Of All the Fake Heiresses I've Met, You're the Stupidest novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Last Lookout

I lay down on the roof of the old cold-storage building at ten to five.

The gravel was warm through my shirt.

A drift of dried gull dirt had piled against the parapet, and a flat gray stone had been worn smooth beside it.

I knew the place before I knew why.

Nineteen years ago I had lain exactly here, seven years old, with a rifle too big for my arms.

Nobody had ever searched this roof.

Ronan had told me that in the car, very quietly, and I had said nothing back.

Now I settled the rifle against my shoulder, and I did not feel seven.

I felt like the person who was going to undo it.

Across the water, the old cannery slip sat in the long light.

A green gate. A concrete apron. A rust-colored barge tied to nothing, riding low in the water at the end of a short pier.

Four hundred and ten yards.

I almost laughed.

"Erin," said Ronan, in my ear.

He was under the pier in a Kearney launch, with six men and a boathook, drifting in the shadows with the engine cut.

"I'm here," I said.

"What do you see?"

"Three on the apron, one at the foot of the pier, one at the gate. All armed."

"And the barge?"

I moved the scope.

The wheelhouse window was open. A man stood inside with one hand on a brass lever bolted to the wall, and a wire ran from the lever down through the deck.

"The plug," I said. "One man. His hand is on it."

"Can you take it?"

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