“Hi. I have an express package requiring a signature for Luna Lamont. Is she at home?”
My friend Camilla is a jewelry designer and texted a couple of days ago, saying that she’d be mailing some prototypes for brass knuckle rings she wanted me to test. Because I don’t have an office, I occasionally get work items sent to my home.
“Be right there.”
This is what I love about Camilla. The few products she usually makes regularly sell out, but instead of sticking with them, she’s always experimenting with new designs. That’s an artist, I guess. Driven to create. Half the time, after a session with Violet, I see her scribbling away in a notebook. She told me once that lyrics come to her in random moments and she needs to get them down before they evaporate.
The life of an artist. Work never truly stops.
I unlock the dead bolt and pull the door open.
The delivery guy holds a small box and electronic clipboard against his chest, not making a move to hand them over. The hesitation sets off my internal alarms, but not quick enough.
Bill Lamont steps around the corner of my house, gun aimed at my chest.
Make sure your cameras don’t have any gaps in their view, I silently instruct myself as my blood runs hot with adrenaline and shame.
This is officially the worst advertisement for my business.
“Inside,” my father commands with a wild edge to his voice. “Now.”
I back up, assessing the situation as I go, wondering if there’s a way I can get to my own weapon. Doubt it. I locked the gun in a safe in the hallway closet. Even if I could get the door open, he’d be on me.
The delivery guy follows us in, closing the door behind him.
“Got a job at the postal service?” I ask my father, and Bill smirks at me.
“Got all kinds of people on the payroll, baby girl.”
The bait seems unconcerned about being here. Apparent by the way he lounges against the wall while my father talks.
A silence descends, and I know Bill’s waiting for me to ask him what he’s doing in my home, threatening me with a gun. But that’s a pointless question. He’s here for Wai Po’s money. Only question is, how does he plan to get it? Murdering me seems like the most direct route. But if he’s caught, then all the money goes bye-bye.
Commit a crime, lose everything.
Even Bill Lamont is smart enough to know the risk. He must have some other play.
“No smart mouth today?”
I shrug.
He sneers, “You’re going to keep quiet like this. Come nice and timid, and nothing bad has to happen.”
Don’t let them take you to a second location.The instruction I tell all my clients plays through my head.
“No. We can talk here,” I say.
Bill steps forward, pressing the muzzle of the gun to my forehead. Even I, who trained myself not to give in to fear around this man decades ago, fight off lightheadedness from my proximity to death.
Wild barking snags some of my father’s attention, his gaze flicking to the backyard. I can imagine Pig’s blocky head at the door, staring in on a scene she doesn’t understand.
A spark lights in my father’s eyes, causing a sick twisting in my gut.
“If you need some incentive to behave,” he mutters, “I can provide it.”
I want to spit in his face. This vile man, who thinks he has some claim to me, shoving his way into my home and threatening one of the few things I care for. And, yes, I love the silly dog I never wanted in the first place. She was Charlie’s idea. She should be his soft spot, not mine.
Of course, I now have two vulnerabilities I never planned on.
