“You call the cops?”
“Nah.” Millie packed the items in two brown sacks. “I felt bad for her. It was post-Katrina, tourists hadn’t come back yet. She was hurting, so I fixed her up.”
He hadn’t been wrong about those eyes.
Zach scooped up the sacks. “Nice meeting you.”
She stopped him at the door. “This neighborhood can be sketchy. “You be careful, Zach.”
“Thanks, Millie. You, too.”
Moments later, he reached the Nova. “That took awhile,” she said when he swung open the passenger door.
He handed her the stuffed paper sack. “Your Dew’s at the bottom. PowerBar’s mine.”
She started unpacking the bag. “How long you think we’re going to be here? A week?”
“Can never have too many provisions.”
“Beef jerky?” she said, holding up the beef stick, eyebrows raised. “Seriously?”
He settled into the bucket seat. “You said you were a country girl.”
She rolled her eyes and dropped it back into the bag.
“Made a new friend. Millie. She knew Knight.”
“It’s . . . a . . . stakeout,” she said speaking super-slowly, as if to an idiot. “You know, covert, element of surprise. She could be tipping Knight off right now.”
He ripped open a bag of pistachio nuts. “She’s not.”
Mick groaned and popped the Dew. “Mumbo-frickin’-jumbo. It’s gonna send me right over the edge.”
“Wasn’t like that.” He cracked open a nut. “Tell me about your family, Mick.”
“No.”
“You have any siblings?”
“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”
“Your parents still alive?”
She reached across the seat and grabbed the bag of pistachios. “You are so irritating.”
“Do you see them much?”
“Fuck off, Hollywood.”
“Where’d you get that chip, Mick?”
“Nut,” she said, holding one up. “Not a chip.”
“The one on your shoulder, partner.”
“I know.” She shifted her gaze to the house. “I was born this way. Came out of the womb with a bad attitude.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Trust issues?”
They both knew that described her, not him. He told her so.
For a long moment, she remained silent, gaze on Knight’s home. When she finally spoke, her voice vibrated with emotion.
“Why would you have trust issues? It’s so easy for you. Look ’em in the eye, grab their hand and—bam—you know just what they’re made of. For some of us, it’s a little more complicated than that.”
He saw a lifetime of hurt in her eyes. “I suppose it is, Mick.”
She leaned her seat back, eyes once again fixed on Brite Knight’s place. “Got a question for you, Hollywood.”
“Shoot.”
“When did you discover your gift?”
“Before I could understand I was different from everyone else.”
“Your parents don’t have it, no one else in the family?”
“I’m adopted. I don’t know my bio parents.”
“Shit, sorry. I forgot.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. I’ve got great parents who had the means to give me the best of pretty much everything.”
“Where do you think it comes from? The gift, I mean. You must wonder.”
The question struck close to home. Close enough his answer came out more sharply than he intended. “Of course I do. Most adopted kids wonder who they got their height or hair color from, I wonder who had the freak gene.”
“A freak. Is that the way you think of yourself?”
He didn’t want to go there and used her dodge from earlier. “There’s a story. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime.”
She fell right in line. “Waiting for the day, Hollywood.”
He smiled, realizing he liked her. Chip and all.
For several moments, they silently snacked. Zach, the pistachios and her, a variety of items, going from one to another, sampling—chips, cookies, the jerky. He wanted to laugh, but decided that wouldn’t be his best move.
He glanced toward the mini mart. “I forgot water.”
She ripped open a pack of cheese crackers. “Two sacks of crap, and you forgot something to drink?”
“Ironic, right?”
She held out her can. “Dew?”
He grasped the door handle. “Be back in two. You want anything?”
She indicated the carnage around her. “Seriously?”
He grinned. “Gotcha. Be right back.”
As Zach reached the store, a guy in a hoodie burst out, knocking into him.
Zach stumbled backward. An image formed. Terror. Pain. The quiet shattered.
Millie, Zach saw, cowering behind the counter. Holding her side. Blood seeped through her fingers. She met his gaze. He saw the terror in hers. Pain twisted her features. She pointed in the direction the kid had gone and mouthed ‘Go.’
Zach glanced toward Mick, saw her attention was fixed on Knight’s place and made a decision. He nodded at Millie and started after the perp, unclipping his phone as he went.
He dialed Mick. “Look my way,” he said when she answered. “Dude just robbed the store.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“In pursuit.”