2 Sisters Detective Agency(50)
“I lift.” I shrugged. “I lift better than you.”
“That’s what you think.” He puffed up. “That wasn’t my best performance on the rooftop this morning. I’m recovering from bursitis.”
“What’s Bruh?” I asked, gesturing to the logo.
“It’s an app. Tracks your protein intake, lifting schedule. Stuff like that. You can order supplements and share your progress with other bruhs.” He spotted a troupe of girls going into my father’s house behind me. “Party at your place, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You and your bruhs are invited. But you have to bring something with you.”
Baby was pouring cocktails in the kitchen when I arrived back at the house with my crew of meaty tech heads. I led them through the crowd without stopping to speak with her, pushing aside kids to make way for the steel poles they were carrying. A bunch of kids on the stairs using a deodorant can as a flame thrower to amuse the crowd stopped what they were doing to follow us up to the roof, where the bruhs dropped the poles and left to get some more.
There were about a hundred young people standing around the pool, no one with so much as a toe in the water. I stood and felt sad for them, for the simple fact that being the first one to jump in the water on a sweltering night like this was social suicide to these kids. The weight-lifting coders from next door had brought the painter’s scaffolding from the side of their house up the stairs and to the edge of the pool and erected it within twenty minutes. Baby appeared beside me, her eyes bleary from drink. She inhaled deeply from her vape pen, and I resisted flicking it out of her mouth.
“You said ten minutes,” she said.
“You can’t get good help these days,” I replied.
One of the dudes had climbed to the very top of the scaffold, tested its sturdiness by rocking it back and forth. He gave me the thumbs-up and climbed down. Even with her head swimming with booze, Baby soon caught on to what I was doing.
“You wouldn’t,” she sneered.
“Hold my drink.” I grinned.
Chapter 65
Height is relative. Twenty feet experienced while standing above thick landing pads, safety-harnessed under the watchful eye of professionals, feels exactly like what it is: twenty feet. The same twenty feet experienced from the top of rickety scaffolding being buffeted by sea breezes, standing above concrete and water and the watchful gaze of a hundred drunk teenagers, feels like one hundred feet or more.
I climbed the scaffolding with difficulty, my legs trembling, mentally erasing the stupid gesture I was performing one step at a time even as I performed it. I envisioned myself climbing down. Smiling gingerly and apologizing as the bruhs disassembled the scaffolding. Melting into the crowd in embarrassment as I had at a thousand social gatherings before—senior prom, the Watkins county fair ball, a singles dance I had ventured into once. The farther up the scaffold I climbed, the deeper my regret stretched, until there I was: at the top.
The view was spectacular. The gold, glittering coast stretched to the left and right of me, sparkling arms reaching out into the black sea, Malibu to the right, Palos Verdes to the left, the city over my shoulder, dancing towers of stars. The pool below blazed neon-blue with underwater lights, and as I stood there, I realized the crowd around the pool had just about tripled. Kids were rushing into the house to gather their friends. People were standing on the walls around the rooftop, squeezed into the doorway and hall, whooping and cheering at the edges of the pool, leaning back so they wouldn’t be forced into the water by the press of people.
It seemed like every single kid in attendance got out their phone and started filming all at once. Three hundred bright white lights. Even with the wind in my ears, I could hear individual jeers and insults.
“You won’t do it!”
“Come on, fatty! Get down!”
“Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!”
“Thar she blows!”
I looked down and saw that Baby had folded her arms triumphantly, her head cocked, listening to the chants all around her. I took my hand off the rail and stepped to the edge of the scaffolding, my toes hanging over the gaping nothingness. I pressed my palms together like an Olympic diver.
Chapter 66
A scramble, a crash. Vera, Sean, and Ashton backed up hard, crushing Penny, the last into the house, against the closed door. The deadbolt had clicked into place automatically, and it stuck slightly as Ashton grabbed at it over Penny’s head. He heard a scatter of paws on tiles and gave up on the back door. He whirled around, followed the shadows before him into a room off the hall. The door slammed shut, and immediately there came the sound of huge paws scratching at it, wet, snapping barks coming through the wood loud and clear.
“Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!”
“What the—”
“Turn on the light! Find a light!”
Ashton backed into a table. Sean found a light switch, revealing a spacious office, leather wing-back chairs, and a U-shaped desk. Ashton caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the big window to the street, the black skull mask hiding his tensed jaw and bulging eyes.
They looked absurd in the reflection. Four kids playing dress-up games. Ninjas in black clothing, Sean and Penny with shiny new claw hammers and Vera with her lock-picking kit still in hand. Ashton’s weapon of choice this time was a wooden baseball bat. He looked at it, gripped in his gloved fist. Even if he went out swinging like Max Muncy, he couldn’t take down three huge German shepherds before one of them tore his throat out.