by Lucy Score
Josie kicked the door open and stood, brace-legged, in the opening. She fired off a couple of shots as Riley and company crawled through her spread legs. Gabe was too tall though and ended up taking Josie with him on his back like a pony. The platonic reverse cowgirl would have been funny had they not been escaping a gunfight at the Not So OK Corral.
The second the door slammed shut on the chaos inside they bolted, hunched over, for the Jeep.
“Son of a bitch!” Riley stopped short and looked in horror at the bullet-ridden, smoking hood of her vehicle.
The door sprang open again, and everyone braced for a hail of bullets. “You assholes aren’t leaving us behind!” Liz yelled as she and Deelia sprinted toward them. Deelia’s sparkler headband bobbed comically.
“We need wheels,” Josie said.
“You think?” Riley shot back. “Sorry. Uncalled for. I’m stressed.”
“Forgiven,” Josie said. “How about that one?” She pointed to a tinted-windowed Escalade.
They crouched and ran, and just as they got to the SUV, some joker shot the shit out of the windshield and set off the car alarm.
“Plan B,” Riley yelled.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! This one,” Liz said, pointing at a big, rusty pickup. “It’s Luther’s. He hides his keys in it, so we can’t take them from him.”
Luther’s pickup was indeed unlocked, and they unceremoniously piled in.
“Yes!” Riley hissed when the keys fell from the sun visor.
“Oh my God. Get your lard ass off me,” Liz screeched from the back seat.
They could hear sirens in the distance. Riley didn’t want to get caught at this particular crime scene. Not with hot evidence to deliver. And not with potential dirty cops answering the call.
“Everyone, buckle up and shut up,” she said, shoving the keys into the ignition. The engine gave a lazy wheeze and then roared to life. So did Ram Jam’s “Black Betty” at full volume from the CD player.
Josie twisted the volume knob to no avail.
“Turn it off,” Liz yelled, covering her ears and elbowing Deelia in the process.
“Ouch! My boob!”
“Volume’s stuck,” Josie shouted. She looked down at the knob in her hand. “And the off button doesn’t work.”
“Uh-oh. Here comes Dun, and he looks pissed,” Betsy observed from the back.
“Get down!” Riley yelled as she threw the truck into reverse and stomped on the accelerator.
“How many damn bullets does that guy have?” Josie complained as Dun opened fire.
Keeping her head low, Riley peeked over the dash, shifted into first, and floored it again… straight at Duncan. He squeezed off a shot that splintered a lovely little hole in the windshield right where Riley’s face should have been. There was a fleshy thud, and Riley cut the wheel to the left.
“You hit him!” Josie said, impressed.
“Is he dead?” Riley asked.
A shot rang out and broke the back window, causing the occupants, including Gabe, to shriek.
“Nope. Just limping. Now he’s really pissed,” Josie observed.
Riley edged around the building. “What kind of car does he drive?”
“Uh. Some shiny red sports car,” Betsy shouted over the music.
Riley spotted it parked outside the back door of Nature Girls. It was a spiffy little two-seater. She gunned the engine.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Liz screeched.
“Disabling his car.” The pickup truck smashed into the back end of the car, embedding it in the block wall.
“Uh, guys? He looks even madder now,” Deelia said as Dun limped around the side of the building.
Riley aimed for the alley and floored it again as a hail of bullets tore through the truck’s metal body.
“Wooooooo!” Betsy hooted.
“You guys, sometimes I get super car sick,” Deelia said from where she was crammed partially under Gabe’s bulk.
“Do not fucking puke on me,” Liz growled.
“Perhaps we could stop for some ginger ale,” Gabe offered.
“Nobody is puking, and we are definitely not stopping,” Riley said, gripping the wheel with her left hand and dialing her phone with her right. She couldn’t hear over the music and couldn’t tell if the call had connected or not.
“Nick, if you can hear me, we’re in big trouble!” she yelled.
49
9:50 p.m., Saturday, July 4
She took the turn onto the street a little too fast and nailed a trash can.
“You hit something else,” Josie reported.
“I noticed,” Riley shouted over the music. She stuffed her phone in her bra and prayed Nick was listening on the other end of the call.
“At least it wasn’t another person,” Josie yelled.
Riley made two more turns, took an on-ramp way too fast, and then popped out on the interstate. A dark sedan appeared behind her. “Heading south on 83 toward the bridge. We’ve got company,” she reported, gritting her teeth.
“Oh my God. She’s lost it. She’s talking to her tits,” Liz groaned.
“I talk to mine all the time. Don’t you?” Betsy said.
“I do not know if I speak to any body part,” Gabe mused. “Perhaps I should try it.”
“You people are not normal,” Deelia told them.
Josie rolled down her window and slammed fresh magazines in both guns.
“It looks like the cops,” Riley said. Red and blue lights flashed in her rearview mirror. “You can’t shoot at cops!”
Unless they were dirty. And there was only one way to find that out.
She jammed her foot down on the accelerator. The stolen pickup truck lumbered up to speed. There was a loud bang, and Betsy shrieked. “They’re shooting at us! Bad cops!”
Just then, the night sky lit up.
“They’re not shooting at us,” Riley insisted. Fireworks exploded to their right as City Island’s pyrotechnics crew went balls-to-the-Fourth-of-July-wall. There was a baseball stadium full of families enjoying both the nation’s favorite pastime and birthday.
She desperately wished she could have been one of them. Innocent. Normal. Her only concern the overpriced beer. But no. One stupid mistake, one seemingly innocent decision, and now she was going to end up in the Susquehanna River in a stolen car full of weirdos without ever having sex with Nick.
The car behind her veered into the left lane, and the vision of the driver’s plan hit her so hard her nose spasmed. Definitely bad cops.
“Everybody down!” Riley shouted and slammed on the brakes.
All five of her passengers hit the deck just as a hail of bullets took out the windows on the driver side.
“Pretty sure they’re shooting at us now,” Smartass Liz pointed out.
“You think?” Riley said. Glass rained down, and the smell of burning rubber assailed her nostrils. “We’re taking fire,” she yelled in the vicinity of her breasts.
If Nick was there and saying anything, she couldn’t hear him. Not over the fireworks or the screaming or the song wailing at full blast on the radio she couldn’t control.
She peered over the wheel. Black tire tracks snaked their way up to the stopped car sitting sideways across the bridge’s southbound lanes. Two men got out and slowly began to advance on the truck, guns drawn. There was only one way to get past gun-toting bad guys barricading the road to freedom.
“Everybody hang on,” Riley said.
“What’s the plan?” Josie asked calmly, racking the slides of her guns.
“I’m gonna ram them,” Riley said grimly. A shower of golden sparkles rained down from the sky above, drifting toward the inky black of the river.
Step one. Accelerate to thirty miles per hour.
“I blame you, Nick Santiago,” Riley yelled to her breasts again and mashed the gas pedal to the floor. Two men stood, legs braced guns blazing, in front of the sedan.
“Ohhhhhhmmmmmmm,” Gabe hummed from the back sea
t partially buried under a pile of waitresses.
“What the hell is Beefcake doing?” Liz demanded.
“I don’t know. Maybe we should hum with him?” Deelia suggested.
Riley couldn’t tell which pops and booms were gunfire and which were fireworks. It was hard to distinguish sounds over the music and the humming from the back seat.
Step two. Aim for the center of the front wheel.
Her passengers abandoned the communal ohm and started screaming. Moments from each of their lives flashed before Riley’s eyes.
“I should have stayed in school!”
“I never should have given that guy a BJ!”
“I should have had that second hot fudge sundae!”
Pop. Pop. Pop. The shooters peppered the truck with bullets.
Riley never should have answered the knock on her door two weeks ago.
Boom.
The impact was more satisfying than she thought it would be. She’d calculated just right, hitting the car on its front quarter panel and sending it in a slow spin that both shooters had to dodge by jumping over the barrier and into the northbound lanes. The car’s front end smacked into the concrete barrier. Josie climbed out of her window and stylishly shot out the two passenger side tires.
“Suck on that, assholes,” she shouted before sliding back into the pickup.
“Everyone okay?” Riley asked as they cruised toward freedom at eighty miles per hour.
One by one, the backseat occupants popped their heads up.
“No! Deelia blinded me with her dumb fucking headband,” Liz complained.
“Oh, shoot! I broke two more nails,” Betsy whined.
The song ended, and they could hear Josie’s phone ringing.
“Babe!” she shouted as the next track began. “You are not going to believe how many people I got to shoot at tonight!”
Riley’s brain was scrambling. They needed to rendezvous with Nick and Brian. They needed to change cars—because this one was stolen and she’d left hers at yet another crime scene—and they needed a safe place to go to regroup.
“What’s that? We’re burned? All of us? Now what the fuck did Nick do?”
Riley took the exit. “I have a plan,” she shouted.
“You guys. I don’t feel so good,” Deelia groaned loudly.
Gabe rolled down his window just in time. Deelia leaned over him to barf out the window as the fireworks finale began behind them. Another explosion, a little more fireball than firework, lit up the sky.
“Ha! I knew I hit the gas tank,” Josie said victoriously.
50
10:21 p.m., Saturday, July 4
Nick took the left off Front Street into the mansion’s driveway a little too fast and ended up jumping the curb. He left his SUV running in the front yard, not bothering to close the door.
Every light in the mansion was on.
He bounded up the porch steps and burst through the—permanently unlocked—front door.
“You do not need to pack your vinyl collection,” he heard Riley yell from the second floor. “Only essentials, people!”
“Riley!” he barked.
“Nick?” She leaned over the handrail. Burt the dog couldn’t fit his head through the balusters, so he jumped up, resting his front paws on the railing like a person.
She was fine. He told himself that as he took the stairs two at a time. She met him halfway and jumped into his arms. He hugged her hard. It was only relief that had him kissing her like his life depended on it. At least, that’s what he told himself.
He didn’t stop until her knees went out, and she sagged into him.
“I started a gunfight in a bar and then hit a cop car while they shot at us,” she said in a rush. “They were definitely bad cops.”
“You are in so much fucking trouble,” he said.
“I think we all are,” she said. She gave him another hard kiss on the mouth before pulling back. “Let’s go, people! We need to be gone in two minutes!”
“I wish you’d give us more notice,” Fred complained as he slipped past Riley on the stairs carrying two yoga mats, a backpack, and a humidifier.
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time a crazy murderer is after us,” she said.
If there was a next time, Nick was afraid he wouldn’t survive it.
“I need some help lashing my mattress to the roof,” Mrs. Penny yelled up from the first floor.
“Mrs. Penny, you are not taking your mattress. I don’t care how bad your back is,” Riley shouted. “There are beds where we’re going. Beds and no record players.”
Mr. Willicott, arms full of vintage vinyl, huffed and stomped back into his room.
“You need to get your things,” Nick said, pushing Riley up the stairs.
“On it. Oh, and someone pack a bag for Gabe,” she shouted over her shoulder.
“I’ll do it,” Lily volunteered with enthusiasm. “I can’t wait to see that man’s underwear.”
They jogged to the third floor as her neighbors creakily made their way out of the house with their most treasured possessions. “So, dear. How was your night?”
“I pissed off the mayor—who is definitely a bad guy, by the way—threatened the life of your ex-husband, and met your best friend,” he reported.
“You met Jasmine? Isn’t she the best? Wait, was she at the party? With the mayor?”
“Fat Tony promised to keep her away from him,” he said. “But you can call her from the road to make sure.”
“Okay. Mrs. Penny’s going to drive her minivan. It can fit all of them and their stuff. I’ll ride with you. Josie was taking Gabe and the three waitresses to my parents’ house, where Brian is meeting them. They’re going to ditch the stolen truck, load everyone else up, and meet us at the rendezvous point.”
Nick blinked.
“What?” she asked, unlocking her door.
“You’re pretty fucking hot when you’re all logistical,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and left him in the hall.
Since he was there, he checked the little Wi-Fi camera he’d hidden on the curio built into the wall near Riley’s door. The batteries would be good for another twenty-four hours. He hoped it would be enough time.
“What are you doing?”
Riley was standing in her doorway, holding a black duffle bag and eyeing him suspiciously.
“Just checking the camera,” he said.
“Checking the camera? You put a camera outside my apartment and didn’t tell me about it?”
“Relax,” he said. “It’s not like I put it in the toilet.”
“First of all, ew. Secondly—”
“Should I take the frozen lasagnas with us?” Lily wanted to know from the first floor. Burt galloped down to investigate.
“No, you should not!” Riley shouted back.
“What?” Lily said.
“No!” Riley said again.
“I can’t hear her. I’m just going to take three,” Lily bellowed.
“If we get out of here alive, it’ll be a miracle,” Riley muttered under her breath.
“Did you pack that fast?” Nick asked, looking at the bag in her hand.
“No. I keep a go bag. And back to this camera thing. How long has it been there? Sometimes I walk to the bathroom in my underwear, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” he said.
She punched him in the chest.
“Ow! I’m just kidding. I put it there the night Dead Rob tried to break in.”
“You could have told me you put a camera—” She stopped mid-sentence, eyes going wide. “Oh my God, Nick!” She hit him in the chest two more times.
“What?” He looked behind him in case Mayor Flemming or Duncan the No Necked Henchman had come up the back stairs.
“Dickie had a camera,” she said, hitting him again.
“What are you talking about?”
“Before he died, I didn’t hear him in his apartment and got worried,” she said, crossing the hall
to Dickie’s door. The crime scene tape was gone, but the latch had yet to be fixed. “I put my ear against the door to listen, and he scared the crap out of me when he flung it open. He said something about what was I doing with my big ear pressed up against his door.”
“I think you have very normal-sized ears,” Nick said.
“Thank you. I thought so, too, but then I wondered if one was bigger than the other and it was this secret people were afraid to bring up to me. Anyway, I think he had a camera out in the hall.”
“I thought you said he was technologically stupid?” he asked.
“He was,” she said, her gaze scouring the walls. “But how else would he know that I had my regular-sized ear up against his door?”
“It would have to be well-hidden for the cops not to find it,” he mused, eyeing the ceiling. And Dickie would need to be able to view the footage easily. Nick left her scouring the corner curio cabinet in the hall and opened Dickie’s door and flipped on the lights. The crime scene cleanup team had done good work erasing the biological matter, but the place still screamed miserable bachelor.
His gaze tracked to the flat-screen on the wall.
Playing the odds, he found the remote and pressed power. “Well, holy shit.”
“Did you find something?” Riley poked her head in the door. In the two seconds he’d left her alone, she’d gotten cobwebs in her hair and dirt all over her face.
He hooked his thumb toward the screen and stepped out into the hall.
“I knew it!” she said, dancing triumphantly in front of the screen showing a live video feed of the hallway and Dickie’s door. “I’m so smart! I’m so smart!” Burt returned from his sniffing reconnaissance and barked happily.
“Riley, I packed Gabe some thongs and tanning oil,” Lily hollered from the first floor, interrupting her victory song and dance.
“Pack him some clothing too,” she yelled back. “And deodorant! Mrs. Penny, is that a gaming system you’re lugging?”
She abandoned Nick to herd the neighbors.
Meanwhile, he took another look at the screen and started to calculate the angle and position of the feed. It took him less than two minutes to find the fingertip-sized hole in the ceiling tile. He grabbed one of the kitchen chairs from Riley’s apartment and dragged it over.