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With Ava, it was always about following the crumbs—stolen, poisoned, or otherwise corrupted ones.
“I was at Tatiana’s. The guy I needed to talk to was there.”
“Let me guess? Rill was there?” I threw another piece of chicken at Mooch, because he was gazing up at me with big, horse-puppy eyes.
“Look at you go. I swear, you’re so smart.”
I flung a piece of lettuce at her and she dodged, giving me a wide smile. She was the only woman I knew who could ride the rails of danger day and night and still smile as the world’s most dangerous men chased her.
“Seriously, though. I have no clue why you don’t become my sidekick. I’m the one always in danger. You’re the one always cooling it. We’d kick ass. But I digress.” She took another bite of pizza. Another drink of her Coke. She looked between her plate and my bowl. “I really should be having that, and you really should be having this.” She went to switch but I held tight.
“You got what you got. I’m enjoying this.”
She blew out a heavy breath. “Yeah. Rill was there. You can say he put a damper on my lead when he pulled the guy outside and cut his ear off.”
Maybe I should have been used to it by then, between my sister and my old flame. But the violence of that life still shocked me from time to time. Especially when it rolled off their tongues so easily.
“He didn’t recognize me at first. He was looking to kill the guy for something else. We just happened to be at the same place at the same time, both wanting a piece of the guy. I wanted information. He wanted his ear. But that’s not really my point. He saw me. Things got awkward.”
“Awkward?” I took a drink of my lemonade.
“Awkward in my world. He said he wanted to kill me for leaving him. I calmed him down, but he didn’t want me to leave again. It’s like I’m his emotional support doll.”
“Ah,” I breathed out. “And this is where Lilo comes in.”
“This is where Shadow Man comes in.” She held up a hand. “I know. I know. But that’s who he is.”
“You’ve got to stop this. You’ve got to stop calling him when shit hits the fan. He’s not your brother.”
“He’s always acted like it.”
“How about this?” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “How about you get a real journalist job at a real newspaper. You can still hunt down criminals. But you don’t have to cater to their fucking newspaper!”
“Forget what I said about Rill,” she said. “Forget me calling Lilo. I finally have something, Luci.”
“What?” I opened my eyes.
She was smiling like she’d just won the lottery. Her eyes glistened. “Did you hear me? I finally have something real to connect me to them.”
She looked around, like maybe someone had overheard her. Or it was totally possible that someone was looking for her—they always were—and she wanted to spot them first. But she was never jumpy. Which concerned me. She thrived on danger. Was obsessed with it.
“An anonymous call came into Vice this morning. They put him through to me. Said he would only speak to me. It was a guy, I think. Hard to tell. Definitely French. Told me he had info on the Fausti family that plenty of people would pay top dollar for. He demanded that I print it in the paper, with an article on how rich the Fausti family was.”
“Why is that a lead? Everyone knows they’re rich. Beyond rich.”
“True.” She took a sip of her drink as if she wanted to draw out the moment. “But…what they don’t know is where all of their properties are.”
“They hide them?”
She gave me a look that meant duh but was more mature. “They don’t hide them, exactly, but they’re not listed. A few of them have been confirmed, but not the real private ones. The ones they use on a regular basis.”
“This guy—or girl—knows for sure?”
She nodded quickly. “My gut is telling me to trust this. He gave me a list of their places, which, of course, I wrote down. Even though I don’t think I could forget. Then he told me something no one else would know.”
“Stop,” I said, suddenly feeling the salad turn into a green-leaf monster in my stomach. The Italian dressing felt like it was coagulating in my throat. “Don’t do this, Ava.”
“Luci,” she said, reaching across the table, taking my hand. “Stop worrying so much. You’re getting premature wrinkles.”
“Stop messin’ around,” I said.
I always figured her dream of getting close to the Faustis was just that…a dream that would never come true. They were so inaccessible. It was like hunting down criminal royalty and putting them behind bars. But no cage would ever be strong enough to hold them back. I had a bad feeling about this. I had a feeling she was close.“You don’t even want to know what he told me?”
