Rosa was about a hundred yards away from them, on the other side of the wreckage. She sifted through an area that seemed like one of the most devastated, perhaps the source of one of the twin explosions that destroyed the building. She had little more than dust at her feet, but she shifted it around as if she would find something in its midst.
“It’s time, Rosa. We can’t stay here forever. Phoebe thinks it was a professional job. Maybe we can use that somehow. Find out more information about the man that did this.”
“No,” Rosa said. “There has to be something else out here. This can’t be all of it. I need something of his. Something to help me figure out what’s going on with all of this.”
“We will find who did this somehow,” Ian said. “Phoebe and I will both help, but we have—”
The flash of lights brought his attention back to the street in front of Whitey’s remains. A police car was pulling up. It was a lone police officer, but Whitey’s was naturally closed off by the water on one side and the river rocks on the other. They had nowhere to go.”
Ian turned to the others. “Run. I’ll create an illusion and—”
Rosa shook her head. “I know him. Just let me talk to him.”
She walked towards the police officer, a tall uniformed cop with light brown skin and closely cropped hair. He actually reminded Ian a bit of Stomp.
“Keith, hi.”
“Rosa, is that you?”
“Si. I needed to have a look for myself. I wanted to see if I could find anything of my friend and—” She shook her head. Ian could only guess she was crying.
Keith rushed forward and took her in his arms. “Oh, baby. I’m sorry. I know it’s hard. But you can’t be here. It’s still an active crime scene.”
“I know. I just wanted—I just thought if I could find something, maybe I could help in some way.”
Ian and Phoebe crept closer to Rosa and the police officer. The presence of the police worried him. Neither he nor Phoebe would be on any official records. That wasn’t the kind of thing easy to explain.
Rosa looked back at both of them as they approached. She wiped her tears away and quickly introduced them to Keith. “They came here to help me look. I hope I didn’t get them in any trouble.”
“No, it’s okay. Let’s just get you out of here, okay?”
Rosa nodded. She let him keep an arm around her as he walked her away.
Ian looked to Phoebe. She works fast, he thought. He wondered if Phoebe picked up on it when she gave him a knowing smile.
No comments:
Post a Comment