“It’s a Dom Distribution van.”
“Exactly.”
He shrugged, dropping the photos back on the counter. “I don’t get it. You’ve got a van outside a building. Why is that so important?”
“It’s important because Peyton left these pictures. She left them for me. Dru took the camera card out of her car and I found it in that evidence box. I almost got it at his apartment, but he took it away from me. I thought it was gone forever. He didn’t want anyone finding these pictures. Why not? They’re just pictures of Peyton and some old building. I mean, what’s so incriminating about that?”
He looked at me blankly. “Connect the dots here, Nikki. What makes you think these pictures mean anything at all? Maybe she accidentally snapped them.”
I slid back onto my stool and leaned over the counter sideways so I was in his line of vision. “She left me a key, too.” I pulled the key out of my pocket and dropped it on the counter. My heart sank a little seeing the key, knowing that Blue was missing and I was probably the only person in this world who cared. Maybe the only person in this world, other than the Hollises, who even knew. He opened his mouth. “Don’t worry about where I got it. She left me a key. Now think about the video we watched. She said that I knew where the building was and that I had the key.” He still didn’t seem to be comprehending. I grunted with frustration, jabbing my finger at the top photo repeatedly. “Right there. That building is the Hollis hideout.”
He finally sat up straight, turned to me, his eyes blazing. “And that’s where Arrigo Basile is staying.”
I nodded. “Exactly. We just have to figure out where this building is.”
He sprang up from his stool and strode over to the coffee table, where his gun was sitting. “I know exactly where that building is,” he said, pushing the gun into a leg holster. “It’s in my old neighborhood.”
35
DETECTIVE MARTINEZ WAS grim and quiet as he drove, confidently and quickly, into L.A.
“Do we have a plan, Detective Martinez?” I asked when I couldn’t take any more of the silent treatment.
His face was a straight line, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tight I thought he might break it. Once again I was aware of the cologne smell in his car. I was starting to think it wasn’t cologne, but his natural scent. He’d changed into a pair of black jeans and a tight black Henley, the buttons undone, showing off a bit of brown chest.
“When are you going to stop calling me that?” he asked.
“What? Detective Martinez? It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“So is Chris.”
“I don’t know. That seems so . . . casual. We’re not really that close, do you think?”
He smirked. “I think at this point, Nikki, we’re close enough. Remember the stakeout?”
I felt my cheeks get hot. Damn it, I would not blush over this guy.
“That was strategy, and I’m not talking about it. What I am talking about is how this is going to go down. So what’s the plan, Detective Martinez?” I repeated, emphasizing his name in an obnoxious voice.
“I guess we go to the building in the photo and then we figure it out when we get there.”
I gaped at him. “That’s it? That’s your grand plan?”
He nodded. “Pretty much.”
“After all the crap you gave me for doing the same thing in Bakersfield?”
“I’m a professional. You’re not.”
“Oh, okay, that makes sense. So it’s all right for you to go in without a plan because you solve all your cases that way, but it’s bad for me to do it because I’m not an actual cop? Is that why I keep beating you to the solution?”
“Very funny. I solve plenty of cases. It’s a gut thing. I would think you, of anyone, would be able to appreciate that.”
I pushed myself farther back into the seat. “Yeah, I suppose I do.”
He wound his way off the highway and into a neighborhood. I was immediately lost, the dark not helping at all. Numbers and street signs and graffiti and building signs jumped out at me—blues and reds and vibrant pinks and yellows. A black Monte Carlo parked at a curb—glossy, red racing stripes, the words Monte Carlo flashing out in silver. A baby-blue VW Bug, the old style, rusted out around the wheels over here, a statue of the Virgin Mary over there. We drove through neighborhoods filled with suspicious-looking teenagers and porches full of alcohol-swilling men, but the farther we drove, the fewer streetlamps blazed overhead, the fewer people hanging around, and the more boarded-up windows we saw. There was a sense of being watched, though, even if we couldn’t see who was doing the watching. It was the most alive abandoned area I’d ever encountered.
“You grew up here?” I asked.
“Not too far,” he said. “I told you it was a rough neighborhood.”
I gazed at a truck, parked in front of a fire hydrant, all of its windows bashed out. I tried to imagine Detective Martinez as a little boy, holes in the knees of his jeans, playing in the dirt patch that was supposed to be his front yard. I tried to imagine him hiding in his room, hoping nobody shot through his window at night. I tried to imagine him as a teenager, stepping out onto this very street, jaw set, determined to get revenge on the man who killed his sister. “It’s definitely not Brentwood. Do you really think a Hollis would ever come out here? Even to hide?”
He turned another corner, and warehouses-turned-loft-apartments squatted around us. “It’s a pretty good spot for them to disappear, don’t you think? Nobody would ever expect to see someone like Bill Hollis in this neighborhood. Plus, it’s just a hideout for their thugs. Doesn’t have to be nice.” I thought about Ruby and Blue’s apartment building. It had seemed slummy to me—impossible to believe it was part of the Hollis empire. But this was worse. Way worse.
Finally, he slowed, edging up to a curb. “There it is,” he said. “Jimi Hendrix.”
“Purple Haze,” I said, seeing the purple jump off the wall.
A dim light glowed through one of the high windows—one of the only lights in the whole area.
“And it looks like somebody’s home.”
“So what’re we going to do, now that we’re here?” I asked.
“We go inside.”
“And . . . ?”
“And we take it from there. How can I say when I don’t know what to expect in there?”
Suddenly I had a feeling of chalkboards and rocks again. Nerves. At least it’s not fear, I thought. Not yet.
“Maybe we should, like, call the cops or something,” I said. “Maybe it’s a bad idea for us to go in there alone.” He didn’t respond. “You said yourself you don’t know what to expect in there. We have one gun between the two of us, and—” Truth was, I didn’t want him putting his job on the line for me. Again. He’d worked hard for what he had, and he didn’t deserve to keep losing things because I was in his life. And, most of all, he didn’t deserve to lose his life over me, the way Dru had.
“We know that Rigo is dangerous, right? What if he’s waiting with ten grenades or a machine gun or something?”
“Grenades? Are you serious? His signature is a cane, remember?”
“Against seventeen-year-old girls, maybe. But against you . . .”
He reached over and clasped my shaky hand in his. “Nikki, we’re not going to call the police. We don’t have a search warrant. We don’t even have a good reason to get one. I’m not a cop right now.” I pulled my hand away and turned back toward the building. “Look,” he said, “if you’re that worried about it, you can stay here. I’ll go in alone.” Well, that was new. Usually I was the one going in alone.
“Never,” I said, pulling the door handle.
He turned off the car and we both skittered across the street, our footsteps sounding exceedingly loud to me, and the asphalt under our feet feeling even bumpier and darker than usual. No doubt about it, I was scared. But in the back of my mind, I sensed undulating fire.
We pressed our backs against the building, taking a few m
inutes to make sure nobody had seen us.
He assessed the side of the building that we were on. There was a rusted metal door. Adhered to the door was a small sign—one that couldn’t be seen in the photos Peyton had taken. Scarlet-avocado-maroon. Dom Distribution.
So this was it. This was the Hollises’ other business. This was where the van came from.
He pulled the key out of his pocket and handed it to me. With his other hand, he pulled out his gun and aimed it at the door. “Go ahead.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“And if he’s waiting for us on the other side?”
“We’ll take care of it. Go.”
My hands were almost too shaky to hold the key, much less slip it into the doorknob quietly. I was very aware of the gun pointed at my back, and the chance that I could get caught in a hail of crossfire bullets.
But I had to do this. My life, literally, depended on it. I had fought for my mother. I had fought for Peyton. I had fought for truth.
Now it was time to fight for myself.
The key sank home and I glanced back at Detective Martinez. He nodded, one time.
I turned the key. The door unlocked. But I had barely opened it half an inch before Detective Martinez’s boot slammed into it, knocking it with a solid metallic boom against the wall.
“Police! Freeze!” he shouted, moving in.
I had no choice but to follow.
“WHAT—WHAT—WHAT—” SHOUTED A man who was running toward me, completely ignoring the gun Detective Martinez had trained on him. I dropped back into a fighting stance and tried to take in my surroundings in the dark. I was standing in what looked like a showroom. There were shelves all around me, filled with various antique preservation chemicals, books on how to restore old things, and a few moving aids like dollies and straps and quilts. All around me were smartly restored pieces of furniture—very expensive-looking. But behind the man, there was an open door, which revealed living quarters. A couch and TV, a table, a hot plate, a mini-fridge. And, stacked against one wall, bags and bags of the colorful Molly I’d seen in Luna’s hand in a photo that I’d stolen from Peyton’s apartment not so long ago. So much Molly it was hard to wrap my head around it. In the farthest corner of that room, barely visible from where I was standing, was a large safe. If they left their drugs out in plain sight like that, God only knew what they hid in the safe.
“Stop!” Detective Martinez shouted beside me. “Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” I’d never heard him really yell before. Raise his voice, yes, plenty of times. But not bellow like this. I turned in his direction.
Mistake.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I heard from my other side, right at the same time I felt cold metal press against my temple. I froze. I knew that voice.
Jones.
36
PUT IT DOWN, cop,” Luna said, stepping out from behind Jones. “Rigo, get his gun.”
As the man came closer, I began to be able to make out his features. Short, balding, small gut. The same man I’d seen in the surveillance video. The man we’d been looking for all this time. We’d found him, but I was too stunned to really care. I’d built him up in my head to be a monster, but he looked like a sad, saggy middle-aged guy. Not even very big. He scurried forward and took the gun out of Detective Martinez’s hand. Martinez didn’t fight him.
“Jones?” I breathed, my brain swimming, literally unable to make sense of seeing him here. And with a gun to my head. “What the hell? What’s going on?”
“Don’t talk, Nikki,” he said. “You had your chance to talk. Now I do the talking.” I could feel the barrel vibrate against my skin—he was shaking. His voice cracked on the word talking.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What are you doing here?” But it was starting to sink in. I’d recognized the voice behind the mask on the second guy in my house. I’d been unable to place it at the time, because he’d lowered it to a growl and, besides, why would I ever, in a billion years, think it might be Jones? But it was. I could hear it again right now. It was Jones that night.
“I said don’t talk!” he yelled. Behind him Luna giggled and hopped on her toes, her hands clasped under her chin like a swoony cartoon character.
“Oh my God, don’t you think he’s so sexy when he’s mad, Nikki? I don’t know why you let him go. I’m just glad you did. And you did it so epically bitchy. Made my job so easy.”
“Put the gun down, Jones,” Detective Martinez said. “You’re going to get yourself into a whole lot of trouble. But you can back out of it now.”
“Shut up!” Luna spat, then turned back to me and giggled some more. “Did you know how heartbroken he was? Totally heartbroken. But don’t worry, Nikki, I convinced him you’re not worth it. I convinced him of a lot of things. He’s so . . . willing.”
“Jones,” Detective Martinez said again. “Think about your future. You don’t want to do this.”
Luna rolled her eyes. “Go ahead and shoot the cop, Rigo. I’m sick of being interrupted.”
“No,” I heard myself breathe. “Don’t do it. We just—we just want to talk to you. I swear. Jones, we can work this out. We didn’t even know you guys were here.”
She laughed, that cold crocodile laugh. “Clearly. You wouldn’t be stupid enough to come into a dark room with me a second time, would you, Nikki Kill? And with no Dru to protect you either. I wonder if Dru would have been so eager to eat a bullet for you if he knew how cozy you were about to get with your little wind-up cop over there.” She sidestepped a few steps so she could see Detective Martinez. Or maybe so he could better see her. She loved to be the center of attention, after all. She took the gun from Rigo. “Go get some rope, Rigo. Lots of it. For our best friend Nikki here. I know some people who are going to be very happy to see that you and I have reconciled our differences, Nikki, and you just couldn’t separate yourself from me.” She laughed again, tossing her hair over her shoulder. I tried not to let the motion send me back into that night at Hollis Mansion. She turned her head and snarled, “Go, Rigo. Since you won’t kill the cop, I’ll do it.” She aimed the gun at Detective Martinez. “Hey, cop. Did you know that boys who protect Nikki Kill have a way of ending up dead? Pow, pow.” She jerked the gun with each pow and giggled again. “Two for flinching. This is fun.” She moved back over to Jones and patted his cheek with her free hand. “I don’t know what you see in that pig over there, Nikki Kill. This one’s so good-looking. Check out these muscles.” She ran her fingers over Jones’s biceps. I saw him recoil, just slightly. “And he’s smart. He knows whose side to be on. Although you did make it pretty easy for him. I had no trouble at all getting him into your house, your car. Your pants. Kind of gross, if you ask me, but hey, he was pretty pissed at you. That’s what you get for fooling around. I hope Officer Friendly was worth it.” She turned and aimed the gun at Detective Martinez.
It was my only chance.
I tapped my toe against Detective Martinez’s shoe, hoping that he understood what I was communicating. Be ready. I sensed, rather than saw, his head twitch down in the tiniest of a nod. I tapped his shoe again. Go time.
I rushed her, striking her hands with both of my palms. At the same time, Martinez took three big steps forward, head down, and shoved Jones. The gun almost flew out of Luna’s hand, but the trigger guard got caught on her finger and it simply spun and swung. I turned, jamming my elbow into her gut and trapping her arm under my armpit, frantically fumbling to knock the gun from her hand. Finally, it fell to the floor—once again I braced myself for the bang—and I kicked it away. It spun out of my reach.
Luna yanked free, but before I could get set, she came at me, grabbing a handful of my hair and pummeling my face. They weren’t hard hits, but they were scrappy ones. Luna liked to fight dirty. I was going to have to get dirty too, if I wanted to survive.
I put my hands up to cover my face from the blows and low kicked her to the side of the knee, but m
y kick was weak. I leaned in to elbow strike her to the face, but her hands, my hands, and my hair were all in my line of vision and I missed. My elbow ended up striking her temple instead. Which was just enough to make her let go.
I could hear Detective Martinez and Jones fighting somewhere near me, a lot of meaty smacks and grunts and sounds of tussling. Every so often, Martinez would tell Jones to just stop, give himself a chance to turn this around. But from the sound of things, Jones wasn’t going to give in anytime soon. Which still made no sense to me. Luna had gotten to Jones? How? He’d been on her side this whole time? How had I been fooled by him?
I shoved Luna hard with my shoulder, and she fell back a few steps, taking a handful of hair with her and crashing into a stack of cleaning supplies. Somehow she managed to keep her balance, and before I could even think what to do next, she had grabbed a broom and was coming at me again.
“Not this time, bitch,” she snarled.
She swung the broom handle at me, and I turned just enough to absorb the blow on my side. My ribs were still sore from my encounter with the Basiles in my kitchen—correction, a Basile and Jones in my kitchen—and I cried out. She cocked her arm back to swing again.
Distance was usually my advantage. I could kick an opponent in the face before they knew what was coming. But Luna had evened that advantage with the stupid stick. I had to go inside. I was lousy inside. I tried to remember how Detective Martinez had gotten the advantage on me from up close. He was quick, and he never stopped coming at his opponent. I blocked her swing with one hand—pain ringing up my arm—and punched her as hard as I could in the neck. Instantly, she dropped the broom and doubled over, grasping her neck and coughing.
I pushed away from her, dropped back into a ready stance, then front snap kicked her, the top of my foot groaning as it made contact with her face. I felt a dull, crunching thud and Luna nearly flew backward, her head cracking hard on the concrete.