I could barely hear her because of the blood rushing in my ears. It was all I could do not to run around on all fours howling at the moon. I have the strength of ten, I have the strength of ten, I kept repeating to myself.
Emma said to Hondo, “Have you found out why they’re chasing her?”
“I haven’t told them,” Jett said. I raised my eyebrows, then realized she was doing it for Emma’s benefit. Smart, very smart.
Emma said, “Well?” There seemed to be a little jealousy there, I thought.
“I’ll tell them, and you, but someplace private. Everyone here doesn’t need to know.”
“And why not? These are my friends and I trust them.”
“If they don’t know anything, the people chasing me won’t kill them.”
Emma looked like she swallowed a golf ball. She regained some of her composure and said, “Ma
ybe you’re right.”
Emma led us to the master bedroom so we could talk with Jett in private. I lingered in the living room as long as I could before Hondo said, “I’m going to throw cold water on you if you don’t come on.”
Jett sat on the bed with Hondo while Emma and I sat in white wicker chairs. Hondo said, “Jett, we can get you out of LA, get you to a safe place.”
“I can’t leave.”
Hondo looked at her face a good five seconds before saying, “We aren’t going to let anybody hurt you, no matter whether you stay in town or not.”
“I can’t pay you.”
“It’s not about money.”
Jett’s eyes teared, but she fought them back. She said, “It’s a long story.”
I piped up, just to let them know I was in the room, “We love long stories.”
She looked at Emma and said, “Some of this is not going to sound real.”
Emma said, “I’m a good listener. Try me.”
Jett took a deep breath and began.
**
When Jett finished her story, Emma said, “How did you come to have the bus locker key?” So she was a good listener.
Jett said, “I returned to the house where we’d lived before Dad was killed. I hadn’t been there since that day.”
“Leaving quickly like that probably saved your life,” I said.
Jett nodded, “Yeah. I was careful when I went back. I entered the house through the back door and didn’t find anything there that Dad had left, but I didn’t want to leave. I hung around for a bit, then looked out the window at the cactus garden in the back yard that he had planted when we moved there. I went outside, checked the water and found it was still on, so I watered the plants and as I was doing it, I noticed something on the barrel cactus.”
She rearranged herself, then continued, “I knelt beside it and saw a thin copper wire extending from one of the golf ball sized holes in the cactus.”
Emma asked, “Holes?”
“Uh-huh, birds make them.” She continued, “The wire was only as long as the spines, so it was well hidden. Anyhow, I pulled on it and the key was attached to the end of the wire. That’s how I got it.”
“Did you know what it was for?” Emma asked.
“I knew it was a commercial locker of some kind from the number on it, but didn’t know where until I found the address at the Marmont. That led me to the bus station.”