Gathering Dark, Candice Fox [inspirational books for students .TXT] 📗

from the scene without leaving a trace of myself. After Sneak had driven away I’d abandoned Ada on the lawn I’d dragged her to, knowing she’d be fine, and gone back to the old man in the hoarder house. I’d unbound him, given him water, and dragged him out to his own front lawn, where emergency personnel responding to the car explosion would find him. Then I ran as best I could. Like a prison escapee fleeing into the growing dawn, I’d run as hard as my leg would allow, stopping two suburbs over when it seemed safe to hail a cab. I’d gone home and removed the bullet myself. For days I’d stayed home, peering out the curtains, waiting to be arrested after a witness identified me, or my prints were found on the shovel in the tunnel, or Jessica Sanchez connected me to the murders, the heist.

But the arrest never came. And now she was here.

She saw that I was free, put her magazine down, and came to the counter. I looked out at the lot, half expecting to see squad cars screaming in. There were none.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” I said. I tried to collect my thoughts. “What … ah. What are you doing here?”

“I just came to say hello,” Jessica said, leaning on the counter. “And to see if you’d heard from Sneak.”

“No,” I said, truthfully. “I haven’t. If I had to guess I’d say she’s in Jamaica by now. We had a Jamaican chef in the kitchen at Happy Valley for a while, and she always liked the food. I heard they found Tasik’s car at the airport, so…” I shrugged.

“She’ll come back for Dayly’s funeral,” Jessica said. “Surely.”

“I don’t know.” Dayly’s body had been found flung down an embankment off a fire trail in the Glendora mountains, the same road where Al Tasik had been killed attempting to take Sneak’s and Jessica’s lives. Los Angeles news outlets had had a hell of a time trying to account for the dead cop’s actions, how they were connected to the body on the mountain, whether they were connected to the bodies in the tunnel, the bodies in Ada’s car. I assumed Jessica herself was trying to straighten the police out on the whole case.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” I said to Jessica. “If I do see Sneak, whether she comes back for her daughter’s funeral, or she comes back because she’s a drug addict and a thief and those kinds of people are creatures of habit, I won’t be telling you. No offense.”

“None taken,” she said. “I’m not trying to pursue Sneak.”

“Why not?” I asked. “From what you told me on the phone, it sounds as though Sneak murdered Tasik right in front of you. She drove over him multiple times.”

“That’s what I told you on the phone, yes,” Jessica said. “But that was only twenty-four hours after the event. I was still shocked. Traumatized.”

She shrugged helplessly.

“I’m not sure I remember clearly exactly what happened on the mountain,” she said, avoiding my eyes. I saw a small smile flash on her lips and then disappear. “All I know is that Sneak and I defended ourselves. Perhaps Sneak used the car to try to incapacitate Tasik, and then ran over him multiple times by accident. It wasn’t her car. She wouldn’t have been familiar with the controls. I wasn’t in the vehicle with her, so I don’t think I can assess her intention.”

“Right.” I smiled. “But what about her theft of John Fishwick’s millions from the tunnels?”

“What am I going to charge her with there?” Jessica asked. “I can’t prove the cash from the tunnel ever existed. I don’t even know if that was Sneak. All I’ve got from the witness accounts is a bruised and battered blonde woman at the San Jasinte scene putting two suitcases into a car. The suitcase in Ada’s car was full of shredded paper and explosives. It might be that wherever Sneak is, she’s flat broke.”

I bit my tongue. Then I couldn’t help myself.

“I think it was about fourteen million,” I blurted.

Jessica laughed. “I hope she doesn’t spend it all on blow.”

“What about Ada?” I asked. “Are you going to go after her?”

“I’d like to see Ada behind bars again,” Jessica said. “I’m not going to lie. She’s a dangerous person. But from what I hear, that’s going to be a losing battle for whoever takes on the case. She’s already out on bail. She has the best lawyer money can buy, of course, and she’s blaming the whole thing on her dead goons. They forced her to go there. They killed Lemon and Ramirez and made her watch.”

“Slick,” I said.

“The slickest,” Jessica agreed.

Jessica seemed to be examining my face, wanting to say more, wanting to promise, perhaps, that she also wasn’t coming after me. But that seemed obvious. There were no squad cars on the lot. No cuffs on her belt. I fiddled with the crossword pages.

“How’s your face?” I said eventually.

“It’s all right.” She touched the stitches in her cheek tentatively. “In fact, it’s better than all right. You come that close to death, leaving the fray with a punch in the face and a bruised throat feels like a win. Look, truth is, I wanted to come here today to see if you’ve got a minute to discuss me giving your kid a reward for his efforts. He saved my life. He deserves it.”

“Oh, well.” I smiled. “I don’t know. I guess I can get behind that. What were you thinking? He likes Nintendo games.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of giving him his mother back,” Jessica said.

A splinter of pain in my chest. I stood watching Jessica’s eyes as she recounted her recorded conversation with Kristi Zea to me. She told me about the bush outside the laundry window of the Orlov house. The forensic analysis of the bite mark in the cheese sandwich. Adrian’s brother and the cocaine in the bedroom on the