ice packs down their polyester pants. Desperate people threw themselves into the tepid waters of the Chattahoochee River or Lake Lanier, which meant drownings were on the rise. Lightning strikes too, including three fatal ones, as rainless thunderheads flared and erupted on a daily basis. It was as if Mother Nature had a bad case of PMS, and she was taking it out on the city.
I understood how she felt. I was a little put out myself. Tonight was Rico’s debut as a member of Atlanta’s Spoken Word Poetry team. The event was one of many in preparation for the Performance Poetry Internationals, two days of wordsmiths and spitfires from around the world competing onstage for cash and glory.
It was a big deal, and this was Atlanta’s first time as host city. Hence the impossible shoes, form-fitting dress, and precarious up-do. And yet my best friend Rico was keeping a secret, one that required my elegant badass boyfriend to strap on his semi-automatic.
The concierge smiled weakly in my direction. I smiled in return. “Hey, Mr. Jameson.”
“Ms. Randolph.”
Jameson was a slip of a man, fair-skinned and beige, his soft features forever knotted into perpetual anxiety. He winced as Trey’s F430 coupe roared into earshot, its guttural growl like a chainsaw mated with a sonic boom. Trey slung it around the corner and slammed it to a precise stop two feet from where I stood. Jameson took a deep breath and opened the door for me.
I put my shoes back on and eased inside. “Thank you.”
He shut the door and hot-footed it back to the safety of the portico. Trey checked his mirrors, then hit the street in a burst of acceleration—zero to speed limit in three seconds flat—and then he nailed it there, not one tick of the speedometer over.
I shook my head. “I can’t believe Rico put you in vigilante mode and didn’t tell me!”
“He said he wanted to explain the situation himself. And I’m not in vigilante mode.”
“So that gun is just an accessory, like an ascot?”
Trey used his patient voice. “Rico asked me if I’d be willing to keep an eye out tonight. His words. I asked him what that meant. He said he was concerned about a former team member, an armed and dangerous one.”
“Rico said ‘armed and dangerous’?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly those words?”
“Exactly.”
That was a bit unnerving. Rico was as precise as Trey was with the vocabulary. If he said armed and dangerous, I understood why Trey was holstered up.
“Does this poet have a name?”
“Maurice Cunningham. But he performs as Vigil.”
“Vigil. The guy with the big V’s all over his website?”
“I don’t know. But I do know he was recently released from jail after a weapons-related parole violation.”
Vigil. If I remembered correctly, he yelled a lot on stage, fast and loud in a machine-gun patter of alliteration and curse words. He won poetry slams, though. Again and again, the crowd awarded him the money pot. Until he’d gone to jail anyway.
“Rico said they found a replacement, one of the alternates, some new guy. Is that the problem, Vigil wanting back in?” Then I did the math. “Wait a minute, Vigil was only in jail four days. What’s he doing out already?”
“The charges were dropped.”
“Why?”
“On a technicality.”
“So this is why Rico put you on lookout? A frustrated poet with a grudge and a tendency to carry inappropriate firearms?”
“Not a firearm. A switchblade. At a middle school arts function.”
Ah. I was beginning to understand. But I still didn’t get why Rico hadn’t told me, had decided instead to sic Trey on the problem. Granted, Trey was a former SWAT officer with martial arts training. But I was Rico’s best friend.
Once we cleared the high rises, we hit the frustrating tangle of stop-and-go traffic, worsened by too many testy drivers making too many tight lane changes. I blamed the city-wide vehicular crankiness on the weather, the low gray-yellow sky and stagnant heavy air. I felt prickly too, unsettled and agitated.
I leaned my head back and stared at the black expanse of Ferrari upholstering. I hated being left out of the loop, hated not knowing what was going on. But I did know one thing—Rico Worthington had some explaining to do, and as soon as I got my hands on him, that’s exactly what he was going to do.
Chapter Two
“Of course I didn’t tell you,” Rico said. “You’d do exactly what you’re doing right now—give me the third degree.”
Gone for this one night were Rico’s baggy warm-up pants and oversized football shirt. No