Page 114 of Lion & Lamb

Bernstein tap-danced backward and collapsed in the doorway. Lupe screeched to a halt, knowing that his services were no longer required.

Farther inside the apartment, Cooper heard the shots, but he was too stunned by what he was looking at to react to them. He stood naked in the empty frame of his bedroom window, shotgun in hand, staring down at the wounded figure of…

Vanessa Harlowe.

Maya Rain.

Whoever she was claiming to be on any given day.

Her eyes found Cooper’s, and despite bleeding to death, she worked up a smile that melted his heart a little. Blood streaked across her lips and perfect white teeth, and as he watched, her eyes started to dim.

But now he realized her true name, one he’d only heard spoken a few days ago:

The Quiet One.

Cooper Lamb knew he could never prove it in court or produce any evidence linking Maya Rain to that name and her many crimes. But locking eyes with her now, he could see that all of her masks had slipped away. He justknew.

Which begged the question: Why would the Hughes family have a professional killer caring for their children?

Maybe Archie’s creditors wanted someone to keep an ultra-close eye on Archie. And maybe Archie and Francine knew and had no choice. But if Maya, aka the Quiet One, was that good at her job, she would have had little trouble infiltrating the household.

“I still like you, Cooper,” she said now.

Cooper wanted to reply but hesitated. He knew the Quiet One was dying; when serving overseas, he’d seen the face of imminent death way too many times. Some people never looked more alive than they did right before dying.

Cooper didn’t want the last words Maya ever heard to be something cheap or sarcastic. He wanted to tell her that somehow, impossibly, he still liked her too.

But by the time he’d formulated that thought, she was gone.

Super Bowl Sunday,

February 6

Chapter127

WHERE WASthe very last place Veena had ever thought she’d find herself?

There was no clear number one, but pretty high up on the list would beWalking with Cooper Lamb and a police escort behind the scenes at the Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California.

Yet here she was, and despite her natural aversion to team sports in general (and football in particular), Veena found herself in a good mood, caught up in the spirit of the game. The halftime show had just ended, and Veena had listened to a scorching, for-the-ages performance by Francine Pearl Hughes. If she had been carrying demons for the past few years, she’d exorcised quite a few of them on the stage tonight. Forget Janet Jackson flashing the crowd; forget the dancing sharks. People would be talking aboutthishalftime show forever.

Archie Jr. and Maddie watched from the sidelines, proud of their mom and, for the first time in a long while, excited for the future. They were going on tour with their mother, and the family had no plans to return to Philadelphia anytime soon.

As far as the public knew, rogue homicide cop Mickey Bernstein had been responsible for the murder of Archie Hughes. The reason? For now, the story went that the GOAT owed way too much money to the Mob, and Mickey was the Mob’s combined hatchet man / fixer. Who better to investigate a murder than the person who’d committed it?

The Quiet One was not mentioned in any media report under that name or any other. But an FBI source quietly confirmed to Cooper and Veena that, yeah, Vanessa’s/Maya’s prints had been matched to a series of unsolved killings and were discovered on the security cameras near Eakins Oval too. Cooper almost pressed for more information, then thought better of it. Perhaps some truths weren’t worth knowing.

“Admit it—you’re having a good time,” he said now as they rode the elevator up to the luxury boxes.

“Maybe,” Veena said. “But I’m about to have an even better time.”

They were joined by a small battalion of law enforcement officers from an array of departments: FBI, Treasury, LAPD. Also squeezed into the elevator were Ariel and Cooper Jr. There was no way their father would go to the Super Bowl in LA andnotbring them along.

Ariel had warned her dad: “If you don’t take us, I won’t speak to you for the rest of your life. And when we’re reincarnated, I won’t speak to you in that life either.” The point was taken.

But the kids were about to see an even more impressive show than the one they’d just seen.

Harold and Glenn Sable were completely outraged to learn that their beloved player had been murdered by the “crooked tools of organized crime.” They promptly stopped talking to the press when it was revealed that one of those “crooked tools,” Mickey Bernstein, was on their payroll too. But silence wasn’t going to protect them, because the law was here to arrest the Sable men on gambling and fraud charges.

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