Page 220 of Finding Us
“What the hell was that about?” Garret asks when the cop is gone.
“I’ll tell you when we get home.” I’m shaking even more now. Even my voice is shaky.
Garret notices and leads me to a bench to sit down. “What’s wrong?”
I lean over and talk in his ear. “Two guys were shot in the parking lot. I was there, hiding behind the maintenance building. I saw them drop to the ground. I saw the blood. They were shot in the head. They weren’t moving. I’m almost positive they were dead. And now the bodies are gone.”
Garret squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them again. “Fuck.”
“What does that mean? Are you just upset or does that mean something?”
He takes my hand and gets up from the bench. “Let’s go.”
When we’re back home I tell him what happened, including how my cell phone signal was gone but then appeared again a few minutes later.
We’re sitting on the couch and Garret’s quiet, his eyes on the coffee table.
“What is it, Garret? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“I’m just trying to figure this out. It could’ve been a drug deal that got messed up. Like maybe a rival drug dealer got pissed off this other guy was taking his customer. Or—”
“Or what?”
He sighs. “Or it could’ve been they wanted it to look that way, in case someone walked by and saw what happened and reported it.”
“What are you talking about? Who’s ‘they’?”
He gives me that look. The one that tells me the organization is involved.
I shake my head. “No. You’re wrong. Why would they be here in this town? And why would they care about a drug deal?”
“It’s not about the drug deal. It’s about those two guys. They wanted one of them dead so they waited for the right time. Maybe they knew that guy was a drug dealer so they followed him and took him down during a deal, so if anyone saw what happened it’d just look like a drug deal gone bad.”
“But what about the other guy? You’re saying they’d kill an innocent guy just to kill the drug dealer?”
Garret nods, his gaze back on the table. “Or maybe they wanted both of them dead.”
“I don’t understand. Why would they care about either one of those guys?”
Garret shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“Why do you think it was them? Maybe some other drug dealer killed those guys because they owed him money or something.”
“It’s possible. But getting rid of the bodies like that? It sounds like them. They clean up their messes.”
My stomach feels sick and my head’s starting to throb. I can’t handle the idea of the organization being here. They’re supposed to be gone. Out of our lives. Far away, on the East Coast.
“Maybe drug dealers clean up their messes, too.”
“Yeah. They might. Maybe it’s not them.” Garret’s tone is not at all convincing.
“The phone.” I take my phone out and hold it up to him. “The way my phone had no signal. Did they do that? I mean, is that something they do?”
“Anyone could do that if they had the right equipment.”
“My phone had no signal that first day I met Arlin. After he took me to that office, he sent me home and had the signal disabled in the car so I couldn’t call you. Or anyone.”
“Yeah. I remember.”
