Private (Private 1)

on the horizon. Besides—Marguerite could handle problems. For sure.

Marguerite waved to a couple of kids she knew and kept going toward the Best Buy sign blinking at the end of the next block. Her phone buzzed, signaling that she had a text message.

She didn’t recognize the number, but only one person called her Tigerpuss. That would be Lamar Rindell. Lamar was a supercute senior, a basketball player who’d been flirting with Marg both in person and on the phone. She’d hung out with him and a bunch of other kids after school, but Marg was hoping for more.

Lam: Wassup Tigerpuss.

Marg: getting a video. New Moon. I vampires.

Lam: Video World?

Marg: yeh. it’s close, right?

Lam: want to get pizza after?

Marg: I can’t.

Lam: ok. Never mind.

Marguerite leaned against a mailbox while she weighed her options. It was Grandmama versus Lamar, and she shouldn’t have to choose. Pizza Hut was only one block down. It wasn’t even dark out yet.

She typed to Lamar: “OK. C U soon.”

Then she called home, said, “I’m stopping for a slice and a Coke. You can practically see the place from the kitchen window. I’ll have Lamar walk me home, okay?”

Marg rehearsed her attitude, her mind focused on how she’d remember everything she and Lamar said to each other so she could tell her BFF Tonya all about it when she got home. She grinned to herself just thinking about that.

She headed to get her vampire movie. She started off walking, but then she began to skip.

Chapter 36

A BLACK HYUNDAI van with a cable TV logo on the side cruised the streets of Los Feliz.

“I’ve got your pigeon on the grid,” Morbid said to the guy sitting next to him in the back. “She just left her house. She’s going to bite. She’s going down.”

“I’m ready,” said Jason Pilser in his role as Scylla. A freakin’ Greek monster. Six heads. “Let me do this. She’s all mine, right?”

Morbid gave the keyboard to Scylla, who watched the tracking icon that stood for Marguerite Esperanza as it traveled across the GPS map.

Scylla tapped on the keys, sending a text message to Marguerite using the name of this guy, Lamar, who’d been texting Marguerite for a couple of weeks.

And Marguerite was answering.

After some dialogue and a change of mind, she said yes. She’d meet “Lamar” at Pizza Hut.

Scylla felt the sweat gather at his hairline. He patted his jacket pocket, put on his fresh gloves.

He listened in on Marguerite’s call to her grandma over the speaker, and when she’d told her good-bye, Steemcleena parked the van on Rowena. Maybe twenty yards from the pizzeria. No more than that.

Scylla watched Marguerite’s icon on the GPS grid close in on the icon for the van. He looked through the dark glass of the side window as the girl came up the sidewalk past the stationery store.

“She’s a babe,” he said.

“And she’s all yours, Scylla. She’s your babe. Think you can handle her?”

For a few seconds Marguerite would be between the dry cleaner and the van, like an eclipse of the moon.

“Scylla. Go,” Morbid said. “Go now.”