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Corey weaved an arm around my shoulders, tugging me away so I was out of hitting and spitting range. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Why the self-destruct mode? Is that what happened to Blake’s house?”
I hadn’t put the two together, and suddenly I realized he was right. The house was too cleanly destroyed to be a complete accident, or even done by someone like Alice. That kind of explosion required planning to do as little damage as possible to the surrounding neighborhood. Hope rose in me. “This wasn’t an accident?”
“Of course not,” Doyle said. “You think he’s that stupid? You all should be doing the same.”
Relief washed over me. Whatever his reasons for blowing up his own house, I didn’t care. I was just grateful he was alive. “Where is he?”
“Doyle! Honey!” A high-pitched masculine voice shouted from the porch.
I squinted up at a short miniskirt, tube-topped, mocha and blonde ex-bounty hunter. “Future? What are you doing here?”
She held up a file box, causing the tube top to drop a little too low across her left boob. “Girl! What are you doing here? Where you been?”
“I could ask the same. Are we Future or Fancy today?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been working on a new one. What do you think of Fairy?”
I shrugged. “Like in an ironic way?”
“There, you got it. See, he didn’t get it.” She nodded her head to Doyle. “And also, I was thinking glitter.” She shook the box she was holding. “We’ve been having fun. We about to bomb fire this motherfucker before we head to Jamaica. I bought marshmallows for the occasion.”
Doyle hissed through his teeth. “Shush, woman! You don’t tell the enemy where we’re going.”
She dropped the box on the porch and clunked down the stairs in her platform sandals. It was December, and while she might have forgot to dress for the occasion, her nipples knew it was cold and might have been the only things holding up that tube top. She put her hands on her hips. “She ain’t no enemy. That’s Kaaay-leeee. She’s part of this Bitchin’ A team.” She approached me, reaching for a hug. She spoke while she had her arms around me. “We’re practically twins.”
I pleaded silently to Corey over her shoulder. He shrugged and sheepishly brushed a palm across the back of his neck. No help at all.
Doyle turned back to me. “Christ help me. Two against one now.”
“I thought you were working for Mr. Murdock,” I said to Future.
“Naw, he’s got too many rules. Gotta stop cursing. Gotta stop carrying a gun. Gotta put more clothes on.”
“He does have rules,” Avery said. “But that’s because—”
“Of the stiffs, I know,” Future said. “One too many of them reached up my skirt and felt both of my guns. He had to let me go. I said it was for the best. There was about to be some marital disputes among his C. E. Hos.”
Avery rolled his eyes. “And she couldn’t talk to anyone.”
“Fuck those rules.” She turned to me. “So I asked Blakey and he said okay. At least he loves me for who I am.” She paused and blinked at me. “Hey where you get that sweater? You’re looking all classy.”
I’d forgotten about the clothes. It’d been a long day already. “Where is Blake?” I asked instead of answering. “I keep asking, but is he okay?”
“Oh, he’s somewhere,” she said. “He gave the execute command, and when that happens, we’re supposed to stay away from everyone. Except I’m going with Doyle. You all wanna come with?”
“No!” he said, crossing his arms in an X in front of his body. “No, no hellbeast.”
“You’re saying ‘Kayli’ wrong,” Future said.
“I don’t care. It’s just us. Follow the plan. We clear this out and we get to…where we’re going.”
“So Blake’s headed to Jamaica?” I asked.
“No,” Future said. “He’s… hmmm…” She sauntered up to Doyle, putting an arm around his shoulder and pushing her breasts into him a bit. “What you think, honey? Where might he be going?”
This seemed to calm Doyle out of his rage, and he ended up with eyeballing where the edge of the tube top kept lowering on her body. “We’re not supposed to know. You just pick a place and don’t talk about it. Like you weren’t supposed to tell them about Jamaica. Now we’ll have to pick another place.”
“Like Paris?”
“If you tell them, we can’t go.”
“Let’s just say Paris and then go to Jamaica. And then Paris. Come on, honey, please? Pretty please?”
I eyeballed them. “Are you…two…um…?”
Future wiggled her eyebrows, and Doyle’s normally pale face reddened immensely.
I coughed. “Sorry, I just…didn’t picture.”
“Look, it’s simple. She’s a woman, I’m a man. She’s got big boobs and likes to show them to me. What can I say?”
“What about her second gun?” I asked.
“Don’t judge me,” he hissed again through is teeth. “It’s modern times. I like her for who she is.”
Future pinched one of Doyle’s cheeks coyly. “And he loves my ass.”
I shared a side glance with Corey, who was grinning at this whole thing. “What triggered this execute mode?” he asked. “Something we should know about?”
He snorted. “Are you kidding? Alice is back. Old Mr. Murdock is in town.”
“We’re on to old Mr. Murdock,” Avery said. “Police are on to him. They’re looking for him now.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And we know about Alice. She called me.”
He stopped ogling Future’s boobs and looked right at me. “Alice called you? Where?”
“While I was in the hospital.”
He continued to stare at me. “Tell me what she said? What happened? When was this? Why didn’t I pick it up?”
I blinked repeatedly, looking at Corey. He shrugged, but I did my best to hide the fact that the hospital was Academy and told him everything else. “Blake walked in and said it should have been for him.”
Doyle blinked rapidly and then lunged for the box on the porch that Future had dropped. He threw it at the pile and then kicked the computer he’d dropped to the pile.
I got a little closer, chasing him. “What does it mean? What are you doing?”
He held up a hand to me, indicating I should stop. He took out a Bic lighter, and another cigarette from a pocket in his clothes. He lit the cigarette and took a few puffs before he held it to a sheet of paper he pulled from the pile. He lit the paper with his cigarette, taking forever with it, before putting it in the cardboard box. The fire went out quickly when a gust of wind picked up. “Shit,” he said.
“You need gasoline,” I said. “Or turpentine.” I paused. “Why isn’t this house rigged to blow up?”
“It’s an antique,” he said. “Predates your Civil War. You don’t blow up an antique.”
“Blake’s house was an antique.”
“His house was a remodel. Got destroyed during the war and a couple of hurricanes. It’s the only way he could make it over so much. Historical society just gave up.” He looked back at Future and Corey and Avery, who were talking together near the car. “Do me a favor?”
I blinked rapidly in surprise, catching a bit of his smoke scent and also cold air in my lungs and coughing a little at it. “Me? You’re asking me?”
“Get out of town. You. Your friends. You might want to split up a little.”
“You’re the second person today to tell me this.”
“It’s a good idea.” He gave me a concerned look, something I’d never witnessed from him before and that scared me to my bones. “Alice and old Mr. Murdock are organized crime. And they’ve made a few friends with some people high up and in hell, too.” He nodded toward the others. “Help me get them out.”
Maybe we were wrong about staying behind. Maybe we were wrong about fighting this. “Shouldn’t we do something? Shouldn’t we stop them?”
“We’re no
t prepared for this.”
“We keep burning our stuff, we’re not going to be.”
“Don’t you get it, hellbeast?” He raised his voice at me. “This isn’t about money anymore. It isn’t about them trying to get away with something.” He approached me again, gripping at my forearms to keep me from stepping back. “Alice was the investor.”
On the ship, we were trying to figure out who the investor was, and I pretended to be the investor because it seemed no one knew. “Alice?”
“She’s behind everything. And she’s a soulless demon who is now just pissed off you’ve been trying to infiltrate. She’s having to get rid of all witnesses. She’s even killed off her own people. That guy on the boat. The loose end.”
I blinked at him, “Sam? Wasn’t he arrested?”
“Yeah, but he’s dead now. Happened a couple of hours ago. While in jail.”
My body went rigged. “How?”
“Friends in hell.” He grunted. “She probably assumes we got involved to take over or something stupid.”
“Shouldn’t we stop her?”
“Not our territory. This is something covert ops should be doing. FBI level.”
I smirked at him. “We’re not FBI level?”
“Below my paygrade,” he said. He released me. “Get out of town. Take them with you. Cut your ties.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
