Page 75 of Your Every Wish
I flag down a busboy passing by and ask him to get Mimi.
She appears a few minutes later. “You want to take this to go?” She grabs the plate with the rest of my uneaten pancakes.
“No, just the bill, please.”
“Bent already got it. You girls are good to go.”
I turn to Emma. “See?”
Emma
“This is crazy, absolutely insane,” I say. “We can go to jail for this.”
“We can’t if no one finds out, so keep your voice down.” Kennedy shines her phone’s flashlight as Liam tries to hoist me over Willy’s padlocked garden gate to the backyard.
“Are you sure you left the French doors unlocked?”
“Yes. As long as no one came after us and locked them, we should be fine.”
“Shit, someone’s coming. Go, Emma. Kennedy, shut off the light,” Liam whispers.
I can’t believe he volunteered to come with us.
As soon as I’m on the other side of the stucco wall, I duck down, my heart racing.
“Where are you guys?”
Silence.
“Liam? Kennedy?” I call from the shrub I’m hiding behind. It’s dark and I can’t see a damn thing. I’m sincerely starting to wish that we never embarked on this moronic mission—Kennedy’s idea, not mine. It’s cold, though less so here in La Jolla than Ghost, but still chilly enough that I have goose bumps up and down my arms. And something smells like dog shit.
“You guys?”
More silence.
Then finally Liam says, “Okay, he’s gone. It was some guy walking his boxer. Are you okay back there?”
“Yes, but I can’t see.”
“Here, use my phone.” Kennedy drops it over the gate, and I catch it before it hits the ground. I left mine in Liam’s van.
I use the light to find my way and nearly trip over Willy’s garbage cans. A motion light goes on and I suddenly feel exposed. I hold my breath, waiting for an alarm to go off, wondering whether I should run for cover or get to the French doors. Then it occurs to me that there are probably security cameras everywhere, if not installed by Willy, then put up by the feds. How did we not plan for this inevitability? What am I talking about? We didn’t plan at all.
When Mr. Townsend said the U.S. Justice Department had denied our request for a second visit, Kennedy announced that we would simply break in.
That’s when I marched over to Liam’s trailer and told him everything (it’s not like I could tell Dex). The thirty thousand dollars Kennedy’s mom stole from Brock Sterling (I probably shouldn’t have implicated Madge, but I just couldn’t stand the idea of Liam thinking badly of Kennedy). I told him about Misty and the golf bag and the money and the house in La Jolla. And how Kennedy wanted to break in.
I guess I just needed a reality check and, while a little mysterious about what he does for a living, Liam seems so centered, so mature. I fully expected him to say breaking and entering was a terrible idea—uh, because it is. But oddly enough, he wholeheartedly embraced the idea and even offered to drive. I get the sense he may be bored out of his mind living in a senior citizen trailer park in the middle of the country.
So, here we are, doomed.
I wait a few breathless moments and . . . nothing. The motion light flicks off, leaving me once again shrouded in darkness. And thank God, no alarm sirens, just the sound of something lapping against the pool. The wind probably. Or a branch from an overgrown tree.
I gingerly make my way to the patio off the primary bedroom using the light from Kennedy’s phone. The wind picks up and something scrapes against the window, making me jump.
I’m halfway there when the phone rings. Shit. Madge’s name flashes on the display and I quickly slide the phone off. Of all the inopportune times to call. WTF?
How did I ever let myself get roped into this? This place is a lot spookier in the dark.
