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

tracing the sewer line on the map. “But look. If you follow it in this direction, it goes right under the police station where Lemon works.”

“Who buries a wad of cash under a police station?” Sneak asked.

“No one move,” a new voice said. I looked up, and over Ada’s shoulder I saw Al Tasik standing in the automatic doorway of the Pump’n’Jump. He took a step forward, made the buzzer sound, and came more fully into my view. He was holding his gun out from his hip. It was pointed at Sneak.

“You,” he said to her. “You’re coming with me.”

JESSICA

Everyone had frozen. Ada’s goons had their hands in their jackets, ready to draw, but the beautiful Black woman stood there giving them no instructions. In the fragmented seconds of stillness, Jessica thought about doing what she really came here to do. Now that everything she knew about Dayly and John Fishwick was out on the table, she wanted to complete her next task. A task she dreaded with all of her being. She looked at Blair and thought about just saying it, here, now, in front of everyone.

I’m sorry. I was wrong. I know the truth about you.

Instead she turned to her colleague. “Tasik, what the fuck is this?” she snapped.

“Emily Lawlor,” Tasik said, taking Sneak’s arm. “I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of your daughter, Dayly Lawlor. You have the right to remain silent.”

“Tasik.” Jessica grabbed his sleeve.

“Back off, Sanchez.” He shoved Sneak into the counter and cuffed her. “Or I’ll be back after I’ve processed this one to arrest your friends Maverick and Harbour for parole violations.”

“Y-you have no evidence to arrest Sneak,” Blair stammered. Ada was gathering up the maps on the counter, folding them, giving them to her men. “You can’t do this. She didn’t … Jessica, do something!”

Jessica followed Tasik to his car. Sneak trudged beside him, staring at the ground, lost.

“What are you working with here, Tasik?” Jessica said. “Talk to me.”

“I’ve got a couple of Crips snitches who say Lawlor and her daughter had a fight on the night she disappeared.” Tasik shoved Sneak into his vehicle. “I’ve got some suspicious texts. Meetings. Harbour and Maverick might be involved. I don’t know. I’ll have it out with this one in the interrogation room first, then I’ll connect the dots.”

“Bullshit,” Jessica snarled. “I’m working with these women, okay? We’re close to a solution here. This arrest is a time-waster. It’s painfully obvious.”

“You can have her after I’ve sweated her out a little,” Tasik said. “She knows more than she says she does. She’s a lifelong scumbag, Sanchez. Maybe you’re having trouble telling the difference. You haven’t been around as long as I have.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Jessica shook her head. “You’re not going to get this woman into the interrogation room. I promise you that. I’ll have you explaining yourself to Whitton at the fucking station fifteen minutes from now while I uncuff Sneak and let her walk.”

“Sneak?” Tasik snorted. He slammed the door of the cruiser behind his captive, opened the driver’s door. “Fair enough, Sanchez. You want to tussle over this heap of shit? Get in.”

Jessica ran to the passenger side and leaped into the vehicle.

BLAIR

Ada grabbed a Coke for herself from the fridges on the wall and made a sweeping motion at me with her hand.

“All right, let’s shut this circus down. Fred, get the back door.”

“I can’t just shut the shop.” I winced as she picked up my keys from the counter and threw them a little too hard at me. “I’ve still got three hours on my shift.”

“Forget your fucking shift, Neighbor.” She started walking out. “We know where Dayly is. Let’s go get her.”

In the parking lot I tried to get into the front passenger seat, assuming Ada would want me riding up front with her so we could talk through what we’d just discovered. But Mike muscled in beside me, nodding to the back door.

“You ride with Fred,” he said.

I sat coldly in the back seat, trying not to look at Fred, who perched stiffly in the seat like a G.I. Joe doll in the rear of a plastic Jeep. His big, tattooed hands were on his thighs, flat, tense. From what I could see, Mike was sitting exactly the same way in front of me, looking at me now and then in his side mirror. I started getting a queasy sensation: the notion that, had I really protested about shutting the Pump’n’Jump or getting into the car with Ada and her crew, I would have been made to go against my will. At every stoplight I imagined myself trying to open the door and finding it locked. Feeling Fred’s hand on my shoulder, maybe his arm sweeping around my body, dragging me back into the car. Sneak’s words rang in my ears.

I got into a car with Ada Maverick and got out again, alive.

I chewed my nails as the city became the long, dark, sweeping freeway. Ada lit a cigarette and I watched its red burning tip rock back and forth on the steering wheel. Lit billboards appeared through the windshield, gathering speed, whizzing by us. The road to San Jasinte was becoming so familiar now it was as if I was heading home. Ada turned on the radio as we breezed past signs for Joshua Tree National Park. A talk show was playing.

“… apparently refer to them as ‘swarm parties,’ George.”

“Swarm parties?”

“Yes. Similar to flash mobs, which rose in popularity in the mid-2000s, swarm parties involve a large group of strangers suddenly assembling at a designated place to engage in a celebration.”

“Right, so what we’re seeing here, Erica, is a swarm party in full effect right now at a residence in Woodland Hills. The news desk is saying that upward of a thousand people have descended on Esperance Drive, where a house seems to be at the center of one of these so-called swarm parties. Residents are reporting loud music, motorbikes