Page 110 of Blind Luck

What the hell had I gotten myself into? Sin and Dusk might have considered me Choir-adjacent, but I wasn’t sure I fit in with these women. Could I follow the breadcrumbs and solve a case? Yes. Work as part of a team? Yes. Skirt the bounds of legality? Yes.

Duct tape a man and threaten him with decapitation? No.

“Ari, you’re quiet,” Sin observed after a minute or two had passed. “The elevator thing made you uncomfortable?”

“I couldn’t do what you do.”

“You don’t have to. We all have different skills. You’re smart and empathetic, and you’re great at hunting out clues. Plus you bring folks together. Sometimes, we need that kind of person.”

“You seemed to manage the ‘bringing together’ part just fine on your own last night.”

She snorted. “I can’t say it was entirely unpleasant.”

“Well, thanks for taking one for the team.”

“Anytime, Coyote. Anytime.”

“Coyote?”

“If you’re gonna work with us again, you need a nickname. Coyote. You’re wily. Cunning. That baby daddy idea was smart.”

Huh. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or terrified by the suggestion. Did I hate the idea of working with them? Not entirely. The prospect of twisty, challenging cases got my blood running, more than hunting for cheating spouses anyway. And that red-room thing…

“I have a life in California now, and a daughter, plus I still have to cover Rennick’s stuff.”

“We’re not talking full-time. Just the occasional job. Running down leads when we’re short of time, that sort of thing. You’ve done some work for Echo recently, and that was mostly our stuff, indirectly. Talk to her about it if you want—she’s a contractor too.”

“Maybe,” I said, but now that the seed had been planted, I kinda liked the idea of letting it grow.That girl was fifteen years old.“Will you promise not to decapitate anyone in front of me?”

“It would be disingenuous to rule it out completely—if there’s a zombie apocalypse, it’ll be every woman for herself—but we’ll endeavour to keep you away from the nasty stuff.”

“But zombies don’t exist. Do they?”

“Of course not,” Dusk said.

“There’s some weird shit that goes on in places I can’t talk about,” Sin told me. “I heard rumours they were experimenting with a fungus that fucks with your brain.”

Dusk groaned. “Please, not this again. Or we’ll have to start calling you Super Conspiracy Nerd.”

A pause. “S-C-N. Scone?”

Scone? Wait, Sin was an acronym? “What does ‘Sin’ mean? I just assumed you were… Never mind.”

“Immoral?” She snorted. “I mean, that works too.”

“Super Intel Nerd,” Dusk supplied. “Sin talks with a lot of people and hears a lot of scuttlebutt.”

I bet she did, and now curiosity was eating away at me again. “So, do you guys want to get drinks? After we drop off Selene’s stuff, I mean.”

“Sure. Let’s swing by the Steel Horse Saloon. We need to drop off a package there, anyway.”

EPILOGUE - ERIN

“Can I open my eyes yet?” I asked Rusty.

“Nope.”

Ten seconds passed. “Now?”

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