“Three more,” Goldie says, joining us.
Bang!
“Two.” Beau moves back against the wall and looks at me. There’s no amusement on her face. No smugness. She’s just doing what needs to be done, and I fucking detest that she does it so fucking well.
“Concentrate,” I order, peeking up as another head appears. I reach back, straining, gritting my teeth through the pull of my muscles, and yank the fucker over. His gun fires while he’s sailing through the air, and I see Beau lean back, her eyes widening. “Beau,” I yell, a million unwanted memories flooding back as I jump down off the trash can and run to her.
More bullets fire, one after the other, pinging off the metal rods of the gate. I flinch and duck, feeling one graze the back of my arm. I make it to Beau, slightly confused when I find her still standing, dread squeezing every one of my internal organs.
She looks at me, lifting her arm. I see a hole in the sleeve of her shirt and flat-out panic, yanking it up her scarred arm. Nothing. I turn her arm over, checking every inch of it. No holes. No blood. “Jesus,” I whisper, pushing her against the wall with my body, effectively hiding her. Being a human shield.
“One more,” Goldie says, standing above the motionless body of my latest victim and pulling the trigger.
“Where’s the girl?” a thick Polish accent says.
I inhale, feeling Beau moving ever so slightly, her eyes pointing downward, like she’s gaging something. She is. Fuck me, I need to stop underestimating her. Worry is natural. She lines her legs up with mine and stills, slowly lifting her head and looking up at me. Her eyes tell me what to do. I follow the sound of the voice, looking behind me, seeing a gun aimed at Goldie, another at me.
Goldie immediately drops her weapon, and I follow suit, keeping my arms by my side, making myself as wide as possible as I return my attention to the wall. And to Beau. “One o’clock,” I mouth.
If I wasn’t body to body against her, I wouldn’t know she’d moved.
Bang.
“Fuck me!” Goldie yelps, as I fly around, seeing The Shark hit the deck, his eyes open, a bullet hole placed precisely in between his eyes. Beau’s soon pushing her way past me, going to the body and standing over it. She considers him for a few moments, then pokes his thigh with the toe of her converse, like she needs to check he’s really dead.
I look at Goldie. She’s staring at Beau, somewhere between awe and shock. Jesus fucking Christ.
I go to her, taking the gun. “Stay,” I order seriously, before going to the gates and peering through. A bin labelled INCINERATOR is by the door. “Bolt croppers?” I look back at Goldie, who nods sharply and jogs off, returning a few seconds later. She takes care of the thick chain raveled around the gate with ease, the metal pinging loose with one cut, and I pull the huge trash can out onto the alleyway and flip the lid open. Beau takes the initiative to hold it, stopping it from rolling away, while Goldie and I start collecting up the bodies and dumping them inside one by one, my muscles getting another punishing. We leave the biggest for last, Goldie and I considering The Shark for a moment, also taking a quick breather, before moving in. I take his arms, she takes his legs.
“Jesus,” she grunts, going a little blue in the face. “They should have called him Megalodon.”
I have to agree. The guy is a ton weight. “Ready,” I heave, bracing myself to hoist him up.
“Yep.”
We both strain under the weight of him and slowly but surely ease him up to the trash can, getting him on the edge and nudging him in on top of his men. Beau flips the lid and frowns when she tries to push it back into the yard of the funeral home.
I give her a hand, ignoring her indignant look when I push it along with relative ease. “Don’t even think about lifting more weights,” I warn, knowing she would, just to prove a point. I love her petite, athletic frame.
“Arnie,” she says, taking off around the front.
“God damn it, Beau,” I breathe, going after her.
“She’s a constant flight risk,” Goldie moans, following. “Why can’t she be like all the other women at home?”
“Because then she wouldn’t be Beau,” I say to myself as Beau pushes her way through the door, coming to an abrupt halt. I make it to her and look past her, to the old boy who’s just coming out of the room where Beau’s dad is laid. The confusion he’s sporting is quite endearing. Then he spots us and that confusion multiplies. He looks back to the door, then to us again.
“I think I need a vacation.”
I look around the place. Nothing is touched. There’s no blood, no evidence that anyone was here. Gentle, calming music plays, and I wonder what the fucking point is. Old Arnie here can’t possibly hear it. “Are you okay?” Beau asks.
“What’s that, dear?” he yells.
My God, his lack of hearing may have saved his life. “I said, are you okay?” Beau shouts.
“No need to shout, dear.” He thumbs to the door behind him. “I have to close sometime this evening.”
“Yes, of course.” She steps forward. Then stops abruptly and reverses, her back meeting my chest. “I’m good,” she says, forcing her body into me so I walk back too.
“You don’t want to?”
“No.” She shakes her head vehemently. “I’ve seen enough dead bodies for today. Thank you, Mr. Gluttenhiem,” she calls, but of course the old man just puts a hand up, not hearing. “Let’s go.”
“Wait.” I stop her, taking the tops of her arms and hunkering down. “Are you sure?”
She nods, swallows, and that’s all I need. I put an arm around her and lead her back to the car. “You were following us,” I say to Goldie, who completely ignores me. “Did you know they’d be tailing me?”
“No, but I wasn’t taking any chances after Brad’s place was blown up.”
I put a quiet Beau in the car and close the door, facing Goldie. “Thank you.”
“Shut the fuck up and finish this shit.” She stomps off.
“Goldie?” I call.
“What?”
“Ever leave the house alone again, I’ll kill you.”
“I’m beginning to think death is the more appealing option to life right now.” She gets in her car, slams the door, and screeches off, and the stench of burning rubber fills my nose.
“Never,” I say quietly, climbing into my Range. I look across to Beau, the words I need to say ready to fall out of my mouth. Tell her! Tell her Cartwright’s dead!
Except I can’t. I know she’ll already be wondering why the fuck The Shark came after me at the funeral home where her father is being kept. Wondering if he had anything to do with Tom’s death. Adding the dead journalist to the mix will guarantee me a headache of epic proportions. I feel like we’re inching closer to some fucking answers, so the last thing I need is Beau performing one of her disappearing acts.
24
BEAU
Voicing my suspicions won’t do me any favors. It’ll just make James lock down his already secure hold of me. The Polish turning up at the funeral home where Dad is was easy to explain. They followed us. Simple. But followed us from where? The mansion? I doubt it. That place is overrun with cameras. A pussy cat on the street would be considered suspicious and would be brought to Danny’s or James’s attention if it hung around long enough. So a BMW full of overweight Polish men? Not likely. That alone makes me question what the fuck is going on. Add in the small matter of Danny so obviously catching his tongue in his office before he said something in my presence, my ever-present cop senses are going into overdrive.