The Firm Hand of the Law Read Free

note not to contact Jasper even if the bar exploded. She rarely spoke to him, but every time she did she was left with a bad feeling in the very pit of her stomach. Her sense of unease was growing by the moment, leaving her very uncomfortable in her own skin.
    She was on her own on this one, stuck between vying groups of bad guys, all of whom had some stake in the Brannigans thanks to Gammy’s fund raising in her younger years. The smart thing to do would be to sell the bar and move on, but it was hard to sell run down real estate in an area of town with a crime rate higher than the moon.
    So there she was, sipping cooling soup and wondering what was going on with the car in the alley. In spite of the fact that Jasper’s men hadn’t found anything inside, it was still bothering her. It was too nice a car to be parked in a dodgy part of town in the middle of the night.
    Abandoning her soup, she stepped out onto the fire escape and looked down at it. It was a black sedan, assuming in the most unassuming way. She stepped back indoors and returned to her soup, but the car’s presence was irritating, a thorn in her mind. There was no way she could go to bed while it was still there.
    She decided to do something about it. The car was below her apartment more or less, which gave Lily an idea. She went to the junk drawer, which housed items dating back more than twenty years. Bottle caps, rubber bands… and water balloons. She filled them in the kitchen sink, adding a little something from the junk drawer to the mix.
    Taking the filled balloons out to the fire escape, she tossed two in quick succession. They flew straight down as if made of lead, not water, and burst in great wet crowns, soaking the car in not just water, but a burst of glue and glitter, which would royally mess with the finish on the car. It looked clean, or rather it had done before Lily unleashed her ire upon it.
    “Hey! Cut it out!”
    A deep voice evinced immediate frustration. Someone had been caught in the splash, judging by the way his shoulders glittered in the limited light reflected from the street lamp outside the alley.
    “Get out of here!” Lily shouted down. She couldn’t make out who it was, but she didn’t care. Whoever it was needed to go away. “Next time, it won’t be water!”
    A dark chuckle floated up the iron girders. “Little lady, you think you can chase me away with a few water balloons?”
    “The water’s just a warning!”
    There was a squeaking sound as the man pulled down the ladder leading to the fire escape. Panicking, Lily hurled down the remaining three water balloons, catching him in a cascade of fabulous pink and gold glitter. Then she slammed the door shut, bolted it, and closed and pulled the shade so he couldn’t see in. Having run out of courage for the evening, she hid behind the couch, phone in hand in case things got any worse.
    A solid knock at the door jangled her nerves. “Come on,” that deep voice rumbled. “If you’re bold enough to do the crime, be bold enough to own up to it and face the consequences.”
    “Water balloons aren’t a crime,” she shouted. “I’m about to make a call that’s going to mess your night up if you don’t get out of here.”
    “Oh yeah? Who are you planning on calling?”
    She was trying to intimidate a door. She got the impression that trying to intimidate the man himself wouldn’t be any easier.
    “What do you want?”
    “Right now? I want to smack your little ass until you learn picking fights with strangers is a bad idea.”
    Now she was being threatened by the door, though as threats went, it wasn’t a particularly fearsome one. It was almost flirtatious really. Obviously he had some sense of humor. A lot of men Lily knew would have flown into a cursing rage at being caught by water balloons in the middle of the night while wearing what looked like a fairly expensive leather jacket.
    “This isn’t that sort of place,” she shouted. “Try Girls Girls