The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Sunny, Monday

"What are you trying to do, Naira?" Naira nee Bains asked. "Appeal to our better natures? Did you really think your profession was more ethical than any other? In the end, the only thing that matters to anyone is gaining an advantage over someone else."

"Is that what you learned in your formative years, before you were arrested and became a police informant?"

Naira nee Bains chuckled. "Are you trying to shock me with what you know? I don't care, Naira! Can you get that through your head? Maybe you need another push to make up your mind and get in here, because I'm done arguing with you." 

Another scream rang out over the phone line, longer this time.

"Okay! Okay!" Naira shouted. "You win, all right? I'm coming." She pressed end call and looked at Sunny and Joe. "You two stay here."

Sunny looked at Joe. "We can't do that," he said. 

"You both have families. Look, call the police again. Tell them where we are. They have to get it on the record that I entered this building and didn't come out again."

"How about I call them while we're all walking together to the building."

Naira sighed in frustration. "You're really making it hard for me to turn you away, and it doesn't help that I don't really want you to go." Her face crumpled, and she furiously wiped her eyes. "They're not going to go any easier on you than they are on me."

"We can fight back, you know," Joe said. "We don't have to die on our knees."

"That's easy for you to say, but we have one gun between the three of us. What do you think we'll be able to do? We can't even sneak up on them, not with these drones circling us."

Suddenly gunshots rang out, and Sunny feared that the people inside had gotten tired of waiting after all and just stormed out with guns blazing. Then, one by one, the spotlights went out as the drones exploded in a shower of metal, plastic and sparks. Some of the pieces hit the body of Joe's truck, and Sunny was afraid he'd have an insurance claim to make for paint and body work.

"What the fuck?" Naira glanced around. It was dark again, and none of them could see who or what had made the drones stop circling them. At the moment they had the advantage of not being seen if they wanted to approach the warehouse, but before they could capitalize on this advantage they had to know if whoever shot down the drones wasn't intending to shoot them too.

They sat there, panting in the darkness, afraid to leave the truck and also afraid of what would happen if they didn't leave the truck.

Then, "Naira?"

"Hello?!" Naira called, to whoever happened to be on the outside of the truck.

"It's Maria."

"Jesus!" Naira opened the back door. "Come in, come in!"

She'd been crouching below the mirrors, that was why they couldn't see her. And she wasn't alone. Tracey slid in next to her, and it was a tight fit in the back, especially as they were both wearing kevlar vests.

"You're here too?" Sunny asked Tracey, deliriously happy to see them both. "I thought it was your night off."

"Maria called and told me what you guys were up to," he replied. "I couldn't let her make this collar without me."

"Your superiors weren't convinced this was a collar that needed to be made," Naira said. "They were persuaded to believe the nine-one-one caller was a crank."

"That's very discouraging," Tracey said. "Even if it was a crank, you still do a check."

"No back up, then," Goncalves said. "Fuck."