Rare by Garrett Leigh Page B

sketchbook. Nervous, perhaps? I wasn’t quite sure. “What did he say?”
    “Not much.” I took a tentative step forward, chancing a subtle peek at the open book, but I saw nothing I hadn’t seen before. “He cut out when I was driving to a call, but he sounded worried. Something I should know?”
    Ash shook his head. “Not really. I didn’t mean to freak him out, I….” He stopped and rubbed his hands over his face. “I do need to tell you something, actually.”
    “Okay.” I dropped down beside him and stretched out my legs. I was relieved he seemed to be all right, but the heavy tone to his voice worried me. “Is it bad?”
    “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m either losing my mind again or there’s been a big fuckup somewhere.”
    I frowned, watching him chew on his lip. “I don’t understand.”
    “I don’t either, but you know me.”
    I sighed. Ash could be evasive when he didn’t want to talk about something. Left up to him, we could talk all night and I’d still be none the wiser. “Start at the beginning.”
    He fiddled with his sketchbook again, marking a page with his finger. “Do you remember the night you met Danni?”
    “Yeah.” I’d only seen her once since then, but I’d been working a lot. With Ash busy too, sleeping and fucking had become my priorities. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
    “I lied to you that night.”
    “You lied?”
    “Sort of… what’s it called, indirectly?”
    “Does it matter?”
    He flinched, but he didn’t look away. “Anyway, I wasn’t honest with you about what was bugging me.”
    I thought back to that night. Remembered his pale face and shaky hands. “You said you were tired.”
    “I was, but I think it was more than that, because it happened again tonight.”
    I shifted and put a little distance between us. Being up on the terrace was distracting. It was totally Ash’s turf. The only reason I ever ventured up here was to do something rude. I was still hoping he’d fuck me up here, but I figured I’d have to wait for the summer now. “You’re not making any sense. I need you to be clear, okay? What happened?”
    Ash opened his mouth and then shut it again, organizing the chaos in his mind. I gave him a moment, watching and waiting, until he exhaled a heavy lungful of air and handed me his sketchbook.
    With some trepidation, I took it and glanced at the page. It wasn’t the same sketch he’d been working on when I’d come out onto the roof. “You drew Danni? That’s… uh, nice.”
    “Look at the date.”
    I duly did, but even as I took in the scribbled digits, I couldn’t grasp what he was trying to tell me. “I don’t understand.”
    Ash jabbed the date with his finger. “I drew it the day I came back from Philly.”
    “What? How…?”
    He blanched. Color seeped from his already pale face and his conviction seemed to falter. “I saw her in Philadelphia. She was the girl Ellie thought was my sister.”
    Silence. He wasn’t making any sense. “I don’t get it. When did you lie to me? What’s that got to do with this?”
    “The night you met her,” Ash said. “I came home and saw her standing in the kitchen. It freaked me out and I ran off. I didn’t come back until she was gone. I’m sorry, Pete. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I was having a shitty day.”
    “Maybe you were.” I turned his words over in my head, trying to make sense of them. With Ash, I often failed, because there’d been times when he had seen things that weren’t there. “Did the same thing happen tonight? Is that what you meant?”
    Ash nodded and hugged his knees to his chest, hiding his face in his arms.
    I nudged him. “Hey, come on. Don’t hide from me. What happened?”
    Ash raised his head a fraction, enough for his voice not to be muffled. “The usual,” he said flatly. “Joe let himself in and she was with him. I dropped Maggie’s glass plate, scared the hell out of all of us, and bolted. Joe followed me. I heard him