Sleight Read Free Page B

knowing that Kenwoode would probably spend the rest of the day upstairs.
    I headed over to my apartment building to check in on Breno. When I got to his door on the first floor I didn’t get a response to my loud knocking. Being able to get past pretty much any lock or closed door made my next decision easy. Maybe easier than it should have been. Reaching out with my knack, I manipulated the tumblers in the lock and heard them click into place.
    I let myself in.
    Okay, so that is technically breaking and entering but I had no intention of stealing anything or trying to hurt Breno. I was just worried about him. It was obvious almost immediately that he hadn’t been home for a while. There was an unpleasant smell I couldn’t place and there were a lot of discarded fast food wrappers all over the living area.
    When I got to the kitchen I was able to define at least part of the odor. Unwashed dishes filled the sink. As I got closer I saw a bowl to the right of the sink filled with black debris. When I grabbed it and saw what was in it I dropped the bowl back onto the counter and cursed under my breath.
    The bowl was filled with ashes. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and my stomach churned. In any other home the bowl and its contents would be odd but in Breno’s apartment it was scary. Breno’s fire-making knack had been wiped out when he was a kid, but there had been more to it than that. To insure that Breno didn’t reactivate his knack or accidentally retrigger it, Mr. Goodturn had placed a strong aversion to fire in his mind, especially fire of any kind indoors. I’d seen this mental block at work. It reduced Breno to a hot mess.
    I stumbled through the apartment and navigated around random clothing strewn on the floor, comic books (Sponge Bob, Archie) and more food wrappers. That was also a warning sign. Even though Breno was slow-witted he was OCD about being tidy and cleaning up. So what did all of this tell me? He hadn’t been home recently. How long had he been away? Hard to say, but thinking about it I couldn’t remember seeing him around for a couple of weeks. Which didn’t mean he hadn’t been around; we often didn’t cross paths for days. The lack of cleaning and the general messiness might be nothing more than left over stress from last month’s kidnapping and his hospital stay.
    The ashes in the bowl worried me though. Could someone else have been in the apartment? Not likely. The door had been locked and despite the mess it didn’t look like there’d been forced entry or a struggle. So, he’d either burned whatever was in the bowl or seen it happen. Neither scenario meant anything good.
    As I walked back through the living room the weird smell that I’d thought was the spoiled food in the sink and the bowl of ashes, actually got stronger. When I got near the couch I saw scorch marks on the cushions. What the hell had been going on in here?
    I was struggling to figure out where he might have gone, and then I looked down at the discarded food packaging. Just like the tumblers in the lock at his door, things clicked into place. My hands started to shake. I knew where to look for Breno.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
 
 
 
 
FOUR: ACCIDENTS DO HAPPEN
     
    BUS ROUTES IN Seattle are great. You can get almost anywhere pretty fast and there isn’t much need to change buses unless you’re covering a lot of geography. I love the downtown area and there’s so much to look at and experience that it never gets old for me. On days when the weather is decent it’s even more fun, but I had a hard time relaxing and enjoying myself as the bus trundled along its route.
    The day couldn’t have started out any screwier and it had gone from upsetting to disturbing in a hurry. Justine. Mr. Goodturn. Breno. The only stabilizing factor had been Mr. Kenwoode and he’d been very little comfort.
    When I’d been looking down at the singed couch something had been gnawing at the back of my mind.