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“You’re going to have to go first,” X said to me, keeping his voice down. “I might need to give you a shove from behind.”
I nodded then moved back, allowing myself a run up. I pushed the gun into the back of my pants, wedging the handle so it wouldn’t move, and then set off at a sprint. Right before I reached the wall, I sprang for the top. My body slammed into it, and I gave an ouff of exertion. My fingers gripped the top, and I thought I might slip, but then I felt X’s firm hands from below, and he gave me a push, lifting me high enough to get my elbows up onto the wall then haul the rest of my body up.
I stayed flat, not wanting to make myself a target to anyone who might have been watching from the house. I was pretty sure I’d still find bullet holes in the wall below, left over from last time, if I looked hard enough.
X retraced my movements and ran for the wall. He was a little taller than I was and got a better hold, but I still reached out and pulled him the rest of the way up, partly so I could touch him again.
He sat astride the wall. We waited, keeping down, quickly scanning the grounds. Most of the place was in darkness, with the exception of a few lights on in the house, which spilled their illumination to the outside area.
“Doesn’t look like anyone is patrolling the grounds,” I said. “Tony would normally have someone watching out.”
“Perhaps they’re still short on men, since the shooting.”
“Yeah, Tony did lose people.” I wasn’t convinced, though. I hadn’t seen how the shootout had ended, but I’d assumed the people in the vehicles had just driven off again. Perhaps things had ended differently, or perhaps something had happened since then.
X jumped down first, and I followed, him half-catching me as I landed.
Staying alert, both of us with our weapons drawn, we ran across the lawn, quickly moving into the protective shadow of the building. Sticking close to the wall, we edged along until we reached the place where Harvey and the other man had been shot. There were no signs of the bodies, or, from what I could see in the darkness, even blood on the ground. Someone had taken the time to clean up.
“Hey, look,” X hissed at me.
The door to the rear of the property was busted open, the wood of the doorframe splintered. X and I exchanged a glance. The door had been broken inward, so someone had been trying to get in rather than out.
“Cops?” I whispered to him.
He shrugged.
X knew as much as I did, but I hoped if the police had been planning a raid on the house, Detective Caraway would have let me know. Obviously, I wouldn’t have expected him to tell me before it happened, as I’d have been too much of a risk when it came to warning my sister and the word getting out, but if people had been arrested, and Nicole had been with them, I thought he’d have let me know.
I knew my way around the house far better than X, so I led the way, pushing through the broken door and stepping into the hallway beyond. The staircase up to the first floor, and the bedroom where I’d assumed and hoped Nicole would be, was toward the front of the house, and we needed to pass the back of Tony’s office to reach it. My ears strained for any sound of movement, but I heard nothing. Normally the house had people coming and going all the time. The stillness of the building only confirmed to me something had happened.
“Vee …” X’s voice was low with warning.
I turned to glance at him, and he nodded forward.
I looked back down the hallway. A little beyond the door to the library, a body was crumpled on the floor.
We approached with caution. There was every possibility this whole thing was a trap, and the guy on the floor was actually alive and about to start shooting at us at any moment. But as my footsteps took me closer, X right beside me, I could see the black smear of what looked like oil in the dim light, but what I realized was blood. I also realized I knew who the body was.
“Ah, shit.”
It was Mateo, Nickie’s tutor.
My heart sank. I didn’t give a shit about the tutor, but I knew Nickie wouldn’t have taken his death lightly, if she even knew he was dead. Where was she now? Was she still alive? For some reason, I told myself I would instinctively know if she was dead, as though we had some kind of telepathic connection, which I knew was total bullshit. I prayed she was simply worth too much to kill.
The certainty that I wouldn’t find her asleep in bed solidified within me. Though I didn’t want to go in there, we needed to search Tony’s office and try to get an idea about what had gone down here. I jerked my head in the direction of the doors which led to the back of Tony’s office. X nodded, understanding what I needed to do.
Cautiously, I pushed open the door, and then stepped back again, behind the shelter of the wall, expecting gunfire to chase after me. When nothing happened, I aimed my weapon and stepped into the office, X covering me.
For a moment, I thought the place was empty, but then the big chair which sat behind Tony’s monster of a desk spun around to reveal the man himself sitting in its leather depths, cradling a glass of amber liquid—whiskey, I assumed.
My stomach lurched and I pointed my gun directly at him, my finger trembling on the trigger. If it wasn’t for my need to know the location of my sister, I’d have shot him then and there.
“Now there’s a face I wasn’t expecting to see again,” Tony said with a tight smile. “I certainly hadn’t expected for you to walk right back in here. Not to worry. You’ve saved me a job.”
Movement came from behind us, and three men emerged—Warren and Paulie, and right behind them was Johnny. My old boss was the only one who wasn’t armed, and with the tape across his nose and the two black eyes, which I assumed X must have given him, he didn’t look in a great way.
Both Warren and Paulie aimed their weapons right at the back of X’s head. I had one gun, which was pointed at Tony, and X would never be able to shoot both men before getting shot himself.
