“Rain, eat something,” Cairo said.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
I helped myself to a couple of chicken kebabs, lemon potatoes, and Greek salad. Moving aside the soup, I spotted my recent note from the Letter Man.
“We’ve been talking options,” Arsenio explained. “Has the investigator or his cop friend gotten back to you?”
I shook my head.
“Then, we need our own plan for taking down this guy when he sets the meeting.”
“I still say he’s going to see that coming. By now, he knows I told you guys and the police. I’m not making it easy for him. He won’t make it easy for me.”
The doorbell chimed. Cairo got up to check it out.
“It’s Davidson,” he called back. “I told him to get the alarm codes from the owner, and info on how to change them. We’ll be outside.”
I shifted to Jacques. “What do you think? Isn’t your genius mind screaming that the same person who thought giving me a gift was attempting to kill an innocent person, only has worse for me planned down the line?”
“Yes,” Jacques replied. “To meet him anywhere, at any time, is a bad idea if he controls the situation. We simply ensure that we do.”
“But how—?”
My phone went off. I checked it and shot off the couch.
“Guys, it’s Gold. Give me a sec.”
I went into the living room, turning my back on the guys.
“Gold? Are you okay?”
“It’s me. I am fine,” he said. “The police stopped by my place this afternoon to check on me because you were worried. I’m sincerely sorry I put you through that. I can only imagine what went through your head.”
“I thought he killed you,” I said bluntly. “I got another letter from him today, and he knows the police have been watching the drop boxes.”
“That’s unfortunate.” He sounded like he was speaking to himself. “I’ll have to call off Ribecco.”
“What’s going on? Why haven’t I heard from you?”
A deep, weary sigh gusted through the phone.
“I’m very sorry. I believe I’ll say this to you often during our conversation. The fact is I came across some information during the investigation that I simply did not know how to tell you.”
I slowly lowered myself on a dining room chair.
“I’ve taken this long to get back to you, because I’ve checked, rechecked, then checked again. I owe it to you to be one hundred percent certain.”
“About what?” I croaked.
“I’m hired to give hard truths. I’ve done so for years without hesitation, but to tell this to you after how much you’ve already suffered. It’s the first time in my career I thought I was doing something... wrong.”
“Mr. Gold, you’re scaring me. Please, just say it.”
“I’m sorry, Rainey.”
That made three.
“It’s about your sister, Ivy. How much do you know about where she’s been and what she’s done in the past two years?”
“Ivy?” I echoed. “I spoke to her a little while ago—before she hung up on me. She’s in Chicago with her boyfriend, loving her new life.”
“I see.”
“See what?”
“There’s something you need to know about Ivy,” Gold began. “She is—”
Pain exploded in my skull.
I pitched forward, head hurtling for the table edge. I ricocheted off and toppled out of my chair.
“Rainey? Hello, Rainey, can you hear me?”
The world spun.
Wetness dribbled down my face and neck. I touched them and my fingers came away covered in blood. Trying to make sense of the sight, I hardly registered the boots coming down beside my head.
Eyes fluttering shut, I drifted away.
Chapter Eleven
“Wake up. Hellloooo.”
Pain lit my cheek.
“I said, get up.”
I slowly came to, descending into agony.
My head ached. Temples throbbed. Cheek stung. Wrists burned.
The final realization pushed back on the grogginess. Why did my wrists burn?
Blinking, my vision blurred on a face.
“Finally,” a voice said. “I was a minute away from starting the party without you.”
Blonde hair came into focus, and little by little, the brown eyes became clear. A round nose. Thin lips.
And a name.
“Zoey?”
My former orientation tour guide beamed. “Look at that. There is intelligent life on this planet. I was worried those knocks to the head rung your bell for the final time, you crazy bitch.”
I bristled. Why the hell was this woman talking to me like that? And where was I?
Drifting up, I peered through crisscrossing metal to the clear night sky.
We were outside and on Chaney Bridge by the looks of it.
“Hmm.”
What am I doing here? What was I doing before?
“Hmm! Hmm!”
What’s that—?
Zoey stepped out of the way, and I fell on Arsenio, Cairo, Jacques, and Legend—wrists bound and suspended from ropes tied overhead. They balanced on a ledge on the balls of their feet. Gags stretched their mouths open.
“Guys!” I raced to them and made it three steps.
My bound hands yanked me off my feet and smashed me against the rail.
Zoey laughed herself sick.
She was dressed in a bright yellow sundress with a matching bow keeping her bangs out of her face. You’d have thought she was going out to a picnic, if not for the crossbow held in her gloved hands.