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“You know where Mickey and Jim were hiding out?”
Pete shrugged. “Ask Faye.”
“I have.”
“Ask her again,” Pete said.
“So you two are done?”
“Faye was useful,” Pete said. “For a while.”
So much for Faye. “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked once more.
“I need a favor,” Pete said.
“What?”
He nodded toward the SUV door that had no handle on the inside. “Let me make a run for it.”
That didn’t make sense. “You wouldn’t get fifty feet even if you weren’t cuffed.”
Pete stared into my eyes. “Who had me lazed earlier? Was it a sniper? Or Liz Danger?”
“Does it matter?”
“I figured it was her or maybe Bartlett or some other idiot. Not a Ranger. You were bluffing. And there was no Barrett fifty cal. At best it was an AR, five-five-six in the far tree line, right? And at the range even lazed, unless adjusting for wind and distance it’s not accurate. Hell, Danger shot Mickey from behind at point-blank range and he lived.”
I wasn’t following his logic.
Then he explained. “If I’d known you had the cops coming, I’d have pulled my gun. I made a mistake. I want to rectify that now. I’m not going to prison, Cooper. I can’t do it. I don’t want to make a run for it. I’m going to run straight at those two cops right there and make them shoot me.”
I shook my head. “See that bullet hole in the seat? The bald one almost shot his own nuts off, that’s how good he is with a gun. You’d have been better off with Liz shooting you.”
I got out and slammed the door.
CHAPTER 49
Iwent back to the Pink House with Rain and showered off the mud, changed into my “Well, Well, Well, If It Isn’t the Consequences of My Own Actions” tee because it was the only one I had there (although definitely appropriate for the hag from hell whose day we were going to ruin later), had breakfast with Anemone, Molly, Rain, Margot, Peri, and Olivia; got my Camry keys back; and took Peri to swimming, after which we discussed a schedule for her to spend the night every week at my new house once it was done, and then dropped her off back at the Pink House. I was in a much better mood than I’d started with because Vince was still alive.
I met Olivia at the factory with Jason, and we talked about the possibilities: community center, community theater, low-income housing, meeting rooms. Jason said Will Porter was interested in a classic car museum, and I said, “Yep, that, too.” It beat a cardboard museum. Then Olivia and I went out to the cottage and she showed me the formalized plans and I signed off on them with just a few changes in time to get Peri to karate at four and then home again. Then I changed into my stretchy black dress and stockings, and went out at seven to have dinner and seduce Vince.
CHAPTER 50
I drove to the Pink House, once the Blue House. Even Cleve’s home had been wiped out or at least painted out. Faye was still there, eating her meals away from the others, but from what Liz had told me, that wasn’t going to last much longer. Almost all of Faye’s havens were gone, the last one blown up by her brother, Mickey Pitts.
No one answered the door. I knew Liz was taking care of business and felt reasonably sure she’d be safe since she’d be with someone all day. I think she’d gotten something out of her system going after O’Toole’s posters and pointing a rifle at the Wolves. Anemone was off somewhere doing Anemone things.
I pushed the door open and went in. Marianne was in the kitchen doing Marianne things. She just pointed to the back when I asked her where Faye was. Liz loved Marianne’s food. I liked the fact that Marianne was a woman of few words.
Faye was lounging by the pool in what seemed an indecently tiny bikini. Her overly tanned skin was covered with a sheen of sweat. Apparently, she’d never heard of skin cancer. Then again, she’d married Cleve Blue and cheated on him with Pete OneTree. She was a not a woman to err on the side of caution. Her eyes were hidden by big sunglasses.
I walked over and stood so that I cast a shadow over her.
Either she was asleep, or she was pretending not to see me. “Faye.”
She sighed. “What?”
“We arrested Pete OneTree earlier this morning. You can visit him at the Big House like you used to visit Mickey.”
