“I didn’t lie,” she said. “And you know it.”
“You told that reporter your stupid play was about us!” His face was red, in direct contrast to the ashen face of his younger brother. “Everyone thinks it’s real!”
The front door to the kitchen opened and Zoey came out armed with the largest meat cleaver I’d ever seen. She was followed by five other cooks, a white-aproned defensive line, all carrying industrial-sized kitchen utensils that looked like ferocious weapons in their hands.
The two men turned around to face them.
“It’s time for you boys to leave,” Zoey said, tapping the tenderizer on her palm. She was barely five feet tall and thin as a rail, but the warning in her voice made her seem scary as hell. She settled into some kind of martial arts position looking like she could spring into action and be across the parking lot in a split second. I immediately felt safer.
Then the back door to the SUV opened and an older woman got out. She was dressed in a tight red suit, something a high-powered business woman would wear in a Shonda Rhimes show. Her blond hair was pulled back into a complicated bun that looked artfully messy. She balanced easily on high heels despite the gravel and walked past the men all the way around the car.
I could sense her barely controlled anger behind her sunglasses. “That’s far enough,” I said.
She looked right at me and took one more deliberate step. “I agree,” she said, her voice icy. “Mira here has gone far enough.” She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and leaned closer to her. “You will fix this. You will call that reporter back and say you made up everything in that ridiculous play, or you will pay, do you understand?”
Mira slid toward me, suddenly looking much younger than eighteen.
The woman’s cold blue eyes flicked over me, her tiny pupils looking like every serial killer in the movies. “Are you her latest do-gooder? Watch out, dear. She’ll screw you over as soon as she can.”
“You need to leave. The police are on their way,” I lied.
She scoffed and then before I could stop her, she pulled back her arm and slapped Mira across the face.
I stepped in between them and shoved the woman away from Mira as the rest of the staff rushed forward. They stopped when she held up both hands as if she was being arrested.
“Get. Off. This. Property,” I said, furious. “If I see you or these idiots again, I’ll have you all arrested for assault.”
The Ice Queen sneered. “The police won’t believe you.”
I pointed to the kitchen workers. “I have plenty of witnesses.”
She didn’t look concerned at all. “And I have the best lawyers money can buy.” She turned around. “Let’s get out of here,” she said to the brothers.
Her sons avoided looking at Mira, both seeming to be unhappy with the violence, and followed their mother’s order. Will took the wheel, spraying gravel as he drove.
Mira watched them go with her hand covering her injured cheek. She blinked back tears but pushed out her chin, more determined than upset. The foster family from hell just ensured that the show would go on.
I put my arm around her shoulders and spoke to the group. “Thank you, everyone. Let’s go inside.”
They didn’t listen to me at all, pushing me aside to crowd around Mira with hugs and “It’s okay” comments.
She attempted a smile for them, but her hands were shaking.
“Really,” I insisted. “Give her a minute and we’ll be in soon.”
They reluctantly left, sending sympathetic looks back at Mira.
She took a deep breath.
“Your foster family seems nice,” I said.
She snorted out a laugh and then blinked, fighting back tears.
I tried to channel Lani, who always seemed to know the right thing to say. “I’m so sorry you had to deal with that.”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing new.”
“I guess they aren’t taking too kindly to your success,” I said.
“They think it’s about them,” she said. “As usual.”
“Sounds to me like they must feel guilty about something, if they’re reacting like that,” I said. My voice rose at the end, making it a question. Seeing them act so horribly made me wonder, but I hadn’t really intended to ask Mira.
“I told the reporter that it’s a compilation of a lot of foster kids’ experiences,” she said, which wasn’t a real answer.
I looked at her for a moment. “What’s in the play that they’re so worried about?”
She stared in the direction they drove off, and clenched her jaw.
“The truth.”
The words seemed to echo in the parking lot.
“Maybe that’s what they’re afraid of,” I said.
Mira blew out a breath. “They can’t silence me any longer, and once it’s all out, they won’t have any reason to bother me. They’ll be angry, but they won’t be able to put the genie back in the bottle.”
“Maybe you should stay with me, or Lani, until then,” I suggested. “Just a couple of nights.”
She frowned, in a rebellious expression I recognized from Elliott. “I’ll be fine.” She unwound the bandana from her wrist, and covered her hair, ready to work. The handprint on her check was already fading.
“We should at least report this to the police,” I said.
“No.” Her voice was firm. “You don’t know them. It won’t help. And it might make things worse.”
I followed her into the kitchen, worrying that she hadn’t seen the end of her foster family.
Chapter 2
I waited until Mira was busy sautéing shrimp for the Seafood Surprise before sneaking away to call Lani. When I pulled out my phone, I saw that Elliott had texted me, hopefully not during an actual class. He wrote that his English teacher “must be cool” because she had admired Elliott’s Toxic Avenger T-shirt.
I filled Lani in on what happened in the parking lot. “They waited at her job to attack her?” she asked. “That’s horrible!”
“It was,” I said. “I didn’t move fast enough.”
“Aren’t there security cameras there?” she asked. “You can show the recording to your detective buddy yourself and get her to scare them off.”
My “detective buddy” was Detective Norma Chiron. We’d somehow become friends despite her investigating me for a murder a few months before. She was a very by-the-book officer and would never “scare someone off” as a favor.
“You know Norma wouldn’t do that,” I said. “And anyway, I’d be really uncomfortable going behind Mira’s back.” Although telling Lani from the dry goods store room might qualify as exactly that.
I heard whirring through the phone. Lani must be in her studio, sewing something new.
“I don’t like it,” Lani said. “Her apartment is out in the boonies. It would be easy for them to do something to her there.”
“She has roommates and there’s safety in numbers. She’s also hardly there between her jobs and the play,” I said. “But maybe you can convince her that staying with you will make it easier