“We’ll see,” I said to myself, though I wondered if it was loud enough to hear, if it would come back to haunt me. I wondered if I meant it.
I popped the car in reverse and peeled back out of the parking lot as Vincent came staggering out of the apartment, waving his gun around like he had a chance of hitting me.
I was already gone before he could steady his hand. The GTO roared down the quiet sunny streets of suburban Los Angeles, and I wondered when the fuck I’d stop being a chump and if I’d ever get to see my son again.
If I’d ever get my life back and take charge.
But I had to.
I wanted to.
I was going to find Gus.
And then I was going to find Ellie.
And nothing, absolutely nothing, would get in my way.
CHAPTER FIVE
ELLIE
My escape artist skills had grown rusty. Which wasn’t really all that surprising since I’d apparently turned into quite the shit trickster as well. Whether I’d grown too confident and too cocky by driving that damn, damn car around or I was doing it, as Javier had suggested, because I wanted to get caught, I was obviously losing my touch. I decided that I’d become too cocky, because wanting the vile Mexican to actually find me was a whole other can of worms that I wasn’t about to dive into.
Besides, I had bigger problems. Like getting caught right after I made a break for it.
You couldn’t really blame a girl for trying.
After Javier had left me in that rotten house to whatever business he did (strangling puppies was my guess), I spent the rest of the day devising a plan to escape. It probably would have been time better spent if I had thought about what Javier had propositioned me with but I was so certain I could get out of it that I didn’t even have to think about the “what ifs.”
Another reason why I was losing my touch: a good con artist always examines all the scenarios, the “what ifs,” the multiple ways the game can play out. But I did none of that. Instead I observed the burly man on the other side of the front door and the smaller man in the black suit who was stationed by the French doors in the kitchen, guarding the way to the balcony like some bored bouncer at a club. I decided I’d fake out the smaller guard, maybe hit him over the head with something (he was smaller after all and the kitchen was full of blunt objects, even if all the knives were conveniently gone) and make a run for it. Once on the beach, I could book it down to one of the neighbors, providing he hadn’t paid off everyone on the sandy strip. There was a chance that he did. Javier didn’t just split from Travis without being extremely thorough.
I should have mulled on that observation a little bit longer. At around five in the evening, when the sun was low in the West and the shore looked fuzzy with light, I had knocked on the kitchen door. Through the glass, I could see the short man ignoring me so I rapped again and stared at him impatiently until he turned to look.
I made the motion for him to open the door, all while keeping a heavy pestle from a pestle and mortar set nestled in my hidden hand like a police club. Finally he opened the door and gave me an expectant look.
“Hi,” I told him, all smiles. “I don’t know if you realize this but I’ve effectively been kidnapped.”
His face remained frozen except for one brow that rose.
“And, well, I was wondering if you had it in your heart to let me go,” I went on. This was a long shot, playing to a man’s sense of decency and morality. As if he’d chose that over going against Javier’s orders.
As I expected he shook his head ever so slightly. His focus was at least on me. I chose that moment to scratch behind my ear with my free hand and let go of a quarter I’d kept hidden in my fingers. It was like a magic trick gone wrong, but the point was that he wasn’t expecting a shiny quarter to fall out from behind my ear and clank down on the floor. His eyes followed it and before they had a chance to look back up at me, I’d raised the pestle and smashed it down into his temple. The sweet spot.
He cried out, much louder than I was expecting and grabbed his head. I saw a flash of red but didn’t have time to dwell on it. I pushed him down and to the side and then jumped up onto the balcony railing. Without hesitating I leaped down, falling a whole story but landing with a clump onto the soft sand below. A sharp pang shot up from my left ankle, my weakest one, but I ignored it and started running.
At first it felt like quicksand, like one of those horrible dreams where you’re trying to run but can’t. Only this was no dream. I made it as far as the property edge where a row of flax separated Javier’s property from the neighbors, flax I’d once planted because it looked tropical and pretty, when I was tackled from behind.
I face-planted into the sand as arms went around my legs and brought me down. I kicked out, trying to hit the assailant but it was too late. The person was now straddling me across my waist, preventing me from flipping over or fighting. I bucked, I tried, but they were too strong.
I violently turned my head, cheek burning against the grains of sand and peered up. His face was in shadows caused by the setting sun behind him, but I knew it was Javier. … and he was smiling. I could always see that flash of white teeth.
“Get the fuck off me,” I said, sand coating my lips as I spoke against it.
“I don’t think so.” He sounded smug in his simplicity.
“What were you doing, waiting for me to run?”
“Yes,” he said with a cock of his head. “I wanted to see if you’d learned anything.”