I checked Alex’s progress with the news about Marisa. “Do you need to hear what’s going on again, Alex?”
He put down the rag. “What’sgoing on?”
“Whoever rented the place next door has some explaining to do,” I said. “Generally. And someone has been holding Marisa captive over there. Do you still have that detective’s number?”
“It’s in the office,” Alex said.
“It’s probably better to call 911, anyway,” I said. “And 911 on two cheeseburgers,Ned,” I said, raising my volume as he passed behind me, toward the kitchen.
“Keep your boots on,Dahlia,” Ned said. He rounded the bar, grabbing at the clean stack of aprons and slipping one over his head.
It all happened fast.
Ned’s face popping through the neck of the apron.
Marisa yelping and dropping her glass of water.
The crash and splash of ice water on the bar, and then I had the sensation of being swung around in a do-si-do.
Alex had the bar landline phone to his ear—
And I had a gun to my head.
Silent Jim had pulled me up against him, his arm at my throat. He held his silence another second, everyone staring in horror. Then he said, “Enough. Alex, hang up the phone.”
Marisa leapt away from us, pulling Sicily to her feet and away.
“You,”she said.
47
The muzzle of the gun pressed into my temple.
It was warm against my skin. That’s what I was thinking. Jim’s gun had been hidden under his whiskey-commercial suit coat, warmed by his body heat.
And now it was touching me.
Maybe because I couldn’t see it, I didn’t have that gut-sick feeling I’d had staring down the gun at Sicily’s house, Bonnie Young on the trigger end. I didn’t feel panicked. I was pissed.
Why was thishappening?
Alex hung up the phone.
“Me,”Jim agreed with Marisa, almost apologetically. “I suppose you know my voice.”
Him?
Silent Jim was involved in all this? All this, whatever this was?
My eyes shifted from Marisa to Alex. Alex wouldn’t understand what was going on, that Marisa could only identify one kidnapper by his voice and his minion by—
Without moving my head, I tried to see what Quin was doing.
But Marisa hadn’t startled at seeing Quin at the bar. She’d only freaked out when—
“Gather them up,” Jim ordered.
Ned went into the kitchen and came back, pushing Pascal ahead of him.
