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I snatch him up and toss him as far away from me as possible. He lands on his feet. “Run, Paco! Run, boy!” He hesitates for just a second, then he takes off running into the night.
I heave a sigh of relief.
“Off to chase more squirrels, no doubt. Worthless dog,” she mutters. Then she reaches out with her free hand and pushes me inside the kitchen. She slams the door behind us.
The first thing I notice is a couple of my uneaten pumpkin spice muffins on the counter. Uh-oh. Usually those things don’t last but a few minutes. I hope I didn’t overdo the cinnamon.
The next thing I notice is Agent Parks and Agent Rollins lying on the floor, side by side. Dead. With a bullet hole between their eyes.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sally follows my horrified gaze. “That’s right. I’m not quite the mild-mannered librarian I pretend to be.”
“You’re El Tigre.”
“You know about that?” She doesn’t bother to hide her surprise. “What gave me away? Wait. Don’t tell me. You didn’t buy my lost little lamb routine at The Bistro today? Still,” she muses, ?
??that’s hardly enough to put two and two together.”
“You lied to Will about going to Wyoming to take care of your father. You told him you didn’t have any other family. What happened to your brother? The one with the sciurophobia?”
“Sciurophobia,” she scoffs. “There’s no such thing. And I didn’t lie to Will. I lied to you. If I did have a brother, he wouldn’t have something as pathetic as a fear of squirrels.”
“You didn’t lie to me about your brother. That whole story about him being in counseling? You were telling the truth.”
“Are you sure about that, Lucy?”
The cocky way she looks at me makes me question myself. But only for an instant. I’ve never been so grateful for my gift before.
“As sure as I’m standing here.”
The two of us play a game of chicken staring each other down. After a few long seconds, she grudgingly says, “Okay, so I didn’t lie to you about that. I have a brother. So what? Is that it? That’s how you figured out I was El Tigre?”
“Not quite. It was a bunch of other little things as well. But what put it all together was the clue you left in the sable palm. The one tucked in along with Ken Cameron’s shoestring.”
“No.” Her voice hitches with excitement. “You actually found it?”
“Yep. A lock of pink hair. You shouldn’t have done that. If the FBI had found it instead of me, they’d be running that through the DNA database right now, and you’d be toast.”
“It’s the first time I’ve left anything of value behind. I couldn’t help myself. Do you know how many kills I’ve returned to? To leave some worthless trinket? Only to let the feds know that I wasn’t just there once, but twice? That I’d outsmarted then once again? We all want to be seen, Lucy, even when we’re trying to hide.” She smiles and it gives me chills. To think, I actually wanted to start a book club with her!
“I’m glad you were the one to find it and not the FBI. Not that my DNA is in their database, but if they analyzed it then they would have found out I was a woman, and well… thank you, Lucy. You saved me from myself. Next time El Tigre,” she says with mocking emphasis, “will have to control her urges a little better.”
“Why do they call you that?”
“Beats me. I suppose someone at the FBI thought it sounded very macho. Of course, the idiots think I’m a man. I’d much rather be called Khaleesi or Xena. What do you think? Fierce warrior princess or…fierce warrior princess with dragons?”
“You kill people. For money. You don’t deserve to be called either of those.”
She snickers then waves the gun to point me in the direction of the living room. “In there.” Since I really don’t want to get a bullet between the eyes, I do as I’m told.
Sitting on a chair in the middle of the living room is a skinny middle-aged bald guy with deep-set eyes. So this is the infamous Joey “The Weasel” Frizzone. His hands are tied behind the chair, and his mouth is gagged. “Joey, meet Lucy, Lucy, well…there’s no need for introductions because your friendship isn’t going to last much longer.”
Joey’s eyes go wide with fear. He struggles against the ropes but gets nowhere.
I wish I could say something to reassure him, like tell him that the cops are on their way, but if I do that what’s to stop Sally from killing us both right now and escaping before they have a chance to storm the place? Plus, there’s the fact that Will is somewhere outside, clueless to what’s going on in here. Has he found Paco? I hope so.
My best bet right now is to keep Sally talking until the cops arrive.
