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“Then you told him why I was interested.”
“Of course. Funny thing, he looked like he was going to choke when I first said her name.”
The piece of pizza on the way to Honey’s mouth stopped in midair. “He did? Why?”
“I don’t know. But he recuperated quickly, laughed it off, and said he’d let us know.”
“It sounds like you and Jess are getting close. Tell all.”
Mel flushed but didn’t drop her eyes. “I kinda can’t. This is special Honey. He’s special. It seems wrong to talk about our relationship… like I’d be tempting the universe to mess it up or something stupid like that.”
Honey didn’t laugh. She just nodded and changed the subject. After a few more hours of chatting, laughing, eating more pizza, and drinking, Honey forbid Mel to leave. “You’re too drunk to drive home, my friend. Stay with me. We’ll watch a movie and have a pajama party. I spotted some popcorn in the pantry that we can microwave. And… there’s another bottle of wine,” she tempted Mel on purpose.
“I don’t have any pjs. How can we have a pajama party? It’ll have to be an underwear party.” Mel laughed so hard she almost fell off the stool.
Striking Honey funny as well, she doubled over. Finally, she stopped long enough to come up with a solution. “Hey, I brought a pair of pjs. You can have the top, and I’ll wear the bottoms.”
That made them both giggle more until they began scurrying around to get the popcorn and organize the rest of their evening. In no time at all, they were in front of the large-screen TV with a romantic comedy on the screen while they both slept.
It was Mel who heard it first. “Honey, wake up. Isn’t that your ringtone?”
“What? Oh, right. I changed it along with my number.” She scrambled out from under the blanket and awkwardly ran for the phone where she left it in the kitchen. “Who in the world would call this time of the night?”
Mel watched her and shot up when she heard Honey’s words.
“Hello? Mom? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
Chapter Twenty-four
Luke arrived at the address the stranger on the phone had given him and looked in the empty lot behind the residential district. Sure enough, he found who he suspected was the female cousin who’d called Wendi for help.
When he pulled up, he saw the girl take off, and he started in pursuit, calling out words that had her stopping. “Wendi sent me. I’m the guy you messaged with on the phone.”
“You’re a cop.” She spat the words at him in a panic.
“A cop! Christ, sugar, would I be hanging with Wendi if I was?”
“Why didn’t she come herself?”
“I told you in the text. We bought some shit from Joey, and she couldn’t wait to get into it. I was driving. You’re lucky you caught me in time. Now what’s going on?”
“I-I met up with Zed like Wendi said, and he sold me some pills.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah. I promised I’d share with Val, but I first wanted to get payback for getting pepper sprayed last night.” She pointed to her face. “The bitch who did this needs to learn she shouldn’t mess with me. My fucking face burned all day. Warned her I’d go after her mother to get back at her. I made Val, that’s my girl who was blackmailing me, come along before I’d give her a share of the pills.” When Val’s name came out, the girl started shaking. Her eyes grew large with warning, and he stepped back just in time before she lost everything in her stomach.
After hearing her garbled explanation, his adrenalin pumped inside his body like a car engine turned on. Pepper spray! That fit. It was all he could do not to pounce on her and force her to tell him what she’d done. Instead, he headed for his nearby truck to retrieve a bottle of water. Handing it over, he waited… his hard won control back in place.
“What happened, sugar?” On purpose, he kept his voice low and nonthreatening.
“We met up across there,” she pointed to a compound of small row houses on Beecham Lane. We were going to break into the old lady’s condo, and you know, just scare her, but Val wouldn’t go with me unless she had a hit first. So, I gave her enough to keep her happy. But when we broke the glass to get into the back door, Val started acting all weird. She dropped to the ground and began shaking, having convulsions. “I didn’t know what to do. When some old guy came out swinging a bat, I ran.”
“And he found Val. Is that her name?” He thought for a second before asking, “You went back?”
“Yeah, Val Gordon. I never really left, just hid close by, and watched. Val stopped having those - those spasms, and I saw him lean over her and feel for a pulse. When the woman we were after came outside with her phone, he said for her to call 911. But he figured Val was already dead.”
“Christ kid, show me the place this happened.”
