Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(109)

Provide the tips, and others will use them.

When I had started the support group a year ago, was this really what I’d wanted? Because this was all my advice, live and in color, playing out in front of me.

“Lola didn’t kill Roberto!” Roxy was saying. “Neither did Las Ni?as. They would’ve said if they had. Killing him would’ve been their honor.”

“Shut up!” Anya spat.

“You just don’t want to face that Roberto committed suicide. And it was your affair with Doug that drove him to it!”

“Shut up!”

Roxy didn’t. “What hurts worse? That your first boyfriend died to escape you, or that your next boyfriend, a fat old theater director, preferred Lola to you? I know she sent you the pictures. And that’s what drove you over the edge, isn’t it? That’s what made you kill my entire family!”

Another low growl, then Anya suddenly lowered her head and charged.

I never saw it coming. A bound woman facing down both a gun and pepper spray going on the offensive? Certainly, she caught Roxanna off guard. Roxy seemed to forget she even had a gun, raising the bright yellow can of bear spray instead. But Anya had closed the distance too quickly. She rammed straight into Roxanna, arms still trapped in front of her as they both went down.

“You shot my family!” Roxy was screaming.

“You murdered Roberto!”

“You don’t care. You were just using them. My sister. Manny. My mother. You bitch! How could you, how could you!”

Anya was kicking at Roxy. Then she rose halfway up and delivered a savage head butt to the face. Roxy snapped back on the floor, clearly seeing stars. In that moment, Anya scrambled up on her knees. She spied the gun, halfway across the stage, and lunged for it.

Just as I crossed the space and took her out in a flying tackle. The gun slid farther across the stage decking, away from both of us.

I scrambled to my feet, eyes already on the target. Pistol, five feet in front of me.

Which is why I was caught totally off guard by the gunshot that exploded from behind me.





Chapter 39


FIRE.

My arm. I could feel it burn. The bullet raking across the top of my right arm before burying itself in its intended target, Anya, now groaning on the floor. Blood. Her shoulder, my arm. I could feel myself spinning away. Shock. Pain.

I saw Jacob. No, the first woman, the way the blade had slid into her stomach, the look of surprise on her face. Or maybe it was the rapist, the one I’d doused in antifreeze and potassium permanganate before watching him burst into flames.

Maybe it was me, raking my fingers in and out of the boreholes of the coffin-shaped box, watching the blood dew on my fingertips before sliding slowly down.

My life. My choices. Blood. Pain. The ways I had healed. The ways I was still broken. As I dug my right thumb savagely into the bandage on my left hand and used the sweet, familiar pain of the embedded sliver to ground me again.

“Mike?” Roxanna said from behind me.

I blinked my eyes. Turning, I took in Mike Davis, who was magically holding a gun and pointing it directly at me. No, at Anya, whimpering on the floor behind my feet.

I finally got it. The skinny figure running away from the shooting this morning. The long hair peeking out from beneath the oversized hoodie. Mike Davis, wearing a wig to throw off suspicion. Mike Davis, doing everything in his power to protect his one true friend, Roxanna Baez.

“You’re the shooter,” I heard myself say, as if making the statement would help me accept the truth. “Hector Alvalos, Las Ni?as, me. You shot at me!”

“Mike,” Roxanna said again, her voice full of concern. She still held the can of bear spray, but made no move to approach.

There was a look on Mike’s face that worried me, too. As if he weren’t entirely here. As if he’d gone someplace darker, bleaker, from which he never expected to return.

“She hurt you,” he said softly. “She deserved to die.”

“You shot her,” Roxy said. “It’s over now. Please.”

A squeak of hinges; then a door opened to our left. Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren appeared, stalking into the amphitheater, having no doubt heard the gunfire and now leading with her own firearm. I didn’t know if I was grateful for her presence or even more worried about what was going to happen next.

“Flora,” she greeted me tightly.

“We’re okay. Kind of. Mostly. I got shot in the arm. Anya has a wound to the shoulder.”

On the stage floor, the girl moaned theatrically.

I frowned at her. “For God’s sake, the bullet lost most of its momentum striking me. Now shut up and stop reminding the guy with the loaded weapon that you’re still here.”

Mike was still trying to figure out a shot. But right now, my body blocked most of Anya’s. And while he’d accidentally hit me once, he didn’t seem ready to repeat the mistake. It occurred to me this was the longest I’d ever seen him stay so still. Because this was it, I realized. This moment, this conversation, this act, he considered the end.

“Roberto didn’t commit suicide,” D.D. was saying now, navigating the rows of theater benches, approaching closer, while keeping Mike in her line of sight.

“No! Lola didn’t do it!” Roxanna spoke up in frustration.

“She didn’t,” D.D. agreed. “It was you, Mike, wasn’t it? You, finally doing what had to be done to protect your friend.”