Page 71 of Bad Medicine

“Sam, you asshole,” I yelled.“Don’t go in there.”

But his laugh floated back tome, and he went anyway. Rick was going to be irate at us for fucking up a crimescene, but I followed Sam in. Joe would call the detective before the neighborscalled 9-1-1. I hoped Rick would arrive first.

Keith Sims lay on the livingroom sofa, dead. He’d shot himself, which enraged Sam. Even as I watched, hetransformed himself into the dead man, and for a few seconds, I was transfixedby the sight.

He turned to me. “I’m not usedto helping with the aftermath,” he said. “I only kill the evil and go. But Idiscovered you needed my help, and I like helping you, Kait. See what I can do?I can be beyond valuable to you, if you’ll just accept me.”

“Theboy, Sam,” I said,my teeth clenched to keep them from clattering together. “Do you know where heis?”

He transformed back to the gothkid. “Follow me. Quickly. The police are coming and they’ll take over. I needyou to do this.”

I didn’t ask him what he meant.There was no time. Joe barreled through the doorway, his gun in his hand.“Called Rick,” he said.

“Can you keep the neighborsout?” I asked him, and without waiting for an answer, I flew after theshapeshifter.

He’d been inside Keith’s head,and he would have seen the boy.

I could only hope we’d get tohim in time and wouldn’t find a corpse waiting when we got there.

ChapterThirty-Three

We found Henry in a neighbor’shouse. Carried had pushed him into a walk-in closet, wedged a chair under theknob, and left him there. He was calm, the little boy, and quiet, but respondedto questions with everything he knew as the truth.

Apparently his mother had beengoing to meet a man, someone his grandpa hated. She couldn’t send him to schoolbecause he had a black eye and couldn’t leave him with grandpa because he’dthreatened to call the police.

She’d given him a bottle ofwater and told him she’d be back soon. That was all he knew. I’d crouched infront of him but didn’t hug him, as much as I wanted to, because I doubted he’dhave wanted a stranger touching him.

“I’m so sorry,” I told him,“that the people in your life have let you down.” I wanted to promise him thatthings would be better now, that no one would mistreat him again, that hisworld would be different. But I didn’t, because I had no idea how Henry’s lifewould end up, and I didn’t want to lie to the kid. I could only hope.

“None of this is your fault,kid,” the goth told him. “You’re not bad, and you deserve a good life. Thingswill be better for you now, and you’ll…” He’d hesitated. “Someone will loveyou.”

Henry had only nodded.

It was just so fucking sad.

Would the kid have survived histime in that closet? Maybe. Maybe he’d have been found. Maybe the elderlyneighbor who’d given Carrie his key to feed his cat and water his plants wouldhave left the hospital soon enough to have discovered Henry before it was toolate.

But maybe he wouldn’t have.

Sam had saved the kid’s life,and he was right. Hecouldbe beyond valuable—but he was also beyondpowerful and a murdering, psychotic son of a bitch who could pop inside yourhead and rummage through all your most private memories.

Joe and I stood at my car afterRick arrived, and Sam lingered with us. We were eager to leave, but Sam, stillmimicking a goth girl, was not.

“Listen to your friends, Kait,and let me in. They don’t want me gone. They don’t want to destroy me.”

“I appreciate the hell out ofyou for saving Kait’s life,” Joe said, flatly. “But if she says you’re theenemy and we should hunt you down and kill you, we will hunt you down, and wewill kill you.”

“That hurts my feelings,” Samsaid, narrowing his eyes. “But I understand. You’re loyal to Kait, as youshould be. I know the truth about how you feel, though.”

“Son of a bitch,” Joe growled,taking a step toward a being who could crush him with a finger, “you been in myhead, asshole?”

The goth held up her hands.“No, no, Joe. But I don’t need to be in your head to know things.” He shrugged.“I hear you people, and you should remember that. I can be anyone at any time—acook, a waitress, a housekeeper, a friend. I know you don’t want to kill me fortaking out the evil.” He smiled, then turned and melted into the shadows andwas gone.

“Why didn’t you take him?” Joeasked, staring after the fleeing shapeshifter.

I frowned. “What?”

He sighed, then crossed hisarms and looked at me. “If you want him stopped, why didn’t you stop him whenhe was standing right beside you? Not,” he added, when I only looked at him,“that I think you should. I’m just curious about your thoughts. Are youchanging your mind about him?”