Oops

Chapter 12

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Dani (huntergirl) for getting my butt into gear and writing this for you. ^_^ Thanks, Dani!

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                                                                                  Nani

                “Nothing?” I asked as Maya climbed back into the van. She shook her head tiredly and checked the clock on the dashboard. We’d spent three hours looking for Antonio, skirting around the more dangerous places we knew Redfangs were hiding. But the fact still remained that Maya and I haven’t been living in LA for four and a half years. A lot could change in four and a half years.

                Rocky leaned forward from the backseat again. He looked ridiculous in his blue baseball cap and shades, but I guess it was better than being recognized and having the whistle blown on us. One disaster a week was bad enough as it was. “So wait,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose under his shades. “Why exactly do we need your brother in on this? Why do we need to find him before the drop’s made?”

                “It’s none of your business,” Maya snapped. I winced; when she was frustrated, she could bite heads off. I was used to it, but Rocky was pushing all the buttons to get her to explode. That was never a good thing when it came to Maya.

                Rocky looked like he’d been bitten on the nose, wrinkling it up like he didn’t know what he’d done wrong. I took some sympathy on him. “To answer your question,” I said carefully, “for the switch to work, we need two people.”

                “We have two people,” he pointed out.

                “No, we don’t,” Maya put in. “We have one. Your brothers saw my face when I kidnapped you. This trade is supposed to look like two innocent people picking up the drop, so that if the cops catch them, they can play the “some man I couldn’t see paid me ten bucks” card. Nani’s the best chance for the initial pick-up, and normally, I’d be the second choice. But—”

                “They saw your face,” Rocky nodded. “Alright. And that’s why you want your brother?”

                “He knows it better than anyone,” Maya said. Her voice turned hard again. “He came up with the idea, after all.”

                After she lapsed into silence again, shifting the van into gear and backing out of the abandoned parking lot, I turned to Rocky and said, “Here’s how it should go down. Your brothers making the money drop will come to the docks and sit on the bench next to the boathouse we were hiding out in. Then, Tony comes along and tell them that someone paid him fifty dollars to tell them to go up the street to the park there, where there’re a ton of tree cover.

                “They’ll follow the directions and meet me, and I tell them that someone paid me twenty bucks to tell them to give me the money and tell them to leave.” I took a deep breath. “Two people. We need Antonio.”

                “And there isn’t anyone else you can use,” Rocky inquired.

                Maya threw a glare over her shoulder. “Would you rather have any of the other gang members who know this switch so they can come kidnap or kill you as soon as the drop’s made?”