“JoJo, what do you know?”
JoJo hesitated. But that look of fright came into his eyes. “I turned it down.”
“Turned what down?” Vince asked him.
“The assignment.”
“What assignment?”
Another pause. “I couldn’t go through with it.”
“With what, JoJo?” Ricki asked him.
“They tried to hire me to kill Erica,” he said.
And when he said it, everybody looked at each other. But Ricki and Vince were staring at JoJo.
“You’ve got to tell me the truth,” Ricki said, “or they’ll blame Davey. Who tried to hire you, JoJo?”
JoJo opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Then he slumped over. And then they saw the blood. And that was when they realized he’d been shot.
Milo and the security guys pulled out their weapons and quickly shielded Vince and Ricki, as they began looking around. Vince tried to grab Ricki and pull her into the car, but Ricki needed answers.
“Who hired you, JoJo? Who?”
JoJo was dying, and she knew it, but she had to save her brother. “JoJo who?” she asked him again, tears in her eyes.
He was able to look at her. “Al,” he said as if it was his last breath, and then he slid on down to the ground.
He was dead.
“Who’s Al?” Ricki was asking him, but Vince knew it was all over. He grabbed her whether she wanted him to or not, and hurried her to the car.
Milo and George hopped in too and Milo took off, even as the security detail concluded that whomever fired that shot did so in one of those apartment buildings blocks away.
Which meant it was a professional hit.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The next day, after Ricki spent most of the night mourning her childhood friend, she and Vince walked into Davey’s hospital room. He was lying in bed, hooked up to machines, but Ricki was pleased by how good he looked. She even smiled. “Hey, Davey.”
She could smile at him. But he wasn’t there yet. He was still in too much pain. “Hey. What are you doing here?” Then he looked at her up-styled hairdo. “Your hair looks different.” He looked at her fancy clothes. “You look different.”
“Where’s Mommy and Daddy?” she asked them.
“They just left. They were here all night with me. They said they were going to the house to make sure nobody was taking advantage of that bombing. They wanted to make sure no looters are around.”
“Looters in Milton?” Ricki asked.
“You know how Daddy is,” said Davey.
“How are you?” Vince asked him.
He wasn’t too keen on talking to Vince, but he spoke up. “Rough,” he said. “But I ain’t killed my own sister. They lying on me. And I didn’t pay nobody to kill her either.”
“Did you kill Dr. Proctor?” Vince asked.
“No!” Then he winced from the pain. “What I look like killing that man? I never spoke two words to him before. I don’t know him at all. But they talking about I’m a person of interest. They got the police at my door like I’m already guilty.”
