by Audrey Faye
Carly strolled up behind me, glaring daggers.
Lelo climbed out, disreputable backpack in one hand, huge paper bag in the other. “I have meatball subs, the rest of Rosie’s cheesecake, and iced coffee that’s probably still kind of iced.”
The daggers behind me melted into instant submission.
The kid was definitely dangerous. “We don’t need a chaperone.” Well, we probably did, but not one of the sixteen-year-old variety. “And we’re not headed back yet.”
“I know.” Lelo’s voice was suspiciously chirpy. “I just thought you might be hungry.”
I had a snarky, pithy reply right on the tip of my tongue. And then I remembered she had parents—crappy ones who had ditched their responsibilities and left a cool kid to grow up way too fast. Kind of like a couple of assassins I knew. “We’re always hungry.” I could hear the gruffness in my throat and hoped like hell she was too overwhelmed by meatball fumes to notice.
No such luck. Her eyes peeled away my armor like it was phyllo dough.
Rosie just watched us all quietly. The glint of humor was gone, and I was choosing to ignore what rode in its place instead.
We weren’t heroes. We were two messed-up women trying to shine a little light in the world through our cracks. I turned and headed back to the van, scuffing my boots on gravel as I went. Maybe I’d get lucky and the aliens would pick now to arrive.
A shadow landed at my shoulder as I reached for the van door.
“I know about people who run away and don’t do the jobs they’re supposed to do,” said Lelo quietly. “You’re not those people.”
I yanked open the door and ignored the tightness in my throat.
She had a lot more faith in us than we did.
~o~0~o~
If four hundred miles hadn’t convinced Lelo to ditch us, I wasn’t sure what would. We’d made it halfway around the great state of Pennsylvania, Carly carefully keeping us to the speed limit and humming tunelessly—her version of meditation.
But the meatball subs had run out hours ago and mine hadn’t been the only stomach rumbling. It’s the best excuse I have for what happened next.
Carly and I have eaten at dingy roadside pubs before, but it seemed like a mistake with the kid in tow, especially when the beer only ran to stuff that lives in cans and tastes like the raunchier end of dog pee. But we’d ordered burgers, kept our mouths shut, and tucked Lelo in a back booth where hopefully nobody could see her.
It almost worked. When someone writes the sad, pitiful biography of my life, I want them to include that. Our burgers got delivered, I got two bites of overcooked cow, and contentment almost managed a landing.
And then the hotshots walked in.
You know the kind—the ones who look like Top Gun meets Wall Street. Young, swaggering, and smelling of money and entitlement.
I could see the fear in Carly’s eyes—and I knew it would last about three more seconds. Burger time was over. I stood up, fingers clamped around Carly’s wrist. “Time to head out.” We’d have to survive on kale chips.
She didn’t move. Didn’t try to shake me off, either, but I could feel the steel coiling. “There are seven of them, J. Seven.”
Oh, shit. I didn’t spare enough eye time to count the guys strolling over to the bar. I knew Carly could count—now, and five years ago when she’d spent the worst night of her life in a frat house with the younger cousins of the hotshots who had just walked in. “Not the time, not the place.”
It was like talking to a deaf Sumo wrestler.
I looked around frantically for the guy tending bar. They usually read shit about to happen pretty well, and I needed allies. Fast.
Shit, shit, shit. I also needed to get rid of a sixteen-year-old kid. I grabbed the keys off the table and pitched them at Lelo’s head. “Go get in the van and stay there.”
Her eyes snapped five shades of green temper. “Like hell.”
There was a limit to how many people I could get out of this in one piece, and Carly’s skin was molten under my gripped fingers. I tried murder by steely glare. “Go. Now.”
The first hotshot to hit the bar turned around, sweeping his eyes over the diner’s patrons. And then his gaze settled on Carly, and I knew we were well and truly fucked. His swagger said this wasn’t the first place they’d stopped in their backroads pub crawl. And the way his friends pulled into formation at his back said they’d hunted together before.
Carly vibrated under my hand as everything in her prepared to strike.
I flung ideas at my mental wall, knowing all of them were pure crap. This fight had never been mine, and she wouldn’t let it be now.
The hunters stopped. Mostly. Alcohol had one of them in the back stopping a little more slowly than the others. Lelo snickered as they jostled against the guy in the front.
I wasn’t laughing. Alpha male, asserting his turf.
If he smiled, someone was going to end up dead.
And then a shadow moved on my left.
“Pretty.” Lelo sidled up to Carly’s side, eyes sliding up and down the guy on the prowl. “Too bad you’re not my type.” She offered up a shit-eating grin. “Or hers.”
And then she turned to Carly and kissed her silly.
~o~0~o~
I didn’t mention the speed we were flying back down the highway toward Lennotsville. Anything that put miles between us and seven gobsmacked idiots was worth dancing naked, any place, any time.
I looked at Carly, who still seemed a little shell-shocked. “We should have tried that sooner.”
Lelo gave me the look kids give doddering elderly people. “You’re lesbians, and this is just occurring to you now?”
It was apparently time to let one of our lesser secrets out. “She is. I’m not.”
Our passenger just snorted. “Me neither. You guys need to work on your recruiting techniques.”
We weren’t recruiting, dammit.
Carly was coming out of catatonia. She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Then why’d you kiss me?”
“Uh, so you didn’t knife some guy in a bar?” Lelo gave me another one of her looks. “Is she always this dumb?”
There were no good answers to that. “So. How about some kale chips?”
Both the other inhabitants of the van ignored me. And the guilty nudge under my ribs was getting uncomfortable. The kid had put a quick end to a really big problem, and we hadn’t said one word of thanks. “That was smart thinking.” Hotshot and company had reversed thrusters sharply. It had been a really convincing kiss—and I hadn’t let any of us stand around long enough for them to have the obvious follow-up thought.
Lelo grinned. “I had to kiss Tommy Glendon in drama club when I was thirteen. This was way less gross.”
Carly snickered. “Thanks, I think.”
“No problem.” The hero of the night tucked a pillow behind her head and scrunched into a shape that would only be comfortable for a sixteen-year-old pretzel. “Wake me up when we get back to Lennotsville.”
I watched the bemused smile that slid onto Carly’s face and knew two things. She was going to be okay—the frat house was gone from her eyes now.
And we owed Lelo. Big.
CHAPTER 14
“Good morning.”
I had only peeled one eye open, and that only far enough to stumble to the bathroom without hitting a wall. I was a long way from having found my words yet.
The siren smell of coffee tickled my nose. “Drink, you’ll feel better.”
That was almost enough to get my other eyelid moving. My hands reached out, blind men stumbling in the dawning light of a world promising caffeine. A mug that felt blue settled into my seeking grasp. I croaked something that might sound like “thank you” if you had really tuned ears or a good imagination.
“Pancakes in a few, if Carly can manage to flip them over without burning them.”
“Hey, I heard that.”
My partner never cooks. Must have been one hell of a kiss. My brain
registered the first sips of coffee going down with pathetic gratitude. I yawned bigger than the Jersey Turnpike tunnel and made my eyes focus. “What time is it?”
Lelo grinned from her spot leaning on the wall. “Do you really want to know?”
I knew we’d gotten back at three a.m. “Probably not.”
“Get a move on, lazybones. We have work to do.” Carly was so damn chipper she was probably going to break out into Broadway show tunes next. Which would be a disaster for anyone in three blocks with decent pitch.
I headed for the bathroom, mug securely ensconced in my hands.
When I came back out five minutes later, both eyes were working, I could see the faces at the tiny kitchen table, and nothing smelled burnt. That boded well.
And then Lelo looked at me with her green eyes full of innocence and sunny mornings and the fierce urgency of now, and I knew we were in big trouble. Chad Berrington hadn’t gone away while we were driving all over the state engaging in stupid activities of various kinds. I sighed and poured myself more coffee. “I don’t know, kid.”
She looked almost sorry. “I didn’t ask.”
Someday she’d understand just how much of what passed for human conversation happened without words.
Small, competent fingers picked apart the remnants of a pancake. “There has to be a way.” She looked up, eyes hot. “I get that you don’t want to scare him with a knife in an alleyway, and I guess I understand why.”
Then she was a lot clearer on things than either of the two assassins at her table.
Carly stuck a fork in a stack of pancakes almost as high as her chin. “That doesn’t mean we’re out of ideas.” She cast a sidelong glance my way.
Sometimes being the ideas person in a partnership truly sucks, especially on only one cup of coffee. So I punted—I eyed Lelo and hoped I wasn’t making my first really big mistake of the morning. “We usually get our best brainwaves while we’re driving. You logged a bunch of hours with us yesterday—did you catch hold of anything good?”
The kid raised an eyebrow. “My ideas all involve him ending up dead. If you want to be gentle with him, you have to come up with the plan.”
Making a guy piss himself in an alleyway didn’t usually get us called gentle.
“We could stalk him.” Carly was making serious headway on her pancake mountain. “Video live feed to YouTube. The Jerk of Lennotsville.”
Lelo snorted. “That will only work if he gets naked.”
I’d dig out my eyes with a melon baller before I watched that. “You’ll just end up making him more famous, right before you get arrested on whatever the heck they charge stalkers with these days.” Along with all the other crimes the authorities would discover if they did even a cursory search of Carly’s belongings. “We try to avoid jail time, remember?”
“Spoilsport.” My partner didn’t seem all that concerned—maybe all the maple syrup was affecting her judgment.
Lelo was making pretty good progress with her own pancake stack. “We could drug him and dress him up in some of Mrs. Beauchamp’s sexy underwear.”
If Mrs. Beauchamp’s underwear matched her car, that was a very frightening thought.
“I know a hypnotist.” Carly was happier than I’d seen in days. “She could probably make him dance like a duck.”
“Underwear first.” Lelo’s eyes were bright and shiny and full of hell.
I threw both hands up like neon stop signs. If I let Carly and the kid keep driving the plans, we were going to plow straight into the side of an eighteen-wheeler. Not to mention the amount of brain bleach we were going to need if we kept heading down the track of Mrs. Beauchamp’s underwear.
There had to be a way to do this, but I wasn’t going to find it if I couldn’t hear myself think.
Lelo opened her mouth, and Carly sliced her hand across her throat. “Shh. J’s thinking.”
I had no idea if bright-eyed sixteen-year-olds knew how to be quiet, but I needed some mind space that wasn’t full of amped-up assassins and their minions and visions of idiot men quacking like ducks. And somewhere in the maple syrup, my brain had found the end of the thread to start thinking from.
I hadn’t been totally oblivious to the lesson in the bar. Sometimes a smart, creative answer lies beyond the edges of your comfort zone.
So I closed my eyes, let the past week flow over the back of my eyelids, and tried to imagine a solution that would make me squirm like hell. Carly, raring to pit her knives against a guy who thought she mattered for all the wrong reasons. Lelo, digging for dirt and mad as hell that she couldn’t make it clump together. Me, watching from the sidelines.
I felt the sun warming my right arm. Touching my right cheek. Some people think in fairly straight lines when they’re problem solving. I’ve never been one of them.
Scenes from The Cuppa joined the party behind my eyelids too. Easy, ordinary community, with the usual bubbling brew of fretting babies and minor squabbles, neighborly intent and steadfast connection. The less-visible bits of flotsam. The side glances and hints and downcast eyes that were hairs on the flea of the dog that was Chad Berrington.
That was possibly an insult to dogs. Or fleas. But somehow, we needed the flea hair in the brew.
And then I had it—one of those weird epiphanies that always seems to happen at mile marker forty-seven on a road to nowhere important.
For me and Carly, the zone of comfort has always had the two of us in it and no one else. But if I let go of it being the two of us who needed to fix this, the answer was a bright, shiny beacon. I opened my eyes and smiled at the two faces watching me. “I know what we need to do.”
Carly raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Spill.”
I could, but I might as well get her squirming too, because she was going to hate this idea at least as much as I did. “Nah. Not here, not yet. We need Rosie’s help.”
Carly raised her other eyebrow. I ignored her and the itchy feeling between my shoulder blades. Sidekicks with insider knowledge of the town were necessary for this gig—we could leave them at the side of the road when we finished.
“Okay.” Lelo flashed a grin and reached for her backpack. “How do you guys feel about poker?”
I had a not-so-vestigial urge to get back in the van and drive until we fell off the edge of the earth. Poker was so not our game—I didn’t have a gambler’s chutzpah, and Carly had more tells than your average cranky two-year-old. “We suck.”
“Even better.” Lelo slung her pack over her shoulder and headed for the door. “I need somebody I can beat, and Rosie thinks best when she’s bluffing.”
I could feel the voice of sanity inside my head, protesting hoarsely. And sighed.
Sanity never wins the poker game.
CHAPTER 15
It was a damn good thing we weren’t playing strip poker. I measured the dwindling pile of chips sitting on the table in front of me and hoped we got to the take-down-Chadwick part of the evening soon. As far as I could tell, Rosie never bluffed.
She grinned at me over the top of her cards.
I’m smart enough not to tangle with that, especially when the shark grin came from a woman who had pulled three aces out of her butt last hand. “I’m out.”
Lelo looked at her cards, pouting. Which might have been real—or not. We’d only played five or six hands so far, and I’d lost some chips to the teenager in our midst too.
Carly had accumulated the biggest pile through sheer freaking luck. Which probably wouldn’t last, but that, along with a plate-load of brownies, had my partner more relaxed than she’d been in ages.
It was getting hot in here, in more ways than one. I shrugged out of my flannel shirt and draped it over the back of my chair, wondering wryly how I’d ended up this many people away from hermitude.
Rosie studied my newly unveiled t-shirt. “I know where the lesbian part comes from.” She raised a flirty eyebrow at Carly and then swung back to me. “Does that make you the assassin?”
I took a si
p of my water, not all that used to being outed as straight. Flannel fooled most of the people most of the time.
Rosie grinned and eyed Lelo. “You decided whether you roll gay or straight yet, kiddo?”
Lelo grinned back. “Nope. I’m flexible.”
I’m old. That didn’t used to be a category.
Carly snickered and started dealing. “She kissed me.”
That cracked the gypsy florist’s poker face. “Reeeeeally.”
Carly shrugged. “Seven guys in a bar were going to be dumb, I was going to be dumber, and Lelo stepped in to save the day.”
I saw it—the sharp moment where Rosie started to put together the t-shirt and the facts and the too-bland words about a moment of real trouble. And then I saw her adroitly shift away from things private and unsaid, shaking her head at Lelo instead. “That was really dumb, girlfriend. You know the thing most guys fantasize about more than hot chicks? Two of them.”
It was really obvious Lelo hadn’t put that part together before now, but I had, and faster than the seven sloshed guys. I handed the kid a brownie, which seemed better than my sudden inane desire to ruffle her hair. “Beginner’s luck.”
Lelo contemplated her cards, cheeks slightly pink. Carly nudged her elbow. “Don’t let them get you down. Nothing’s that dumb if it works.”
I could hear the light teasing tone, and the gratitude underneath—and I was pretty sure my partner had pitched the latter loud enough for everyone else to hear it, too. Which is about as close as I’ve ever seen her marshmallow heart get to the surface with an audience watching.
I cleared my throat and thwacked a hand down on my cards to provide cover for her retreat. “Twenty-five to hold.” That was rich for this hand.
“Feeling flush, are you?” Rosie moved chips in to call and eyed the skinny kid in black. “So. Are these two just fresh meat to pad my lifetime poker victories, or have you guys finally figured out what to do with Chadwick Fuckwit Berrington?”
That was a way more effective change of subject than my throat clearing.
