“A detour means there’s a way out. I’ve told Emory everything I know. There isn’t any song to sing.”
“I know there isn’t,” Mirabelle said and not for the first time. Emory wouldn’t hear it from her, though. He had to see for himself.
“Thank you for believing me.” Amelia smiled with what might’ve been the end of it, but she bypassed the natural exit. “The motel clerk, the one Damon hurt. He’s in the hospital. What will happen to him?”
Mirabelle shrugged, uncertain of where Amelia was going. “Same thing that happens to everyone in the hospital. He’ll either live or die.”
“And who decides his fate, Emory or God?”
The blunt question pulled no punches. Amelia wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last to put Emory and God on equal ground, but it didn’t impress Amelia as it did the others.
On the surface, she was harmless and sweet, but then the gloves came off and she was discerning and sharp. She didn’t fit the mold nor would she flit about with glamorous ambition to fuck her way to Emory’s side, his vapid queen rotten to the core. Amelia already had her thumb to the pulse and felt his heart beating. But she didn’t know him and couldn’t see what Mirabelle saw. Emory would fall hard for a girl like her.
“Another lesson, know your place,” Mirabelle insisted with a sharp stare leveled at Amelia. “Some things are off limits, including questions like that. Now, about the things I’ve told you today.”
Amelia crossed her heart with her finger. “Silence.”
“Good girl. Is this a ‘fuck you’ to your dad?”
“More like a small act of defiance.”
“Sometimes it’s all we got.”
Girlishmischief gleamed in Amelia’s eyes. “Then we should take it every chance we get.”
“Yes, we should,” Mirabelle heartily agreed.
At the window, Scumstache tapped his phone and scanned the empty street again. He locked eyes with Mirabelle and the machismo fled. He looked like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. A cold flush surged through Mirabelle.
“Let’s go,” she said. “The men are antsy. That’s never a good sign.”
Inside, a record played, but the music no longer disguised Emory’s voice down below. It rumbled through the floorboards with steady heat.
“Where’s the bathroom?” Amelia asked Mirabelle, but the question roused Scumstache’s interest.
He peeled away from the window and muttered something inarticulate, a demand, perhaps, that Amelia stay put. She paid the boy no mind and neither did Mirabelle as she directed Amelia down the hall.
Whatever his intentions, they fell apart. In a fluster, Scumstache’s hands shook as he frantically typed on his phone. From the back of the store, the two other Moriarty street soldiers noticed.
“Who are you texting?” one demanded and approached Scumstache from behind. The other circled to his side. Cornered, Scumstache shoved his phone in his pocket and turned with his back to the window.
“No one,” he answered and crossed his arms with a smirk.
The fucking nerve of this kid.Mirabelle killed the record player and marched up to him with an outstretched hand.
“If it’s no one, then give me your phone and let me see.”
The boy huffed a derisive laugh and glanced at the street again. Up close, Mirabelle invaded his space.
“I said, give me your phone.”
Scumstache sucked in a long breath and stood at full height. Mirabelle had underestimated his size. A head taller than her, he peered down as if he had the upper hand. For a brief moment, itseemed he might comply as he reached for his back pocket. It was the wrong pocket, though. On the exhale, he pulled his gun and steadied it at Mirabelle.
“Drop it now!” shouted one of the street soldiers.
Hands up, Mirabelle froze and so too did Amelia as she returned from down the hall. In shaky steps, Mirabelle backed away. With his gun to her head, Scumstache no longer looked like a little boy.
He wouldn’t do it.Fear couldn’t listen to logic, though. She stumbled into the soda stool, blood pumping like ice in her veins.
