The corners of Hadley’s eyes crinkled. Apparently, that was a funny question for some reason.
“That’s a bit complicated,” he said.
Grade took a step forward. “But you did drive me off the road. You stole the remains from my van.” He tilted his head toward the two bodies on the floor. “You and these two were in it together? IknewI’d recognized her at the bar.”
The latch finally clicked free, and Hadley pushed the door open behind him. He stepped backward, down onto the step that led to the backyard.
“Arlo wasn’t exactly part of the plan. Well, neither were you,” he said. “But I saw a way to use you to my advantage, so I did.”
His foot came down on something that made him stagger. He looked back and down to see what it was as he recovered his balance. The momentary lapse in attention was an opportunity, and Clay scrambled to his feet. For the first time since they’d met, Grade didn’t seem inclined to analyze, argue, or question why something did—or didn’t— need to happen. In fact, he almost shoved the gun into Clay’s hand. The familiar weight of a weapon felt almost reassuring.
Clay swung around and raised the gun in one smooth movement. He pulled the trigger just as Hadley turned back to them.
The gun jammed. Arlo, that stupid son of a bitch.
Hadley had flinched in expectation of getting shot. Once he realized that he wasn’t going to be, he laughed with no real humor in the noise.
“You tried,” he said. “Can’t fault you for that.”
Clay threw the gun at him. It didn’t have much impact, but confusion made Hadley falter for a second. Long enough for Clay to throw himself at Grade, taking them both down into a slide that ended behind the overturned kitchen table. It wasn’t much of a shelter, but…
Gunfire echoed around the kitchen as bullets punched through the table and gouged holes in the floor. A few strays went through the thin plasterboard walls, and Clay hoped the street was as dead as it looked.
The noise finally faded away.
Clay scrambled inelegantly out from behind the table.
“Stay,” he barked at Grade as he ran after Hadley.
“Not a dog!” Grade yelled from behind him.
The lot at the back of the house was all hard-packed dirt and dead plants in the flower beds. The chain-link fence, layered with fake plastic vines to give some privacy, was still rattling. Clay followed. He scrambled up the fence and dropped down the other side into a neat green garden with a well-used children’s playset kicked over on its side.
A big, round yellow lab lay on the deck at the back of the house. It lifted its head to watch as Clay ran across the garden and down the side of the house. There was a gate through to the front, but someone had already kicked it open.
Clay burst through it at a dead run and down the drive to the road. He skidded to a stop at the dropped curb as he spun in a circle to look up and down the street. His eyes flicked over the old blue pickup on the other side of the road on the first scan, but then swung back. He’d only seen it once: when Hadley had rolled into town with a backpack and a sob story. There was a faded “Getting outdoors in Eddyville” decal on the bumper. Clay had thought it was funny since, you know, outdoors had been the last thing Hadley had been getting.
The engine had sounded like it was on its last legs when it turned over.
It still did.
“Son of a bitch.”
Clay bolted across the road. He slammed into the side of the pickup as it pulled out and grabbed the door handle. It was locked. Clay smacked his fist against the window, and Hadley looked at him briefly, then put his foot down on the gas.
For a few feet, Clay hung on to the door as he ran alongside the pickup. Then he gave up with a frustrated snarl and let go. He fell behind as the truck sped down the road and screeched around the corner. For a minute, he stood there in the middle of the road, his jaw clenched so hard the bones hurt. Then someone laid on their horn behind him.
He turned around. A battered purple-grape Toyota was stopped behind him, with an annoyed woman glaring at him over the wheel. She leaned on the horn again.
Clay gave her the finger and got out of the way.
He stood on the side of the road and patted himself down. He still had his phone on him, shoved in his back pocket, but his cigarettes were back in the car.
Fuck it. He rolled his head from one side to the other and listened to his neck crackle. Then he started down the street to take the long way back to his car. Ezra could wait on the bad news. Clay hadn’t gotten to kill anyone, and he needed to indulge at least one bad habit today before anyone else tested him.
“Huh.” Harry took a can of soda out of Hadley’s fridge and tossed it to Clay with a smirk. “It’d probably have gone differently if you’d had backup, huh?”
Clay caught the soda in one hand. The metal wasn’t chilled. It didn’t look like Hadley had bothered to hook up most of the appliances. He turned it around to check the brand. Crush orange soda.
