Chapter 48
Gun on the mantel. Now I got what Alex had always meant. If a gun was on the scene, it would eventually get aimed. And fired.
“Oh for the love of…” Quin muttered.
One gun was bad, but two guns were far worse. And this one I could see. My stomach dropped to my feet.
“Sicily, honey, where did you get that?” Marisa asked.
“Put it down, kid,” Silent Jim said. “You’re going to get someone killed. Yourself, for instance.”
Ned looked anxiously between his boss and Sicily.
“I said … let her go?” Sis said.
“Is that the one…” I said, swallowing hard. “I thought Bonnie was locking that away.”
“They use my birthdate for all the passcodes,” Sis said.
“Oh,” Marisa said. “Oh no.”
Everyone in the room had to be glaring at Marisa. I knew I would be, if I could choose where I was pointed.
“Does everyone agree that this is a situation of one gun too many?” Quin said. “At least one too many.”
“Shut up, Jim,” I said.
“My name is Quin,” he said. “And Sicily? That’s your name? Could you put down the gun, very carefully and gently, on the floor? I think we’d all feel better about things.”
He was in on it.
The gun wobbled in Sis’s hand. “Dahlia?” she said. “What should I do?”
Leader of the band, that was me.
I couldn’t think with the second gun pointed at Silent Jim—that is to say, at me. “Please put it down,” I said.
Her knees nearly buckled as she placed the gun on the floor.
Ned dove for it. I hadn’t thought the plan through. We still had two guns, but now both of them were in the wrong hands.
Marisa pulled Sicily to her, clutching her while Ned tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans. Probably something he’d seen in a Liam Neeson movie.
“Good,” Jim said. “Now, here’s what I want. Alex, you’re going to take me to the treasure or—”
There was a rattle at the vestibule. Jim spun us in that direction, pulling me up as I slipped.
Customers were trying to get in, but the door had been locked.
Ned. He’d locked the door behind him when he’d come in. Maybe the door had been locked all along, and that’s why the room was empty.
It was almost game time. Customers would be peering in at the windows soon. I could almost hear the wheels churning in Jim’s head as he realized it, too.
Then there was a noise from the other direction.
Jim jerked at the sound, pulling me with him.
“Don’t shoot,” I said. “It’s my band. They’re in the storeroom. They’re just sorting gear, and they have nothing to do with this.”
“They do now,” Jim said, nudging me toward the back hall. “Ned, bring the rest of them back. Let’s get the band back together.”
“All of them?” Ned had that petulant look he got when asked to scrub the grill. “Could use some help here,” he grumbled.
“You had some help at one point,” Jim said. “And how did that turn out?”
Ned’s eyes slid to me.
Greaseball. I’d get him for putting his hands on me, for participating in this.
Ned licked his lips. “Shut up about that,” he said.
Wait— What were they talking about? I’d missed something.
“Ned,” Jim said patiently, teacher to student. “You’ve got a gun. Use it.”
He pivoted me toward the back and I only had a glimpse of Ned reaching for his waistband. Just a snapshot of Ned reaching for Sicily’s gun and turning toward everyone in the world I cared about.