“I do,” Sam said, and then laughed. “Well, now. Looks like wecando a DNA test after all.”
Robin looked from Sam to Jules over the top of his mug of coffee. “What was in the desk drawer?”
“Hairbrush,” Sam said as Jules said, “Electric razor.”
“Toothbrush,” Sam added as Jules said, “All of the above.”
“Ah, of course,” Robin said. “Personal care products.”
“A DNA treasure trove,” Jules said.
Robin nodded. “Better go get ’em before they disappear, too.”
Good point. Jules looked at Sam. “Shall we...?”
“And then what?” Sam asked as he took his empty cereal bowl to the sink and rinsed it out.
It was a good question. Jules’s bat-shit-crazy theory may have explained Ernest Harper’s odd behavior, but it brought them no closer to finding Emily Johnson. In fact, it probably had nothing to do with her at all. Except for the very real possibility that her new ownership of Devonshire Place could very well uncover the lawyer’s bat-shit-crazy crimes. Assuming it was Harper who was bat-shit crazy, and not Jules. “We find a DNA testing lab and then knock on more doors while we wait for the results.”
“Oh frabjous day. Callooh, callay,” Sam deadpanned.
Jules couldn’t help but laugh at hisJabberwockyreference. “I used to love that poem.”
“I figured as much.” Sam headed out of the kitchen, no doubt to hit the downstairs powder room before he left the house.
“It occurred to me,” Robin said to Jules, “that the new experience that Dead Milt mentioned in his note to Emily was, well... What if she knocked on his door and was like,Hello, you’re my father.I’ve been leaning towards that, rather than she was some kind of lover or common law wife. Because having a kid show up, out of the blue—that’s gotta be at least relatively unique. Only Dead Milt’s an asshole, right? We pretty much know that, so he was probably all in her face about it, like,You’re just here to get money from me, and she probably got insulted and told him where to stick his money and hisfreaking work of artof an estate. Except he does a paternity test andIt’s a girl!And now, for the first time, he’s got a choice when it comes to having a biological heir, and between the unknown daughter and the miscreant son, he picks Emily and changes his will.”
“Hello, you’re my fatherprobably does rank up there in new experiences for most people,” Jules agreed, kissing his husband goodbye. “You’re getting a ride to the studio, right?”
“I am.” Robin smiled into Jules’s eyes, pulling him in closer for a longer, more lingering kiss.
But then Sam rattled his way down the stairs—he’d gone up to get his jacket, which was insane considering the day’s heat. “Wig-Milt said he’d call this morning, but he hasn’t,” he said. “When do I cut the bullshit and call him on his other phone number—the one we have for him under his Mick O’Rourke name?”
“Not yet,” Jules said.
“You really think Wig-Milt’s somehow involved withwhatever this is Harper’s got going on?” Robin asked, looking from Jules to Sam and back again.
“No,” Jules said as Sam said, “Hell, yeah.”
“See,” Robin said, “this is what makes you such a good team.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Present Day
Van Nuys, California
Mission Day Three
“Fuck! Gun! Get down! Now!” Sam dove across Emily Johnson’s neat little living room, intending to tackle Jules—who’d already hit the deck, good man—as the front windows exploded with a crash of broken glass. “Go! Move! Go! Now!”
The fuckers in the black SUV were firing automatic weapons. At them. Or at least at the house. Although Sam had been pretty prominently featured, standing right there in the open front door as the vehicle pulled up.
“How many shooters?” Jules shouted over the noise of repeated gunfire.
Sam helped him move even faster, belly-crawling down the hall, leading the way to the backbedroom, down at the end. Hoping it had a window they could adios their asses out of in the event the shooters didn’t want to settle for drive-by damage and got out of the car in pursuit. Unlikely, but it’d be foolish to assume.
“I didn’t stop to count to more than two,” Sam shouted back as yes, the bedroom had an easier-to-jettison-from glass sliding door that he now scrambled toward. “Front and back windows. But it’s one of those big motherfuckers with a third row of seats.”
