Page 6 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
Fantastic.
Barbie offered a hand and hauled me out of the water, smirking.
“This isn’t funny. I’d rather rescue a hostage from a bunch of terrorists than try to capture a turkey alive.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.”
Undoubtedly. But if I’d known how prescient her words would be, I’d have swan-dived back into the pool and played water polo with our new houseguest.
CHAPTER 3
Phae
Jez, Storm, and Tulsa stopped talking when I walked into the kitchen, which was my first clue something was wrong. Where had Tulsa come from? She was supposed to be in Denver until tomorrow. We were still missing Spider and Dice, but they’d be back by Thanksgiving. Or at least, that had been the plan until turkeygate happened. If they were smart—which they were—they’d stay in Venezuela.
My second clue there was a problem? The guilty looks. I wanted to believe the others were just discussing my Secret Santa gift, but problems were never good in our line of work.
“What’s up?”
“Uh…” Storm started.
Tulsa cut in. “Nothing you need to worry about. Everything’s under control.”
“Define ‘everything.’”
Priest strode in, phone to his ear. “Hell, tell her to throw him in a holding cell if she has to.”
He stopped short when he saw me.
Glanced at the girls.
Uh-oh.
“What’s going on?” I asked again, and then the day got worse. Marc appeared on the TV above the couch, a clip from one of his movies, and I snatched up the remote and changed the channel out of habit. I didn’t need the reminder of a past I’d rather forget. Not that the parts with Marc had been bad. The opposite, in fact. But the breakup still hurt like hell, plus seeing Marc reminded me of Booker, and all the hard times with my dad, and finding my mom’s body twisting in the air as she hung from the bannister, and… Anyhow. I always flipped to a different show.
Tulsa stalked to the coffee machine, followed by Jez. The hunter and the killer. Not that the two of them weren’t adept at switching tasks if the need arose, but in the Choir, we’d shuffled ourselves into the roles that suited us best. Me? I was the chameleon. Most folks would describe me as “nice” or “personable” or “kind,” when really, I’d just become proficient at wearing the mask I’d first put on as a child. Don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t pulling the wings off flies or torturing cats. No, I’d merely taken joy in fucking with my dad. Leaking business information, sending his mistresses copies of his wedding photos, slipping laxatives into his coffee before important meetings. It was so much fun that I’d screwed over several of his friends as well and then moved on to local politicians, corrupt motherfuckers all of them.
But the older I’d become, the more uncomfortable the mask got, and it wasn’t until I finally found my people that I’d been able to rip it away entirely.
Which was another reason I’d had to split up with Marc. Around him, I’d let down my guard a little, and yes, he knew about some of the stuff I’d done to Dad, but if he saw what I was capable of now… Sigh.
“Make me an Americano?” I asked.
“Better to make it an Irish coffee,” Storm muttered.
Tulsa nodded. “Good plan.”
“What the hell is going on?” I asked for the third time, but instead of answering, Storm picked up the remote.
“Hey, I was watching that,” Marcel whined from behind us, but she ignored him.
“For three seconds, and you’ve seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s a hundred times,” she said, then hopped through the channels until she found the news again. “And don’t you have a turkey to catch?”
“Butterball hid in a bush.”
What had happened? A terrorist attack, a hostage situation, a politician making promises he didn’t know how to keep? If that was the case, we could expect a phone call in three, two, one…
The phone didn’t ring.
