Chapter 46
Marisa and I waited in silence for something to happen, for the door of my apartment to crash inward, for a villain’s voice to speak.
At the bottom of the apartment door, I could see a shadow, two. Feet, as someone tried to peer backward through the peephole.
Would another round of dog treats and barks chase off those shadows? If not, we’d have to go back through the closet and hope we could get down to the alley before—
“I can hear you breathing, Doll,” Sicily said through the door. “Are you going to let me in?”
Marisa dropped my hand and leapt at the door.
Sis stood on the landing with a McPhee’s takeaway container.
Her face widened, then collapsed. Marisa had engulfed her before the poor kid could even voice surprise, and then there were tater tots all over the floor and dogs vying for tater tots, chaos, and the two women Miss America–crying into each other.
Touching. But then I realized …
If Sis had come up the stairs, that meant they were clear of murderers. Probably?
I crept down the stairs and past my guitar in the corner to the alley door and used the peephole to check for the crooked white truck.
It was gone. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
Relieved, I decided.
The sobbing above me had turned to explanations and promises, and truly, I could shed a tear, but we still had a lot of problems: a murderer on the loose, kidnappers to describe to Detective Aycock. I still had a real estate deal to ruin, too, when I found the time.
“I know you’ve got some catching up to do,” I called up the stairs.
Nothing.
“Sis?”
That got her attention. She turned her head and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“Can you bring the reunion down to the pub, so we can call the police?”
I led them through the back door to McPhee’s and maybe, yeah, I was expecting a little bit of a huzzah and parade—even a single note of surprise?—to be bringing Marisa back from missing-poster gone.
Instead? Lourey stood up from the table where I’d left the band. Their patience with me was at an end.
“We’re going,” she said. She motioned for the rest of them to gather their things. “You’re not serious about this.”
“There’s a lot going on here right now,” I said impatiently. “But I’m serious. I even have a song. The beginning of one, at least. Hey, look, right here.” I pulled the crinkled bit of paper out of my pocket and waved it in front of their faces.
“And lyrics?” Suzy said.
Shanny and Rooster looked toward me, hopeful.
“Just some placeholder ones…”
“Are they about dogs?” Lourey said.
“Is that the song I liked?” Sis said. “Yeah, that one. It definitely should not be about dogs, though.”
“You’re not helping,” I said.
“We’re taking the gear,” Lourey announced. The girls pulled their coats off wall hooks, their purses and backpacks off the backs of their chairs. They headed down the hallway toward the storeroom.
“Don’t leave, okay?” I yelled after them. “I’m serious, I— Okay, you guys sort the gear and I’ll come convince you not to take it. We’ll call it inventory.”
Across the room, Alex had clocked Marisa.
Oona reached in and took the beer from his stalled hand before it spilled, and placed the drink in front of Lumpy Jim.
All the Jims were at their stations, Quin and his trustworthy elbow patches.
They all turned on their stools to see what was happening.
Pascal peered over the pass-through. The TVs had the pregame up, but the sound was a little high in the nearly empty room. No other customers had come in?
“Slow day for a Sunday,” I said. “Except I just found, uh, Marisa. Tied up. Next door.”
“Tied up?” Oona said. “Are you joking?”
I was watching Quin out of the corner of my eye. The hand he’d had on his pint glass dropped to the bar, but he stayed where he was, eyes shifting around at everyone else. Silent Jim said, as usual, nothing.
Lumpy Jim leaned across him. “You mean, held hostage?” Lump said. “Doll? Like a Liam Neeson movie?”
“Alex, can you get two glasses of water, please?” I said.
The specific request unlocked him, but he reached for a rag and started cleaning the bar surface. Oona grabbed glasses.
“Alex, you remember Marisa. Her daughter, Sicily.” I herded them toward the seats at the corner of the bar so they could still cling to each other.
Silent Jim moved down a stool to make room for Marisa.
Oona placed ice water in front of her as though turning the glass just so would make up for the situation.
“If there’s anything else you need,” Oona said. Then she pivoted almost hungrily toward Sicily with the second glass. “So you’re Doll’s…”
“Sister?” Sis said.
“Do you go to school? How old are you?”
Sis looked at me, then her mother. “I’m … eighteen.”
I smirked at her. Bingo. That number, I believed. “Can we get a couple of cheeseburgers out of Ned?” I asked. “Pascal?”
“He’s not here,” Pascal said. “I guess he’s late?”
Or he’d decided to leave us hanging on one of the busiest days of the season. I looked around. What should be one of the busiest days. “Everyone else must be late, too,” I said.
It was weird. But someone was at the vestibule now. I saw Ned’s face framed in the porthole window, an expression I didn’t read as remorse.
This was it. Alex would need to have that chat with him, and if he quit, so what?
I checked Alex’s progress with the news about Marisa. “Do you need to hear what’s going on again, Alex?”
He put down the rag. “What’s going on?”
“Whoever rented the place next door has some explaining to do,” I said. “Generally. And someone has been holding Marisa captive over there. Do you still have that detective’s number?”
“It’s in the office,” Alex said.
“It’s probably better to call 911, anyway,” I said. “And 911 on two cheeseburgers, Ned,” I said, raising my volume as he passed behind me, toward the kitchen.
“Keep your boots on, Dahlia,” Ned said. He rounded the bar, grabbing at the clean stack of aprons and slipping one over his head.
It all happened fast.
Ned’s face popping through the neck of the apron.
Marisa yelping and dropping her glass of water.
The crash and splash of ice water on the bar, and then I had the sensation of being swung around in a do-si-do.
Alex had the bar landline phone to his ear—
And I had a gun to my head.
Silent Jim had pulled me up against him, his arm at my throat. He held his silence another second, everyone staring in horror. Then he said, “Enough. Alex, hang up the phone.”
Marisa leapt away from us, pulling Sicily to her feet and away.
“You,” she said.