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guts. “See what happens when you try and tell other people how to run their lives?” She turns to Monet and Tenille. “Let’s get out of here.”
    So they take off, and Casey goes, “Whatever,” and weall move in so we can check out what’s going on with the Preacher Man.
    Now, from his, uh,
girth
, I should probably have recognized the cop who was stooped down by the Preacher Man. But it’s not until an ambulance turns onto the street and the cop stands up that I realize that it’s the Ace of Mace.
    The Bruiser with a Cruiser.
    The Miranda Commanda!
    Yup. It’s the one and only Officer Borsch.
    Actually, he got promoted, so it should be
Sergeant
Borsch, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make the transition.
    And apparently I’m not the only one having transition problems, because Officer Borsch looks right at me as he starts commanding everyone, “Back up! All of you! Back up!” but he doesn’t seem to recognize me.
    “Hey!” I say to him. “What happened?”
    “What
needs
to happen,” he says, “is that you back up!”
Then
he finally recognizes me.
“Sammy?”
And before I can tell him, Duh, he says, “You look horrible!” Then he adds, “Did
you
see what happened?”
    “Why would I be asking you what happened if I saw what happened?”
    He stares at me a minute. “Right.” The he rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “This has been some night.” He snorts. “I hate Halloween.”
    I look over at the Preacher Man, who’s sitting on the curb trying to put his broken glasses back together. “Do you have any idea who beat him up?”
    Officer Borsch makes a sucking noise, like he’s trying to vacuum some popcorn ball out of a tooth. “He claims a cop clubbed him with a nightstick and stole his P.A. system.”
    “A
cop
did?”
    “Yeah. He couldn’t tell me height, weight, age … couldn’t tell me much of anything.”
    I eye my friends as I say, “Do you think it might have been someone in, you know, a cop costume?”
    Officer Borsch vacuums some more. “He also keeps spouting off about the devil, so he may just be a nutcase.”
    “But someone obviously beat him up, right?”
    Officer Borsch sighs. “Maybe he fell? It’s hard to know what to take seriously with someone like this.”
    So he goes back to shooing away trick-or-treaters, and I exchange looks with Casey and Marissa. And I know we’re all thinking the same thing—we have to be. But I’m pretty sure we’re on opposite sides of the what-to-do fence, and I’m feeling trapped in very weird territory.
    Still. I can’t shake the feeling that Danny had something to do with this, so when Holly looks at me, like, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him, I give her a shrug back, like, I know what you mean.
    Marissa is watching us and pops off with, “I can’t believe you guys are even thinking it was Danny. There’s no way he would do something like that!”
    I raise a zombie eyebrow at her. “Who said anything about Danny?”
    Billy’s just tuning in to what was until right now a silent conversation. “You think it was Danny?”
    I shrug. “Well, apparently Marissa does.”
    “I do not!”
    “Well
I
wouldn’t be surprised,” Holly says.
    Marissa gives her a hard look. “What did he ever do to you?”
    Holly stares right back. “Totally mess with my friend’s head.”
    “And her heart,” I grumble.
    “That doesn’t mean he beat someone up!” Marissa snaps.
    Casey nods. “She’s right. It doesn’t.”
    So fine. I drop it and so does Holly. And we hang around for a few more minutes, not saying much of anything while the paramedics check out the Preacher Man and clean up some blood on his cheek.
    Finally Marissa asks, “Has anyone else had enough?”
    Holly nods. “What time is it, anyway?”
    “Almost ten,” Casey says, looking at his phone.
    “You’re kidding!” I turn his hand and look at the display. “Wow.” And since we were supposed to be back at Hudson’s no later than ten, we hurry