The Case of the Missing Mascot (A Sherlock Shakespeare Mystery Book 1) (5 page)

Before either of them could say anything, survival brain kicked in. Instead of playing possum, I played airhead.

"Hey, so, I've been trying to find reception for like an hour to call for a tow truck. Do y'all have like a phone or something I can borrow?"

"What's in your hand, bitch?"

That seemed a little harsh. I quickly hit the button to connect the emergency call and then hastily stuffed it into my pocket. "Yeah, like I said, it's only good for playing music or whatever right now."

The nodder was the first one to get close enough to make out my features in the darkness. "Weren't you just in the coffee shop?"

I sighed in an attempt to seem annoyed and cover for my trembling. "My ex is in there. Guess the bro code extends to lending your phone."

"You were following me," the nodder said. He didn't seem to be buying any of this, probably because I'd been running from them for five gazillion blocks. "Me and my crew don't like to be followed."

Crew? How many people did he think he had with him?

"Okay, you caught me. This is totally embarrassing." The nodder's crew was now also closer to me than I'd prefer. "I was at the mall last week with a few of my friends and I could've sworn you were the guy staring at me from across the food court. Your friends pulled you away before I could get around to giving you my number, so I thought I'd follow you and give it to you now. But then you looked kinda mad or whatever when I finally caught up to you, so...
yeah
."

"Do I look like one of those faggy guys that hangs out at the mall?"

It was impossible to tell whether either of them were buying this. "I mean, now that I'm close enough to see you... no. But you could've been him and it would be like fate or something awesome."

Nodder nodded, but his crew reached into his pocket and pulled out what might be the scariest looking knife I'd ever seen. "Cute story, bitch. Now tell us what's up for real."

Instinctively, I backed up against the wall to put space between me and the knife, but the knife guy grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and pulled me back to him. Nodder just nodded.

Knife Guy did that freaky movie bad guy thing where they rub the flat of the knife against your face and grinned at me as though this was some kind of foreplay. Oh no. What if this
was
foreplay for him? Words started tumbling out of my mouth before I knew I was even still breathing.

"Our pig is missing and I thought the guys in there took it and then when you came in I thought maybe you had it so I had to follow you because this stupid pig is the only distraction I have from my boyfriend cheating on me with an underwear model at college and you weren't supposed to see me, but then that asshole started calling me again so I ran here to hide because I can't die in Hello Kitty underwear." I gulped in a shaky breath. "Please don't kill me. I don't even care about the pig. Just keep it."

Impossibly, they both started laughing. Nodder was the first one to recover his voice. "Yo, this one's kinda cute."

When Knife Guy grinned, all humor left his eyes. "I wouldn't mind getting a look at some Hello Kitty underwear."

What?
No
. "Um... they really aren't anything special. Not worth a look."

"I think we'll decide that. Let's get this bulky shit off you so we can see the goods."

What possessed me to mention my underwear to gangbangers who were probably looking for a good gang bang?

A strange look flashed over Nodder's face. "We don't have time for this, yo. We gots places to be."

Knife Guy shot him a dirty look. "Go if ya want. I'm all good here."

That was about the point where I mentally checked out. I could hear the two guys fighting about what they did or didn't have time to do to me, but the words were all a jumble. My gaze floated aimlessly around the alley and I wondered if my 9-1-1 call ever got connected. Were police on the way? Would they have to notify my parents that I'd been found dead in nothing but that damn Hello Kitty underwear?

Perhaps my one lucid thought during the whole surreal experience was that I was going to buy all new underwear if I made it out alive. Hello Kitty was out, even on laundry day.

Be calm. Panic brings death.

A sliver of light and a thumping techno beat sliced across the alley to me. Two guys stumbled out into the darkness in an embrace, but the first guy to look in my direction shoved off his friend and pushed him back into the club.

"Card, you're such a vicious biotch sometimes."

Before the bickering homies in front of me could realize we were no longer alone and turn around, Ricardo Montague pulled his royal purple scarf from around his neck, stuffed it loosely into his back pocket while sagging his jeans and then mussed his hair. In the span of a single shaky breath, he'd gone from a Latino version of Fred from Scooby-Doo to a straight-up dangerous-looking dude. He turned to the guy who'd come out back with him and growled, "And you best not be tryin' to pull that fairy shit on me again."

I couldn't make out the other guy's expression in the darkness, but the way he closed the door in a huff screamed that he'd rolled his eyes first.

Ricardo advanced on us. For perhaps the first time in my entire life, I was happy to see the class stoner. "And you two. You've got your hands on the wrong shortie. Back it on off."

"Your girl? Ain't you just come out of a pole smoker bar?"

Ricardo's eyes narrowed dangerously in the dim light and he threw what appeared to be gang signs our way. Or maybe he was asking for directions to the post office in sign language. I really didn't know.

"A little fairy boy crossed the LKs. I took care of business."

LKs? My knowledge of illegal gang activity was severely limited. Latin something. Latin Knights, maybe? They could joust instead of doing drive-bys. That would be fairly awesome.

"LK," Nodder muttered. He turned to Knife Guy. "You hear anything about this being LK territory?"

For the first time, both guys stepped away from me and I started to think that I might live to take the econ test I was one hundred percent going to fail this week.

"Bro, we didn't know."

Whoever the LKs were supposed to be, they must be much scarier than Nodder's crew.

"I'll bet." Ricardo took another menacing step toward us and I briefly wondered whether he was packin' or if he planned to strangle them with his scarf. Based on the intensity glinting in his eyes, I didn't doubt for a second he could take both of these guys down while rolling a primo joint if he wanted to.

Knife Guy put away his knife and started past Ricardo with Nodder at his side. "Look, you need to talk to your girl. She got no business following us around."

Ricardo took another few steps and was close enough to grab me by the arm, yanking me painfully to him. "Oh, we're gonna have some words."

I managed to stay perfectly still and quiet until the gangbangers rounded the corner and I could no longer hear the sound of their bling. Then I let myself breathe.

"You okay, Shakes?"

No sooner than Ricardo released my arm, the enormity of what just happened—what could've happened—slammed into me, turning my knees to mush. I vaguely remember shimmery fluttering black blobs in front of my eyes before everything fell away.

I was sitting on the ground slumped against the wall in the alley when I next opened my eyes. Nothing seemed to be broken or badly bruised, so I must not've hit the ground too hard when I fell. But my eyes. Colors were flashing in front of them and I couldn't quite seem to get my bearings to stand up with the constant red-blue-red-blue strobing.

Red-blue? That seemed familiar.

The sheriff, Sherlock.

My 9-1-1 call must've gotten through after all.

When I was finally able to force my eyes to focus, Ricardo was a few feet away talking to two uniformed officers. In the time it had taken me to pass out, he must've pulled a Clark Kent and supermanned himself back into his Scooby-Doo persona.

"And you said the two of you were using drugs together?"

"Of course not. Someone must've slipped something into her drink. I could tell she wasn't right, so I left her with the friends she came with while I paid her tab, but... college girls, right? I was only gone a minute or two and no one could tell me where she was when I came back."

That was all wrong. I wasn't in college or at a gay bar with Ricardo.

The officer whose voice I hadn't heard yet interrupted my fuzzy thoughts. "She wouldn't be the first girl to wander out the wrong door of a club, freak out and call 9-1-1." After a pause, he said, "Look, Richie, I can keep your name out of this no problem because of your father, but I'm going to need her name for the report."

"That can't happen. Her parents are in business with mine. If her name hits the papers, my father will make some calls you don't want him to make."

After a lengthy silence—or not, since I was still having trouble keeping my eyes open against the glaring lights—the first officer said, "This is your girl's one pass. In the future, be sure she knows to keep a better eye on her drinks. Get her home before she wanders off again."

"Absolutely. Sorry again about the trouble."

Ricardo waited where he was until after the blue and red lights stopped strobing and the police car left. I thought he would come back over to me, but instead he went straight to the back door he'd come out of originally. He knocked twice in quick succession and then added a third knock a beat later. The door opened right away and the same dark-skinned guy from before walked out into the alley and immediately threw his arms around Ricardo's neck.

"Did you play the big hero, Card? I love it when my man gets all tough."

"Yeah. I tossed around my family name and made the cops go away." He extricated himself from the other guy's embrace. "We should get Sherlock out of here."

"Oh, you and me are going to talk about what you just did later. O-kay? Okay." He snapped in Ricardo's face, smoothed his flowing shirt down around his waist and sauntered in my direction. "And little miss thang over here must be the famous Sherlock."

I rose unsteadily to my feet and dusted the dirt off my butt. "I didn't realize I was famous." Or a Miss Thang.

"Gurl, Kiki knows everything happening in her man's world." He threaded his arm through mine and pulled me toward the street. "Tell me, what is my little Card like when he's playing his playa role?"

"Huh?"

"Don't be shy now. I know you're his favorite target when he's in character. Does he have everyone fooled with his straight man on the prowl act?"

Had I really just heard what I thought I did? "Well... he sure had me fooled."

Kiki dropped my arm and stepped away from me, his finger pressed to his bottom lip. "Oh, Kiki has stepped in it now." He turned to Ricardo. "You know you have
got
to tell Freaky Kiki when to tone it down."

The look on Ricardo's face was one of pure horror. "Keek..." He shook his head and turned his attention to me. "You want to tell me what the hell you thought you were doing out here? How did you even get here?"

I looked around absently for a moment and then pointed in the general direction of where I assumed the coffee shop was. "I drove, but then I left my keys in the coffee shop and didn't know what to do when those guys started chasing me."

Kiki shook his head at me. "And a dark alley seemed like a safe place because... why?"

"I don't know. You see it in books and movies all the time."

"Girl's all book smarts and no street smarts." Kiki shook his head again and started down the street. "I'll get the keys and the car. Text me her address and I'll meet you there."

"I can drive."

He spun on his heel to face us again. "Kiki isn't convinced you know how to tie your shoes right now, much less drive." He started off again, loudly muttering, "Saw it in the movies. Girl, I saw magic red shoes in a movie once, but you don't see me clicking my heels to get around."

Okay, so in retrospect the whole running for my life down dark streets and alleys thing wasn't my finest moment.

I told you to turn around.

What the hell? Now I was berating myself? Awesome. Maybe this was the moment when I'd develop a super-judgmental split personality.

Ricardo tugged on my arm. "I'm over here."

Other than asking for my address so that he could text it to Kiki, he was silent during the drive back to Devils Reach. I should've thanked him right away for saving me from those guys and dealing with the police, but I was having trouble processing it all. It was like everything I ever thought I knew was all wrong.

"So... Kiki seems nice."

His posture instantly changed and he pulled the car over to the side of the road in a jerky manner before he whipped his head around to face me. "You don't talk about Kiki."

"I just said he seemed nice."

"I don't care." The muscle in his jaw turned to stone. "You don't know Kiki. You don't talk about Kiki. You pretend that Kiki doesn't exist. Got it, Shakes?"

"Yeah. Got it." I looked at my trembling, fidgeting hands while he maneuvered the car back onto the road. "So, is this like a down low thing?"