Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 143(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 143(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
Behind me, I hear him coughing and muttering under his breath. Pantalini’s too much of a coward to curse loudly enough for me to hear him, which means he’ll wait until I’m out of earshot to spew his rancid thoughts about Lauren. If they get back to me, though, it’s not going to be pretty.
Mick’s not in the lobby. Fuck. He’s probably taken off.
“He’s just outside,” the young cop says. “His phone isn’t charged, and he didn’t have any cash in his pocket.”
The dark cloud lifts.
“Thanks. If he causes any more trouble, give me a call. It saves on the paperwork.” I flip a card in his direction. Evers had them made for me years ago when he opened the Academy. I’ve passed out more of them in the past few days than I have in the entire five years that school’s been open.
Sure enough, Mick is leaning against a bus stop sign. I stroll over, stopping about five feet away. I reach into my pocket and pull out a MetroCard. “You need bus fare or do you want a ride?”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a friend of your sister’s. I said I’d help her out.”
“You’re lying. She wouldn’t accept your help.” Kid’s rightfully suspicious.
“I know, but I’m helping her anyway.” I squint as the late afternoon sun bounces off a cop’s window shield. I reach into my pocket for my sunglasses.
“The only reason you’re here is because you want in my sister’s pants.”
“Yeah.” I slide the glasses on.
“You admit it?” he yells.
I slide my glasses down to the end of my nose and pin him back with a stony stare. “Yeah. No point in lying to you. I want her in my bed, but I want her there permanently.” The car I paid for pulls up. "There's your ride."
I resettle my glasses and stroll off, leaving a speechless Mick behind me. Feels good to get my declaration out there on the table. Both the Murphy’s need to understand that I’m not playing a game. This is all dead serious to me.
Chapter Ten
LAUREN
“Idon’t understand why you’re empty-handed.” Roberta eyes me coldly.
The breeze of the night air filters through my hair, but it’s her presence that makes me shiver. She looks like she’d stab me if she could.
“Because I’m a shitty burglar, like I told you in the first place. I’ll clean your toilets, cut your hair, hell, I’ll even learn to cook fancy stuff, but I can’t steal things. That’s not in my kit of skills.”
“From what I hear, you can barely carry out even your main job. Rose Puffersmitch says she almost got killed at the Blue Salon by her incompetent hairdresser.”
Great. Bad press. Just what I need. Still, why is Roberta here if she thinks I’m barely functional? “If you keep coming back to me when you think I’m a fool, doesn’t that make your decisions kind of sketchy?”
She stiffens. “I’m here to see that you carry out the job you agreed to do.”
“I don’t have the test questions. They caught me.” Is this woman dumb? No wonder her kid needs to cheat. They must not have any working brain cells.
“Then go back and get them. How hard is this for you to understand? You either bring me the tests or I press charges and your brother moves from the police jail cell to an actual prison. I’ll give you forty-eight hours. That’s two days if you’re too simple to understand how time works.” She doesn’t even wait for an answer but waltzes out of the park as if she just set an appointment for a cut and color.
I give her the finger, but her back is to me so she doesn’t see it, obviously. I’m not attempting the burglary again, but I need to save my brother. I think we need a lawyer. I press the pads of my hands into my eyes, but the pressure does not make the pounding in my head go away. I desperately need money.
Something delicious hits me the moment I open the apartment door. There’s a note on the table next to the plate of pasta. “Am next door playing LOL.”
Mick? I drop the note and run out to bang on my neighbor’s door.
“It’s open,” a girl’s voice calls out.
I let myself in and find Betts Drummond glued to her computer monitor with Mick, the juvenile delinquent, at her side, an empty plate of pasta in his lap.
Full of relief, I sag against the door frame. “Can we talk?”
“They let me out.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“What about bail?”
He shrugs. “Taken care of.”
“How?” Roberta Ware told me he wasn’t getting out until I got her the test questions, so this isn’t making sense to me.
Mick tilts his head toward me. “You don’t know?”
“I would not be standing here asking you questions if I knew.”