Scarlett Undercover (18 page)

“No?” Nuala glanced coldly at Shorty’s corpse and smiled back at me.

Emmet was awake, trying to sit up. His holster was empty.

“You have the policeman’s gun, Oliver,” Nuala said. “Get the ring, or I’ll kill your sister. It’s that simple.”

The nervous look in Oliver’s eyes was shifting to desperation. He took the gun from the back of his pants. Gemma whimpered.

“Get. Me. The. Ring,” Nuala said.

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt Gemma,” he said. “Let her go, then I’ll help you.”

“The
ring
, Oliver.”

Oliver’s chin trembled. He lifted the gun, let it drop, as if the weight of it were too much.

“She’s lying,” I said. “If she gets the ring, she’ll kill us all and blow this place sky high.”

“Shut up!” Nuala screamed. “Or I
will
kill the girl. And once I’ve taken the ring from you myself, I’ll slit your fekkin’ belly and leave you to die in a pool of your own intestines.”

Oliver shuddered. Lifted the gun toward Nuala with both hands.

“What are you doing, fool?” Nuala snapped.

Gemma wept silently, too terrified to make a sound. Oliver’s hands shook.

He’s going to hit Gemma
, I thought. Panic lit up my brain. Then, like lost hope found,
Abbi
’s words came to me:
Sheherazade refused to let anyone write her story for her. And you must do the same
.

My words, once I’d found them, were calm. Certain. Because I knew they were true.

“It’s going to be okay, Oliver.”

Emmet reached for his leg.

I stepped out from behind the drywall stack.

“Iblis?”

Nuala looked at me, saw the
Shubaak
in my hand. The dart at Gemma’s neck wavered.

“The
Shubaak
,” she whispered.

“That’s right,” I said. “The real one.
And
the ring.”

“Open the portal.” She pressed the dart to Gemma’s skin. Gemma breathed fast and shallow.

“I can’t,” I told her.

“Open it. Or the girl dies.”

Oliver’s finger pressed against the trigger. The gun was going to fire, whether he meant it to or not.

“All right,” I said. Oliver’s finger relaxed. Nuala’s hand did not.

“Say it,” Nuala growled.

I swallowed hard. Closed my eyes.

“We.”

My voice trembled.

Oliver turned to watch me. The gun’s barrel lifted, pointing up to the concrete ceiling.

“Remain.”

Nuala’s lips parted. Her eyes glowed with hellish intensity. The dart’s tip pulled away from Gemma’s skin.

Emmet sat up behind her.

“Un—”

His knife hit Nuala’s back before the word was done. She lurched forward. Her grip on Gemma loosened. Gemma crumpled to the floor.

“Emmet!” I shouted. He was already up, tackling Nuala’s swaying body to the ground. The dart flew from her hand and skidded across the floor toward me. I kicked it behind the drywall. Nuala let out a choked gasp. Coughed a faint spray of blood onto the concrete. Didn’t cough anymore.

Oliver hesitated, unsure what to do.

“You don’t need that anymore, Oliver,” I said.

His arm dropped. His face went slack.

“You saved your sister,” I said, walking toward him. Gently, I tugged at the gun. Felt it slip from his fingers. “You saved her, Oliver.”

He dropped to his knees. Drew Gemma stiffly into his arms. Her body folded into his. His own rigid limbs thawed. And then he was cradling her, the dampness of his own tears mingling with hers.

“I’m so sorry, Gemma,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Emmet shuffled toward me across the concrete. Every step looked like it hurt.

“What the hell just happened, Scarlett?” he said. “And what was that you were about to say?”

I smiled, caught up in the sight of Gemma getting her brother back.

“Scarlett?”

I leaned against Emmet’s chest, grateful for the feel of something true.

“Unconvinced, Emmet.
I
. Remain. Unconvinced.”

“What?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, relaxing for the first time since Gemma had walked into my office. “But I promise, once we get this mess cleaned up, I’ll tell you the whole thing myself.”

R
ain was falling again on Carroll Street when Decker walked into my office a week later. His face was too pale against his dark gray turtleneck, but other than that, he looked like everything that was right with the world.

“Gingerbread scones,” he said, setting a white paper bag on my desk alongside two cups of something that smelled suspiciously like coffee. “I gave some to Mook, too. He was cheery as ever.”

I put the
Shubaak
back in my desk drawer and closed it a little too hard. Mook was still a tender subject.

“Whatcha up to?” Deck asked.

“Thinking how I’m kind of looking forward to prayers with Reem this Friday.”

He grinned and walked to the couch. Jones lifted her head to sniff his hand.

“No hard feelings, old lady?” he asked.

Her stump of a tail thumped the cushion. He scratched behind her ears. She groaned happily and dropped her head.

“You’re lucky, Deck,” I said. “If I were her, I don’t know if I’d forgive you for wanting to let me die.”

“We all make mistakes,” he said, coming back to my client chair. “Speaking of which, what happened with the homeless guy from the garage? Did he give a statement to Emmet after all?”

“Christopher?” I said. “He did, even though seeing Nuala attack you scared him half to death. And even though he’s never had what you’d call an easy relationship with cops. Lucky for us, he’d do anything for Reem.”

“Well, I’m grateful for that. And for him taking care of Jones, too. That security guard, Dimitri, knew she was in the back of the truck, but he stayed with me until Ma showed up and then got tied up filing reports. Jones probably would have died if it weren’t for Christopher.”

I looked over at my dog.

“Do you think Delilah would mind leaving a collection jar out at the diner for Christopher?” I asked. “Reem talked him into rehab, but he’ll need help after he gets out.”

Deck took the lid off his coffee and sipped at it. Too much cream, too much sugar. I could tell from the color. Mine was black, no sugar. Just right.

“She already put out two—one for him, one for Dimitri. And she’s making damn sure they fill up fast.”

The thought of Delilah tapping her foot and blocking the door until every customer put change in the jars made me laugh.

“What about Gemma?” Deck asked. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s a tough kid,” I said. “She’ll be fine. And her parents have Oliver in therapy with some shrink Emmet recommended. I’m trying to get Sam Johnson to go to the same lady; he’s got some heavy stuff to deal with. We’ll see.”

I drank some coffee. Took out a scone.

“Your turn,” I said. “Tell me about Manny and Sister. How’d their meeting go?”

“Well,” Deck said with a wicked grin. “It went well.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They talked for hours over this huge meal
Manny cooked for her. He told her all about the ring, and she told him about her business. She said it was a relief to know the ring was back where it belonged. He’s still hurting over Nuala, but I have a feeling Sister Lillian George Fagin might just be able to help him out with that.”

It was an odd pairing—a Muslim tattoo artist and a billionaire nun who wasn’t really a nun. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

Jones snored lightly. Rain pattered down. My office was warm and smelled like a bakery.

“This is nice,” Deck said.

“It is.” I looked out the window at the General sipping coffee of his own in the doorway where Blondie had stalked me. She was in jail now, and that was a good thing. So was Hashim. Nuala and Shorty were dead.

And Reem knew everything. She’d listened, dry-eyed and quiet, until my tale was told out. Then both of us had cried, together, until there were no tears left. After that, we’d called Emmet, cooked a meal that would have made
Ummi
proud, and sat down at the table to go through the whole story one more time.

The General waved up at me. I waved back.

Decker stood and walked around to my side of the desk. Took the coffee from my hand. Set it down.
“Come here,” he said, pulling me up. He moved us away from the window and out of the General’s sight. Out of everyone’s sight.

“Are you ready to show me that tattoo yet?”

“No way,” I said. “It’s
haraam
enough, me being here with you alone.”

“You gave up the right to use that one when you got the tattoo,” he laughed, pressing his palm against my chest. Underneath it was a small indigo knot. And underneath that was my heart.

His lips floated over the skin of my neck, so soft I didn’t want to breathe.

“I still can’t believe Manny agreed to do it,” I said.

“I still can’t believe you’re praying five times a day.” He slid one of his fingers down my spine.

“I guess now that I’ve solved
Abbi
’s murder, I need something more,” I said.

His hair brushed my chin as he nodded in agreement.

“Deck?” My voice was barely a whisper.

He lifted his head, stared into my eyes like they were the only place in the world.

“What, Scarlett?”

“Kiss me,” I whispered against the sound of the rain.

And he did.

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Giving credit to everybody who had a hand in shaping Scarlett would mean working forward from my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Tietze, who let us spend Fridays after lunch filling up our story notebooks. That was a long. Time. Ago. So I’m going to skip ahead a lot of years and miss a lot of people. To all those neglected souls, if you think you had a hand in making my brain need to tell stories, you’re probably right. I owe you.

Okay—here goes:

I love you, Mom. Thank you.

Thank you, Sean (embarrassing pet name withheld—you’re welcome), for knowing I could. And thank you, Zoomie and Sophie Bean (embarrassing pet names not withheld—you’re welcome), for putting up with my chronic Disappearing Mom Syndrome and grouchy revising days.

Shai Kaiser and Ann Savage, you guys were my very
first readers. You were in eighth grade then, and you’re literally graduating high school as I type this now. I miss you both and know you’re going to do amazing things.

Rachel Orr, I owe you so much for seeing something in my writing that was apparently there after all. Thank you for sticking with me through a whole lot of drafts and “Did you hear anything yet?” e-mails. And thank you, Pam Garfinkel, for being such a thoughtful, encouraging, flat-out wonderful editor. You rock.

Muchísimas gracias
, Alvina Ling, for recognizing potential in a very early version of this book and suggesting that I get rid of the Valkyrie… and the banshee. And thank you, Christine Ma, for doing such a fabulous job making sure my
i
’s were dotted and my
t
’s were crossed.

Finally, I’m grateful to Omer Kazmi for trying his level best to help me, not just with Arabic, but also with portraying Islam and Arabic culture accurately and sensitively. Any failures on that front are both entirely mine and entirely unintentional. In the end, though, the world’s a complicated place, and characters like Scarlett don’t always behave. Plus, as we’ve already established, I’m stubborn. And I don’t always listen.

Just like Scarlett.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Jennifer Latham

Cover photo by Howard Huang

Title art by Mark Swan/KidEthic.com

Cover design by Wes Youssi/M80 Design

Cover © 2015 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected] Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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First ebook edition: May 2015

ISBN 978-0-316-28389-2

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