Revenant by Phaedra Weldon Page A

kitchen. The shop wasn’t officially open till after ten since it was a Wednesday. I could smell the aroma of buttered eggs, biscuits, bacon, sausage, orange juice, and spicy gravy before I even came through the door.
    Okay. Before, when we left, I wasn’t hungry. But by then I was starving .
    And with the news of Daniel’s disappearance and reappearance—food was the best form of comfort. Right?
    About that—
    “The word is no one saw him leave,” Mastiff was saying as he buttered a biscuit. If there was one thing Joe’s new partner enjoyed, it was Nona’s breakfasts. Good old Southern boy at heart. “Since his internment, Frasier’s been the model patient. They took him off the tranqs about a week after he arrived, and he’s been very docile. Almost agreeable.”
    I frowned, remembering that day in front of the Foxx—leaving the Bridgetown Grill and Daniel wielding that gun—rounding it on me . . .
    Cooper jumping in front of it. Daniel firing—and then screaming at me.
    Blaming me because he’d shot his boss.
    And then the death masks came . . .
    “. . . till midnight. All the beds are checked every two hours. So”—Mastiff shrugged—“they’re not sure how he escaped. No sign of forced exit. All doors locked. And no one saw anything.”
    I blinked. Looked at him. “Nothing? Not even a scratch or a sign that he’d cracked that lock?”
    Mastiff shook his head as he bit into the fluffy biscuit, butter squishing out on the sides.
    Joe was across from us, his plate barely touched, his arms crossed over his chest. He was staring at his food but not seeing it.
    I decided to intrude on his thoughts. And why not? He did it to me all the time.
    What are you thinking?
    Eh? He kept his head tilted down but looked at me across the table. Trying to figure out if maybe Daniel was possessed by a Horror again. I mean—is it possible?
    I pursed my lips. I—I don’t know. If he was—it wasn’t from me. Not this time. No. I was whole. Literally so. Maybe it’s something else?
    Or maybe he really did figure out a way to get out undetected. He could have sweet-talked a staff member.
    True. I didn’t like the way that sounded—making Daniel out to be a whore-dog of some kind. But . . . You think maybe he did, and they let him out, then relocked the door?
    Joe nodded.
    I voiced this to Mastiff, who nodded.
    “Yeah, they thought about that. And the room’s been fingerprinted. But—that’s not really going to prove anything. They have an accounting of staff who regularly go in and out of that room—not to mention patients who wander in during the day. And as for the security cameras—they conveniently went on the fritz for that period of time.” He used his right hand to gesture while holding the biscuit in his left. “One minute he was in the bed. The next—he was gone.”
    Nona set her fork down and picked up her coffee. Tim sat beside me, listening and watching. Mastiff couldn’t see him unless Tim wanted to be seen. Steve was apparently absent. Lately, he hadn’t joined in any of the reindeer games. I wondered why. “Now—how was he spotted here in Atlanta? And how did he get here?”
    Mastiff shook his head. “He was spotted on a closed-circuit video screen. Here.” He wiped his hand on his napkin and reached inside his suit jacket. He pulled out a five-by-seven picture and handed it to Mom. “That was taken at a convenience store on LaVista yesterday. So he’s in the area.”
    After looking at it with her eyebrows arched high, Mom handed it to me. Rhonda started for it, but I snatched it back. Mine! When I looked at it—my heart leapt into my throat.
    The image was grainy—like any photo taken as a capture from video. But it was him, standing on the other side of the register purchasing something. He looked good, his hair longer than it had been, cupping around his face. He wore a gray hoodie of some sort, with a blazer.
    He looked good. Not crazy. “So when you catch him,” I said,