Page 76 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

Shana put her hands on her hips. “Shut up, Shawn.”

“Bite me.”

Reed followed as I ventured around the dumpster, which smelled like something had died inside. Another ghost who liked to do the pretend-sitting thing was lounging on a rickety chair, looking more relaxed than most spirits I saw. His clothes were modern, and Shana had called him Shawn, so this was most likely Lil Shawn Merit, the victim of a turf war between two gangs, except when he stood up, his nickname seemed somewhat of a misnomer. He was well over six feet tall and almost as wide.

“Lil Shawn?”

“That’s me.”

“I was just confused about the ‘Lil’ part.”

“My cousin’s Big Shawn. He’s six feet seven. You’ll have to excuse my face.”

Blood ran from a gunshot wound in his left cheek, shiny and red against his dark skin.

“I’ve seen it all before. Uh, you don’t want me to avenge your death as well, do you? Because I really don’t do that.”

“My boys already took care of it.”

Thank goodness. “How did you find that out?”

“My mama visits every week.” Shawn waved in the direction of a bunch of wilted flowers. “She talks to me, but she don’t know I can hear. Guess it makes her feel better. Just wish I could tell her how much I appreciated everything she did.”

“I’d offer to help, but she might think it was a bit odd if a stranger suddenly turned up on her doorstep with a message.”

“I get that. Yeah, I get that. Who’s this missing girl, then?”

“Her name’s Emma Cullen. She went outside for a cigarette, and nobody ever saw her again.”

“Two years ago, you said?”

“More like two years and four months. Almost five now.”

“A redhead?”

“You saw her?”

“Ain’t got nothing to do but look at people out here. If she could’ve heard me, I’d have told her not to get in that fancy-ass Mercedes. There was something off about that guy.”

“What do you mean, off?”

“White dude wearin’ three-hundred-dollar jeans and a fifty-dollar T-shirt in a place like this? You know he’s not comin’ for the atmosphere. Looked like a Ken doll and spoke like the asshole in that movie… What’s the one with four funerals and a wedding?”

“Do you meanFour Weddings and a Funeral? Hugh Grant’s character?”

“Yeah, him.” The British accent. “My girl made me sit through that shit for hours.”

So we’d been right. Itwashim. Tim. I didn’t know whether to be relieved that we definitely had one case instead of two or horrified because Emma had become his victim.

“Can you tell me anything else about the man?”

“Didn’t get that good of a look at him. Dark hair. Kinda pushy. When he got the girl near the car, she didn’t want to go, but she’d had too much to drink and he put her inside. Someone shoulda stopped him, man.”

“We’re trying. We think he’s taken other women too.”

“Well, shit. Hey, there was one other thing.”

“Yes?”

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