2 Sisters Detective Agency(77)
The girl smiled sweetly. A little sadly. Like she was giving in.
“Okay.” Vera nodded. She lifted her boot and eased back a step. I watched her raise her hands. “I’ll take the help.”
I rushed forward. The female cop did too. Behind me, I heard Summerly’s footsteps as we all ran toward the falling man who had let go.
For an instant, we completely forgot about Vera.
It was exactly what she’d planned.
Chapter 110
I reached Jacob first. I fell as he fell, clipping me with his weight. We both sprawled on the floor, with him draped over my thighs. I grabbed his uninjured hand. It was wet, slippery. I leaned sideways and dragged myself out from under him. It was the only thing that saved my life. Because Vera had backed up not to escape but to grab a gun from somewhere behind her. She first fired into the shoulder of the female cop on her right but immediately then leaned over the edge of the mezzanine and fired at the man I held by the hand. I’m sure she wasn’t bothered about also maybe killing me in the process.
She fired twice. The first bullet whizzed between our heads and pounded into the linoleum floor. The second shot was on target. I heard it zip past my ear, a sound like paper tearing. And then I saw his head buck, and a hole appear out of nowhere in his flat, wide forehead. I felt the mist of his blood on my cheeks and chin.
Jacob’s body went limp. I heard footsteps running, officers coming to assist the female officer on the stairs, quickly carry her out, as Jacob slipped away, his hand seeming to grip mine for a long time before his eyes rolled upward. I hung my head over him, too scared to look up in case Vera decided to fire again.
I heard doors swinging open and shut as she ran through them. The footsteps of officers in pursuit. But I knew there was no point in running after her. I had seen in Vera’s falsely sweet and innocent smile the confidence of a girl with a plan. I’d thought it was relief that I had given her, a sense that she was going to be taken care of now, that I would help unpick the tangled web she was so hopelessly coiled up in. But it was just the grin of a spider watching the last group of insects step into its trap, safe and secured, exactly where she wanted them.
When I dragged myself to my feet, I was alone. The cafeteria sprawled around me, signs of the violence that had occurred here only minutes before written in the broken glass and blood and spilled drinks on the floor. In the yawning space beneath the mezzanine, the killer named Jacob Kanular stared up at me, unseeing. I felt the failure of being unable to save him, or Vera, reach deep inside me, into my bones, and carve its mark.
Chapter 111
They fled. Baby gripped the wheel and Ashton hung on to his seat belt with gritted teeth as Baby took the car through the streets, blasting through red lights, cars honking and swerving in their rearview mirror. On the corner of Manhattan Beach Boulevard and Aviation, a minibus driver jerked the wheel and careened across the intersection into a lamppost to avoid their path. A man flipping and twirling a lime-green sign advertising two for one Baja fish tacos dove into a bush at the sight of the two teenagers speeding toward the sidewalk. The Maserati missed the curb by mere inches as Baby corrected and got them back on the right path.
It was only on the 110 heading north that she finally eased off the accelerator. Ashton unclenched his jaw with difficulty. In silence they rode, glancing now and then at the rearview mirror.
“I think we lost them,” Ashton said.
“Don’t jinx it,” Baby said.
Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. The road behind them emptied, then refilled with cars. None of them were mirrored chrome or violent purple or any other bright shade of the drug dealer rainbow. None of the cartel guys seemed to be following them.
“I think we lost them,” Ashton repeated. The teens looked at each other. Ashton felt laughs ripple up his throat, and then suddenly they both were laughing hard, swiping at tears, banging their fists on the dashboard, and whooping. He realized for the first time that he was drenched in sweat, his body cooling from the adrenaline.
“Well? Get the bag, man. Show me the goddamn money,” Baby said.
“Show me the moneyyyyyy!” Ashton cried.
“Show! Me! The moneyyyyyy!” Baby crowed, blasting the horn. Ashton dragged the bag into his lap and pulled out a wad of bills as thick as a block of cheddar cheese. He ripped the elastic band from the stack and threw it up, letting the cash rain down all over the two of them in the car.
Baby laughed. He loved the sound of it, low and smoky, a cool girl’s laugh. He remembered that laugh from school. Back when everything was uncomplicated, pure, wonderful. Being with Baby was taking him back to happier times.
“What are we gonna do now?” Baby said.
A silence descended on them. Ashton gathered up some money, felt it in his fingers, began stacking the bills back together. He pulled one of the packages of meth out of the bag and turned it over in his hands, tossed it onto the back seat.
“The smart thing for us to do is to find Rhonda,” Baby said. “Ask her where to go. We use some of the money to keep ourselves safe for now. We dump this car. Buy a new one. Hole up in a hotel. We buy some phones to call her and wait for her to come get us. She comes, helps us negotiate your surrender, and then packs me up to live with her and her cats forever in some loser town in Loserville.”
Baby eased out a long, slow sigh. Ashton kept stacking up the cash.