Page 55 of The Hidden Heir

We both see him, staring at us from the first-floor window. One of the street’s unknown residents has a great view of the crime scene from where he’s standing. Victor stays by the building’s front door while I go in. There’s no intercom. No lock either. Anybody could just waltz right in if they wanted.

The hallway is damp and dark, and my senses perk up. My ears twitch, registering every sound: the old pipes groaning in the walls, the rats skitter along the hall, and above me the rushed footsteps, accompanied by the creaking of an old floor.

“Gotcha,” I whisper and dash up the stairs.

He’s making a run for it, looking for a place to hide, but I catch him before he can disappear at the other end of the first-floor hallway, where there’s a fire escape. It leads down a set of exterior stairs. But I block his way, standing tall and dark and menacing.

He jumps back. He’s a kid, a sixteen-year-old boy, with a frightened face and big brown eyes. He smells sour. I doubt he’s had a shower in a while. The whole place stinks. The city must’ve cut off the building’s water supply a long time ago, but it still beats sleeping in the streets in the cold night air.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell the boy. “I just want to know what you saw.”

“You a cop?” he asks.

He’s got curly brown hair that looks dusty. Dirt is smudged across his slender face. I don’t see any traces of substance abuse at a glance, so I assume he’s merely homeless, perhaps a runaway. I shake my head slowly.

“Not a cop, kiddo, I swear. Here, allow me,” I say and reach for my jacket.

He takes a step back, ready to bolt in the opposite direction—though I’m not sure where he’s hoping it will take him. I’m blocking the main staircase and the way to the fire escape, too.

“Calm down,” I add and take out my wallet. “I assume you wouldn’t mind spending a couple of nights at a motel or something, right? Maybe get some warm food in your stomach? Take a hot shower? Nab some snacks and a chocolate bar from the motel’s vending machine? I know they’ve got some good stuff in there.”

I’m just making conversation, using my most soothing voice to keep him anchored, to get him to relax long enough for me to give him a hundred dollars, just to establish the beginning of what I hope will be a fruitful conversation.

“No, I wouldn’t,” the boy says and snatches the hundred-dollar bill from my hand. “What do you wanna know?”

“Were you here earlier?” I ask.

He nods once. “You wanna know about the truck?”

“Yes. What did you see?”

“I put my head down the minute those guns came out,” he says.

“Tell me everything. Everything you saw, everything you heard.”

He looks around, increasingly nervous. “The cops are gonna come around asking questions and shit.”

“Not right now, they won’t. I got a head start.”

“Why?”

“I tend to get what I want. And right now, I want information,” I reply, noticing his intention to milk this situation for as much as he can. Though I can’t blame him. Living in the streets is rough; it requires the ability to survive, so I give him another hundred-dollar bill. “Let’s double that motel comfort, shall we?”

He takes it and nods. “I was waking up. It was a cold night, especially close to sunrise. I couldn’t sleep anymore because of it.”

“So, early morning. At the break of dawn.”

“More or less, yeah. I heard the truck rolling. I was in my sleeping bag, right under the window facing the street. Gotta always have an eye out on the street, just in case,” the boy says.

“Smart.”

“Yeah. So I heard the truck rolling, right? I looked up, I saw the sky ain’t light yet, so definitely break of dawn. I was shivering, so I was thinking of starting a small fire on the floor, just to get me a little bit warm.”

I look around. “I assume the fire alarm system doesn’t work anymore.”

“Pretty sure they’re gonna tear this whole block down by the end of the year. Some rich Irish prick from Dublin is buying up the lots. Whatever. I heard the truck hitting the brakes real hard, real sudden.”

“Where?”