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“Hey,” said Mel, pasting a pained smile on her face. “How’s it going?”
“I haven’t cried yet,” I said.
“Is that a good thing?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted and then kicked a rock away from my toe.
She followed my gaze to the ground, and neither of us seemed to know what to say. My stomach still felt sour, and acid burned my throat after all I had relived. Maybe it would’ve been easier to live alone, under a rock. But that was a lie too, because the thoughts would still come to me in the middle of the night. Or whenever I closed my eyes.
I needed Cook and needed this life to be whole. The sooner I dealt with everyone, the better.
“Roni will be testifying against the Gambinos,” I said.
Mel jerked back like she had just been slapped. “I’ll try to help in any way possible. I’m used to coaching witnesses in getting ready to take the stand.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Roni will probably like that.”
“And I’ll call up Hellen Heels.” Mel smiled, a small expression, but one that told me she was remembering something fondly.
I had no idea who Hellen Heels was, so I asked, “Who?”
“She’s a DA in LA. Her real name is Marley Jacobson, but everyone calls her Hellen Heels, because she’s kind of a hellcat in the courtroom... and beyond. I’ll call her up and ask her to come down to the Ridge.”
I drew my brows together. “I’m not sure why we’d need her to come here.”
“Oh, well, if we’re talking about testifying against the Gambinos, she’s probably the one who has the case. I just assumed. Well, maybe I shouldn’t have... anyway.” Now Mel kicked a stray rock.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“Maddie?”
I looked up at her.
“Are you thinking of testifying too? That’s a huge deal.”
“I, um, I don’t know.” I hugged myself and focused on the huge cactus off to my right.
“Okay. You don’t have to decide right now. Is there another reason you came out here?” asked Mel, leaning back against the hood of her car.
Yeah, they made me.I dropped my hands to my sides. “I felt bad for you being locked in the car.”
“Did Doctor Richardson help?”
“Yeah, Ava has helped me,” I said. “And Roni too.”
Mel nodded. “That’s good.”
The bridge we had been building last night seemed to crumble, and I was too tired right now to rebuild it. No amount of small talk could fix the broken me.
Only Cook could.
He was a balm over my wounds, all of them freshly reopened. Although, I didn’t think I could ever say any of those things to him, like I couldn’t with Mel, because I didn’t want to pull them into my pain. I just wanted to be free of it.
Suddenly, Mel pulled up her head like a dog. I tried to listen like she did. The wind was picking up in the canyon. Pushing off the hood of the car, she grabbed a gun at her side, and I sucked in a deep breath.Did everyone have a gun around here except me? Melanie was training to go into the FBI—to find me, I thought she’d said—so she knew how to handle the weapon.
The rumbling sound then hit my ears, only a few seconds before I felt it in my bones. A motorcycle. No, many bikes. Mel pointed toward the road, where a blob of black became a group of riders followed by a dust cloud.
Melanie didn’t lower her weapon until the motorcycles rolled to the stop.
