Page 52 of The B!tch is Bad

Chapter 17

Patience

I hid behind the warehouse door.

Through the crack between the door hinges, I saw the colossal ball of vivid bumblebee flame shooting directly for the lobby. I pasted myself flat against the wall in the style of Slayer, too chicken to try to slam shut the door. Like in the movies, the ball roared through the octagonal room, Grace’s silhouette in her office doorway flickering behind it.

Maybe it was that silhouette that gave me the courage to tear for the front door. When the globe of fire receded slightly, leaving wall paint charred and dripping, I sprung. Not only did the front door handle burn my hands like molten iron, it was fucking impossible to budge. Something about the air being sucked from the room, the pressure. I looked over my shoulder to see the warehouse flames roaring up the walls there, eager for the air molecules abundant in the cardboard boxes and wooden crates and pallets. It was a giant revelry, a blast for an inferno set by Oliver Klozov.

The worker who had yelled “Fire!” dashed from the warehouse, flames and sparks jumping from his jeans. Together we shoved the front door open. The air rushing out of the warehouse raised me off my feet! My white tennis shoes were torn from me, tumbling. I clung to the handle lying almost vertical, like in a cartoon. Grace made an appearance in the lobby, and it looked like the tips of her hair and eyebrows were burned off.

Eventually the air equalized, and my socked feet were set down. All three of us ran away from the building—looked like more warehouse workers had come around the back through one of those large rolling doors, down the loading docks—and stared at the conflagration, openmouthed.

“We need the accelerant detection canine,” said Grace.

I agreed. “Most definitely.”

“Did anyone call 911?” the worker shouted to his men. Through their nods and thumbs up we saw that they did. The worker mourned. “All that wine. Up in smoke.”

“Well,” I said. “That’s what he wanted.”

“Who?” he asked.

I might as well tell him. “Oliver Klozov. Who else?”

“That whackamole? Major douchebag. I’ve definitely seen him taking out way more wine than he puts in.”

“I hope my surveillance camera still works,” Grace said, sounding on the verge of tears.

I said, “Let me call Creed. Then Elektra to get her butt down here.”

Creed’s phone went straight to voicemail. As I wandered frantically around the parking lot in ever-smaller circles breathing toxic smoke, I vaguely remembered Creed had a wine cave thing I promised to attend later, and some important meeting with Slushy and . . . Klozov?

Klozov?

I dialed Slushy. Same thing. Elektra was out of the office, the manager told me. Direct dialing Elektra wound up in the same voicemail hell. I didn’t bother to leave a message. Who else was in that fucking meeting? I assumed Lytton Driving Hawk, as Creed’s partner, attended also.

Same fucking thing with his phone. Holy water sprinkler.

I grabbed Grace’s arm just as remote engine sirens approached. I pictured charred, broken bottles of delicious wine, towering pallets of bottles toppled over, glass crushing glass, melting like images of snow.

“Grace. I’m sorry, but I have to reach Creed. I think it’s time we put out a warrant for this motherfucker.”

Grace nodded grimly, smearing her crispy hair back from her face. “It’s high time.”

# # #

Creed

My gut instinct upon being shot in the forearm was to run for the vineyards, away from the clients, the innocent people who weren’t there to wrestle with a maniac, but to get away from the daily grind.

And maybe it was a self-preservation thing, to dash between the lines of trellises, the sun blistering my head. I could dash pretty well, and Klozov was in a stupid clumsy American truck that would trundle behind me, getting wires, vines, and irrigation hoses tangled in his bumpers and undercarriage if he tried to follow.

I was unarmed.

Our new puppy Arrow, sensing the fun of a chase, made the situation worse by following me. I was more terrified of the baby being hit by Klozov’s bullet than for myself. We sprinted side by side, each streaking down a parallel row of grapes, until I fucking stepped in a gopher hole.

A fucking gopher hole.