“How’d you get the pawnbroker to identify Ebony?”
“I’m one of Rudy’s best customers. You think he’s going to mess with me? Paid him off to ID your friend. Best money I ever spent. Even if the police never did see the word Murderer painted on her car, they found the knife I planted. Like I said—easy.”
“You hired the crime scene cleanup crew, didn’t you?”
“That’s right.” He let go of my pajama top and pushed me into the boxes in front of me. They toppled over and I fell to the concrete floor. “Least I could do for the owners.” He stepped past me into the dark corner of the stockroom. I knew he was looking for the guns. I had to keep him from finding them—or at least from finding his.
“You stashed the trench coat in the kitchen after the police were done with the crime scene. You wanted it to be found. You hired the cleaners and knew they’d incinerate it.”
He laughed. “I waited until after the police released the crime scene and got the cleanup crew in there quick. Perfect opportunity to eliminate the evidence.” His voice was muffled by the costumes hanging from the racks. I forced myself up, first to all fours, and then upright. I reached into the box next to me and pulled out a papier-maché alien head. Swiftly, I ran up behind Black Jack and pushed the large hollow mask over his head. He twisted, too late. The head came down to his shoulders, swallowing his cowboy hat, his head, and his ability to see.
He cursed. His voice was muffled and dull from inside the mask. He bent down and felt around the floor for the gun. When he connected to it, he let go of me. He brought the gun around and pulled the trigger, firing it.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. A real gun would have exploded. A real gun would have fired seven bullets into me.
A real gun would have killed me.
He tossed the plastic revolver aside and tried to stand. I pressed down on the papier-maché head with all of my weight. I saw Black Jack’s cell phone jutting out of his pocket. I grabbed it and dialed 911 with my thumb while he swung at my legs.
“Help!” I said. “Costume shop on Main Line Road. Black Jack Cannon is trying to kill me. You have to break in. Hurry!”
Black Jack swung out with a wide punch that caught me in my midsection. He knocked me back a few steps and the phone fell from my hand. Before I could change my momentum, he lifted the alien head from his body and tossed it to the side. One of the antennae bent at an odd angle. He came at me, fists balled up, anger on his face.
And then, before he reached me, keys sounded in the front door of Disguise DeLimit, followed by the squeaky sound of a wheelchair rolling in.
Chapter 30
“MARGO? ARE YOU here? Don, the stockroom’s open. Wheel me over there. Something doesn’t seem right.” My dad’s voice both comforted me and scared me to death. He’d come home early. I bet he’d wanted it to be a surprise when I woke up. Only now I couldn’t warn him. I couldn’t save us both.
Black Jack took advantage of my surprise. He leapt forward and clamped a hand over my mouth. With his other hand he grabbed the gun and then turned me around and held me back against his chest. “You or your dad,” he hissed in my ear. “Do you understand?”
I stifled sobs and nodded. I wouldn’t put my dad’s life at risk. Black Jack moved us to the side of the stockroom to a space between costumes. If my dad or Don looked in, they wouldn’t see us. Not unless they passed the knocked-over stacks of boxes, and by then it would be too late.
Tears stung my eyes and salted my already-bruised cheek. Had the 911 operator sent someone to check on me? Or had she written the call off as that of a crackpot? Would anybody come here to help us, or would the Tamblyn family line die tonight in the stockroom, surrounded by costumes?
Faint light shone into the stockroom. I saw the chair roll in. My dad’s legs were loosely covered in a light blanket. Don was behind him. He whistled. “This place is a mess!” Don said.
My dad scanned the interior from right to left. His eyes flitted over the hanging costumes and the newly labeled boxes. His scan stopped at the dented alien head on the ground. “Looks like Margo was doing a little reorganization,” he said. “Probably wanted to surprise me. No use making her feel bad because we caught her mid-project.” He put his hands on the wheels of the chair and rolled backward. “Roll me out, Don. It’s late and you probably want to get home.”
Anybody else might have thought I’d missed my window for help, but not me. My dad had seen something in the stockroom that let him know there was trouble. He was going to get help. I relaxed the slightest bit, until I felt the barrel of Black Jack’s gun jab into my ribs.