go anywhere. Taking a photo of a gyro on a beach in Greece, or a scotch egg on a haunted moor would be fantastic. It’ll never happen, but I can dream.
If it wasn’t for this one stupid festival, I’d be happy.
Exhausted, I stumble around the families gorging themselves on eggplant fries and fall onto a bench. A shadow looms beside me, but I stare down at the eggplants in the bag. The two purple fruits…or are they vegetables? Either way, they knock around like they’re daring me to eat them.
I remember their taste, especially in my mother’s curries. It’s less the eggplant flavor I miss, more everything that went around them. Zucchini curry just isn’t the same. And the looks I’d get from my brother when my mother would make that instead for dinner probably took ten years off my life.
Hefting the eggplant out of my bag, I stare at its shiny skin. My reflection catches in the purple hue. This stupid thing could end me in a heartbeat with its funny little stem and dark purple flesh.
I start to laugh at it all when the shadow beside me shifts and a face reflects back in the eggplant.
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CHAPTER FOUR
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AUBRY
“Can you look again?”
I nervously flick the “Sorry we missed you” sticker while trying to vanish into the shadows. As it’s a UPS store with gigantic glass windows facing a busy road, I’m struggling.
“Of course, sir. What was the name?”
“Gene, Aubry,” I tell him, my head on an all too familiar swivel. Children painted to look like unicorns and tigers run past. Every laugh sets my heart pounding. This is exactly the kind of place they’d be hiding in, waiting for their opportunity to—
“Could it be under another name?”
“I don’t know!” I shout, my fist slamming to the counter. Eyes dart to me from once bored customers. The scale jiggles in place and the clerk holds it down with his hand. I had no intention to leave my house. But a package from one of my old contacts—one they didn’t bother to deliver, just left a note for—pulled me out of my refuge.
I slouch my shoulders, trying to look less intimidating, and lean on an elbow. “Here’s the sticker they put on the door.” I try once again to hand him what I found stuck to the glass door while on patrol.
He eyes it up like I’m passing him a three-dollar bill. “I see. I will look again. But I’ll need some ID before I can hand it over.”
“Fine,” I mumble before remembering it’s not fine. There wasn’t time to stop at the DMV while hiding from a dangerous mafia that’s got my number. Well, if I grab the package and run, it’s not like he could stop me.
Once again, the only clerk in the store vanishes into the back. Exhausted and about to crawl out of my skin, I turn to face the street. Either something’s going on today, or Loomis has weekly carnivals. There’s an awful lot of purple. Something to do with the Lakers?
Smiling faces. Family. Dads pushing strollers, moms pulling carts full of sleeping toddlers. Happiness. Or at least the illusion before they all get home and crash.
I didn’t like crowds much before I ran. Now, having so much as five people around sends me itching for an exit. I couldn’t imagine going to a carnival, much less one for…
The green jacket. Exhausted parents part for only a second, but it’s enough. Bright green with wide lapels and no tie. I’d know that suit coat anywhere.
The Bells are here. Fuck.
“Here you are, sir. Now about that ID.”
Fuck! How the shit did they figure out I’m here? I lost sight of them back in Utah, but—like a dog with a bone—they sniffed me out again. Green is the muscle of the Bell twins, and I use that lightly. He’s skinny as a twig but always carries a lead pipe in one pocket, and a nine ml in the other. You don’t need a lot of the protein kind of muscle when the other guy’s swinging lead.
He’s scanning the crowd, hunting for someone six foot five or taller. I crouch as his head swings. Can he see me in here? There’s got to be another exit out the back.
