Page 53 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

“I’ve got a gun in a bag in the car,” I told Raymond.

“Oh, shit. We better move quick, then,” he said. He rushed up to the car and yanked open the back door with one hand, brandished the bat with the other.

A whump of dizziness hit me, a cold rush of adrenaline dumping into my system. Raymond and I stared at the empty back seat of the car. The baseball bat clunked to the ground loudly. Raymond leaned forward and examined the front seats, then reached for the foldout panel in the back seat that led to the trunk.

“What the — ” I started.

“What thefuck?” he finished for me. Raymond went to the driver’s side, popped the trunk, walked around, and threw it open. He stared at my bags, then at me. My face must have told him something about the thoughts in my head.

“Nah, nah, nah.” He held a hand up. “Don’t do me like that. I’m not crazy, ma’am. Okay? There was a dude. He got in your car. I swear to Jesus, man.”

“Those cameras.” I pointed to the cameras over the automatic doors. “Do they work?”

“Yeah, but the system’s password-protected. Only the manager can use it.” He sighed, picked up the bat. “I can’t access it.”

“What about you?” I called to the trucker. He jumped down from the bottom step of the truck. “You see a guy get into or out of my car?”

“I weren’t lookin’.” The truck driver shrugged.

“I swear, lady,” Raymond said, “there was a dude in your car.”

“Okay.” I put a hand on his shoulder, which was warm and damp with sweat. “Well, he’s gone. We must have taken our eyes off the car long enough for him to slip away. But now I just want to get out of here. I’m creeped out enough.”

“I feel that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Thanks for looking out for me, Raymond,” I said. He walked to the automatic doors, his shoulders slumped and the bat hanging by his side. He looked like a struck-out Little Leaguer. I slid into the car and turned the engine on.

I smelled cigarette smoke.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I looked in the rearview mirror at the darkness beyond the reach of the gas station’s lights, but there was nothing but blackness and stillness there. With nothing to tell me that the cigarette smoke hadn’t drifted in from outside the vehicle, I did what most people would do: I told myself not to be crazy.

Then I locked the doors and headed back to the highway.

CHAPTER59

ARTHUR AND BABY SATon the low brick wall in front of 101 Waterway Street idly watching different goings-on. At another time, in another place, they might have been a father and daughter observing the roll and tumble of suburban life, watching their neighbors peacefully watering their lawns, enjoying evening drinks on their porches, calling the kids in from play as the streetlights flickered to life. But here, tonight, they were watching something else. Baby’s gaze was on a drug deal happening only twenty yards away, the third she’d witnessed in the past ten minutes. Corner boys loitered on the house’s lawn, hands in their pockets and heads down, talking trash while they waited for customers to roll up. Arthur’s attention was captured by an argument slowly intensifying on the porch three houses down in the other direction. There was a scream, and a woman involved in the argument was thrown down the steps; her tiny denim shorts did nothing to protect her legs from the concrete path. Already bleeding, she was picked up and tossed again through the rusty gate into the street.

The air around Baby and Arthur was vibrating with competing stereo systems and potential violence.

They’d given up letting Mouse roam the property, fearing he’d leap the front fence and attack someone out of sheer confusion. He sat behind the locked front door now, bellow-barking and scratching at the wood. Baby felt the dog’s helpless bewilderment. The world outside was filled with obvious danger, and his new owners were clearly distressed by it, and yet they’d chosen to go outintoit. And without him! He had one instinct: Protect Baby and Arthur. And they weren’t letting him do that.

Two Escalades pulled up at the end of the street. Men in leather jackets exited, consulted with their men on the ground. They did a tour of three or four houses, spoke to different crews, then embarked again, rolling by Arthur and Baby slowly. Baby stood up, defiant. She was still standing that way, rigid and hard-eyed, when a group of men strolled along the sidewalk toward them.

“This one looks all right,” one of them said to another, his gaze on Arthur’s house. “Got screens on the windows.”

“This house is occupied,” Baby snapped. “Keep it movin’.”

The man leading the pack, a redhead with sunken, glazed eyes, took her in. “What did you say, bitch?”

“Keep it movin’,” Baby told him. “You deaf?”

The pack of guys snickered and guffawed. Baby kept her gaze locked on the leader as he passed, shouldering her on the way.

A police squad car pulled in at the other end of Waterway Street. Arthur and Baby watched it roll toward them. When it was within a few yards, Baby stepped out into the road. The female officer in the passenger seat buzzed down her window and leaned out.

“I’ve been wondering when you’d show up,” Baby said. “I called this in an hour ago.”

“Called what in?”

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