Free She Speaks to Angels by Ami Blackwelder

anything here, but I’m cold.”
    Skimming the corners, I stayed along the edge. “Just keep looking. The cops only searched the roof once. Samuel said so. They probably missed something.”
    “ Whatever.” Molly rolled her eyes, but underneath her attitude I knew she secretly loved being here.
    “ Would you rather be sitting bored in front of the TV?” I suggested to both friends.
    “ Curled up on the warm sofa with a cup of tea?” Jennifer added.
    “ Come on, wimps.” I had to encourage them somehow. Since we had joined the secret ops, I felt that sounding like a drill sergeant might work.
    It seemed to work for Molly. She stopped pacing and squatted, keeping her eyes close to the surface of the roof. “Lots of cigarette butts.”
    “ Antonio?” Jennifer questioned with a cocked brow.
    “ Probably,” I answered. I dipped my fingers behind the rain gutter.
    “ Find anything?” Jennifer plodded away from the ledge and headed toward me at the other end.
    “ Nothing yet.” Disappointment filled my usual perky features.
    Kicking a trash bin in a corner, Molly shrugged. “Maybe I should just turn Clark in to the police. Tommy deserves justice, and if you’re not ready to talk to your brother about this, I’m going to have to do it.”
    “ Mol!” I jerked around, my fingers still behind the gutter. “I’m going to tell him. I told you that. Just as soon as we’re finished here.”
    “ Promise?” Molly hated it when criminals got away with crimes. Moving from house to house and spending too much time on the streets, she saw more than most.
    “ I blood promise.”
    The expression had begun in middle school when Jennifer and I first met Molly during P.E. A bully pushed Jennifer and she fell to the pavement and scraped her chin. Out of the distance a ripped-jeaned, bushy–haired, thick–browed, leather-bound girl pounced on top of the bully. When the bully smacked Mol in the nose, I saw blood for the first time. Hence the expression. The P.E. couch broke up the feud minutes after it began, but our loyalty to each other remained strong from then on. Whenever we really meant something we used the expression ‘blood promise’ to show our commitment.
    “ Do you see that?” Jennifer pointed below, cowering to the floor to keep unseen.
    “ What?” Molly threw her head up, frazzled.
    “ Someone’s coming,” Jennifer whispered, and I peeked over the gutter.
    Three shadows vanished under us, passing the chalk outline of Tommy. Within five minutes we all jerked our heads toward the roof door, which was swinging open.
    “ What are you doing here?” I asked, stunned.
    “ Did you follow us or something? You stalker, you!” Molly winked at Kian. She sensed he liked me as more than just an acquaintance or friend.
    Nathaniel’s skin looked delicious, like basted turkey on Thanksgiving Day. He radiated bronze hues. Krysta always glowed like a light bulb with infinite effervescence, and even more so standing next to Nathaniel. Like sun and moon.
    “ No,” Kian spoke with a well scripted smirk. “Did you three really think you were the only ones intrigued by Tommy’s death?”
    My brows arched and skin pricked. “Intrigued? What makes you think we’re up here for Tommy?”
    “ Why else?” Kian raked his fingers through his copper-blond hair, and for a minute, he competed for the space in my mind I reserved for Dameon.
    “ We think his death is suspicious, too.” Kian persisted, stepping closer to me with each word until he was standing only inches away. His breath rushed over my neck and down my chest. I felt him on me even though we didn’t touch. Jennifer stepped aside with a jarring stare over Kian, protective like a sister.
    “ No, we don’t,” Krysta interrupted, drawing a strange look from Kian. “We don’t think anything about Tommy. We didn’t even know him that well.”
    “ We didn’t know him that well either.” Jennifer commented as I felt the power struggle between Kian and