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Something came at me from the left. I was thrown against the wall of Smithie’s and saw the flash of a knife from the lights of the club.
A hand was at my chest, pinning me to the wall. I could feel the cold blade against my throat.
“You Ray McAlister’s daughter?”
I was looking at a guy who was several inches shorter than me due to my heels. He had black hair that looked dyed and it was greased back from his forehead. He was super thin, rodent looking and sometime in his life his nose had been broken and not set well.
He pushed up against me with his hand, body and the blade. “You hear me, bitch?”
I nodded, tobothof his questions.
“You know where he is?”
I stared at him, my breath caught in my lungs and my heart was beating so hard I thought it’d jump out of my chest.
Instead of pushing for an answer, his head shot around and he looked over his shoulder.
Then he came back to me.
“Tell him Slick wants what’s owed him. Got it?” Then he pushed against my chest, hard, which hurt because I was already against the wall and had nowhere to go. Then he took off, got in a car and peeled out.
The next thing I knew, Vance was there like he’d formed out of thin air.
Vance worked for Lee. He had black hair (notdyed, definitely the real thing), long and straight and he pulled it back in a ponytail. He was tall, lean, soft-spoken, Native American andhot.
I didn’t know if I was more surprised to be held at knifepoint or to have Vance materialize just afterward.
“You okay?” he asked, his hand on my shoulder, his dark eyes intense.
I was not okay. I was so far from okay that I might never be okay again, but I nodded anyway.
“What’d he say?” Vance asked.
“He wanted to know where my dad was.”
Vance made no comment to this because he was busy shifting as Lenny came out of the club toward us.
“Hands off,” Lenny warned, morphing into bouncer mode.
“It’s okay, Lenny. I know him,” I said.
An SUV came screeching up to us. Another one of Lee’s boys, Matt, was behind the wheel. Regardless of this, neither Vance nor Lenny moved. They were in a faceoff.
“Lenny’s taking me home,” I told Vance.
Vance looked from Lenny to me and nodded. Once.
Then his eyes moved back to Lenny.
“Walk her to her door,” Vance ordered.
He moved to the SUV, swung his body in, and Matt took off.
THREE
THEN LIFE GOT REALLY INTERESTING
Tips were so good at Smithie’s, I treated myself to a taxi instead of the bus the next morning. Before going to Fortnum’s, I went by LaMar’s and bought enough donuts to feed an army. I couldn’t exactly get them for Dad and me without getting them for everyone else.
