“What about your father? They can arrest him, too, you know.”
Oliver shrugged. “He gets what he gets. Him and my mom should have supported me all along. Not practice tough love and kick me out onto the streets like Mom, and even Dad only gives me dribs and drabs of money. They’re my parents. They owe me.”
She was starting to feel sorry for Polly and Gus. Oliver was kind of an asshole, which made sense because he was also kind of a murderer.
“They shouldn’t be wasting money on a rehab clinic. Hell, a chain of rehab clinics. They should help me first. Me.”
“You bet your ass they should!” Monaco called from the living room.
“Last chance or you die on the porch.” He raised the gun.
She stumbled forward, letting her second foot slide off the boards until it was trapped next to the first. She now stood halfway up to her knees in the floor. “I’m stuck. Maybe if you gave me a hand?”
She aimed for a little sheepish. Not someone who worried about being shot, or someone thinking of getting away. Just one person trapped in a floor to another. It could happen to anyone. Snow Cone licked her hand and whined.
“For God’s sake, shut up!” Oliver glared at the dog. “I should have left you where I found you.”
So he’d taken Snow Cone from Craig after Craig had died. Jenna was right—Snow Cone would never have abandoned her master.
Snow Cone whimpered, then sat quietly next to Sofia. Whatever happened, she wouldn’t willingly leave Sofia either. Sofia picked up the little dog and held her against her chest. Her heart was racing.
Oliver tramped across the lawn. Dry grass crackled under his feet. “How hard can it be to pull your damn foot out of the floor?”
She put down Snow Cone and waited for Oliver to get close. The closer the better. Brendan always said that guns were range weapons. Never let a suspect get close when you have a gun or you lose your advantage.
He stormed up the steps, then picked his way over to her across the broken boards.
Snow Cone grabbed hold of his pant leg and tugged.
“Stop it, Snow Cone!” Oliver whined, like a little kid.
His distraction gave Sofia her opening.
She crashed her head up and forward, driving it straight into Oliver’s crotch. He folded up just like Aidan had in the office. It was a perfect Nutcracker. Violet would have been proud.
She twisted the gun out of his hand and shouldered him off the porch. He landed on the dirt, groaning.
Red and blue lights strobed, and a siren wailed. A yellow car streaked across the lawn. Its headlights blinded her, but she kept the gun aimed straight at Oliver’s writhing form.
Aidan was out of the car in a flash. He took a quick look at the situation, then knelt on Oliver’s back while he snapped on handcuffs.
“The Nutcracker? Man, I feel your pain,” Aidan said.
Monaco stumbled out of the building and leaned against the door jamb, gazing at the lights with a vacant smile.
Sofia set the gun on the porch and climbed out of the hole. Snow Cone licked her ankles. She’d torn them open when she’d fallen through the floor, and they were bleeding, but she’d be OK. She picked up the little dog and Snow Cone licked her face. Her tail was a little gray blur. She kissed the little dog’s dirty pink ears. “I’m taking you home, girl.”
Aidan hauled Oliver to his feet and handed him to the policemen who had made it across the lawn.
“How did you find me?” she asked. “My phone?”
He held out a hand to help her off the porch. “Brandi Basher’s Harley. We traced its GPS.”
“How did you get ahold of Brandi?”
“She gave me her number at the club while you were flashing the reporters.” Aidan grinned. “She scores really high on my date-ability list.”
She bet Brandi did.
Aidan put his arm around her shoulders, and she realized that her legs weren’t interested in holding her up. She staggered next to him, and he steered them toward the ambulance.
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked. “This never happens in the movies.”
“It’s adrenalin,” he said. “It’ll pass.”
She held Snow Cone against her chest, and the dog nuzzled her under the chin. Craig was right. She was an anti-anxiety dog.
“She went to bat for me.” She’d reached an ambulance and sat down on the back bumper. “She distracted him for me, even though he could have kicked her across the porch.”
“She’s a good dog,” Aidan said, and Snow Cone’s tail wagged in agreement.
Sofia closed her eyes and leaned back against the cold metal side of the ambulance. Snow Cone licked her neck, and she patted the dog’s matted fur without opening her eyes. That was why Craig had loved Snow Cone so much. The dog had loved him, unconditionally.
That was why Oliver had taken her. Dogs didn’t practice tough love. They only knew about soft love. She stroked Snow Cone’s head.
Aidan sat next to her and put his arm around her, anchoring her. Red and blue lights blinked against her closed eyes. Someone draped a silvery blanket over her shoulders, and someone else knelt down and touched her injured ankles.
She’d take the dog back to Jenna. It was the least she could do.
CHAPTER 29
Sofia held onto the wriggling furry body. She had seen Snow Cone a week ago, but the dog acted as if she’d been away a million years, barking and licking her face.
The dog was transformed. Her fur was snowy white again, and her ears bright purple. She wore a matching purple collar with the old heart tag on it, and she smelled like grape candy.
“She missed you!” Jenna still looked drawn, but she didn’t look as exhausted as the first time they’d met. Snow Cone was helping her to heal. That, and the knowledge that her brother hadn’t taken his own life, either on purpose or by accident.
“You look great!” Sofia dropped a kiss on Snow Cone’s head.
“I’m sleeping better now, but I still miss him. Snow Cone misses him, too. Every evening, she wanders to the side door, where Craig used to pick her up, and whimpers.”
Sofia cleared her throat. She wasn’t about to cry. It was just allergies.
“Thank you for believing that my brother didn’t kill himself.” Jenna pulled Snow Cone in close to her heart. “It doesn’t bring him back, but I’m glad to know that the guy who killed him isn’t out there killing anybody else, even someone as annoying as Monaco Jane.”
Sofia smiled. She and Jenna had become friends, and it was good to hear her joking about something. “Monaco’s actually getting her act together. She’s going to business school.”
“Good for her,” Jenna said. “What about the other bad girls you met in rehab?”
“Brandi Basher is being Brandi Basher, but she hasn’t OD’d or anything, so that’s good. She and Amber are up in Canada working on an album together.”
“Any news from the police?” Jenna seemed to think that Sofia had an inside track with them.
“Just what they told us last time: Oliver is in jail. They have enough evidence to indict him, but they can’t find anything that links Polly and Gus to the murders. They think his parents didn’t know what Oliver was up to.”
“I’ll be glad if Polly turns out to be innocent,” Jenna said. “I don’t want Craig to have been wrong about her. I want to believe that she really did care about him.”
“I don’t want Grandma Shortcake to be a manipulative killer either.”
Jenna laughed, and Snow Cone leaned toward Sofia. She took the warm little dog in her arms.
“Have you ever thought of getting a dog?” Jenna asked. “You’re great with her, and they’re good little sidekicks, always ready to back you up when you need them.”
Sofia remembered the dog’s wet tongue licking her when she was trapped in the floor, and how Snow Cone had tugged on Oliver’s pant leg to pull him away. The little dog had faced down a man with a gun for her. Who else would do that?
&nb
sp; Names came into her head. Aidan and Brendan. Her mom. And Emily. She wiped away a few stray tears. She couldn’t really blame those on allergies, but she didn’t care.
“This one’s a brave little puppy,” she said. “But, right now, I’ve got all the backup I need.”
OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES
“A” is for Asshat
After a decade spent in the glare of the Hollywood spotlight as the star of kids’ TV show Half Pint Detective, Sofia Salgado has had enough. Desperate to build a life outside showbiz, she quits acting to do something that everyone around her– including her family – thinks is plain nuts. Get a real job.
They think she’s even crazier when she announces that she’s going to become a real detective, instead of playing one on TV. She’s convinced the technical consultant from her TV show, Brendan Maloney, to take her on in his detective agency, but can accident-prone Sofia hack it?
“C” is for Coochy Coo
Sofia Salgado is finally finding her feet as a trainee investigator at Maloney Investigations when she’s drafted in to help thirteen-year-old Daniel find his birth father. But there’s one snag.
According to Daniel’s mom, former Los Angeles party girl Candice Collins, there’s more than one candidate.
A lot more!
“D” is for Drunk
Coming soon.
ALSO BY REBECCA CANTRELL
The World Beneath
The Tesla Legacy
The Chemistry of Death
A Trace of Smoke
A Night of Long Knives
A Game of Lies
A City of Broken Glass
The Blood Gospel (with James Rollins)
Innocent Blood (with James Rollins)
Blood Infernal(with James Rollins)
iDrakula
iFrankenstein
ALSO BY SEAN BLACK
Lockdown: The First Ryan Lock Novel
Deadlock: The Second Ryan Lock Novel
Gridlock: The Third Ryan Lock Novel
The Devil’s Bounty: The Fourth Ryan Lock Novel
The Innocent: The Fifth Ryan Lock Novel
Fire Point: The Sixth Ryan Lock Novel
Lock & Load: A Ryan Lock Story
Budapest/48: A Ryan Lock Story
Post: The First Byron Tibor Novel
Blood Country: The Second Byron Tibor Novel
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real person, alive or dead, is completely coincidental.
“B” is for Bad Girls
Copyright © 2015 by Rebecca Cantrell and Sean Black
Cover Design by Kit Foster www.kitfosterdesign.com
All rights reserved.
For more information about this series and to join the mailing list, please visit: www.malibumysteries.com
Created with Vellum
Table of Contents
About the Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Other Books in the Series
Also by Rebecca Cantrell
Also by Sean Black
Copyright
B is for Bad Girls (Malibu Mystery Book 2) Page 18