2 Sisters Detective Agency(54)

“I know because her foot is still attached,” Vera growled. “He’s not shooting at us with a BB gun.”

The crew was silent. Vera needed to rally them. There were times for abandoning the flock and times for using them as cover. Safety in numbers. She swallowed hard, forced herself to soften her tone.

“I’ve seen a gunshot wound before,” Vera said. “My dad brought a guy home once who took a hit in a robbery. They had a deadbeat doctor treat him in our garage. That wound was from a 9mm gun. Whatever he’s shooting at us with, it’s bigger than that.”

“What the hell are we gonna do here?” Sean asked. “If we break cover, he’s going to kill us.”

“If he wanted us dead, we’d be dead,” Vera said. “He’s playing with us. He just wants to watch us squirm. In a couple of minutes emergency services are going to be swarming all over this place, and we’ll be trapped here like sitting ducks.”

“I can’t go to jail.” Sean ripped his mask off, gripped his hair in both hands. “I’ll kill myself before they put me in there.”

“You’re all being so dramatic.” Vera laughed suddenly. She looked at Ashton, but he was still worryingly silent. Vera didn’t like that. She knew he was planning something. He was too stupid to think and talk at the same time. Maybe the boy would run off on his own, abandon them all. It would be the first smart thing he did in years. She couldn’t let him do that. She needed to make a gesture. Show them she was still in control.

Vera slowly rose. Then, with more confidence, she stepped out into the street between the cars. She could hear Penny screaming in protest. Sean begging her to come back. But the only sound that was important was the pocking of bullets at her feet. Each time a bullet hit, she tried not to flinch. Not to glance down at the sparks hitting the asphalt. The window of the car behind her blew out, the bullet missing her shoulder by mere inches. Vera knew he could hit her if he wanted to, but she wasn’t going to play his game. She lifted up her arms, her pistol in one hand, and smiled broadly in the light of the streetlamps in the direction where she guessed the shooter was hiding.

“Let’s go, motherfucker!” she roared. “I’m right here!”

Lights came on in a house behind her. Then at the house next to that. The sirens in the distance had grown much louder. Smoke was flooding the streets, smudging the streetlamps. She heard voices shouting. A bullet hit the car beside her. Sean shouted out in terror. Vera bit her tongue to stifle a surprised sound as the pistol in her hand was ripped from her fingers by a passing bullet, the shot clanging hard against the muzzle, sending shock waves up her arm and into her shoulder.

“I’m coming for you!” she called.

Lights came on in the house next to where she had guessed the killer was hiding. The firing stopped. Vera smiled triumphantly as dogs barked and people stirred in the properties nearby.

It was Ashton’s hands that gripped her shoulders, turned her to go. She picked up her still-intact gun. Vera looked back into the darkness and fought the desire to run up there, to shoot wildly ahead of her into the trees. Instead, she followed her crew as they disappeared into the night.

She knew the real confrontation wasn’t too far away.





Chapter 71



As soon as I stepped through the door off the Strand into my father’s house, every kid in the building erupted into cheers. Those who actually saw me started it, and the sound carried onward and upward through the levels to the rooftop. I noticed the Bruh guys walking out through the living room toward the front door carrying pieces of scaffolding. A smart choice. It wouldn’t have been long before teen boys tried to top my dive with backflips and tumbles of their own.

Vegas and two of his guys had discovered the door to Baby’s bedroom that she had hidden ingeniously behind a bookcase on the third floor. The bookcase lay on its side, pushed over carelessly, books and trinkets spilled out onto the carpet. This was a quieter space in the house. The door to my father’s bedroom I’d passed on my way up the stairs had been closed, I assumed because teens were making out in there or worse.

Vegas was sitting on Baby’s bed next to an incredibly nervous-looking teenage girl with spiky black hair. His two thugs were leaning against the window, seemingly waiting for us to arrive. Vegas’s hair was tied back in a ponytail, and his boots were a startling fuchsia-dyed leather branded with patterns of violets.

“Jesus. What size shoe are you?” I said, trying to take all the danger out of the room, to show that I wasn’t afraid. “If I didn’t know you were the world’s most disgusting human being, I’d think of buying those gorgeous things right off your feet.”

Vegas glanced down at his boots, uncrossed his legs, and planted his feet on the carpet.

“We’ve finished messing around, Rhonda,” Vegas said. “It’s time to transition our relationship into reduction mode.”

“You’re firing me?” I looked at Baby, made like I was miffed. “But I’m your key assets holder!”

“Very funny, Rhonda.” Vegas smiled. He reached out with his long arm and scooted the teenage girl a little closer to him, hugged her waist in tight with his. Her eyes were wide, pleading with me. “But I’m being serious now. I want to terminate our relationship, and the only way I can do that is if you tell me where my stuff is.”