Page 39 of The B!tch is Bad

Creed was trapped, so it was up to Santiago and me to act. I raced to the gun safe, unlocking my loaded pistol. Santiago, getting the idea, put a hand on my shoulder.

“What is the best way to Wildstar’s? She must’ve come through the vineyard.”

“We can go that way. If there’s anyone still there, they won’t hear us drive up.”

He nodded. “Good idea.”

I didn’t really need to, but I told Creed, “Keep her here. Safe.”

I had absolutely zero fear of them becoming involved in a sexual sort of comfort. I don’t know why I wasn’t worried, because Amber was exactly the type who would use her blubbering as a tool to entice a man. Maybe I doubted her, but I sure didn’t doubt Creed. He was my Zaddy.

I knew I had him hooked.

“Flashlights!” Santiago shouted.

Creed was unable to move, pinned down by the skinny, shaking limbs. He pointed at the kitchen. “In the pantry!”

Santiago dashed there, and came back with two flashlights. We set out, armed to the teeth, through the darkening vineyard, the flat, crinkly emerald leaves whipping our arms as we raced.

I yelled, “Did Amber seriously say macramé room?”

“Beats me,” Santiago shouted over his shoulder. “I do not know that word.”

The moon rose over a maroon bluff, casting a knowing face on our antics. Had Joe King accidentally murdered Sean Wildstar instead of me or Creed? But we’d seen Wildstar a few days ago, when the men roared up on their new machines. Joe King was lounging in the swampy elk pen, being kicked by various motorcycle club boots. There was no way he could’ve murdered Wildstar.

Why would anyone shoot Sean? He was the most casual, friendly vintner in the valley.

We soon ran from Pictures of Lily estate lands and were on the grounds of Screaming Eagle. Most of the chardonnay clusters had been harvested, but some had been left for various reasons, turning into bunches of golden raisins in the sun, lit up like dancers by our flashlights. Soon Sean’s abode loomed into view. A two-story adobe style pueblo with a low flat roof, the butterscotch stucco walls reflected the setting sun. We made a beeline for the back patio door, which had been left flung open, tumbling rough-hewn leather equipale chairs out of our way.

Dashing from room to room downstairs, turning on lights, our pieces held out in the Chapman stance, pivoting from foot to foot. A central atrium provided natural light where a few stars or planets already twinkled.

“Clear!” Santiago kept yelling cornily, so I yelled it too as each room revealed no dead body. I did see what I assumed to be Amber’s purse on a couch, and I rifled through it to see that no money had been stolen. She had about three large, as much as I used to stuff in my panties, and I wondered if she was on the run, too.

“Upstairs!” barked the Vinyl Playboy, and we took them one at a time, stiffly swinging our barrels from side to side, as if someone would pop out of the stairwell.

The second story was a different, well, story. We cleared a couple of extremely strange rooms. The first room seemed to be used strictly for candle making, the stench of perfume overwhelming. Labels told us some were apple blossom, blueberry Greek yogurt, and butter cookie, all from the esteemed candle making estate of Selvaggia.

“Selvaggia,” wondered Santiago, rolling a glass of cashmere linen around in his palm.

I held a glass full of chilly rain showers. “That’s Sean’s real last name. Giovanni Selvaggia. A big name in this valley. He’s trying to trend with Wildstar.”

Santiago stuck out his lower lip. “Really? Hm. Estúpido.”

“She said he was shot. He has no kids. I wonder who was first in his will.”

Santiago put the candle down. “Yes. We must find him.”

I recalled the time Lytton told Sean he needed more candles for his cannabusiness. Sean had acted strange, trying to downplay it. Did he not want people to know he was in here melting candle wax instead of ziplining over canyons?

We pivoted down the dim hallway until we reached the next room. I’m telling y’all, I was ready to murder the murderer. I’d had the presence of mind to slide my phone into my bra, and it was abuzz with messages, but I didn’t want to put the gun down to look. Probably Creed, obtaining intel from Amber. How and when had I become so lethal? Was it the Bare Bones MC, their ragged and deadly influence? If my childhood had taught me nothing else, it was this. He who lies down with dogs rises with fleas, and I looked out for me and my own.

Santiago went first, being a hitman. He flattened himself against the open door, swinging his piece to cover the room. When he went to check the closet, I saw a table with . . . yarn? Rolled-up yarn, like that used for knitting. Was Sean Wildstar a secret crafter? Or he was very adept at hiding a secret wife.

“Clear,” said Slayer, not very loud or certain this time. And he holstered his weapon.

I didn’t, and entered the room on high alert. To the right of the yarn table, Santiago had his hands on his hips as he looked down on the dead Wildstar, slumped over another table of yarn, twine in his fingers. A stick hung from the ceiling was placed against a backboard where he’d been twisting and knotting the baby powder white fiber to create a kind of tribal-influenced wall hanging. I saw his face. His ice-blue eyes were wide open, as though he’d seen his killer beforehand, I’d heard of murderer’s faces being imprinted in eyeballs, so I bent low to look.

That’s when I noticed the exit wound in the middle of his forehead. A crushed circle the size of a bottlecap, it had splattered slimy matter a pink lemonade tint all over his easel. The bullet had gone through the easel, too. I noted to myself how calm I was, seeing the brains of a fairly good friend splashed on his crafting board. I thought it was because I’d planned Fingerhut’s demise so often, and had never had the chance to follow through. I was intrigued, more so than grossed out.