“How ’bout I stick my foot deep up your—”
“Quit yapping and ante up, everybody. Are you in or are you out?” Vero asked them. They all reached into their totes and plastic buckets and tossed handfuls of old Halloween and Christmas candy onto the table. “Who needs another root beer?” Vero asked as she turned to the cooler.
I stuck my head around the corner and waved to get her attention, careful not to startle anyone. The last thing Vero needed was for one of her neighbors to drop dead of a coronary in her mom’s backyard.
Vero’s head snapped up. Her eyes went wide when she spotted me and she whirled back to the group. “Change of plans, everyone.” She raked the candy off the table and stuffed it all back into their treat bags.
“What’s going on?” Lenore looked confused as Vero pulled the woman to her feet and folded her chair.
“We weren’t finished,” Wendell groused, swatting Vero’s hand away when she tried to hurry him along.
“Norma and Gloria aren’t even home yet,” Joan rasped between drags from her oxygen mask.
Eugene looked confused as Vero came up behind him and hoisted him up by his armpits. She looped his candy tote around one of his wrists and turned his walker around to face him. “Something came up,” she said, stuffing the last of the candy bars down the front of her tank top. “We’ll play again tomorrow.”
“But tomorrow is Taco Tuesday,” Lenore said.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Joan grumbled. “Tomorrow’s Friday, Lenore. Get with the program.”
“There’s a program?”
Vero collapsed the table as the parade of seniors wandered backto their homes. She signaled for me to stay where I was as she leaned the table between a gardening cart and a rusted ladder that was propped against the house. She glanced above her as she took me by the arm and dragged me toward the back door. A security camera was mounted on the back of the house, and she hurried to unlock it.
“What’s this?” I asked, picking up a piece of an eggshell from the flower bed. Something had been written on the side.
She rolled her eyes. “Some idiot egged our house last night. A few of the eggs had messages on them:bitch, liar, crook…That one saidtheif—T-H-E-I-F.”
“They spelled it wrong.”
“Tell me about it. You should have seen the message they spray-painted on our garage last week. It saidYOUR A CRIMINAL.Y-O-U-R. No apostrophe. I would have had secondhand embarrassment for the dumbass who painted it if Ramón hadn’t been so quick to power-wash it off.”
She pulled me inside the house and threw the dead bolt behind us. Then she wrapped me in a hug, squishing the photo album between us.
“I can’t believe you’re here!”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your game.”
“It’s no big deal,” she said, taking the album and holding it to her chest. “The Fantastic Four are just my neighbors. They’ve lived on our street since I was a kid. They used to keep an eye on all of us after school. They come over a few times a week to keep me company since they don’t have anything better to do.” She towed me upstairs to her room and set the album on her desk. Her room was just as I remembered it, with pale gray carpet, lavender walls, and frilly white curtains that matched her throw pillows. Zach’s and Delia’s macaroni art was thumbtacked to her wall. She pulled me down to sit beside her on her bed. “How are the kids?” she asked eagerly.
“Hopefully, they’re fine. Don’t worry,” I said at her unsettled look. “They’re home with Nick. It’s only for a few days, and he promised he’d call for help if they got to be too much.”
Vero’s laugh was wry. “A few days? That’s one hell of a boot camp.”
“What else could I do, Vero? You haven’t answered your messages in days, and Javi and I have been worried sick about you! What’s going on?”
“My mom confiscated my phone,” she said, slumping back against her pillows. “My attorney told her it was a bad idea for me to be in contact with, and I quote,” she said, hooking her fingers in the air, “a man formerly charged with attempting to steal a car and a woman who knowingly sheltered a fugitive of the law. He said associating with you and Javi while I’m on house arrest will make me look suspicious in court. I told him he could shove that assertion straight up his ass, and if he couldn’t do it himself, I’d be glad to help. But my mother panicked and took my phone. My laptop, too.”
I was beginning to regret my decision to come unannounced, especially if it could jeopardize Vero’s chance of a fair trial. “Your attorney’s probably right. I should have called your mother first. I should leave before she gets home.”
Vero sat up so fast she nearly knocked me off the bed. “You can’t leave! You just got here! You haven’t told me how Zach’s doing with his potty training and how Delia’s doing in school. You haven’t told me what’s going on with you and Nick. Or your mom and dad. Or Sam and Georgia. Or if they set a date for Mrs. Haggerty’s trial. Or what’s happening with your books and your TV deal—”
I held up a hand. She was getting herself all worked up, and the last thing I had intended was to come here and upset her. “I have about a million questions I want to ask you, too. I want to hear all about what’s happening with you and your case. But your mom willprobably be home from work soon. You should hurry and spend a few minutes with Javi before she gets here. I’ll mail you a burner phone when I get home so we can stay in touch.”
Vero shot to her feet. “Javi’s here?”
I nodded. “He was afraid to come in. He said you’d know where to find him.”
She ran to the window and pulled the curtain aside. “Our property goes back fifty feet into the woods. There’s an old tree fort back there the three of us built when we were kids. Javi and I used to sneak off there when we didn’t want my cousin to catch us fooling around. That’s probably where he is.”
