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“Honey, I think many Girl Scouts have darker corners of their lives than you do.”
“Ouch,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest as she shot him a smile.
“If it makes you feel better, I’m sure you would fuck shit up a lot more if you didn’t work so much,” Junior told her.
“That helps,” she agreed.
“You date real shitheads,” Junior said.
“I know, right?” she asked, laughing a little at herself. “Any of them up to anything surprising since I knew them?”
“One of them is in prison.”
“That tracks,” she said, nodding.
“Did you find anything else from her list?” I asked.
“It’s tricky,” Junior said. “Everyone has some shady shit in their lives that, when you look at it under a microscope, you can twist and turn it to make it seem like they’re capable of worse shit.”
“So that’s a no,” I concluded.
“It’s a… I have a short list. But I’m not personally convinced that any of them did it. I’m working now on finding their personal phone and internet history to see what they were doing leading up to and right after the attack,” he said. “Another couple of days, and I will have a shorter list that you can take and… do whatever you want to do with.”
He and I both knew what I planned to do with that list.
Knock on some doors and lean on some guys.
But I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to tell Sylvie that I was going to use her exes and old acquaintances as punching bags to get information out of them.
Sure, I knew she was fine with me exacting revenge on the man who was, in fact, guilty. But I wasn’t so sure she’d be as accepting of me hurting other people to get to that one.
“This is a shitty apartment building,” Junior informed Sylvie as we walked toward it.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Shitty is kind of all I can afford with my work. And since I like my work…”
“Next time I’m on a job for someone with more money than he knows what to do with, maybe I can accidentally transfer some untraceable crypto to that halfway house of yours,” he said.
“Is that what paid for that warehouse of yours?” I asked, watching as a smirk tugged at his lips.
“Listen, in my personal opinion, if someone is so rich that they don’t even notice that a million or two has gone missing, they deserve to have it taken.”
“The fuck, are you Robin Hood all a sudden?” I asked, shaking my head at him.
“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m just a selfish fuck,” he admitted, shrugging it off. No guilt. And, well, you had to appreciate that about him.
“I mean, it’s not unheard of for anonymous donations to roll in,” Sylvie said, giving him a sly smile as we all moved into the elevator.
“Funny how often the ultra-wealthy just toss half a million bucks at some random-ass sober house in New Jersey. Without getting the tax write-off because they don’t need it,” he added.
It was all calm and light until we made our way up the hall and toward her door.
That was slightly ajar.
Junior’s gaze slid to mine, brow quirked.
I shook my head, already reaching for my gun with one hand, and shoving Sylvie behind me with the other.
It didn’t escape me that Junior’s hand had gone under his shirt toward his waistband. A holster hidden there, maybe.
I wasn’t waiting around to see.
Moving forward, I pushed the door open with one hand while holding my gun up with the other.
“Jesus Christ!” a voice yelled as the door opened to reveal a man there.
In the center of Sylvie’s apartment was a kinda short, unassuming guy in his mid to late twenties. Shaggy hair. A little acne still on his chin. A black hoodie on, despite the heat.
His hands shot up, palms out.
“It’s not even my place, man. Take whatever you want.”
“Hey!” Sylvie yelled, popping out from behind Junior who was trying to hold her back. “Thanks a lot, Barry,” she said, shooting small eyes at the man who looked two seconds away from pissing himself.
“You know him?” Voss asked.
“Yeah. It’s my neighbor. Don’t worry. The only crime he is capable of committing is stealing my takeout.”
“It happened once!” Barry insisted. “It was delivered to my door,” he added.
“Right and when you realized you weren’t the one who ordered it, you should have walked the two feet across the hall to leave it in front of mine,” she said.
“I mean… I was kinda hungry,” Barry said, shrugging, a mix of bashful but completely unrepentant. “Thought the food gods were smiling down on me. I did pay you back.”
“In energy drinks and beef jerky,” Sylvie said, rolling her eyes.
“That’s what I had, man. Hey, can you tell the big, buff, biker dude to, you know, maybe put down the gun. I didn’t take anything.”
