Page 120 of Anarchy at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 4)
Second, if she’s with the Violent Gang Task Force, then she’s specifically put on cases involving dangerous gangs. Neil wasn’t in a gang, as far as I know, so he must’ve been working with one. The Charter Crew hardly qualifies, but they were working with the GMP.
That’s what she’s here about.
The enemy of my enemy is my … friend.
“Whatever you’re taking out of the house, we need to search,” Sara tells me sadly, her pretty mouth forming into a frown as I lean into one of my many, many boyfriends. Fucking eyeroll. His smell settles over me, sweet and clean and deliciously male, and I feel myself calming. “That won’t be a problem, will it?” she asks, but I shake my head.
Cal already stashed the bag of my mother’s stolen goodies in the attic. They’ll find it there, I’m sure, but that can only be a good thing.
“You want to dig through my underwear?” I ask, feeling my jaw clench with irritation. “Play with my vibrators?”
“I’m sorry, Bernadette,” Sara says sadly, looking at me and not Callum. Constantine can’t seem to tear his eyes away from Cal’s. When I look up, I see Callum smirking, his blue eyes glittering, his blue-painted fingernails curved around the doorjamb. He looks dangerous and unpredictable, which is a good thing, I guess, since he really is. A tiger with obvious stripes.
“You have a search warrant?” I clarify, and Sara nods, holding up a piece of paper with a judge’s signature on it. Oh, Pamela is going to love this. I step back, allowing Sara to come in with Constantine and the others following along behind her.
“I’ve got the guns in my pocket,” Cal whispers against my ear, making me shiver. I smile in just such a way that Constantine scowls, like he thinks Callum’s whispering perverted wishes into my ear with those Disney prince lips of his.
Sara bends down and opens my bag, looking through my panties and the pair of vibrators at the bottom of the bag, the dildo I stole from the sex shop downtown. She exhales sharply, but doesn’t lose that sense of professionalism. When she reaches for Pen’s box, however, my stomach aches so fiercely that I feel like I might throw up.
“These are Penelope’s things?” she asks, and my heart stops.
“Please don’t take them from me,” I say, my voice cracking. That gives Sara pause, and she looks up at me from her crouched position, pink wool coat pooling on the floor around her. “My mom or Neil or whoever got rid of the rest of it sometime recently. All I could find was this.” I stop for a moment, trying to keep that edge of panic from overwhelming me. “This is all I have left of her.”
Callum wraps me up from behind, holding me like a specter while the cops fan out around the house, their efforts directed by Detective Constantine.
“I’m so sorry, Bernadette,” Sara says, and I feel so dizzy I could puke. “We might need whatever we find in here for our case.” She looks through the papers for a moment and then stands up, taking the box with her. “Once we’re finished, you’ll get back whatever we don’t need as evidence.”
I just stare at her like she’s a fucking monster, and it shows.
“You didn’t care about Penelope when she was alive and asking for help, but now that she’s dead, and Neil has run off with one of his whores, you suddenly care so much that you need a box of old papers?”
“If I’d known about Penelope—” Sara starts as I scowl. She just stops talking then, like she knows it’s a moot point. With the front door open, it’s impossible to miss the sound of Pam’s Oldsmobile rolling into the driveway behind the cop cars.
Cal leans over again and whispers in my ear.
“Do not fight with your mother here. We have plans.” He stands back up and releases me, watching my mom with eyes like spears of ice. She’s lucky that I asked Havoc not to kill her. So goddamn lucky.
“What the fuck is all of this?” Pam yowls, like one of the unneutered alley cats that fight in the alley two doors down. She looks like one, too, when she comes in the door with her keys in her hand, eyes spitting fire. The way she stares at me, I wonder if she wouldn’t try to kill me if we were alone in a room together. “What have you done now, Bernadette?”
I say nothing, looking down at the floor instead of at her face.
“I just came by to grab my stuff,” I start, but Pam is too busy being freaked-out by the idea of cops that aren’t Neil Pence inside her house of horrors. She doesn’t pay me any attention as I grab my bag and give Sara Young a long, studying sort of look.
