Frankenstein

was unusual for a few reasons, not least of all because of his size. He must have been six feet four, wide in the shoulders, narrow in the hips.
    As he spoke, he swept his hat off, nodding in a courtly manner, and she saw that he was strikingly good-looking, with blond hair and gray-blue eyes. His face was perfect for the kind of Western movies that once starred John Wayne but that no one made anymore.
    “Thank you,” she said as he opened the door and ushered her out of the bakery.
    Putting his hat on once more, following her onto the sidewalk, he said, “You must be new in town.”
    “Not that new,” she said. “I’ve been here nearly two years.”
    “Then I’ve been blind for a while and didn’t know it.”
    She smiled, unsure of his purpose in saying such a thing. She decided against a reply as she crossed the sidewalk to the Explorer.
    “I’m Addison Hawk. May I get the car door for you, Miss … ?”
    “Erika,” she said, but offered no last name. “Thank you, Mr. Hawk.”
    He opened the passenger door, and she put the box of cinnamon rolls on the seat.
    As he closed the door, Addison Hawk said, “It takes twenty years at least for locals to think of a newcomer as one of them. If ever youneed to know anything about the way things work around here, I’m in the phone book.”
    “I take it you’re not a newcomer.”
    “I’ve lived here since nine months before I was born. Been to Great Falls, Billings, Butte, Bozeman, been to Helena and Missoula, but I’ve never seen any reason to be anywhere but here.”
    “I agree,” she said as she went around the front of the Explorer to the driver’s door. “It’s a wonderful town—the land, the big sky, all of it.”
    As she drove away, Erika checked the rearview mirror and saw Addison Hawk staring after her.
    Something had happened that she did not entirely understand, something more than an encounter with a friendly local. She thought about it all the way home, but the subtext of the conversation eluded her.

    
chapter
21

    Running up the stairs behind Mr. Lyss, Nummy knew he was now a jailbreaker like in the movies. Things didn’t always—or even usually—turn out okay for a jailbreaker.
    The door at the top of the stairs had a small window, the window glass had wire in it, and Mr. Lyss looked through the glass and the wire before he tried to open the door, but the door was locked. The old man said a bunch of words that should’ve gotten him cooked by lightning, but he was still uncooked when he set to work on the door with his lock picks.
    The awful noises rose from below, the people being killed, and Nummy tried to tune them out. He tried to sing a happy song in his head to drown out the terrible cries, just in his head because Mr. Lyss would for sure bite his nose off if he sang for real. But he couldn’t think of any happy songs except “Happy Feet,” and you had to do a little dance when you sang “Happy Feet,” you just had to, and because he was a clumsy person, he shouldn’t try dancing on the stairs.
    Mr. Lyss picked and picked at the lock. Suddenly he said the dirtiest word Nummy knew—he knew
six
—looked out the small window again, opened the door, and left the stairs.
    Nummy followed the old man into the hallway, then right toward an exit sign. They passed closed doors, and there were voices behind some of the doors.
    Grabbing at Mr. Lyss as they moved, to get his attention, Nummy whispered, “We should tell somebody.”
    Slapping Nummy’s hand away, Mr. Lyss went through the door at the end of the hall, but they weren’t outside like Nummy expected to be. They were in a mud room.
    “We should tell somebody,” Nummy insisted.
    Looking over several quilted jackets hanging from wall pegs, Mr. Lyss said, “Tell them what?”
    “People is being killed in the basement.”
    “They
know
, you moron. They’re the ones doing the killing.”
    Mr. Lyss took a jacket from the rack and slipped into it. On the arm was a police patch. The jacket was too big for the old man, but he zipped it up anyway and headed toward the outer door.
    “You’re stealing,” Nummy said.
    “And you’re a cheese-brain ninny,” said Mr. Lyss as he went out into the alleyway.
    Nummy O’Bannon didn’t want to follow the old man with his bad smell, bad teeth, bad breath, bad words, and bad attitude, but he was still scared, and he didn’t know what else to do but follow him. So now he was a jailbreaker and he was keeping company