Page 91 of Hard Hitter
She went home to her own kitchen and put the kettle on. Her mind was whirring with anxiety. She should call the lawyer and tell him this new development. She should call Georgia and offer to speak to the reporter anyway, just in case it helped the team stay out of the tabloids. She should meditate, or take an aspirin for the headache that was just starting up at the base of her skull. Or both.
But first, tea.
She was just turning off the burner under the boiling kettle when her Katt Phone rang.
Vince.
Shit.
She poured the hot water over her tea bag and considered her options. The phone stopped ringing, but then it started up again a minute later.
Feeling impulsive, she answered it. “Vince,” she sighed. “This is no way to get what you want.”
“Yeah, it is. And you need to hear exactly why.”
Fear prickled at the back of her neck. “What are you saying?”
“I have video of your boyfriend making the buy. Check your e-mail. I sent you a clip.”
Just as she was choking on the wordvideo, he hung up.
With shaking hands, she opened her email inbox. The subject line of his email was,
Watch me make it worse.
She clicked on the Play button for the video. And the twenty-seven seconds of footage she saw made her angrier than she’d ever been. It was Patrick on tape, and although she had no way of knowing what it was that the dealer handed him in that little baggy, helookedguilty. Before he took it, he looked over one shoulder and then the other, his eyes darting around to check who was watching.
It made her want to shake him for being so stupid.
Her phone rang in her hand. The caller was Vince again. “Look,” he said into her ear. “Sorry to be the bearer of badnews. I know you think the dicks you work for are the second coming of Christ. Maybe you think I’m a loser for getting mixed up with some drug dealers, Ari, but I don’tswallowthat shit.”
She was shaken to the core but she wasn’t about to let him hear it. “What do you want from me?”
“Give me my property and I’m gone. You’ll never hear my name again. But if you don’t help me, tonight I’m giving the reporter a bunch more material. Here’s the thing—with a little creative editing I can also make it look like he bought the stuff to share with the rest of the team. They’ll all know it’s bogus, too. And they’ll blame you for it. Bye-bye job. So open your front door.”
“I’m not home right now.”
He laughed. “Really? You have a twin I don’t know about? Just saw you walk through your front door two minutes ago.”
Fuck.
“I need to get into your house, and right now. One thing is all I need. It’s smaller than a breadbox.”
“Whatis? What are you after?”
He sighed into her ear. “A gun, babe. You want a handgun in your house? It was used in a crime scene.”
“Jesus,” she gasped. “Why the hell is there a gun in my house?”
“It’s evidence, and it’s protecting me from some grade-A assholes. I need itright fucking now, Ari. It will take ten minutes. Or less if you help.”
“Help? You can’t be serious.” Someone knocked roughly on the front door, and Ari jumped a foot into the air.
“Let me in. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Pick easy, babe. Ten minutes and it’s done.”
Later, she would wonder why she opened the door. Was it bravado? Stupidity? Being rid of him sounded awfully good, though. Even if she should have known better.
The first thing she realized when the door swung open was that Vince looked like shit. His hair was greasy, hehadn’t shaved in days.Yikes. There were bags under his eyes as he looked past her to scan the room.
