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LUNA
Pig won’t stop whining at the back door.
“I just took you on a walk an hour ago! You cannot need to pee again already.”
She yaps out a demanding bark and scratches at the glass.
“Fine. Stop it. You’ll mess up the door.” I stalk up to her and slide the door open, letting the pit bull out into the fenced area, hoping if there’s a squirrel taunting her, it gets its little fuzzy ass in gear. Pig may look like a lumbering mess, but she can book it when she wants.
I return to the kitchen and my half-finished grocery list. But I’m interrupted again when the doorbell rings.
A groan leaks from the introverted section of my being. I hate it when people just show up at my house. Not that it happens a lot, but still. I fantasize about being an old-timey aristocrat who has a butler acting as the go-between, sending callers away without me ever having to talk to them.
Still, I have the next best thing.
After my dad’s visit, Charlie and I agreed a security system would be a worthwhile investment. Now I have a nifty little doorbell camera to see who’s on my front porch and an intercom. I don’t even have to open the door if I don’t want to.
Studying the screen now, I get an overly round view of a delivery man in uniform.
I press the intercom button. “Hello?”
I watch his head tilt toward the outer speaker.
“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 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. 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 he plans 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.
