Page 88

CHAPTER 88

I KNEW BABY WANTED to be at the front of the crowd outside the Men’s Central Jail release gate, ahead of the jostling media and internet people waiting for Troy’s release. She wanted to be where the action was.

My baby sister had been a ball of fiery excitable energy since the brief of evidence she’d submitted to the Los Angeles chief of homicide had been accepted and charges had been laid against Su Lim Marshall in relation to three mysterious deaths on US soil. That had happened two days earlier, and a swirl of activity had followed — Arthur Laurier’s property had been released back to him with the condemnation reversed, and the nefarious new neighbors had vanished from Waterway Street, both of which only added to Baby’s vibrancy.

She twitched and paced beside me as we waited for the gates to open, but she stuck by my side, because I wasn’t a front-of-the-crowd person, and because she had been worried about me since Dave Summerly died in the forest.

I was worried about me too. About how I was ever going to forgive myself for not telling the guy how I really felt, for not taking a moment to stop what I was doing with the agency and Baby to work out whether he and I should be together. He’d died saving my life, and now I would have to wonder for the rest of that life what “we” had been to him in his last seconds. What we could have been. Or should have been. Baby had dealt with her grief the same way she dealt with most things. She’d hidden from it in the hurricane of activity she had generated for herself. But I hadn’t yet figured out what I was going to do. I was keeping it together for my sister’s sake, presenting a strong front out of habit.

Troy Hansen was led out of the automatic doors beyond the release gate, and he came to the front of the scrum with that small, uncertain, weird smile on his face. It widened slightly when he saw me and Baby, and widened further when George Crawley stepped out of the throng and hugged him. The two men rocked back and forth in the big bear hug. People in the crowd were clapping. I felt a little sick.

“ Casey’s Crime Channel has always believed in Troy Hansen’s innocence,” a young woman nearby said, filming the hug and the scrum and herself with a phone on an extendable selfie stick. “It’s a glorious day for Troy Hansen supporters here at Men’s Central. We’re so excited to see him walking free today. Like and follow for more or DM me on how to subscribe to the podcast.”

Troy and George tried to get to a car in the lot, but the crowd followed them, so the man of the hour bent his head and spoke into someone’s mic, probably hoping a quick statement would make the crowd back off.

What he said made Baby squeal.

It made me roll my eyes.

“I wouldn’t be free today without the Two Sisters Detective Agency.” Troy waved at us. “Rhonda and Baby Bird. If you need help, call the Birds!”

Before the crowd could come after us, Baby and I hightailed it to my Chevy Impala, which police had released back to me a few days earlier, Baby grinning all the way. The afternoon sun had warmed the leather seats, and as we left the lot, Baby drummed the dashboard so hard and fast, it was like a hum.

“Did you hear that?” She cackled, gave her drumroll a big smacking finish. “Man. That was great. ‘If you need help, call the Birds!’ What better endorsement is there? The guy was walking out of prison because of us.”

“That little endorsement is the last thing we need,” I told Baby. “It’s just going to double the size of the mess that’s already waiting for us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Listen to that,” I said. I cupped an ear. Baby listened. Over the thrum of the engine and the rumble of the traffic was the sound of a phone vibrating, a constant rhythmic buzz coming from the glove compartment. She opened the compartment, took out my phone, and looked at the number flashing on the screen.

“That’s the agency line,” I told her. “I haven’t answered in days because it just keeps ringing. We’ve got about two hundred voicemails from people who want us to take their cases and triple that in email inquiries. We’ve got to figure out how the hell we categorize all this new business. There’s everything from murder to mail fraud in there, and I don’t want someone who really needs our help to get lost in the chaos.”

As Baby held the phone, it stopped ringing, then promptly started again. She smiled at me, and I sent a brave smile back. My kid sister slumped in the seat, flipped her sunglasses up, and started scrolling through the messages.

“I guess we’ll just have to hire some staff.” She shrugged. “That’s what happens when you get a whole lotta cred all dumped on you at once.”

I thought about that. More staff. Bigger offices. Our pick of cases. It was too early to know if that’s what I really wanted, if that’s what was good for me and Baby.

We stopped at a traffic light, and a couple of Hollywood-agent types crossed in front of us, both talking on their little earpieces and carrying cups of coffee. A city bus roared by, and I followed Baby’s gaze to a telephone pole just outside of her open window. On it was a sign with the word MISSING above a photo of a fluffy beige poodle curled up on a tasseled silk pillow. Baby looked at me, and I had to laugh, because her big, brown, dog-loving eyes were wide with desire.

“We shouldn’t forget our roots, I suppose,” I said, and nodded at the poster. “No matter what happens. No case is too big, no case is too small, right?”

Baby grinned, leaned out, and ripped down the poster. Behind it was an older one, dimpled and yellowed by rain. It was another poster with the word MISSING and a photo, this one of a man and a woman at the rail of what looked like a yacht. They were arm in arm, and something about their happy smiles suddenly drained all the warmth out of the car. I looked at my sister and knew that she felt exactly what I was feeling. The sense that the people in the picture, whoever they were, needed the Birds.

“Grab that poster too,” I told her.