“I’ll go,” Marisa said.
“What? No, you can’t—”
“I’ll just poke my head over the banister there—”
“And get your head blown off, if they have a gun? Likeyouhave at home?”
“How do you know—”
“I promised Sis I would help find you and I have. Do you know how pissed at me she’d be if you died now? No, thanks. I like the kid but I don’t want to be on her bad side.”
Marisa reached out. To touch my hair, maybe. I jerked out of reach, and her hand fell away.
“You like her,” she said.
“This is not the time for dewy eyes—”
“You’re a lot alike,” Marisa said.
“How wouldyouknow?”
There was a knock on the door. Polite as you please.
Marisa reached for my hand and grasped it. And for once, I didn’t pull away. I let her.
46
Marisa and I waited in silence for something to happen, for the door of my apartment to crash inward, for a villain’s voice to speak.
At the bottom of the apartment door, I could see a shadow, two. Feet, as someone tried to peer backward through the peephole.
Would another round of dog treats and barks chase off those shadows? If not, we’d have to go back through the closet and hope we could get down to the alley before—
“I can hear youbreathing, Doll,” Sicily said through the door. “Are you going to let me in?”
Marisa dropped my hand and leapt at the door.
Sis stood on the landing with a McPhee’s takeaway container. Her face widened, then collapsed. Marisa had engulfed her before the poor kid could even voice surprise, and then there were tater tots all over the floor and dogsvyingfor tater tots, chaos, and the two women Miss America–crying into each other.
Touching. But then I realized…
If Sis had come up the stairs, that meant they were clear of murderers. Probably?
I crept down the stairs and past my guitar in the corner to the alley door and used the peephole to check for the crooked white truck.
It was gone. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
Relieved, I decided.
The sobbing above me had turned to explanations and promises, and truly, I could shed a tear, but we still had a lot of problems: a murderer on the loose, kidnappers to describe to Detective Aycock. I still had a real estate deal to ruin, too, when I found the time.
“I know you’ve got some catching up to do,” I called up the stairs.
Nothing.
“Sis?”
That got her attention. She turned her head and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
