Keep Her Safe(24)

Killing the engine, I reach for the gym bag.

And then second-guess that move.

Is getting out of my car with a pile of cash safe? Checking my rearview mirror, I spot a gangly man leaning against a fence and watching me, looking all kinds of shady. I can’t tell if he’s just curious or if he’s looking for an opportunity. I outweigh him by at least forty pounds and I can hold my own if I have to, but I’m guessing people who survive around here don’t rely on physical strength to protect themselves.

Just in case . . .

I punch the code into my portable safe and fish out my Glock.

As much as I’d feel safer with it on me, I don’t know that showing up at Gracie’s door with a gun is going to comfort either of us. Plus, I didn’t bring a holster—I left Abe’s where I found it, under the floor—and I didn’t even look up the carry laws for Arizona, too eager to hit the road.

Still, I want it easily accessible, should I need it in a rush.

Tucking it into the gym bag with the money, I leave both on the backseat. I step out of my SUV, locking the doors behind me.

A mangy mutt strolls past, making me falter a step. I’ve never seen a dog look so rough. It’s missing an eye and a chunk out of its floppy ear. Its dull brown matted fur looks like a soiled shag rug from the seventies. Still, it has a light trot to its step as it passes me, that one eye narrowed as if warning me away from the twitching rat within its jaws. I can’t help but grimace.

With a quick glance around me—creeper is still creeping, and the old lady is still rocking and staring, but at least not spitting—I climb the steps to the old trailer. Taking a deep breath, I knock on the door.

And wait.

No one answers. There’s no sound of footfalls, but I can hear the television through the cracked window. Maybe they left it on to make people think someone’s home? No, I can’t see people who live in a place like this bothering to take that kind of precaution.

Plus I smell the faint waft of a grilled cheese sandwich coming from inside. Someone’s definitely home.

I knock again.

Still no answer.

“Gracie?” I call out.

Nothing.

What do I do? I can’t sit around here, not with that old woman burning holes in my back. I guess I could find a hotel to chill for a few hours. Get some sleep and a shower. Come back later, when she feels like answering. She had better answer. I need to get rid of this money and move on.

“What’d you want with them?”

It’s the fence lurker, strolling over like he doesn’t have a care in the world. His white T-shirt clings to his body, colored with streaks of dirt, the pits stained yellow. I’d say it hasn’t seen a washing machine in weeks, if ever.

Them. So Gracie doesn’t live alone. Is she with a boyfriend? A friend? Does she have a kid already? What does she look like? I had a lot of hours to kill during my drive last night, and I spent some of them wondering if I’d recognize her.

I turn to face this guy dead-on, keeping my stance casual and my voice relaxed. “I’m a friend of the family.”

His calculating gaze drifts over me from head to toe and then shifts to my Cherokee. “I ain’t seen you ’round here before, friend.”

I don’t like this guy, and it has nothing to do with him living in this dump. He has bad news written all over him, like if I were lying in the gutter, he’d ask me how hurt I am so he’d know how hard I’d fight when he went through my pockets. I’m regretting not tucking my gun into my pants. At least he’s not carrying, from what I can see.

I decide to keep playing it cool. “That’s because I’ve never been here before. Do you know if anyone’s home?”

He pauses as if to consider my question, his mouth twisting up as he sucks on his teeth. “Dina’s ’round.”

So she does live here after all. I don’t trust this guy at my back, so I stay facing him as I knock again. After ten seconds and no answer, I say, “She must be asleep.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He smirks, like that’s somehow funny.

That settles that. I’ll have to come back later.

I’m a second away from heading to my SUV when a female yells, “Hey, you! On my steps!” I can tell she’s pissed before I even spot her charging toward me.

Her striking face tight with anger.

Her haunting pale green eyes locked on me.

A switchblade open and gripped in her fist.





CHAPTER 9


Grace

I pulled my knife from my purse the second I rounded the bend and saw the shiny SUV parked outside our trailer.

I’m going to catch one of the assholes who’s been enabling my mother’s heroin addiction red-handed. Finally.

“Let me guess, you’re doing it so you can pay for college?” I march past the black Jeep Cherokee, giving the quarter panel a swift kick with my heel. “And why the fuck are you here?” I sneer at Sims but don’t give him a chance to answer, walking right up to the steps. This guy’s big. Huge next to me, and built. But I’m banking on the fact that he grew up in a Stepford Wife subdivision with a basketball net out front and parents who think weed is the devil’s device, and he doesn’t know what to do with a crazy chick charging him with a knife.

By the wide-eyed look he’s giving me, I’m right. “What’s the matter? Poor little rich kid didn’t learn how to earn an easy living so he decides to sell smack?”