“The coffeemaker’s on the counter,” he said.

She started for the kitchen, then remembered she hadn’t bought coffee. “Never mind. I haven’t been to the grocery.”

“There’re beans and a grinder in the kitchen downstairs. I’ll unlock the door for you.”

“Let me get my shoes first.”

Her shoes weren’t all. She slipped on a bra. When she came out, he’d found Oinky, and he held it up. “Exactly what school has a pig for a mascot?”

“Community college. Farm country.”

“Ah.” He flicked the pig to her with a short underhand spiral that she doubted he expected her to catch. But she did.

She relished her small victory as he led her down the back stairs. Instead of turning toward the club’s kitchen at the bottom, he opened the door into the alley. “Hold on a minute, will you?” He stepped outside.

She peered out and saw that the wind from last night’s storm had strewn some sodden liquor cartons across the alley’s cracked pavement and in its muddy craters. Graham wasn’t happy. “This was supposed to have been cleaned up already.” He grabbed a soggy box and tossed it in the Dumpster, then snatched up another. She gave him points for being willing to do the dirty work himself and went out to help.

As she gingerly pulled a waterlogged carton from a filthy puddle, she saw Jada coming down the alley. The grocery bag in her arms suggested she had responsibilities a lot of kids her age didn’t. Jada waved and Piper waved back, then turned to pick up more sodden cardboard.

A teenage boy popped out from around the corner, Nerf gun in hand.

Piper stiffened, then spun around, calling out Jada’s name.

Jada reached for the Nerf protruding from her jacket pocket, but the bag she was carrying got in her way. Her teenage assassin braced his gun hand like a TV cop. The girl was going to die. But not on Piper’s watch.

She lunged forward and shoved the first thing she touched directly into the path of the bullet.

Cooper Graham.

6

Graham stumbled. Not from the bullet, which had bounced harmlessly off his arm, but from being thrown off balance without warning.

A second bullet whizzed past from the opposite direction as Jada took control. “You’re dead!” she cried.

“Not fair,” the kid protested.

“Totally fair!” Jada retorted.

Graham, in the meantime, had gone down in the middle of the alley, one hip landing in a pothole brimming with filthy water, a foot landing in another. “What the hell?” he exclaimed.