Thank God the parking spots right in front of her unit had been taken, which had forced them to park in the overflow parking at the end of the row near the tennis courts. Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael who lived downstairs were continually forgetting that they only had one parking spot and were always taking hers. She’d meant to talk to them but never got around to it, feeling it would be too bitchy to make senior citizens move their car. It had been a pain in the ass to carry the mattress that far, but now she was grateful.
They heard another bark.
“They’re parking,” Asher hissed. “Let’s go.”
“You don’t think we can bluff our way out of it?” she asked, not expecting a positive answer.
He paused to lock the front door. “We can’t take the chance. We got lucky at the Grape and Bean. It’s not going to happen again.”
True. She was the first one not to push her luck too far. She opened the slider and stepped out onto the narrow balcony.#p#分页标题#e#
“I’ll go first,” Asher whispered. “I’ll give a little whistle and then it’s your turn. I’ll catch you.”
“What about my box?” she asked, thinking about all of the drawings and the collectible pigs that Vince had given her. He’d started giving them to her for Christmas a few years before he’d been taken, mistakenly thinking she liked pigs. She never knew what had given him that idea, so it became a funny joke between them.
“Leave it.”
It felt like someone punched her in the gut. “But this is all I have left of Vince.”
“Sorry, Liv. Can’t chance it. It’s going to be tricky enough getting down without it. The glass could break or the box could crash to the ground, alerting them that someone’s out here.”
He took the box from her and set it on the floor of the balcony away from the slider, then climbed over the railing. “Ready?”
“Um, I guess so.”
He jumped to the ground. Almost instantly, there was a low whistle that sounded like a night bird.
Okay, good, he’d made it and was fine. She put a hand on the rail then hesitated. No, she had to at least try.
She turned back to the box and reached inside, searching for the one with the broken frame. There, she found it. It was wrapped in newsprint and— Damn. The glass cut her finger too. It stung like hell, but she couldn’t stop now. She was too close.
Asher whistled again.
Just one more second and I’ll have it.
There. She located what she hoped was the drawing, pinched the paper between her ring finger and her thumbnail, and slid it out as fast as she could. Just as she tucked it into her messenger bag, a loud knock sounded on her front door. She had to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep quiet.
“Liv!” Asher hissed from below.
She swung a leg over the railing and slipped down. Holding on with just her fingertips, she tried to ignore the pain as she dangled between the balcony and the ground. She’d heal herself as soon as they got away. It felt as if Asher were a mile below her. Considering that she was five foot six, it couldn’t be more than a seven or eight foot drop from her feet to the ground, right? She said a little prayer and let go.
She landed in Asher’s arms.
“What the fuck,” he whispered, as he set her on her feet. He grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him, not saying another word. They hugged the back wall of her unit, then sprinted across the opening to the next building. As they rounded the far corner, she could see the truck straight ahead and pulled the keys from her pocket.
Glancing back, she saw the lights go on in her apartment. They were in her bedroom. Assholes. She handed the keys to Asher, but he wouldn’t take them.
“You’re driving.”
“I am?” He wasn’t planning to lean out the window and shoot at them like they did in the movies, was he? “Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to fuck with their car to keep them from following us right away.”
They kept their heads low and hid behind a hedge near the truck. Conry was watching them from the front of Olivia’s building. Asher gave him a signal and pointed. The deerhound trotted to the left, across the parking lot and into the big field near the pond.
“When I say go, you are to run to the van, get in quietly and count to ten, then start it up and get the hell out of here.”
“What about you? Where will you be?”
“Conry and I will meet you when you turn out onto the main road.”
The main road? But that was around the tennis courts, past the kids’ play area, and down another street. “That’s too far, Asher.”
“If we’re not there in five minutes, don’t wait. Go back to Rand’s. We’ll figure out how to get there on our own.”