2 Sisters Detective Agency(32)

“My life is crazy right now,” Baby said. “I did not see it coming, Dad dying on me.”

“Heart attack?”

“Yeah,” Baby said. “Good guess.”

“Wasn’t hard. He was always yelling, those veins in his head popping out.”

“I still pick up my phone and try to call him.” Baby sounded sad. “I tried to call him just this morning, all like Dude, you’ve got to help me. This crazy chick is trying to take over my life. It’s like he’s still around.”

“Are you trying to relate to me right now because Benzo’s dead?” Ashton asked. “You think that’s going to work? I don’t even know you anymore. And I don’t know that bitch at all.”

“Rhonda’s pushy,” Baby said. “I get it. Try spending days with her. I’m about ready to blow my brains out.”

“What is she, like, your mom or something?”

“No way.” Baby sounded offended. “Umm, does she look like she could be my mom?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“She’s my sister,” Baby conceded. “Kind of. Half sister. We have the same dad. She turned up when he died. She’s here from, like, Chicago or something.”

Or something, I thought, exhausted.

“Maybe she’s exactly what you need right now, though,” Baby said. “Someone you don’t know.”

“What?”

“If there’s nobody in your life who can help, maybe it’s going to take someone from outside to save you,” Baby said.

“That is some Hallmark-level bullshit right there,” a new voice said.

I turned and saw a girl with white-blond ringlets approaching the table. She was dressed neck-to-knees in expensive black silk, immaculate leather ankle boots, and a handbag that was three times the cost of my car. She let the bag fall on the stones beneath the table like it was a sack of trash.

It’s not often that I feel the wave of dizzying heat and electricity that seems to come with purely bad people, but I felt it now as I stood before this nameless girl. Every animalistic sense in my body went on alert.

Big trouble had just arrived.





Chapter 39



Something changed in Ashton. Though he maintained his slouch, his spine seemed to stiffen, drawing hard on the tendons in his neck.

“And what are you doing back here, Teacher’s Pet?” the girl asked Baby.

“Don’t.” Baby turned and glanced at me, her eyes wild. “Just leave it, okay?”

“What’s going on here?” I asked. I gestured to the new girl and Baby. “Do you guys know each other?”

“No,” Baby said. “We don’t. And I think we’re done here, Rhonda.”

“Are you sure?” the girl asked. “Because what you’ve been doing is harassing my friend here about his buddy, who was brutally murdered yesterday. He’s traumatized and emotionally vulnerable, and you’re questioning him without warning, consent, or police presence.”

She waved a hand at the chair nearest to me.

“Please, take a seat,” the girl said. “Stay longer. Minute by minute you’re racking up millions in a civil lawsuit for emotional damage caused by you violently bursting in to interrogate him over his friend’s murder.”

“Fine,” I said. “We’re done here, Miss…”

“Miss Go Fuck Yourself.” She smiled.

Baby and I left the blonde with Ashton and headed back to the car, Baby sticking so close behind me, she kept stepping on my heels.

“Baby, you need to give me some space,” I said. “You’re just about climbing into my back pocket.”

“Don’t stop,” she said, glancing back like we were being chased.

“Jesus. If I’d known you were this twitchy I’d have come here alone.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think anyone except Ashton would recognize me.” She smoothed back her hair. “I had braids then, and I’m about a foot and a half taller now, and my skin is so much clearer. Australian pink sand exfoliating scrub. You should get on that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s been two years. Things change so fast around here I figured everybody would have forgotten,” she said.

“About what?”

“Just drop it, Rhonda.”

“This is the thing you and Ash were talking about in the hallway outside Dad’s office. You hadn’t seen him since the thing. What happened?”

She didn’t answer.

“I’ll google it.”

“Yeah, only if you’re a nosy, invasive, obsessive bitch, you will,” Baby snapped.

“I am a nosy, invasive, obsessive bitch.” I shrugged.

Baby didn’t respond. When we reached the car, I unlocked the doors, and she silently slipped into the passenger seat, her coldness telling me the discussion was over.

I got in and turned the key in the ignition.

Sparks zapped and zinged along the base of the bench seat beneath us.

“Oh, shit!” I said, as flames burst from the floor of the Skylark and began to coil around our ankles.





Chapter 40