Free Crush by Phoef Sutton Page B

here. When she killed herself, she left it to me.”
    â€œSweet story.”
    â€œYeah. She overdosed on something. Maybe it was an accident. I like to think it was. Anyway, I spent allmy time in this house before the Uncle Walter thing. Now everybody says it’s ‘not secure.’”
    Rush moved from room to room. There were only three: living room, bedroom, and kitchen. All empty.
    â€œSo is it?” Amelia asked.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œSecure.”
    â€œWell, as a rule a secure house is located a maximum distance from other structures, with a natural barrier of walls or trees, covered parking for vehicles, easily controlled access points.…”
    â€œSo, no?”
    â€œSo, no.”
    She pulled a teak box from a shelf and opened it, offering the contents to Rush.
    â€œWant some?”
    â€œNever while I’m working.”
    She shrugged and rolled herself a joint. “I’m sleepy.”
    He stretched out on the sofa. “Get some sleep then. I’m not stopping you.”
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œProtecting you. Get some sleep.”
    She looked at him, as if a thought just struck her. “Wanna blowjob or something?”
    â€œNever while I’m working.”
    She shrugged and headed off to the bedroom.
    A couple of hours later she was back. Rush was sitting on the sofa, eyes wide open, just as she’d left him.
    â€œDon’t you ever sleep?”
    â€œNever while I’m working.”
    â€œIs that your mantra?”
    â€œIt is while I’m working.”
    She sat down opposite him. She’d changed into a basketball jersey and shorts.
    â€œThe Clippers?” he asked.
    â€œDad’s a Lakers fan,” she said, as if that explained it all. “So how come you can afford all those cars and that garage and everything?”
    â€œSame as you, Mom’s trust fund.”
    â€œThat guy in the loft, he doesn’t look like your brother.”
    â€œHe’s not.”
    â€œThen why.…”
    â€œYou don’t pay me to answer questions.”
    Miffed, she got up and crossed the room. “Tony said you were moody.”
    â€œI can’t think of him as ‘Tony.’ He was always ‘Guzman’ on the job.”
    She pulled a CD off the shelf and made a face. “‘Guzman’ is too clumsy a name for a pretty guy like him.”
    Rush chuckled. “I’d love to have seen his face when you called him ‘pretty.’”
    She turned to him, suddenly serious. “He liked it.”
    Rush took that in. Guzman and Amelia Trask. Something about it didn’t ring true.
    She was at the CD player now, fiddling with the dials. “Hey, somebody screwed up all my settings.” The CD drawer slid open.
    Rush just had time to grab her and throw her across the room when the stereo exploded.
    They beat the second blast, diving through the windows in a shower of shattering glass and into the water of the canal, before it tore the door off its hinges and the house went up in flames.

NINE
    T he house was a smoldering wreck. Cops and firefighters milled about—the cops waiting for the smoldering to stop so they could go in and do their work, the firefighters waiting for the smoldering to stop so they could go home.
    Rush and Amelia sat on the ground. The houses on either side were perfectly intact, but Amelia’s mother’s house was just gone, like a missing tooth in a hillbilly’s smile. From somewhere in the wreckage, a phone was ringing.
    â€œIt was all I had left from my mom,” she said, quietly.
    â€œI’m sorry,” was all he could think to say.
    â€œIs your mom still alive?” she asked.
    Rush shook his head. “Somebody killed her.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œDon’t know.”
    â€œI bet you’d kill him if you found out.”
    â€œYep.”
    A fat guy in a suit peeled off from the group around the house and approached them. He