“Anyone can be a professional. For crying out loud, Finn, look at you!”
I sucked in a breath as the window slid open. The whites of Vero’s eyes widened as a leg extended through it. I wound the pillow back. Vero raised my hair dryer as the intruder’s sneakers landed softly in the room.
“Get him!” she yelled. I swung the pillow hard. The man swore as it connected with his face, knocking him backward into Vero. Vero jumped on his shoulders, one arm looped around his neck, the other smashing the hair dryer into his head as he pinwheeled to keep from falling on top of her. He staggered into the dresser, then the bed, eventually falling face-first over the end of it to the floor. Vero jerked his wrists behind his back, winding the hair dryer cord around them. Shedug her knee into his spine and grabbed him by his hair. “We got him, Finlay! Turn on the light!”
I rushed to the wall switch and flipped it on.
Javi blinked at us, red-faced and livid. One of Vero’s sweaty socks was stuck to his face and my hair dryer dangled between his butt cheeks. Vero let go, backing slowly away from him as Javi worked himself free of the cord.
“Sorry,” I stammered, rushing to shut the window. “We thought you were someone else.”
Vero bit her lip as he stood and she got a good look at the green and yellow bruises on his forehead. New ones were already blooming around them. “I might have overestimated the rose hip oil,” she said in a small voice as he stalked toward her.
“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you? Ever since third grade, when you ran over me with your bike.”
“That was an accident.”
“Or in middle school, when you pushed me off the high dive at the pool.”
“Also an accident.”
“How about homecoming night, when you spiked my beer with laxatives?”
“Thatwas on purpose,” she said, pointing a finger at him when they were nose to nose. “I hated your date, and you were being an ass.”
He shoved my hair dryer into her hands. “I was worried sick! I called you a dozen times today. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“We aren’t allowed to have them in class.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to get into this place? I had to bribe a food service delivery guy to let me hide in a truckload of bread! What the hell are you doing in a police training facility?”
“Lying low.”
“From who?”
“People.”
“And of all the places you could have chosen, you picked here?” Hethrew up his hands when Vero didn’t answer. “Why are there bullet holes in the car, V?”
“That’s kind of a long story.”
“The only part I care about is if you were in the car while people were shooting at it!”
“Of course not!”
“Thank fuck,” he whispered.
“They were shooting at Finlay.”
Javi pinched the bridge of his nose as he sank onto Vero’s mattress.
“So you saw the Aston?” I asked. “Can you get rid of it?”
He lifted his head. “I made a few calls. I know a guy who knows a guy who says he can unload it.”
“How fast?” Vero asked.
“It’ll take me a few days to arrange to have it moved.”
