Miguel began to sob openly, his rasps for air with each breath becoming shallow and harsh. “I didn’t want to do it! But he made me! He made me! You made me do this, Tito!” he cried, followed by a harsh cough.
“Stevie, now’s the time! Strike!”
W
ith those words, I planted my hands on Miguel’s shoulder, unmindful of the gun he had dangling in his free hand, and I head butted him.
That’s right. Me. Stevie Cartwright executed a spy move. I knocked noggins with him so hard, I saw stars. And colors. A bunch of colors.
What I’d like to know is how everyone in the movies always manages to get right back up afterward? I don’t know if I’ll ever see straight again, let alone get my eyeballs back into their rightful position in my head.
But I’d successfully knocked him backward and he let me go with a frustrated yelp. I was ready for it this time, and even though my butt felt like an actual entity on my body, I ran.
“Go north, Stevie!” Win ordered.
“Where is north? I’m not a compass, I’m a directionally challenged ex-witch! Left or right, Spy Guy—choose!”
“Left, Stevie! Go left!”
I made a sharp left down a row of tombstones, fighting the panting breaths and pacing myself. But Miguel was hot on my heels, the crash of his work boots against the ground sounding like thunder.
Rain slashed at my thin dress and my bare feet caught all manner of loose gravel and roots as I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. Still, I was no match for him in my condition.
Miguel was faster, coming up on me with the roar of a warrior as I encountered far too much open space at the end of the cemetery. There was nowhere to hide!
“You’re slower, Stevie. You have to act fast. The tree branch, Dove! Just a little farther. See it? Run, Stevie, run! Grab it and swing up into the tree. Get as high as you can!”
My frantic eyes saw the tree before it actually registered that I was supposed to literally hoist myself upward into it.
Hah. Good luck with that.
But I launched myself at it anyway, jumping up like I’d been possessed by Shaquille O’Neal himself and latching on to the branch.
The problem lies in the details. Okay, sure, I could hang on the branch, but how the heck was I going to haul my carcass up onto it in order to climb a tree? No more naps during How To Escape Your Tormentor class for me.
If I made it out of this without getting shot, I was going to really pay better attention to Win.
“Keep the momentum going, Stevie! Swing up! Use your weight and your feet and swing like a pendulum. Up and over now! You can do it!” Win yelped.
And I did just that, praying miracles really did exist. The moment my hands made contact with the branch, I swung my legs back and up until I was suddenly in the air, the branch at my waist.
Believe me when I say, no one was more surprised than me. I couldn’t even jump a hurdle in gym class, let alone climb a tree
“Woo-hoo!” I yelled. “Look, Win! I did it!”
“Stevie, no time for victory cries now, get up this tree!”
Miguel was right behind me, grabbing at my feet. But his breathing was so choppy, so full of rattling mucus, I knew he was suffering, so I used that to my advantage. Leaning forward and kicking back, I managed to face-plant him with the heel of my foot.
His scream of rage chilled me to the bone, making me swing my leg up and over the limb, hoping it would hold me. My dress around my thighs, I clung to the branch, my muscles feeling like a bowl of grape jelly.
I looked down for a brief moment, watching with sheer terror as Miguel reached for his inhaler and realized he didn’t have it.
That’s when he went ballistic.
And
that’s
when something really crazy happened. A bolt of lightning shot from the sky, a crackling, sizzling streak of light, landing right at Miguel’s feet and just missing him.
“What the…?” I whispered as rain battered my face.
“
Who are you?
” I heard Win shout in angry frustration.
“Win? What’s going on?” I all but screamed, petrified some other entity was now involved and might try to take him away again.
“It’s Maggie’s mother, Stevie!”
Now I was beyond terrified. I didn’t just have Miguel chasing me, but Tito’s MIL, too? I fought to make my cold lips move. “Get away from her, Win!”
“No! She wants to help. She keeps saying she had no control. She had no control!”
No control? What was going on?
But I looked down then when I heard a growl. Miguel, now over his surprise at the bolt of lightning, was back in motion, squinting up into the tree, waving that dang gun.
“Stevie! Don’t look back, get up this damn tree!”
I didn’t have time to think, I didn’t have time to consider whether I’d be able to balance myself on the branch, I hopped up on my feet like I’d just left the Olympics with a gold medal in the balance beam and ran, stumbling forward and scraping my face on the next level of branches.
Which is when Miguel began shooting. The ping of one bullet skipping over the thick branch right in front of my nose and missing me by a mere inch.
“Up, Stevie—go up! Go-go-go!”
Another crack of lightning crashed against the ground, making the cemetery look as though someone had flipped a light switch. But it only last a second before it was dark again, the wind howling, leaves swirling in angry circles.
My legs shook, my heart beat so fast I was sure it would stop ticking as I pushed my way through the sharp limbs tearing at my hair, their leaves scratching my legs.
“Stop here! Take shelter close to the trunk so he can’t get a good angle. Get that phone out and call 9-1-1! Alba? Hit him again!”
More booms of thunder ripped through the night, so loud the ground shook, making Miguel yelp.
I hunkered down, my cold, aching feet digging into the branch I perched so precariously on as I dug my phone out of my dress and looked in horror to see the previous call had failed, and now I had a half bar of battery left.
But I slid it open anyway and pressed the speed dial for 9-1-1, almost losing my grip, my hands were so icy-cold.
Then I heard was the question. “9-1-1, what is your emergency?”
“I’m at Swanson Park Cemetery! I’m in a big oak tree. Miguel Velasquez is shooting a gun at me. Get someone here. Please hurry!” I hissed into the phone, just as another shot rang out and whizzed past my shoulder.
“You have to move now, Stevie—he sees you! Alba! Agaaain!”
Forgetting the phone, forgetting everything, I climbed higher, my hands shredded and bloody from clinging to the branches. The rain picked up, howling its wet rage with a fierce wind.
“I can’t let you go!” Miguel yelled on a rattling gasp before he fired again.
I ducked at the sound of the bullet screaming through the air. “How many bullets does he have, for the love of Pete? What’s he got, a machine gun?”
“Colt single-action, six bullets, but who knows if he has more ammunition. You must climb, Stevie!”
As I tried to get to the next level of branches, I slipped on the wet bark, my hands grabbing wildly for something to latch onto.
I landed on a branch, all right. On my chest, straddling it like I was riding a rodeo bull. The impact knocked the wind out of me, but I clung anyway, wrapping my trembling arms around it for all I was worth. The rain pelted me with frigid pinpricks and I began to lose hope. Cold, wet, exhausted, I clenched my eyes shut to keep a sting of tears at bay—and that’s when I saw it.
Another shadow with the stealth of a cat burglar, creeping up behind Miguel, who was leaning against the base of the tree, fighting for breath.
Officer Nelson. Oh, thank Pete in a swimsuit, Captain Crabby was on deck.
And the strangest thing happened when I reached out a hand in warning, hoping to send a silent signal to Officer Nelson…
My fingers tingled.
Not the kind of tingle you feel when you’re cold, but the kind I’d once felt when I was about to use my magic.
There was a crack and a hiss, taking me by utter surprise, but it was a familiar vibration. A welcome vibration. So I shook my hand and it crackled again, an actual spark spewing from my fingertip.
I wasn’t imagining this. It was happening! Joy welled in my heart, stealing my breath.
But then Officer Nelson made a small mistake, stopping the sparks. He stumbled, stepped on a branch, cracking it and alerting Miguel, whose head swung upward.
In that brief flash of time, in that crazy, impulsive second, I made a choice as I watched in horror when Miguel lifted the gun and pointed at Officer Nelson, who tripped over the roots of the tree and lost his gun.
He’d kill him. No, no, no!
I slithered off the branch and slipped to the one below, which had a clear shot to the ground.
Win was there again, somehow reading my mind. “Stevie, this is too dangerous, Dove! You don’t have the proper training!”
But I wasn’t hearing Win. I was only seeing Officer Sunshine about to lose his rigid, well-ordered life.
So I let go of the branch with a scream.
“Ahhh!” The howl flew from my mouth while a million and two thoughts screeched though my head just before I landed smack on Miguel and flattened his already-weakened body.
The impact of my weight—which again, I’ll reiterate, is well above the one hundred mark on my scale—knocked him so hard, he cracked his head on the base of the tree and passed out cold.
“Miss Cartwright?”
As I rolled off Miguel to the tune of sirens, I groaned, sitting up on my elbows. “Officer Unicorns and Lollipops?”
He rolled Miguel to his side and cuffed him, then held out his broad hand to me to help me up. “I do believe you just saved my life.”
Rising to my feet, I wobbled as I leaned on him, letting him balance me. “So how do you want to repay me? No parking tickets for the rest of my life? Exemption from all further interrogations by Sipowicz and Simone?”
He laughed. And when I say he laughed, I mean he full-on threw his blockhead back and barked a hearty laugh. “How about we consider all our options?”
As he began to lead me toward the throng of officers flooding the cemetery, their flashlights blinding us, I shook my soaking wet head, pushing my hair from my eyes. “Did I consider my options when your life was in jeopardy? I think not. Nay, I flung myself without thought upon the perpetrator as though I had the
cajones
of Superman himself. Didn’t I,
Dana
?”
He barked another laugh. “You did indeed,
Stevie
. You did indeed.” Stopping just before the officers reached us, he managed a smile through the pounding of the rain. “Thank you, Stevie Cartwright. I’ll ask later what you were doing out here with a man chasing you with a gun. Believe that. But for now, I’ll just say thank you for saving my life.”
As Sandwich and Officer Gorton rushed toward us, and Officer Nelson took his jacket off and wrapped it around me, Win whispered, “Bravo, Mini-Spy. Bravo!”
* * * *
Later That Week
“
T
wenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four—”
“Why, Stephania Cartwright, this is a surprise,” Win drawled as I gripped the edge of my yoga mat and lay flat on my back in the sunshine of our front lawn.
I wiped my face with the towel beside me and squinted against the bright orb at Chester, who was happily pointing to spots for the landscapers to plant the dozen blue hydrangeas he’d helped me purchase. “I told you, I do
so
listen. You said I needed to beef up the sit-ups, so I’m beefing. After the week I’ve had, I figure it couldn’t hurt to focus on my bodega.”
“Your temple, Stevie. Your body is a temple.”
Pulling myself up to a standing position, I winced. I was still sore from my second brush with a killer to date. Though the wrecked soles of my feet and palms of my hands were still a bit tender, my caboose was in great shape.
Not literally—if one look in the mirror at my biker shorts and tank top were any indication—but figuratively. The bruise was healing nicely, and so were the scratches on almost ninety percent of my body.
My Halston, however? Toast. Total shredded wheat.
Carlito and Liza pulled up in his Ford Fiesta, waving to me before they began to unload the car with more mulch for Chester.
I dropped into the chair Enzo had brought out for me and placed under the beautiful floral umbrella we’d ordered for the small patio off the front staircase. “What an amazing day, huh?”
“What an amazing week, Mini-Spy. You not only caught a killer, you saved a life. Two, if you count Carlito’s.”
I couldn’t help but grin. I
had
saved a life, but it was still shadowed by Tito’s needless death. “You know, I don’t think Miguel meant to hurt Tito. Things just got out of hand. His anguish over his friend’s betrayal pushed him over the edge. It’s really sad, don’t you think?”
“I do think. But what did I tell you about crimes of passion? They never end well.”
Upon Miguel’s arrest, Carlito was set free, his mother and Liza waiting for him as he left the Ebenezer Falls police station.
When Esperanza found out Miguel was the one who’d killed Tito, and that Carlito knew the identity of his biological father, she’d bowed her head in shame. It turned out, she and Tito did have a one-night stand just before he met Maggie, and while he had done something very wrong, he hadn’t cheated on Maggie at all.
Esperanza told Carlito the entire story, her eyes averted in guilt as tears fell from the dark orbs so like her sons.
But in typical Carlito fashion, he’d enveloped his mother in a hug and told her everything was going to be all right. And so far it had been. Mateo and Juan Felipe had introduced themselves to him during a planned meeting over coffee, where they sat and talked for over an hour as Forrest and I looked on.
It was tentative at first, slow to start, but before the last sip of coffee, they were exchanging phone numbers and making plans to reopen the Salty Sombrero. Bianca even made an appearance. It was cautious and, thankfully, quiet, but I really think they’ll all manage to fit into each other’s lives in some fashion.