CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO MOLLY
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MOLLY
“Is that supposed to say closed?” Jess asked from her car.
The sign said CLOSED . Easter Lanes was closed .
I growled. “I’m going to take a fork and stab my cousin. I’ll keep stabbing him, little cuts, over and over again, until he’s bleeding out and he can’t move. The slowest and longest death possible.”
I was fully aware I was saying this in the presence of an ex-law enforcement worker, and that she was giving me a look as if, “Do you know who you’re saying that to?”
I didn’t care. Sunday was always a decent day for work, and he had closed my place! Also, I felt the switch starting to turn. It wasn’t just my dad who could flip it. It was family in general.
I turned to Jess. “I guarantee you that my cousin is still in bed, hungover from wherever he went last night, and if I find out that he closed early last night, I will blow a gasket.”
She stared at me and blinked once. “What’s his address?”
God, I loved my friends.
I gave it to her, and she programmed it in and took off. “Do you want to call Ashton?”
“Nope. I’m saving my breath until I figure out what I’m going to do.”
“Do you have an idea of what you’ll do?”
“Kill my cousin.”
“Obviously. That’s step one,” said the ex-parole officer.
“I’ll go back to running Easter Lanes. I’ll sleep there if I have to. I’m not letting this mess with my livelihood.”
“I’ll stay with you.”
I glanced her way. She was driving and paying attention to the street, but I was studying her.
“You sound serious about that.”
“I am.” She glanced my way for a second. “Ashton sidelined me, and I’ll never admit this to his face, but he had reason. But you working, I can help with that. That gives me something to do.”
“How’s the painting?”
Jess’s mouth flattened, and she swallowed over a knot in her throat. I could see it. She ducked her head down briefly, her hand tightening over the steering wheel. “It’s—not well. I’ve tried, but the only thing I can paint is Kelly. Over and over again.”
Jess was an up-and-coming artist. Her paintings were getting picked up by galleries, and there had been an article written about her not long ago. I remember thinking it was one shining spot for her amid everything.
“I go in. I try to paint. I want to paint, but then I go into a catatonic state, and when I come out of it, it’s Kelly.
I can only paint her.” Her voice was hoarse.
“So.” She cleared her throat, forcing a smile my way.
“Besides taking my mom in for her doctor visits, I can hang out at Easter Lanes.” She let out a sudden laugh.
“Consider me your personal bodyguard. What’s Ashton going to do?
Mafia wars can take months, years even. You have to work. ”
She was right. I had to work.
Also, months? Years? Talk about bleak.
Wait. “Your mom? Hospital visits?”
Jess flinched, just a tiny bit. “She had some weird test results come up, so we’ve been taking her in to get that checked more. They’re not sure what it is yet.”
Oh man. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I mean ... it’s okay.” She glanced my way. “What’s your plan with your cousin?”
“Oh! I do not need a plan for him.”
That wasn’t totally true.
We got to his building, and I buzzed his neighbor. She was my version of Mrs.Tulip, but instead of my own Mrs.Tulip—“Hello? I didn’t order anything.”
“Hi, Mrs.Navarro!” Upbeat and happy. She really loved that side of me. “This is—”
Bzzzzzz!
Jess smothered a laugh. “I could’ve used you when I went to visit some of my parolees.”
I grabbed the door and went inside, bypassing the elevator. “That gets stuck every third day between floors twelve and fourteen. It’s the thirteenth-floor effect. I swear by it.”
“Hmmm.” Jess grunted, heading up with me.
When we got to his floor, his neighbor’s door was open, and Mrs.Navarro was waving a blanket in the air. “Oh, it is you! I thought I might’ve reacted a little hastily.”
“Hello, Mrs.Navarro.” I went to her, hands on her shoulders, and I kissed both of her cheeks. She grew up in Spain, so I kept up with her custom.
She was beaming at me and patted my hand. “How are you, honey?”
“I’m good.” I glanced toward Glen’s door. “I gotta handle something with my cousin, but how are you? You look amazing. Tan hermosa.”
“Oh!” But she was beaming and waved a hand to me. “Dios te bendigo.”
My Spanish was rusty. I’d given up trying to get better, but I nodded and smiled back.
Anything Mrs.Navarro was saying, I loved it.
She kept talking until her phone began ringing.
“Oh, honey. I need to get that. You come by next Sunday for dinner. I never need an excuse to make paella, but I’ll make it just for you with extra spices. ”
I was so totally down for that. “I’ll be here. Tell me the time.”
She reached inside, grabbing her phone and speaking into it before handing me a key. “Come over around six, and here you go. Slide it under the door when you’re done.”
“Gracias, Senora Navarro. Gracias.”
“Ooh!” She came back, kissing my cheeks and giving me an extra pat there. “Tan hermosa! You!” The person on her phone was speaking fast and loud, so she motioned to it and stepped back inside, another wave of her free hand.
Jess had been holding back, but she came closer, looking at the key. “That was ... amazing to watch.”
I chuckled, stepping over and fitting the key into the lock. I turned it, unlocking it, and I took it back out, sliding it under Mrs.Navarro’s door before I forgot. After that, it was Glen Ass-Kicking time.
I shoved open the door, expecting to hear—I had no clue.
I was greeted with the sounds of nothing.
I stepped inside, and a wave of tension went through me. My stomach tightened up.
I expected to hear snoring. The sounds of his fan. I thought I’d find a whole sink full of empty beer cans, because that’s where he tossed them. He never took out the garbage until days later, even washing dishes around his beer cans.
Nothing. The apartment was completely silent.
Something was wrong. As if on the same wavelength, Jess touched my shoulder. “Move back. Behind me.” I saw the gun in her hand and gulped.
Oh man.
Glen.
He would piss his pants if he was in there, just sleeping.
She raised her arm up, her other hand steadying her gun, and she called out, “Anyone here? I am armed. I’m here with your cousin. Is anyone here?!”
She kept on, clearing each room as she moved down the hallway.
I didn’t know what to do, so I moved farther into the living room. We hadn’t cleared the closet. There was one right behind where we came in, so I went over to it, opening—a man was there!
I gasped, my throat opened up, but he had a hand up, smothering my scream. His other hand held a gun. Dressed all in black, a ski mask. The whites of his eyes were bulging.
“Hello! Is anyone in here?” Jess was still going through the apartment.
Glen had a two bedroom, but there were closets, an extra bathroom.
She hadn’t heard me.
“Don’t say a word and you’ll live,” he hissed at me.
No.
He did not say that. To me! No, he did not because if he had, then that meant that I was once more in a situation where a gun was being pointed at me.
And that was not happening. Not again !
I felt the scream coming. His smothering hand be damned.
The switch was starting.
I was going to do something I always did.
I was staring at this guy, whoever he was. His hand was over my mouth.
An inferno was lit, and the flames were fast spreading until—“Get this fucking gun away from my head !”
I charged him. Well, no. I first bent my head down and head-butted him. Envision a mountain ram: that was me, and this asshole was going down. A shot went off. I was impervious by now.
The guy went down. His arm went to the side.
He was trying to hit me or kick me, but I was on him, and I grabbed his head, both sides of his head, and I was knocking his head into the floor underneath him. Over and over and over again. Ram. Ram. Ram.
“Ahhhhhh!”
“Oh my god!” Jess came running in.
She was on the right side.
The guy was losing his steam, but so was I, and I clued in, noticing he was trying to turn the gun back toward me. I had my knee on his arm, holding it pinned and aimed the other way. I hadn’t even known I’d done that, but then Jess was there.
She plucked the gun out of his hand and yelled, “Get off him. Molly!”
I stopped heaving his head, but my strength was leaving me and fast, so I scrambled backward. I couldn’t stand up, not yet. I scooted to the kitchen.
“Behind me.”
Oh. I changed position, crawling to sit behind Jess. She had her gun up, and she was talking into her phone like it was a radio. “You!” she barked at the guy. “Get—can you get up?”
The guy shook his head before passing out. His whole body did a shudder and shake before I was guessing he went unconscious.
After that, I curled in, bringing my knees up to my chest, my arms wrapped around them. Jess was calling the police. I heard her say, “We need an ambo and—” She hesitated. “We have a DOA here.”
DOA.
What? Not this guy. I didn’t kill this guy, but that meant—I knew what that meant, and now the adrenaline was wearing off. I was getting immune to that, but my cousin. Jess had been back there.
I had to see him before they came to get him.
I pushed up, choking back a sob.
“No, Molly. Don’t go in there.”
I hauled myself up, pushing past her. She had to stay, keep the gun on the guy in case he woke up, so I slowed right before I got to Glen’s bedroom. I took a breath, one breath, and went to the doorway.
I—huh?
There was a dead body in the bed, his head turned my way. I refused to look at the rest of him.
I glanced at Jess down the hallway. “Where’s Glen?”
“What?”
“My cousin has neon-blue hair. That’s not Glen.”