Page 34 of Nowhere Good

He turned to his left, up the stairs. There.

Each step creaked and threatened to break beneath his feet. On the upper level, he found the bones of the house exposed. Some of the walls had been caved in, others stripped entirely.

When he stopped to listen, there was breathing.

Mattresses spread throughout the floor. People slept on some of them, curled into themselves, their bodies spindly and thin. He carefully stepped over them as he walked deeper into the room.

He knew how they felt. How blissful it was to lie there on a mattress in a room full of strangers and drift off into the bright, warm nothingness. There was no pain in that place, but it wasn’t real—it was this. It was death. He had to remember that.

By his feet, an old man with graying hair mumbled something. His eyes lulled open, landing on Seth before they closed again.

“Hey man, I’m looking to score,” Seth whispered. “You know who can hook me up?”

The man mumbled something else. Seth knelt down and gently nudged him.

“He doesn’t like it when people touch him,” a voice said, and Seth spun around.

A girl, probably no older than eighteen, with unkempt brown hair peered at him like a ghost, half coated in darkness. It was nothing he hadn’t seen before, but something on the wall behind her caught the moonlight from outside.

Words, carved into the exposed wood in jagged lines.

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME

“Who wrote that?” He pointed toward it, and the girl’s eyes followed before they fell back on him.

“I’ve seen you. You’re a cop.”

Well, undercover wasn’t going to work here. He gave up the act and brandished his badge from his pocket. The girl staggered back in fear, but he held up his hands.

“Homicide. No one’s in trouble, I’m just here for information. I need you to tell me about that writing on the wall behind you.”

The girl glanced at it, then blinked at him like she was expecting something else.

Seth dug into the pocket of his hoodie for his pack of cigarettes, pulling one out. Interest lit on her face as he offered it to her. She snatched it and held it close like it was something precious.

“The writing,” Seth said. “Who wrote it?”

“Some weirdo.”

“You saw him?”

“Not really. He had one of those pandemic masks on. Eyes were brown, maybe, like yours.”

“That’s just the lighting.” His eyes were blue, so the man’s could’ve been anything. “Did you know him? Maybe you’d seen him before?”

The girl went quiet again, ogling the pack of smokes he hadn’t tucked away. He handed her the whole thing.

“Maybe I’d seen him. I figured he was one of the guys who hung around here. He came in looking for a hit, had a bit of cash. I remember it ’cause we were all nodding off, but there was this… scratching. Real irritatin’. When I woke up, I saw the writing on the wall.” She nodded at the old man on the mattress. “Son of a bitch stole all Charlie-boy’s stash.”

“His stash of H?”

“Mm-hmm.” She fidgeted with the cigarettes, flipping the pack over and over. “Charlie had a few bags of it, but by mornin’, they were gone, and so was the weirdo. So we know it was him who took it. Never seen him since.”

So, he hadn’t bought the drugs. He’d stolen them.

Which implied, at least for now, that whoever was dealing drugs in Fairview might have no connection to the murders—or murderer—at all.

“When was this?” Seth asked.