White Space Season 1

are they ?”
    Cody ignored him. “Who else knows you saw Heller say something to Manny? Did you tell the police? Do they know you saw?”
    Milo nodded even though Cody couldn’t see him. “Yeah, but why does that matter? Are you saying they had Manny killed? Because “they” didn’t. Manny died naturally. His brother was there when it happened, and he’s the one who told me.”
    Jesus had actually texted Milo, not told him, and Milo had no idea if Jesus was actually in the room when Manny passed, but that didn’t change the truth. No one killed Manny, and whoever Cody was, he was probably just trying to scare him.
    “They have their ways,” Cody said.
    It wasn’t what Cody said, but how he said it that felt like a cool blade of ice slipping beneath the heat of Milo’s skin.
    Milo gulped.
    Cody said, “I didn’t think they’d strike now, in fact I was sure they wouldn’t. But they did, and that means they’re more worried about what Manny was going to say than I realized.” Cody paused, then dropped a ton of bricks on top of Milo.
    “That means you’re probably next.”
    “What?” Milo cried, curling his knees to his chest and pushing his back against the cold tile of the bathroom stall. “What do you mean?”
    “They might think you know more than you’re saying, Milo. You need to get out of town. Now.”
    “That’s crazy. You’re crazy. This whole thing is crazy. I can’t leave the island. I don’t have anywhere to go.”
    As though Milo hadn’t protested at all, Cody said, “I’ll be in touch later tonight. We’ll work this out.”
    Horror flashed through Milo’s mind.
    Mr. Heller paused, looking at Manny with hollow eyes, his expression drifting from nervous and glassy to haunted. He kneeled toward Manny, lying in a pool of blood and screamed, or whispered, hard to tell which through the chaos. He stood, then pointed his gun at the word “eleven,” raised his pistol, placed the gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
    Sudden terror turned his voice to a whisper. “How do I know I can trust you?” Milo asked.
    “You don’t,” Cody said. “But if you want to live, you don’t have a choice.”
    The line went dead.
    Milo sat on the top of the porcelain until he could calm his breathing into a steady beat. Then he lowered his feet to the tile, opened the stall, walked to the mirror and stared.
    Milo looked worse than he had expected, and exactly like what he was: a hollow shell of the boy he had been a week and one lifetime before.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 9 — Brock Houser

    Houser was driving back to Whistler’s to check the woods surrounding his house while Jon and Cassidy hung out at the police station waiting to see if Whistler spilled his guts.
    If Brady had let Houser interrogate him as requested, guts would have been spilled already. But Brady was a stickler for “rules” and wanted to be sure that whatever happened at the station didn’t help the fucker avoid prosecution. Houser couldn’t complain too much. Brady did let him walk, which he didn’t have to do. Still, Houser would have loved to have had a few minutes alone with the sick fucker. At least he could’ve gotten a feel for whether Emma was still alive.
    Houser drove in silence, glancing down at Ted D. Bear, riding shotgun as always, and found his mind meandering down memory lane.
    No.
    Can’t think about her now.
    Need to keep my head in the game.
    As Houser neared Whistler’s house, his cell phone rang. Jon.
    “Yeah, boss?”
    “Can you meet us back where we met this morning? Vivian’s house?”
    “Yeah, why? What’s up?”
    “Cassidy remembered something. It’s weird, but it’s better than the nothing we’ve got.”
    “So Whistler didn’t talk?”
    “Not yet. He asked for a lawyer.”
    “Shit,” Houser said. “OK, see ya in a few.”

    **

    They met in front of Vivian’s house, where Jon was sitting in a white Toyota Avalon beside Cassidy.
    “Hop in,” Jon said. “We’re gonna take a ride.”
    “OK,” Houser said, then ran back to his car, grabbed his gear bag and Ted D. Bear, and hopped into the back seat of the car.
    Cassidy was sitting in the front passenger seat. “Um, what’s with the teddy bear?”
    “Don’t ask,” Jon said, smiling.
    Houser smiled, and asked, “An old friend. I don’t leave home without him. So what do we have?”
    “Last night, my mom said something really weird when I got home,” Cassidy said. “She was drunk as hell, even drunker than usual,