Page 26 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

“Who wants to know?” she asked.

The woman reached into her purse – and withdrew a gleaming blue revolver. She leveled its bore at Tina’s face and smiled wide. “The bitch holding the gun on you.”

~*~

It had been a long time since Ava had been in a proper fight with another woman, and she wouldn’t count this as one either. When Tenny released her, Ava hit the bed at a run. The woman had time to suck in a sharp, startled breath, but not to scream, before Ava slapped a hand over her mouth and bowled her over across the mattress. She pinned one arm with her knee, and snatched the wrist of the other with her free hand.

The woman’s eyes bugged, and she writhed, and bucked, and struggled, but Ava was filled with the sort of violent adrenaline that powered people into lifting cars, and, child of the club that she was, knew exactly how to use her strength to the best advantage.

Behind her, she heard the door lock, and then Tenny came to put one knee up on the bed beside her. He drew the girl’s wide-eyed gaze. Her nostrils flared above Ava’s pinky as she sucked in quick, panicked breaths.

Ava wanted her attention back, so she leaned down in her face and hissed, “Where the fuck is Regina?”

The woman gurgled something high and strained against Ava’s palm, and tried to buck her off.

She stilled when a hand slid across her throat and rested there. Not squeezing, yet. Pale, slender, long-fingered. Platinum wedding band.

In his real accent, his voice silken-soft, Tenny said, “Here’s how it is,honey.” The pet name was venomous, now. “I’m a reasonable man, and if it was only me, we could have this conversation sitting up like civilized people. Armchairs and drinks. But this one” – he tilted his head Ava’s direction – “is, as you can see, fighting mad. So how about this–”

“Quit fucking around,” Ava snapped.

“See? Fighting mad. Answer our questions, and maybe she won’t hurt you too badly. Maybe I’ll even intervene on your behalf. Sound reasonable?”

She struggled again, and Ava shoved her down into the covers, one hand on her wrist, one hand over her mouth.

Tenny sighed. “Damn. Hard way it is, then.”

~*~

Tina sat at her own kitchen table, at gunpoint.

The self-proclaimed “bitch” holding the gun wasn’t nearly as young and glamorous as she’d looked on the porch. In the unforgiving spill of sunlight through the window above the sink, she was lined, spray-tanned, underfed, and caked with far too much orangey makeup. Her hair was stiff with so much product that it shifted as a whole unit, like a helmet, when she shook her head and smiled at Tina’s stubborn expression.

“Oh, honey. Don’t look at me like that. You better get nice and comfy.”

There was a part of Tina that was – rightfully – panicking. An armed stranger was in her house and ordering her around. But the woman’s hand, with its red acrylics, and its gaudy, costume jewelry rings, didn’t look like a hand that was comfortable on the grip of a gun. That was encouraging.

“Who are you?” Tina tried to keep her voice even, but firm. Her mind flashed way, way back to the night she met Remy. To the night she’d thought Oliver Landau might grab her by the hair and throw her across the parking lot before Remy’s big, broad-shouldered, low-voiced intervention. Somehow, for some reason – Alex’s sudden, renewed interest in his lineage, doubtless – she felt that this woman, and this tableau, was related to Remy somehow. That a decision she’d made as a frightened kid, an alliance she’d formed, a relationship, had waited like a beast on the bottom of a dark pond, springing on her now, jaws open, teeth flashing.

The woman smiled some more, and leaned back against the counter, free hand braced on its edge, gun hand tilting so the barrel lay sideways, still pointed at Tina’s face.That’s not how you hold a gun, dumbass, Tina thought, but didn’t say, since she wasn’t holding one at all.

“Bet you’d really like to know, huh? You’ll find out who I am when the time’s right. Don’t you worry about that, honey.”

Tina’s phone was in the pocket of her jeans, but she didn’t think now was the time to reach for it. She said, “What’s that supposed to mean? ‘When the time’s right?’ What do you want?”

“Bet you’d like to know that, too, huh?” the woman said with a smirk that made her look like a cat about to barf. She was the sort of pretty taken so for granted at an early age, and then made up so heavily with each passing year, that she’d somehow managed to turn herself into a caricature of a human.

Also, her vocabulary sucked.

“Is that all you can say?” Tina asked, anger bleeding into her voice. If she was going to get shot in her own kitchen, it would be nice if she could at least be shot by a convincing and frightening villain instead of this over-peroxided bimbo. “Because, if this is a hostage situation, I’m going to need a little more information.”

The blonde’s cheek twitched, smile spreading on that side into more of a grimace. She righted the gun, arm extended, barrel level once again. It trembled, though; her arm was so thin, and the revolver so comically large, that Tina doubted she could land a shot properly. The recoil alone would probably make her whack herself in the face.

“I’ve got the gun,” she said, giving it a waggle. “I’ll ask the questions.”

“Okay,” Tina agreed. “But why are we doing this? Why am I sitting here?”

The smile fell away completely, replaced by a snarl that turned the woman’s eyes pale and flat as cloudy bottle glass. “Your son’s an FBI agent, isn’t he?”

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