2 Sisters Detective Agency(29)

“We’re not,” he confirmed, oblivious to my scrutiny. “We’re practical people. So your father didn’t brief you on what you were supposed to do when he died. That’s okay.” He waved a consoling hand. “Not your fault. No need for things to go sour between us. Just give us our stuff back, and we’ll all move on from this.”

“No,” I said.

Vegas blinked in disbelief.

“You might have read Business Ethics for Dummies cover to cover, but that doesn’t make you any less of a drug-peddling scumbag,” I said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with the meth or the money. But I do know I’m not giving it to you.”

All the air seemed to go out of Baby at once. She wavered a little by my side. I didn’t. I held strong, because someone my size does that—stands steady and as immovable as a sea cliff, ready to take the brunt of a storm before it ravages the land.

Gunmouth moved first. But I wasn’t far behind him.





Chapter 35



Baby’s headscarf was the perfect handle. Gunmouth went for it, grabbing it like the end of a rope. I covered his hand with mine. My hand was bigger; my fingers squeezed his like a mitt around a baseball. One of the most useful things you can have in life is good grip strength. You can punch, kick, and scratch at an adversary as much as you like, but if they latch on to you and you can’t get them off, you might be in for some serious damage. I had learned that lesson the hard way, trying to intervene in a fight between two teenage girls in the courthouse waiting room one morning. One of the girls latched on to my arm like a cat on a tree, her nails digging in. It took three bailiffs to get her off. I still had scars from the claw marks.

Gunmouth’s eyes widened as I increased the pressure on his hand. In less than a second, something in his hand made a dull pop sound. He screamed. I held on. Baby was wailing, bent double, her hair and scarf enclosed in our two fists.

I kicked out as another guy came for me, a sideways donkey-style kick to the side of his knee. Another crunch. His leg bent at an unnatural angle, and he released a guttural scream. I squeezed Gunmouth’s hand one last time, heard another pop, and let him go.

Two men on the ground, wailing, two standing looking very unsure of themselves—Vegas and his only remaining henchman, who looked less than enthused by the prospect of attacking someone who had broken three bones in three seconds. Vegas wasn’t going to lower himself to a physical fracas. His Business Ethics for Dummies reading would have told him that physicality is power—he needed to stay high and proud, as reliably rigid as a skyscraper.

I knew they were thinking about drawing their guns, but the windows of the Denny’s beside us were now crowded with people, some filming on their phones, others probably calling 911. We all knew the smartest thing for Vegas and his crew to do was make a hasty retreat.

“Get in the car, Baby,” I said a final time. She slipped into the vehicle, and I got in after her, refusing to make eye contact with Vegas as he glared at us all the way out of the parking lot. I didn’t need to see his hateful gaze to know what it communicated: that he would be back in my life sooner rather than later.





Chapter 36



Jacob saw Neina in the hospital cafeteria. Hurt and confusion flashed over her face, because he hadn’t come right to the room where Beaty lay slipping away, maybe dying. He had gone to the cafeteria instead.

He’d done it because the food fueled him, and he needed strength before facing his child. Killing Benzo had done to Jacob what he’d expected: both invigorated and drained him. His first life taken in twenty years. He’d watched the beat of Benzo’s heart stop suddenly, a vital irrigation system shut off, the traffic of blood cells through the boy’s body stilled. In that moment he’d felt the great relief of sating his rage for a moment—as well as the overwhelming terror that one of these days he might see the same switch flicked off in his daughter. There’d be no going back and punishing Benzo a second time.

He could kill them all, but he couldn’t save Beaty. That fact had lit the fire of Jacob’s rage again in seconds.

“How long have you been here?” Neina asked. She’d crossed the colorless space in front of the sandwich counter and stood with her head down, looking miserable. He reached for her, but she folded her arms across her chest.

“Ten minutes. I just needed a coffee.”

“Where the hell were you all night?”

“I went home,” he said. “Cleaned the house a little.”

“We don’t need a clean house. We need our daughter.”

Jacob didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. Neina was used to it. Over the years, he’d always shut down if she asked about his past, about the scars all over his body, about the things he said in his sleep.

She wasn’t stupid. He could have found a stupid wife in any city in the world, but he’d chosen Neina because of her lightning-fast wit and her strong, gifted hands. He’d seen her through the window of a pottery school in Studio City, teaching a bunch of retirees how to turn cereal bowls on a wheel. On their first date, she’d made him laugh, a rare and wonderful thing for him: the loss of control, the sound fluttering from between his lips.

Around them, the cafeteria bustled with families of the sick and injured wandering in, eating, wandering out. But they were still, the two of them standing there: Jacob determined to move ahead into the darkness, Neina determined to call him back into the light.