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“What?” Willa Mae demanded. “I’m going exactly where that Burke fella told us to go. And if I can shake our tail in the process, all’s the better.”
“Don’t shake our tail, Miss Willa Mae,” Manny said from the back of the minivan. “Otherwise, the cops won’t be able to take him down. You know what Burke said.”
Burke had also confirmed that Xavier should stay down on the floor, so that his head wasn’t visible through the minivan’s windows. And, since Xavier liked his head attached to his shoulders, he’d obeyed.
But this made it so that he couldn’t see what was happening. He was having to rely on Carlos, who, in typical Carlos fashion, was making things a whole lot lighter than they probably were. Xavier figured that it was his BFF’s intention to make him laugh, so he’d obliged a time or two.
Because laughing was good in this situation. Laughing kept him from crying, and for that alone he’d be Carlos’s friend for the rest of their lives. Which would—hopefully—stretch decades into the future.
This was serious. There were hit men after him. After all of us. Or at least one hit man. Who knew who the Lott imposter really was or why he was following them? He was probably at least a killer, seeing as how the real Paul Lott was dead.
Burke had sprung that little fact on them, intending to have them know how serious this was. Xavier thought his mother might faint, but she’d held strong. He knew his mom was amazing, but after this... well, he had a whole new appreciation for his mama’s spine of steel.
And Willa Mae had been a constant slew of surprises. When she’d heard that Lott was dead, Xavier figured she’d make them find their own way to New Orleans. It’s what I would have done. What most any smart person with an ounce of self-preservation would have done.
Not Willa Mae. She’d gripped the wheel tight and pursed her lips even tighter. Declared that she’d get them there safely. But she also took breaks from her take-no-prisoners persona every few minutes to quietly assure his mom that everything would be okay.
Except it wasn’t okay, and Xavier couldn’t see how it would be. Because the man who’d attacked them last night was dead. One of the nurses his mom knew at a different hospital confirmed that he’d died after surgery to repair damage from a gunshot wound.
That I did. I shot him. I killed him.
And I can’t think about that right now.
“What’s happening?” he asked Carlos, who was taking in the city with great interest. Xavier, not so much. He hadn’t been back to New Orleans since he was five years old. Just being here was giving him serious flashbacks. Rain, rising water, his birth mama’s hand shoving him onto the roof...
The time he’d sat there alone and crying. It had felt like years at the time but may have been less than an hour. Still, he remembered the terror.
And he remembered the lady in the window next door.
Which was why he was here all over again.
“We’re coming up to the corner Burke told us about,” Carlos said. “And traffic is crazy here. Where did all these people come from? It’s insane.”
“It’s the music festival,” Manny supplied. “Satchmo SummerFest. Good festival. Lotsa jazz. It’s like a citywide block party.”
Carlos twisted in his seat to stare at his brother. “When did you come to New Orleans?”
“Couple of times.”
“Without me?” Carlos sounded outraged.
“You just turned twenty-one last month. You weren’t old enough for the bars last year. You would’ve cramped my style.”
Carlos turned back to face forward. “I’ll cramp your something.”
“Hey,” Manny said cajolingly. “You’re gonna see so much more in New York than I’ve ever seen. And next summer, we can go to Satchmo together.”
From Xavier’s position, he could see Carlos’s lips curve, and was pleased to see the two brothers connecting like this. Manny had always been the older, cooler one, pretty much ignoring him and Carlos since forever. But he’d come through for them this time, for sure. One call from Carlos asking for help, and Manny had been all in.
“Okay, ladies and gents,” Willa Mae called out. “We are approaching the rendezvous. Xavier, you scootched over enough? Don’t want you to get stepped on, hon.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Xavier said, rolling a little closer to Carlos’s chair. He clutched his dad’s old pistol a little tighter. Showtime.
“Everyone buckled in?” Willa Mae asked and was answered by a chorus of yes, ma’ams.
“Xavier?” His mother’s voice was pitched low and urgent. “If anything goes wrong, you run. You hear me? Do not look back. You run. All of you boys. You run.”
Xavier swallowed hard. He was not going to run and leave his family unprotected. But he also didn’t want her to worry, so he said, “I hear you, Mama.”
