Free Set You Free by Jeff Ross Page A

him to jam with me. He finally caved, but only if we were somewhere no one could hear him. Which is why we started coming out here.”
    “What do you play?” I ask.
    “A bit of everything. Drums, keyboards, guitar. Absolutely no singing.”
    “Do you go to Mitchell Mayer?”
    “My mom pulled me out of regular school in the eighth grade. Since then I’ve been homeschooled. But not really. My mom started doing a few things with me, and eventually, I guess, she figured I would learn everything I could about anything I am interested in and left me to it. I passed my GED last year.”
    Outside, the old, abandoned manufacturing plants and warehouses rise up in the darkness.
    “Listen, if you’re nervous coming in here with me, that’s okay. You don’t have to. You can wait in the car, or I can take you home now. You don’t really know me or anything. I can tell you I’m not a creepy guy, but how would you know for sure?”
    “What’s with the tie?” I ask.
    Grady flips his tie. “That’s complicated,” he says. “Basically, I’ve discovered that if you look like a criminal, people think you’re a criminal. Whereas a guy wearing a tie is on his way somewhere important.” He smiles at me, then pulls off the highway onto a secondary road.
    There’s a drop of blood on his white shirt, which instantly gives me the shivers again. I hate blood.
    “Where are your shoes?” he asks.
    “That’s kind of a personal question,” I say.
    “Is it?”
    “No, I’m joking. They fell off when I was scrambling around in that stupid ravine.”
    “Oh.” He palms the steering wheel. “What were you doing in the ravine?”
    “I was climbing trees,” I say.
    “Nice,” he says. “Do you have a cell phone?”
    I hold my phone up for him to see.
    “Yeah, of course you do. Dumb question.” He pulls in between a set of Dumpsters and a very tall fence around the back of the warehouse.
    “Okay. So. How about you keep your phone in your hand and, I don’t know, stay a bit away from me when we walk in? Whatever makes you comfortable.” He shuts the car off, and a silence envelops us.
    “Comfortable,” I say. I look at all the dark corners and imagine sitting in the car with my mind going crazy.
    Grady nods and gives me a really forced smile.
    “That’s creepy.”
    “What?”
    “Your smile. Why does your face do that?” Which is totally rude. I sometimes get like this. Saying whatever comes into my head. Usually when I’m nervous.
    “I don’t know how to smile. Class photos are probably the main reason I left institutionalized public education. I mean…” He smiles again. “Seriously? Who can’t smile?”
    “Maybe say something when you smile. I hear that helps.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Like cheese, but not cheese. Something that makes you laugh. Then your smile will be genuine.”
    “Gastromancy!” Grady says, laughing.
    “What does that mean?”
    “It’s the telling of fortunes by listening to someone’s stomach grumblings.”
    “That’s ridiculous.”
    He laughs, and his smile is nice.
    “But it works,” I tell him. I figure a guy who knows what gastromancy is can’t be that evil.
    “So, are you coming?”
    I rub the side of my cell phone. I light up the screen and notice that my battery is half dead, which makes no sense. My phone normally lasts all day, and I could swear I had it plugged in for a while at home as well.
    “Into this dark, abandoned building with you?” I say.
    Grady looks at the building. “Yeah. Seriously, though, no pressure. You can stay here. Even keep the keys. Whatever.”
    For some reason, an idea I should have had when this whole thing began strikes me for the first time. “Why were you there?” I ask.
    “Why was I where?”
    “Maple Grove. What were you doing there?”
    Grady looks out the window. “I was following you,” he says. He puts his hand on the key again. “Listen, I’m going to take you home right now. I can come back and—”
    “Why were