The Frame-Up (The Golden Arrow #1)(36)
Then I think about Lawrence, and Ryan, and how I don’t want any more questions because I don’t want to lie to them any more than I have to. “How about I meet you at your house?”
A look of surprise crosses his face, then curiosity, then acceptance and something that looks like amusement. Like he’s figured me out. “I’m all for equal opportunity driving, so sure.”
“Just text me your address, and I’ll be at your house around nine?”
“Sounds good.” He pauses and looks at the sky, then back to me. “That was pretty impressive back there, Michael-Grace. I think you definitely proved your worth as a teammate today.”
My heartbeat zings a little in my ears, and I smile back, opening the door to the car. “I did kick a little ass, didn’t I?”
I start my engine, and the headlights cut a swath through the gathering night like Captain America’s shield deflecting enemy fire. I watch Matteo walk back toward the crime scene, a feeling of isolation washing over me. The media frenzy has died down, the reporters have gone home, and a blanket of eerie silence covers the street. Not a car in sight. It rained while we were in the warehouse, a late-afternoon squall that has heightened the smell of gasoline and rotting fish. I roll down my window, trying to ventilate my car, and glance out at my now clearer view of the alleyway.
Is that the flapping of a cape up there on top of a warehouse? My heart stops in my chest.
I squint, sure I am seeing things in the dying light of the evening. But no, my eye catches it again. The flap of fabric on the rooftop. The Golden Arrow? Come to watch us piece together the puzzle?
Immediately I throw my car into reverse, hardly looking behind me as my tires squeal on the pavement in my zeal to back up. I have to get my headlights to illuminate more of the alley. When I think I’m far enough back, I throw caution to the wind and get out of my car, cell phone clutched in my hand. If I can get a picture of him, we’ll have something to go on. I race forward, eyes on where I last saw the fabric. I can now make out the form of a person, but it looks . . . wrong as I approach. The Golden Arrow isn’t moving. He isn’t on the roof; he’s dangling from it.
I gasp and run forward, hand at my throat, disregarding the drizzle of rain pattering on my head. The figure doesn’t move at the sound of my approach, but I finally see why. The dim light of my headlights reveals a stuffed dummy, hung by its feet off a fire escape. A cape dangles down toward the street below, a huge golden arrow stuck straight through the chest. The words “You’re next, Batman” are written in black paint on the cape. Or at least I hope it’s paint. A shiver runs down my spine. The warning is clear—the drug dealers know that there is a civilian defender involved, and they’re threatening the well-being of whoever is interfering with their business. Too bad the Golden Arrow could be someone I know, and I’m stuck in the middle of this mess, and Matteo too. It’s the first moment I realize that I could seriously get hurt helping with this case—what if the drug dealers are hanging around waiting for someone to leave the crime scene who would be easy to kidnap? I punch Matteo’s number before sprinting back to my car. I don’t want to be caught anywhere near this ominous sign. I tell Matteo what I’ve seen and hang up the phone.
This is no cat-and-mouse game; this is life or death comic-book style, and since the rest of the team seems to be refusing my advice, it’s up to me to figure it out before someone I know ends up like that dummy.
CHAPTER 13
A peppering of sand hits my car as I cruise down the lonely desert road. The address that Matteo texts me is outside the city. Way outside the city. I’m feeling like I could take one wrong turn at a cactus and end up on the planet from Dune. In fact, when I pull up to the modest walled house that Siri insists is the right one, there’s not another building in sight. In any direction.
I would have pictured Matteo in a trendy downtown loft drinking sangria on his rooftop garden patio with his neighbors. It’s so quiet out here, my steps on the gravel sound like something out of a badly produced horror movie.
“Glad you made it!” Matteo stands at the front door across a courtyard landscaped with a plethora of rocks, colorful blooming cacti, succulents, and tall spiny grass—a little capsule of the best of the desert. An oasis. “Come on in. The gate is unlocked.”
“Paranoid much?” The gate swings open on silent hinges, even though it weighs at least twenty pounds, and I close it behind me with a clang. Although if it were just a tiny gate between me and endless desert, maybe I’d be paranoid too.
He shrugs. “I bought it this way, and it keeps out the coyotes.”
“Coyotes?” I shoot a trepidatious look over my shoulder. I’m all for small, fluffy, lovable dogs, but I’m not a wildlife lover. It’s why you don’t ever catch me at the beach. Or in the pool. In addition to my translucent pale skin that burns in the merest suggestion of sunlight, I may or may not also be convinced that sharks can and will live anywhere. For instance, in swimming pools.
Matteo laughs. “They’re not out right now. They’re mostly nocturnal.” He turns to go inside. “I mean, unless they have rabies.”
I skitter up the path to the porch. “Yeah, that makes me feel better.”
“Hence the gate,” he says with a wink, sweeping the front door wide.
The house is simple and contemporary on the outside and wide open, daylit, and clean on the inside. We stand in a living room filled with square gray furniture, a glass fireplace flanked by huge windows with views to the desert, and an art deco lamp. To the right sits an open kitchen—simple, modern—and to our left is a short hallway to what I assume is the bedroom and the bathroom. It’s so neat, clean, and contemporary, it looks like I walked straight into a design magazine. The magazines I like to glance through, not the ones dripping tassels and jacquard. Sleek and professional. Grown-up. I slip off my bright-yellow flats and set them next to his leather shoes.