AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll do it.”
“Oh, now, see! You can’t see either. I told you it’s too dark in here.”
“Hold the flashlight, nerd,” Lulu said.
Amory whined. “Why do we even need a watch? Who wears a watch?”
“Josh says it’s worth ninety grand. It’s solid gold and French or something.”
“Why don’t the Parkses keep their rich shit in offshore accounts like normal people? Who has a watch?”
“Because. This is how old money does it.”
“They’re not old.”
“Oldmoney,” Lulu said. “Classy people.”
“But who wears a watch anymore? Like, no one.”
“It’s not for wearing. We’ll sell it. Pawn it. There’s a guy in Venice Beach. No questions asked.” The girls then fell silent as Lulu attempted the dial lock again under the glare of an iPhone flashlight.
Out in the hall, Dr. Parks felt yet another surge of fury and sidled closer to the study. She peeked inside, and her hand gripped the doorframe and left a stain of sticky red. She was leaving a blood path like one of those zombies on TV.
“Dammit. Is that a three or an eight?” Lulu asked.
“Is it smudged?”
“Maybe.” The girls were bent over a sticky note, squinting.
“He has the worst handwriting ever.”
“It looks like an eight, but maybe a three.”
“Let’s forget it and get the laptops.”
“No, we need the gun,” said Lulu.
“I’m getting nervous. Where is Josh?”
“Upstairs, finishing off his mom,” Lulu said, and looked up and out toward the hallway, annoyed. “I wish that goddamn dog would shut up.”
CHAPTER 32
BANDIT KEPT BARKING and wouldn’t stop.
Someone had locked him in the basement. Josh, most likely, the doctor thought. Behind the door, Bandit was on the top step, barking his head off and pawing at the frame.
Beyond him, in the kitchen, the doctor could hear that the bedroom argument moved downstairs. Someone was chasing somebody else. Someone was yelling. But these two were boys.
Lulu and Amory heard them, too, and sailed from the study right past the doctor’s prints on the wall. Lulu had pocketed the watch and was loading the doctor’s handgun.
“Who’s yelling?” Amory whispered as they moved off, six feet away from the blood-covered doctor. She wished they would turn around and see her there. She looked like a ghoul escaped from hell. Instead, she hid behind the fiddle-leaf fig, a tree she had raised and that now towered at ten feet high, its leaves wide and dark. She peered from behind it. Her house, she decided, and everything in it was on her side. Stanley Lewis flashed through her mind. His sparkling eyes. This was how poor Mr. Lewis felt when he woke to find someone slicing his drip. He must’ve been terrified, but also irate. No wonder he put up a fight, even at ninety-six.
She slipped from the plant and peeked around the corner. Lulu was heading for the kitchen but Amory doubled back for the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Lulu called.
“I want to see her shoes! If she has good shoes!”
