garden from the wind, making this an ideal growing place. He’d built the raised beds himself—hauling up every bag of dirt, every plant, and every pot.
During the football season, the green, earthy smells had taken his mind off the pain of his injuries. Whether he was amending the soil, deadheading flowers, or harvesting the vegetables he gave to the food pantry, out here he hadn’t been able to hear the clash of helmets, the grunts of hard hits, the roar of the crowd that swept over the field like a rogue wave. Out here, he’d been able to forget the adrenaline rush of being in control of the whole savage ballet that made up an NFL game.
Now that he was no longer playing, he came out here to get away from himself—away from the constant churning in his head as he thought about the future. But today the peace of his garden wasn’t working. A week had passed since his last meeting with Deidre Joss, and he hadn’t heard a word. She’d said a decision would take time, but he wasn’t good at waiting. In another few months, Spiral would break even, and he’d be ready to move on to the next phase of his new career—building a franchise of nightclubs around other big-name athletes who were too busy or not smart enough to set out on their own.
Piper Dove’s appearance had been a welcome distraction, even though she rubbed him wrong in a dozen different directions. But she interested him, too. Despite the Esmerelda charade, there was a raw honesty about her that would serve him well, and he looked forward to seeing how she would reconcile her obvious dislike of him with the fact that she needed his business.
Unfortunately for her, his intrinsic politeness toward women seemed to vanish when she was around. Equally unfortunate, the day-to-day operations of a single nightclub had begun to bore him. He could use a diversion, and Piper Dove just might be it.
***
Later that afternoon, Piper slipped the key Graham had given her into the metal door that opened off the alley behind Spiral. The small hallway had battleship-gray walls and smelled like French fries, but the floor had been swept clean. A door at the end appeared to lead to the club’s service areas, while the staircase on her right led upstairs.
As she began the climb to the third floor, she was glad she didn’t have much to haul. She reached the top and stepped onto the landing.
It happened fast.
A shadowy figure jumped out . . . A gun pointed right at her head . . . A sting to her temple . . .
“You’re dead!”
5
Piper reacted instinctively. She grabbed the arm of her assailant, kicked out her leg, and brought him down with a loud thud. Only as she heard the woof of pain did she realize the voice that had declared her dead had come from a female instead of a male.
A teenage girl sprawled on the bare wooden floor clutching her arm. A bright yellow Nerf gun lay beside her, the hard foam bullet that had hit Piper coming to rest against the landing’s painted baseboard.
The girl was one of America’s ethnically ambiguous: with tawny skin; bright amber eyes; long, dark curly hair; and a promise of beauty when her adolescence was behind her. “Ohmygod, I’m sorry!” she cried, revealing a set of silver braces.
Piper went to her knees. “Are you okay?”
“I thought you were an assassin!”
“A lot of them around here?” Piper reached out to check the girl’s arm.
“I’m okay.” She pushed herself into a sitting position.
Piper was relieved to see the arm wasn’t broken, but she was also pissed. “What did you think you were doing?”
“I thought you were someone else.” The girl reached for her Nerf gun, which had been modified with red rubber bands to intensify the firing mechanism.
“You have a license to carry that thing?” Piper asked.
“I know. It’s stupid. It was, like, kind of embarrassing buying them.”
“Them?”
“You need more than one. It’s kind of a game. But it’s, like, serious.” She scrambled up from the floor. She was nicely proportioned, although—being a teenage girl—she probably thought she was fat. “You must be the new neighbor. Coop told Mom somebody was moving in, but I, like, forgot about it. I’m Jada.”
“Piper. So what’s with the sneak attack on an innocent person?”
“I go to Pius now.” Piper recognized the name of a city parochial high school. “I’m one of the Pius Assassins.”
“Does the pope