by Kit Frazier
Yes, he was annoying and he was a thief, but he clearly loved his sister and was willing to put his life on the line to get her out of her deal with Tres the Boy King.
Of course, there were probably better ways to accomplish the task than stealing money from a bunch of mobsters, but then to guys like Puck, risk was relative.
I worried about Logan, but since he hadn’t wound up in my Obituary Beat inbox, I assumed he was still alive. I suppose there are some perks to being an obituary writer.
Tanner was still busting my butt for information about a gang war that may or may not be brewing in our backyard. I’d asked Logan and Cantu if they’d had any hot tips on gangland turf battles and been told no and to stay out of it, respectively.
To be honest, I wasn’t trying that hard. There were other people I could ask and other hornets’ nests into which I could poke my little stick, like my old buddy Diego DeLeon, one of the jefes in the Texas Syndicate. But the last time I’d seen Diego, I’d left him in the middle of dinner at the prestigious Shoreline Grill with a bad temper and a halfmast hard-on.
I’m pretty sure even Hallmark doesn’t make an “I’m Sorry” card for that particular occasion.
So I was left to my own devices almost never a good thing worrying about the upcoming El Patron trial, along with the things I always worry about things like how I’m going to pay my bills, global warming, and what I would do with my hair if Logan and I ever got the opportunity to go out on a date date.
By the time the grand jury date rolled around, I felt restless and edgy and ready to jump right out of my skin. Truth be told, I was a big scaredy cat. Not only had I never testified in a trial before, I was going to be eyeball to eyeball with Selena Obregon.
The woman had nearly killed me, and there was a pretty good chance she and one of her minions was behind the dead bird and the visit from the masked maniac I’d received the week before.
The morning before the trial, I woke up early, let the dog out, fed the cat, and showered. Dressed in a towel and a turban, I poured myself a bowl of frosted shredded wheat, careful to point the sugary side up and out of the milk so as not to disturb all that frosty goodness.
Like I do every morning when I’m not being hauled out of bed by a federal agent, I took the bowl and a spoon into my small home office to answer email before blasting my hair, getting dressed, and writing my daily to-do list. First I gave my Magic 8 Ball a good shake and said, “Is this going to be a good day?”
Turning the ball over in my hands, I read the message. OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD.
I put the ball down in a huff. “Stupid 8 Ball. What do you know?”
I had approximately 330 emails encouraging me to enlarge my penis and 200 offering me the opportunity to place all of my money in an offshore account, guaranteeing to quadruple it by next week. Since I had a sum total of twelve dollars and fifty cents to my name, I did the math and decided it probably wasn’t worth the postage.
I had two emails from Tanner wanting to know how I was doing on the gang research, and four from Mia regarding my daily horoscope, personal feng shui, and something about cleansing the karma of my past lives.
As I deleted my digital detritus, I scooped up spoonfuls of frosted wheat squares. Who says I’m not a multitasker
I was about to enjoy another frosty bite when I scrolled down and found an email from my work address. I frowned. It wasn’t from the umbrella Sentinel account, it was from my personal account, as though I’d emailed myself.
“Hmm,” I said to no one. I shoveled the bite I’d been holding and double-clicked the message. It blinked into view:
Like Your Panties? I Do.
Under the email was a photo of my Jeep in front of my house. My breath went out with a whoosh.
“My Jeep!” I yelped, scrambling down the hall and out the front door, where Marlowe was sniffing around the Jeep.
When he saw me, he turned around three times, then sat and woofed.
The oldest of the Baby Bobs was sprawled across the hood, reaching for a familiar pink scrap of silk lodged beneath the wiper. When he saw me, the kid jerked his hand like he’d hit a hot poker. Without one hint of remorse, he jumped down from the Jeep.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered, lurching to the other side of the vehicle, where I grabbed my brand-new Victoria’s Secret wonder undies. I was about to stuff them under my towel when I noticed the fabric had a large, jagged rip where the crotch used to be.
“Cool,” the kid said. He was about thirteen, and he was grinning, happy as a tick on a coon dog. I shoved the vandalized panties behind my back.
“El Patron,” I whispered, staring down the street, looking for the cops that should have been there. My stomach pitched, and I got a severe hit of deja vu. Several months ago, someone broke into my house and altered all my undies—not a crotch in sight.
The kid shrugged and made a face. “It’s no big deal,” he said. “Mom says I’m wise beyond my years. Besides, we’ve got cable.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school or something?”
“Waiting for the bus.”
I sighed. “Did you see who did this?”
“No,” he said. “But I could help you find out. You could leave them with me. You know, like a clue.”
Right. He’d pull them out while he was in the lunch line. Show and tell courtesy of the desperate ex-housewife on Arroyo Trail.
I heard the distinct sound of hydraulic brakes, and the school bus rounded the corner, coming up the hill.
“You better go get your books or something,” I growled, and he leapt over the fence, squashing the flowerbed of antique roses that’d gone wild and rangy in Aunt Kat’s absence.
“You wearing that to your job?” he said, shouldering his backpack. I glanced down at my towel, which wasn’t nearly as big as one would hope for, given the circumstances.
The bus was coming, and I could see the whites of the eyes of the balding bus driver as he got a good look at me. The driver must have made a noise because the bus suddenly swerved and then lurched as all the kids rushed to the right side, pressing their faces and hands on the windows for a better look.
I glared at the kid. “Didn’t your mom get one of those television parental control boxes?” I growled.
He grinned.
“Sure,” he yelled, jogging for the bus. “My parents are the only ones in the house who don’t know how to use it.”
Back in the house, I called Cantu, and he came and took my statement. His face was set in a grim scowl as he followed me into the house to look at the emailed note.
“You get anything on that red bandanna?” I asked.
“Not a single strand of DNA,” Cantu said.
He asked me to print the email and whipped an evidence bag from his utility belt. “I’m going to have to take the note and the, uh…underthings back to the lab geeks,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I heard they might be a clue.”
Truth be told, I was spooked all the way down to my undies, crotchless or otherwise.
Cantu doubled up on the cop patrols, and Mia agreed to stay the night with me so we would drive to the courthouse together.
The plan sounded like a good idea at the time, but in reality, neither one of us could sleep. The evening wound up including a midnight margarita binge and singing along to Aretha Franklin on the Wurlitzer to stave off the fear. Okay, there was some dancing involved, but you can’t hear R-E-S-P-E-C-T without sliding around in jammies and socks, no matter what kind of evil lurks in your flowerbed.
The following morning made me regret that choice.
The phone rang, and I resisted the urge to answer it with the business end of a baseball bat. “What?” I growled into the receiver.
“I hope you had a peaceful night.” It was Logan, and I suddenly felt much better.
“Yeah,” I said. “Like that’s going to happen anytime soon. I thought we weren’t supposed to be talking.”
“We’re not talkin
g. I’m reminding you of your duty to the justice system and telling you that parking on Eighth Street is impossible. Park in that alley on Eleventh.”
I stared at the phone. “You’re already there?”
“Some people like to be early,” Logan said. “I’m heading out in a few minutes to pick up Puck. They don’t want him here until right before the grand jury convenes. Maybe media will clear before we bring in witnesses.”
My stomach knotted.
“Hey,” Logan said. “You okay?”
I blew out a breath. “Yeah. I’ll just be glad when all this is over.”
“I know. You’re going to be okay, kid,” he said, and his voice was calm and strong and sure. Then I had a thought.
“Logan?” “Yeah?”
“Were you here late last night? You know, after the panty snatching?”
He snorted. “What, you think I spent the rest of the night parked outside your house?”
As he spoke, I looked out the wide front window at the street beyond, where a new kid in an unmarked car was taking up watch.
And as he hung up the phone, I knew that he had.
*
Logan had been right about one thing.
Parking was a mess. His hopes of the media getting bored and clearing out had been optimistic.
News crews clogged every available spot with vans, cars, and cameras. I noticed two national crews jockeying for prime spots in the melee. The place was a madhouse. As Logan had directed, I found an empty spot on Eleventh, and Mia and I climbed out of the Jeep and headed to the federal courthouse on Eighth.
The parking crisis had been averted, but I couldn’t shake the creepy feeling skittering along my nerve endings.
A warm breeze ruffled my hair and whipped at my skirt. “Something’s wrong,” I told Mia, scanning the parked cars, looking for anything unusual.
“Of course something’s wrong,” Mia said, giving me her best tsk tsk voice, which makes her sound just like her grandmother. “We’re testifying in front of a jury about a bunch of murderers.”
“I know, but something doesn’t seem right.”
Mia shrugged. “This place is crawling with cops. What could go wrong?”
She hiked up her skirt, a neat trick since it was already so short you could almost see daylight.
“Do I look like a reliable witness?” Mia said, changing the subject. I glanced over at her short, bright blue fitted skirt and ruffled white blouse accented with her big digital Nikon. Her wild, dark hair was clipped back in a ponytail that cascaded down her back conservative for Mia, but she still looked like she’d shimmied out of an MTV video about naughty teachers.
“They’re probably not going to let you take the camera in,” I said, and she shrugged.
“We been kicked out of better places than this,” Mia said and smiled.
“Yes, but probably not some place that could handcuff us and put us away for life,” I said, straightening my own skirt, which was black and hit me about mid-thigh. I wore a white boyfriend shirt and the thin gold chain my father had given me when I’d been christened.
My only real concession to fashion were killer red stilettos. I hadn’t seen Logan in almost a week, and I wanted to make sure he remembered it.
We walked up the alley and onto Eighth. From that angle, I could see the front of the gray granite courthouse with its wide front steps and solemn entrance a good thing, since I was beginning to remember why I called these heels my killer shoes.
The shadow of the building provided a bit of blessed coolness, and the alkaline smell of polished granite pitched me back in time.
I’d been to the courthouse as a little girl when my father testified against some thug or another he’d arrested, and the sheer enormity and grandeur of the building always took my breath away.
Alex “Live-at-Five” Salazar was setting up his crew with the rest of the local News Boys crowded around, buzzing like a bunch of vultures.
Miranda was front row-center, as usual, her camera guy holding a mirror for her as she yanked up her bra to ensure maximum cleavage.
Miranda would get a scoop out of this. She always did. The only difference between Miranda and a pit bull was a tube of murder-red lipstick.
Two-dozen people hurried up the stone steps. Mia and I worked our way through the crowd. As we reached the double doors, the furious sound of clicking cameras clattered over us like a wave.
My breath caught—Logan was near. I turned to see a black Suburban pull up to the curb, stopping about twenty feet behind an old El Camino, when Logan unfolded himself from the back seat.
Flash! Mia snapped a picture.
Logan’s eyes darted to the flash, then to me. He nodded at me as he continued to sweep the crowd. His gaze lingered on a hopped up El Camino and a couple of guys standing next to the driver’s door.
Watching carefully, Logan nodded, and Puck climbed out of the Suburban behind him. Mia flashed a string of shots.
With Puck in tow, Logan started up the steps. My breath caught the way it does when I saw Logan and I stopped, watching him maneuver Puck through the reporters.
“Wow,” Mia said on a breath.
Wow was right.
Logan was dressed in a dark suit with a crisp white shirt and blood-red tie. While he always looked like a fed, today he looked like a fed on supercharged testosterone. My heart did a little two-step around my rib cage.
I navigated the steps with Mia. Logan turned toward the movement and our eyes caught. He raised a brow, and I felt his gaze skim my body like a physical thing. His gaze briefly lingered on my kick ass red heels.
Do I know my shoes or what?
Two U.S. Marshals had worked their way down through the crowd, flanking Logan and Puck, and despite Logan’s calming, steadfast presence, alarm bells jittered through my blood.
Faith climbed the stairs at the right, along with Tres and a couple of suits who looked like lawyers. Between them, Faith seemed even smaller than I remembered. She wore a vintage black linen dress probably her grandmother’s and it looked like it’d seen its fair share of funerals.
Her eyes darted toward Puck, then out over the crowd, frightened and poised for flight, like a small bird before a storm.
Across the small distance, Logan smiled at me.
It was a reassuring smile, and I half-smiled back, trying to calm my nerves.
Then I saw them.
The two guys hanging out by their car.
They’d covered their lower faces with red bandannas, but it was them, I knew it all the way down to my bones. They moved quickly and quietly, coming up behind Logan. My heart jammed in my chest. I wanted to scream, but my voice caught in my throat.
I wanted to scream, to shout, to wail a warning—to do something, but I couldn’t even breathe.
Logan looked at me hard.
I don’t know what he saw in my face, but it was enough.
His jaw muscle snapped, eyes narrowed, and his left hand darted under his coat, where I knew he kept his gun.
In the slow motion that accompanies trauma, the bangers brandished square, automatic pistols, pointing straight at Logan and Puck.
Logan threw Puck to the ground.
Crack-cra-cra-cra-crack!
I didn’t scream.
A deafening hail of bullets rained through calm, blue, early morning. The air filled with the acrid smell of cordite, fear and screams, and I stared, horrified, staring at Logan’s body, poised defensively over Puck.
Bullets riddled the stairs around them, and the crowd scattered, screaming.
Logan didn’t seem to notice the chaos, only the immediate threat before him.
He jerked his weapon level, firing short, sharp bursts in response, aim first, the rest seemed muscle memory.
Puck lurched forward toward Faith, and Logan shoved him down on the steps, pushing out in front of Puck and a second burst of automatic weapon fire blasted into the stunned silence.
Faith stood in front of Puck’s prone body, w
ide-eyed, frozen. She didn’t move, never made a noise. She stood there staring down at her brother, who was motionless on the cold, hard granite stones of the courthouse steps,
Still crouching over Puck, Logan squeezed out a rain of bullets.
With Mia behind me, I made myself as small as I could, my heart galloping. My ears rang in the bullet shower, but I couldn’t break loose of the trance.
The marshal next to Logan made a terrible noise and then dropped, a circle of blood blooming near his badge.
All around me, bullets made terrible thud-thud sounds, the sound of metal against flesh. The bangers jerked and fell, one on top of the other, in a bloody heap.
Behind me, the car’s tires squealed, tortured rubber against pavement. Logan slammed a second magazine into his pistol. He sighted in on the car, but people were running, a screaming a colorful blur of civilian chaos, too many to make a clean shot.
A hard palm shoved me, smacking me in the middle of my back.
I fell forward onto the concrete steps, twisting my ankle and getting a pretty good cut on my knee. A woman with a badge yelled, “Stay down!”
Uniformed officers swarmed around us, half checking our vitals, the other half had weapons drawn on the cab as it sped away.
In the mayhem, Miranda tripped over her cameraman as she scrambled to safety.
My heart stopped, and I could hear my own breath going in and out.
“Chica!” a familiar voice yelled.
Oh, good Lord, Mia!
She’d fallen beside me, and we lay there together in the middle of the massacre.
“You get this?” I whispered, and she wrestled her Nikon out from under her.
“I think so,” she said. “Is everyone all right?”
In the distance, a voice whispered “Faith…’
The voice was soft and gurgling, trying to hold on. My breath caught.
Puck.
My throat tightened and I said, “I don’t think everyone’s all right.”
From the gold granite, I stared over at Puck. He was facing me about fifteen feet away, blood pooling beneath him.
His eyes met mine.
“Save her,” he whispered…” and then he went lifeless and his face was still