Gone.
“A month,” Duke said, interrupting my thoughts. Duke’s arms were crossed on his big chest, his gravel y voice sounded almost (but not quite) happy. “A month of pure bliss. No bul ets flying. No kidnappings. No dead bodies.
No cars explodin’. No cat fights in Chinese restaurants. No shoot-outs at the Society Party OK Corral. No visits to the hospital. Absolute, fuckin’ bliss.”
He barely finished his last word when we heard a squeal of tires.
Everyone’s gaze swung to look out the big plate glass window.
We saw a shiny, cherry-condition, red Camaro, circa 1983, braking, its tail flipping so that it was facing the wrong way on Broadway and it shuddered to a halt.
No sooner had it stopped then the driver’s side door was thrown open and a woman got out.
She had gleaming, thick, black hair, pul ed back in a long ponytail. She was wearing a skintight black turtleneck, mushroom-colored cords and a kickass black belt.
She was stunning.
She walked to the front of the Camaro, her hand going to the back waistband of her cords and she whipped out a gun.
Hank tensed at my side and the room went utterly stil except for a wicked undercurrent of energy.
She pul ed the gun up in front of her and held it like Hank, natural, casual, in two hands, arms cocked, head slightly to the side.
The traffic was stopped at the red light on Broadway.
She advanced, like a woman without a care in the world, down the middle of the wide, normal y busy street toward a man who had alighted from a different car.
He too, had a gun pointed at her.
She halted.
They faced off.
“Jules!” he shouted.
At the cal of what was likely her name, her arms moved slightly, to the left and down. Without apparently aiming, she fired, twice.
And she took out the two front tires of his car.
“Holy crap,” Indy breathed.
“Righteous,” Al y whispered.
“Fuckin’ Jules!” the man yel ed and started running toward her.
She whipped around, ponytail flying, and ran back to her car, throwing the gun into the passenger seat. She got in and started reversing on a smoky squeal of tires, leaving the man in her dust.
Al our heads fol owed her as the car twisted viciously around to face the right way again and she took off like a rocket.
The man with the gun turned toward Fortnum’s and started running and kept going, right passed Fortnum’s down the side street.
“Stay here,” Hank said to me, his hand was in his back pocket, pul ing out his phone. Then he moved to the door.
The place was a flurry of activity.
The Hot Boy Brigade was on the move. Out of Fortnum’s they went, disbursing with barely a word to each other, instinctively knowing what they were doing.
I noticed it was Vance, on his Harley, who shot off in the direction of “Jules”.
Indy turned to me and said on a grin, “Welcome home.”
####
About the Author
Kristen Ashley lives in the beautiful West Country of England with her husband and her cat. She came to England by way of Denver, where she lived for twelve years, but she grew up in Brownsburg, Indiana. Her family and friends are loopy (to say the least) but loopy is good when you want to write.
Kristen’s Mom moved her and her brother and sister in with their grandparents when she was six. Her grandparents had a daughter much younger than her Mom so they al lived together on a very smal farm in a smal farm town in the heartland. She grew up with Glenn Mil er, The Everly Brothers, REO Speedwagon and Whitesnake (and the wardrobes that matched). Needless to say, growing up in a house ful of music, clothes and love was a good way to grow up.
And as she keeps growing up, it keeps getting better.