Page 2 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

“Listen,” I said, glancing back at our captor. I clocked the tired expression on his stubbled face. “We don’t even know where you want us to go.”

“Third floor,” the guy said. “It’s the apartment you’ve been out here watching. The one you were just shouting at.”

“We weren’t — ”

“Don’t play dumb with me, all right? I don’t get a lot of sleep in my line of work. My patience is at an all-time low.”

The man grabbed a handful of my shirt and shoved me onward. We started up dimly lit stairs, and my stomach sank. There were good signs about the situation, but not many. The guy hadn’t patted either of us down, which meant he was probably unaccustomed to, maybe unprepared for, actual violence. The gun he carried was big and chunky and awkward in his hand. It looked unused, something meant only to scare us. But my fluttering confidence took a nosedive when we reached the third floor. There was another, much shorter man at the door to the apartment. He also had a gun and looked tired but he seemed meaner than his partner. I heard dogs barking inside. One had the wet, hysterical, savage bark of a big animal losing its mind.

Baby and I were shoved into the apartment. It was dark, lit only by colored LED lights in dozens of reptile and fish tanks lining one wall. I saw lizards and spiders and snakes in there, huge coiled pythons sagging over branches, and hairy tarantulas scaling rocks. Beneath the aggravated, panic-driven barking of the dogs was a different rumble of noise — parrots squawking in another room, fish-tank pumps humming and bubbling, cats whining.

A dozen dogs of different breeds rushed over and swirled around us, some snuffling and pawing at our legs, others standing back and yapping, muzzles up in challenge.

Among them, I spotted our girl: L’Shondra, a sleek and googly-eyed Italian greyhound who stood trembling at the back of the pack.

The dog that was on the border of insanity was a hellish hound who looked like it could have swallowed L’Shondra whole. The dog was chained to a U-bolt mounted to the wall; its scarred, boxy black head was held low, and its clipped ears shone pink in the weird light. All the other dogs stayed well outside the range of its chain.

The dog’s yellow eyes were fixed on Baby. I felt her cold hand slip into mine. Not for the first time since I’d met my sister less than a year ago, I was overcome by the intense, soul-squeezing maternal instinct to protect her, and I knew someone was about to get hurt.

I just didn’t realize how bad.

CHAPTER3

THE TWO ARMED MENhuddled near us.

“What were you thinking?” the small one asked the tall one. “Are you a goddamn idiot?”

“I wasn’t thinking anything. I can’t concentrate with all this noise.”

“What are we supposed to do now? They’ve seen everything. They’ve seen our faces!”

“They’d already seen our faces, man. I think they’ve been out there for hours. Probably saw me leave for cigarettes. Saw you bringing up the birdseed.”

I forced a long, slow breath, tried not to think about the guns and the surprise and desperation that these two men were clearly feeling, or about how guns and surprise and desperation made terrible bedfellows. It was time to argue. I told myself this room was no different than the hundreds of courtrooms I had commanded in my life.

“Hey,” I called and pointed to L’Shondra. “We’re here about that one dog. Just give her back and we’ll clear out. There’s no need to make things worse than they already are, okay? You’ve already committed California Penal Code two forty-five A and two oh seven PC here tonight, guys. Assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping. That’s twenty years. Don’t do anything that’s going to make it life for the sake of a few thousand bucks.”

The gunmen stared at me. I felt like I was getting through to the big guy, at least. He looked calm, ready to listen, his gun almost forgotten by his side. A tiny wave of relief rose in me. It crashed when the smaller man raised his weapon and shot his partner in the head.

CHAPTER4

WETNESS ON MY FACE.The sound of the gunshot blasted through every living being in the room, even the tiniest ones. The dogs around us sank down in unison, cowering. The birds in the other room began to scream and thrash in their cages. My kid sister clung to me.

The taller gunman slumped on the hardwood floor. His partner, frighteningly calm, stared down at his lifeless friend.

“It’s not just a few thousand bucks,” he said. “There’s half a million in this room alone.”

I stifled a furious growl of regret. In my haste to focus on positive signs about the big man who’d abducted us, signs that pointed to our chances of surviving, I hadn’t paid much attention to the signs that his little partner was a cold-blooded psychopath: The icy, empty eyes. The scratched and beat-up gun. The expert way he handled it, like an artist with a brush.

“Listen,” I said. “Please, just listen.”

“No, you listen,” the gunman said. He pointed to his dead partner. “You see that? That’s the kind of mood I’m in. Eric and I have been working on this gig for three months. What happened to him just now is what happens when people push me and push me and push me.”

“Okay,” I said. “We get it. Nobody’s trying to push you.”

“Bringing you up here?” He shook his head. “He’s been doing dangerous stuff like that for days. It’s like he wanted us to get caught.”

A moment of opportunity. The gunman glanced around the apartment, trying to decide, I supposed, how he was going to hold us. Whether he would even bother. Baby used the precious seconds to shrink away from me. I wanted to grab at her and tuck her behind me, but I knew she was being smart. We shouldn’t stick together, make ourselves one target. It was two of us against one armed man, and we had to split his focus. I understood Baby’s strategic thinking. I edged sideways to put myself against the tanks. The gunman lifted his weapon and aimed at me.

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