“Finally!” He pocketed his phone. “Come on. Benny and Jaz are over this way. We’re going to have to sneak around the side here where there aren’t any cameras. Follow me.”
We ducked past the bushes and bent low to make our way through the outskirts of a rose garden, sneaking past the windows. We were both soaked to the bone, and chlorine stung my eyes as we pushed aside wisteria and headed around a screened-in patio—
Where we ran into Jaz and Benny, squatting near the patio door.
“Oh my God!” Jaz said. “Are you okay?”
“He fucking had her locked up,” Seb said.
“This is what you meant by ‘exited via pool route’?” Benny said, blinking at our wet clothes. “You absolute legends.”
“We’ll take our award later,” Seb said, pushing damp hair out of his eyes. “Let’s make a break for the side gate where we came in. Paige, it’s over there, behind that little brick wall. See it?”
I nodded. Running there would take us in full view of the front of the house and the driveway. The Corvair was still parked there, and the gate I’d driven through was cracked open.
I’ll leave the gate open for him.
I looked around wildly, trying to spot Paul Vanderburg, but the front yard was quiet and still. Even the road outside the gate was quiet.
“Ready?” Jazmine asked.
When we nodded, she signaled, and we all took off like we were running from the devil. Maybe we were. This entire hellish estate was nearly as bad as the Vanderburg compound, just with a fancier wrapper. I raced across the lawn with the other Wags, wet shoes squishing in the grass, heading straight for a waist-high brick wall, which partially hid a little curving path from our view until we got right up on it. But there was the path, and there was the little side gate in the property fence that Seb mentioned.
There was also Pretty Paul and Lulu, walking through the side gate.
We all skidded in the grass as Lulu closed the gate. Paul glanced up with a genuine look of surprise.
“Shit,” Benny mumbled.
“Front gate!” Seb said, and we all doubled back, scrambling to put some distance between us while Lulu shouted, “It’s them!”
Did Paul have his gun? I couldn’t tell. When I glanced over my shoulder, he was booking it toward us. But he wasn’t the only one.
Black lightning streaked across the front lawn toward us. Thing One or Thing Two, I didn’t know. Didn’t care, either. We were almost at the front gate, and there was just enough space for us to get out. Behind us, I vaguely heard my father shouting along with his housekeeper. Heard Lulu’s Mickey Mouse voice. But we were there. We were going to make it!
One. Two. Three. Four. All Wags slipped through the crack in the gate.
And ran right into two Grand Rapids police officers.
“Whoa, whoa!” the first officer said, a middle-aged man with short gray hair, who put his hand on his holster while his partner, a young officer who didn’t look much older than us, held up both his hands to block us.
All I could think was how my father had bragged about bribing the Grand Rapids police. Had he called them? I didn’t get an answer to that right away because the Doberman lurched against the gate, barking his head off. The officers moved back, wary, but my father ran up and grabbed the dog by its studded collar.
“All right, now,” he shouted at the dog. “Stand down. Stand down!”
The dog obeyed, but you could tell it would rather eat our faces off. A reluctant Ester raced up behind with a chain leash, which my father used to control the dog. “So sorry about that, Officers,” he said, breathless. “She’s normally better behaved.”
“Whoa!” the younger cop warned, looking behind my father. He quickly took out his gun but held it pointed down at his side. “Who’s that, now?”
Paul and Lulu were trying to sneak out and leave the yard the same way they came out.
“Oh,” my father said. “They’re with me. It’s fine. They weren’t involved in this, so you can just let them go.”
“Excuse me?” the older cop said, and then called out to Paul and Lulu, “Grand Rapids PD. Get over here, now, before my partner has to shoot a hole in your leg.”
The younger cop trained his gun on Paul, who looked like he was cussing us under his breath, but after a moment, both he and Lulu slowly walked over to the gate. The younger cop herded them outside with us. We gave them dirty looks as they stood on one side of the gate, Wags on the other.
“Everyone stay put,” the young officer said.
