11. Keep Up Appearances

ELEVEN

KEEP UP APPEARANCES

I ’d taken a quick shower, changed, and we’d hit the storage units to get the Sportage. We swung by Fry’s but took a detour on our way to the homeless camp because we got a text from Jinx, who told us to meet her at the diner.

Since the diner was maybe a five-minute drive from the encampment, and I was all in for any information I could get, not to mention, I hadn’t taken bite one of my bagel and I was starved, we swung by there first.

We trooped in to see Persia, Skyla and Divinity were with Jinx.

This extra company was nothing to worry about.

Persia was sporting an electric blue wig today, and although she worked it, I preferred the pink.

They shared the same occupation as Jinx, and since our last case, we’d all grown tight.

Seats were taken and greetings were exchanged (these centered around a bunch of cheek touches and “Yo, bitches”).

They already had sodas.

After we sat, the server came, and I ordered a Diet Coke and the perfect accouterment to a said beverage: a double, bacon cheeseburger with cheesy tots, and I asked her to bring my chocolate malt up the rear.

The rest of them put their orders in and the server walked away.

“Shit, bitch, how do you stay so skinny eating like that?” Persia asked.

Jeff looked like dad, though we both had Mom’s healthy, thick, chestnut hair and blue eyes, and I got Mom’s body, which was no tits, long legs, and lots of ass. My flat belly was impervious to what I fed it, except for the occasional overconsumption that required me to unbutton my pants. And trust me, as the unbuttoning corroborated, I’d tested it.

Nevertheless, for understandable reasons, I didn’t want to answer “good genes.”

“Mad luck?’ I asked as answer.

Persia rolled her eyes.

“Not to dispense with the pleasantries,” Luna said, then she dispensed with the pleasantries. “But Nat is a little freaked about this sitch, and we have another errand to run, so can we get down to it?”

Important note: They had street names, we had code names. I was Natalie (as in Natalie Cook, next generation Charlie’s Angels ). Harlow was Dylan (ditto next gen). And Raye and Luna were Kelly and Jill, respectively (they were named after OG Angels).

Persia looked to Jinx. Jinx looked to Skyla. Skyla looked to Divinity.

Divinity had eyes on me, a straw between her lips, and she was slurping on her drink.

“Can somebody start?” I requested.

“Okay, just to be sure, you bitches aren’t gonna try to shut Mountain down or anything like that, right?” Skyla asked.

Persia snorted. “Like this crew could shut him down.”

“I’d take a shot at shuttin’ him down,” Jinx muttered.

“Mm-hmm,” Divinity hummed around her straw.

“No, we’re not shutting him down,” I said. “I just want to talk to my brother, and we think he’s working with them.”

“Ooo, is he the new one?” Skyla asked.

My blood pressure ticked up a notch.

Persia eyed me. “I see it. The hair.”

“And eyes,” Divinity put in around her straw. “They both got the same pretty blue eyes.”

And again.

Confirmation.

I exchanged glances with my chicks.

“They got trouble,” Jinx remarked. “The cops don’t like Mountain and his boys showin’ ’em up.”

“Mm-hmm,” Divinity again hummed around her straw.

“They gotta be like, more shadowy than their normal shadows,” Skyla put in.

“Is there a way to get word to them?” Raye asked.

Jinx shook her head. “They be where they be, gringa . And you never know where that’s gonna be.”

“Isn’t there like, an underground communication system?” Harlow inquired.

All the girls looked to Harlow, clearly trying not to laugh.

But only Jinx spoke. “She so cute.”

That was a no on the underground communication system.

“What’s this about trouble from the police?” Luna asked.

“Tryin’ to round ’em up,” Jinx told her. “Like maybe they should focus on the dealers and car thieves and gangbangers.”

“Yeah, they should focus on them,” Divinity said, then blew bubbles in her soda.

Oh shit.

“Like, arresting them?” I asked.

“The Soldiers mean business, you hear?” Persia asked. “I mean, there’s a law to bein’ on the street, but they are the law on the street.”

“And they don’t carry handcuffs,” Skyla put in. “If they tell you to do something, and you don’t do it, they deliver the message another way. One you got a lot of time to contemplate during your hospital stay.”

I was pretty sure I was cruising to a panic attack that only a bacon double cheeseburger could contain (but barely, thus I was glad I ordered the tots), so I craned my neck to look for our server.

“He tight, Natalie,” Jinx said to me, watching me closely. “Mountain, I mean. He looks out for his crew.”

“I’m sure it means a lot for my brother to be a part of this kind of thing.” It took a great deal out of me to say my next, instead of what I wanted to say. That I wanted Jeff out of this mess. “I just want to talk to him. See him. Make sure he’s all right.”

“Well, if we see him or one of the boys, we’ll get that message to them,” Skyla said as the server put down our drinks, but the food wasn’t up yet, which would be a miracle if it was in that time, but it was still a bummer.

“I’d appreciate it,” I replied, grabbing my DC.

I took a hit of it and noticed Jinx, Raye and Luna giving each other looks.

“What?” I asked into this.

“Nothin’,” Jinx said.

“Really, please tell me,” I replied quietly, not to mention desperately.

Jinx looked at Raye and Luna again, and when she got nods from both, she turned to me.

“Not sure you’re seein’ the whole picture,” Jinx said. “The cops don’t like the Shadows, but the bad guys don’t like ’em a whole lot more.”

God damn it.

I sucked anxiously on my straw.

“Does anyone know the story of this Mountain guy, or his name?” Raye asked.

“No name, but he street,” Jinx told us. “To his bones.”

“And that means?” I pushed.

“Never shared a burger with el guapo , so he hasn’t told me his life story,” Jinx began. “But it’s known wide he grew up in a tent with his mamá .”

“Like, homeless?” Harlow breathed.

“His whole life?” Luna added.

“Not sure about his whole life. Heard word his mamá ain’t all there. She ain’t on the street no more, though. He got big and strong, he took care of her,” Jinx said on a firm nod.

“Is he known as el guapo as well as Mountain?” Harlow asked.

All the ladies smiled big.

“No, but he guapo , chica . Muy guapo ,” Jinx shared.

“Good looking?” Harlow requested confirmation.

“Tom Hardy is good looking,” Skyla put in. “Mountain is guapo .” And she put a whole lotta emphasis on guapo .

“Hardy do it for you?” Persia asked Skyla.

“He doesn’t do it for you?” Skyla asked Persia.

“I’d give him a freebie, for certain. Did you read that letter he wrote to his dead dog?” Persia asked Skyla.

Skyla put both hands to her chest. “Ohmigod! Melt!”

That letter was sweet and all.

But…

I really needed my burger.

Raye reined it in. “Okay, let’s move on to the situation with the people going missing from the homeless camps.”

Jinx shook her head. “Heard nothin’ about that.”

Persia shook her head too. “Me either.”

Skyla just shook her head.

Divinity sucked up some drink, and after she swallowed it, around her straw, she said, “That’s sad, though. They got enough problems without someone cruisin’ in and pickin’ ’em off.”

She was right about that.

“You’ll keep your ear to the ground?” Luna asked.

Jinx lifted a hand and circled a finger at the table. “You pickin’ up this bill?”

They’d ordered food too.

“Yes,” Luna said.

“Definitely,” Raye said.

“For sure,” Harlow said.

“It’s on me,” I said.

“Then, yeah,” Jinx said.

I knew the girls would keep their ears to the ground even if we didn’t buy them lunch.

But everyone needed to keep up appearances.

This was their version of that.

No skin off our noses.

In the end, it was Arthur who’d pick up the tab.

We’d learned he was good at reimbursement.

* * *

I’d been there enough times, I knew before we even stopped at the camp, shit was not right.

What I hoped was that it didn’t have anything to do with the line of shiny black Denalis at the curb.

Or, more precisely, the work vehicles of the NI&S team.

We got out of the Sportage and immediately heard shouted, “Help! Help! They’re kidnapping me! Help!”

Thus, we all, as a unit, reached back into the car to nab our Tasers.

And then we all, as a unit, raced into the encampment.

Last, we all, as a unit, skidded to a halt when we got to the screaming old lady who was surrounded by a semi-circle of hot guys standing with feet planted and hands on their hips.

Eric, Cap and Knox had been joined by Mace, Roam, Gabe, Liam and Brady.

The whole Phoenix crew vs. one old lady.

Overkill, but even so, it looked like the old lady, huddled on top of a milk crate, clutching a scrawny tiger cat who had to be a hundred years old, was winning.

Homer and a bevy of other men from the camp had fanned out behind the lady.

A lady I assumed was Mary.

I pushed through the guys and demanded, “What’s going on here?”

Homer and all his buds looked at my Taser.

Mary pointed a bony finger at Mace and shouted, “He’s trying to kidnap me!”

I turned to Mace, who actually wasn’t very near Mary, and I processed the hit his extreme good looks dealt me (I had practice with this, I’d been doing it with all of them for months—as such, at that juncture, I knew not to take them all in at once, or I might not be able to function for days).

Having Mace’s attention, I asked, “What’s happening?”

“We’ve explained to her three times that we have temporary accommodation sorted for her until we can find something permanent,” Mace explained.

“I’m not getting in a car with a stranger, I don’t care how good looking he is,” the lady declared. I turned to her, and she finished, “I know what happens after that.”

She drew a line across her neck.

“Are you Mary?” I queried.

She squinted her eyes at me.

“She’s ours, Mary,” Homer mumbled. “This is Jessie.”

Mary stopped squinting, and her mouth dropped open.

She explained her reaction. “You’re a lot prettier than I thought you’d be. All the do-gooders got big butts, wear tie-dye, and don’t believe in deodorant.” She did a top to toe on me. “I take that back about your big butt. Still, you’re pretty. And no tie-dye.”

“Here we are!” I heard cried from behind us in a voice I knew.

I turned to see Luna’s parents, Scott and Louise, pushing through the hot guy arc.

And shit.

Louise was wearing tie-dye.

And I wasn’t that kind of sister, but there was no denying her vegetarian lifestyle didn’t quite keep her ass tight.

Last, Louise was definitely a do-gooder.

“Well, hi, sugar bun,” she said, kissing Luna’s cheek. “Sweet pea!” she cried and bussed Harlow. “Hey there, pumpkin.” And Raye got the treatment. “Aw. There you are, poppet.” That was for me.

Louise had a gift with endearments, and it was the kind that kept on giving.

She turned and smiled at Mary. “You must be Mary.”

Mary eyed Louise then looked at me. “See?”

Louise appeared confused and turned my way. “See what?”

Fortunately, Scott came forward and handed Mary a card. “We’re here to make sure you have everything as we relocate you and settle you in.”

Mary squinted at the card.

She then looked to Scott and waved it in the air. “This looks official.”

“That’s because it is,” Scott replied.

“You’re not taking me to a lab to experiment on me?” Mary asked.

God, I hoped they weren’t doing that to the people who’d gone missing.

“No. We’re relocating you to a long-stay hotel until a unit opens up at one of our affordable housing complexes,” Scott said.

Mary did a loop with the card to indicate the entire camp. “Are you gonna take everybody?”

The posse at her back shuffled several steps away from her.

Yeah.

Some people were on the street and didn’t want to be.

Some people, their home was the street.

“We’ve only made arrangements for you,” Scott said. “But if anyone else wants us to assist, we can make a list and start the ball rolling.”

No one piped up.

Mary squinted again. “Who’s payin’ for this hotel?”

“We have an anonymous benefactor for emergencies,” Scott semi-lied in so far as they weren’t exactly anonymous, since they were all standing right there.

Mary tapped his card on her lips in thought.

Louise stared at her daughter. “Why are you carrying a gun?”

Shit.

Raye, Harlow and me quickly shoved our Tasers in our back waistbands.

“It’s not a gun, it’s a Taser,” Luna replied.

“Why are you carrying a Taser?” Louise asked. Then went on, “Where did you even get one of those?”

Shit!

Needless to say, Scott nor Louise knew anything about the Angels. Even if they did, they were card-carrying progressive liberals (that tie-dye did double duty for Louise), and as such, they frowned on things like straws not made out of avocado pits, not taking your own bags to the grocery story, the man-spread…and Tasers.

Eric stepped forward, pulled mine out of my waistband and shoved it in his by his hip.

Oh, and he also looked mega hot doing it.

“They’re ours, Louise.” Now, he was totally lying. “The ladies just wanted to see them.”

Raye was handing hers to Cap with an I better get that back look on her face. Harlow gave hers to Gabe. Luna handed hers to Knox.

It was then I noticed Knox was the only one who’d broken ranks and was standing super close to Luna.

Interesting.

He’d also been at her pad that morning.

Interesting part two.

“You don’t need to come in armed with the unhoused,” Louise chided Eric.

“We always come prepared,” Mace said in a steely voice.

“Well, whatever,” Louise mumbled, bobbling her head, rolling her eyes and still mumbling, “I mean, really .”

“They aren’t dumb,” Mary decreed, then whipped out a wicked chef’s knife so fast, we all jumped back a step.

Except the Hottie Squad. They all took a step forward with Liam grabbing my waist and shoving me behind him.

“Even I’m packin’,” Mary continued. “Can’t be too careful.”

“Oh my goodness, please put that away,” Louise begged.

As Mary resheathed her knife, I looked around, because somewhere through this, I’d lost track of Eric.

I saw him with Cap not too far away, their heads bent in conversation with the General.

I had a few things to ask the General myself.

“Excuse me,” I murmured, but got not a step in before Brady had his hand at my chest, stopping me.

The instant I stopped, he took his hand from my chest.

“You need to stay here,” he told me.

I braved the further depletion of my resources to process his dark-haired, russet-bearded, lumberjack hotness and looked at him.

“In case you didn’t know this, these people trust me.”

“That conversation is between a soldier and his superiors,” Brady returned. “The spell is cast. You can’t break the spell, or they won’t get anything.”

Crap!

He was right.

Whatever.

Eric would fill me in.

I turned back to the matter at hand, specifically, I looked at Homer.

“We have some things in the car. Before we start packing up Mary, can you and a couple of the guys help us bring it in?” I requested.

I got nothing but a nod, though Homer and a couple of the men followed me and my chicks to the car.

“Are they gonna see to General Grant?” Homer asked on the way.

“They’re looking into programs to help him, yes,” I answered.

“Good. He doesn’t belong here,” Homer mumbled.

This wasn’t a dis.

Like I said, there were people whose home was the street, and people whose circumstances put them there.

We both knew which camp the General fell into.

Raye opened the back hatch of the Sportage, and the men moved in to grab the plastic-wrapped, cardboard bottomed cases of bottled water and bags of bath wipes, mondo bottles of generic aspirin, Slim Jims, breakfast bars and packets of dried fruit and nuts.

Homer had his arms laden with two cases of water when he looked at me.

“They won’t like that team being here,” he announced.

“Who won’t?” I asked.

“You know,” he said.

The Shadow Soldiers.

I didn’t want to ask him if he knew what Jeff had been doing all along. I didn’t want to put him on the spot or do anything to shake the trust he had in me, which I knew was fragile and always would be.

But it still stung that I suspected he knew who Jeff was with and what he was doing.

“Those men are my friends,” I said. “They’re here to help Mary and the General.”

“I know, they still won’t like it.”

He said no more, and I could say no more, because he walked away.

My chicks didn’t gather around me.

They didn’t because they huddled nearby to watch, seeing as Eric was sauntering toward me.

And man .

Seriously.

The dude could saunter.

Considering my reserves were depleted, I was unable to process how good he looked walking my way, so I just stood there waiting for him and tipped my head back to look at him when he arrived and came in close.

It was only then I noted he seemed mildly peeved.

He explained his peevishness. “I take it you being here means you’re not gonna let us find your brother.”

“No. I’m totally gonna let you find my brother. Though, that doesn’t mean me and the Angels aren’t gonna nose around ourselves.”

I wasn’t sure that appeased him, however, the big breath he let out would communicate it didn’t.

“Did it take all of you to come get Mary?” I asked.

“No. It took all of us to come get a lay of the land, be seen and understood we’re no threat, so maybe in future, if they need anything, or we need anything, we can return.”

“So you’re multi-tasking to create informants?”

“In our business, you need to be known on the streets. Trusted by the people who need to trust us, and acknowledged as the threats we are by the people who don’t. I mentioned before this takes years to accomplish. We’re doing what we can to fast track that. But the multi-tasking part is getting Mary out of here, making inroads with the General so when the time comes to relocate him, he’s on board, and if we can find out anything about Mountain and his soldiers, that’s a bonus. Men who do his kind of work leave traces.”

Fascinating.

“What kind of traces?” I asked.

“Tags to claim territory or notify other members of their team that someone’s been here recently and checked things out. Or tech, so they can keep an eye and roll in if there’s trouble.”

“Tech? Like…cameras?”

“Like cameras.”

Fascinating .

“Have you found any?” I queried.

“We were only here five minutes before you got here so…no. Not yet.”

“Maybe I should let you carry on.”

That set the peevishness on its hike, I knew, because his fabulous lips quirked.

“Maybe,” he murmured.

“Just so you know, we talked with our informants and came up empty, except for the fact it seems all of them would give Mountain a freebie if he wanted. Though, if you find him, don’t tell him that. It’s theirs to offer. Not ours.”

Now he was full-on smiling. “I’ll keep it confidential.”

“They also shared that the cops aren’t the Shadows’ biggest fans.”

“We’ve heard that too.”

Hmm.

Since there was nothing else to talk to him about, sadly, I had to let him go.

“Well, I should let you get to it.”

“One sec,” he said, grabbing my hand, taking me to a Denali, opening the driver’s side door and reaching in.

He came out with his garage remote and a key.

As he was putting both in my hand, he whirled me, pressed me into the car, pressed himself into me, and he laid a hot, wet one on me.

I was surfacing from this (with some difficulty) when he said, “Now, you can let me go.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“You are such a tease.”

He grinned, ignored what I said, and stated, “I’ll text when I’m on my way home.”

“Right.”

“It might be a long day, so we’ll order something to eat when I get there.”

Oh no we wouldn’t.

I didn’t say that.

I said, “Okay.”

“Try to stay out of trouble,” he ordered.

“We’ve depleted our leads. I have no choice.”

At that, he looked relieved.

It was my turn to ignore something.

I rolled up to my toes, touched my mouth to his, and said, “Later, Turner.”

I scooted out from in front of him and made sure I put a lot of sass in my sashay as I made my way back to the girls.

“Just to confirm, he watched your ass the entire way here,” Luna informed me when I arrived. “Only when you stopped moving did he start back to the camp.”

Mission accomplished.

“Also to confirm, that kiss was hot,” Raye stated.

She didn’t have to confirm that. I already knew all about that.

“We should help Scott and Louise with Mary, but after that, what next?” Harlow asked.

“We have to hit a bookstore, then a grocery store,” I declared.

“Why?” Harlow inquired.

“Because Eric is spending the day finding my brother, and I’m gonna make it worth it.”

“That says trashy lingerie and sex store, not bookstore and grocery store,” Luna remarked.

She was right.

She was also wrong.

“I’ve got a point to make,” I told her, but didn’t elucidate, and my chicks didn’t push me. They were awesome like that.

“We’ve got a plan. Let’s hit it,” Raye said. “Angels on the move.”

And then the Angels were on the move.