Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,3

of rosebushes in front of me were about one foot shy of having a giant purple-and-black dragon fighting off a prince so he didn’t take away her kidnapped victim. There were a few faded, withered blooms clinging valiantly to the nest of neglected, spindly branches, but even in the sparse light from Los Angeles’s ever-present gloam, the thorns were abundant.

There was a comment about life there. In the most horrific neglect, beauty fought to survive while violence thrived.

It could’ve been just that the rosebushes had a lot of thorns. Bacon and Hobbes definitely weren’t threatened by my entry into philosophy. I would rather while away the evening with a hot pastrami sandwich and a cold beer than spend a couple of hours discussing whether or not we were made out of paper.

The tinkle of Lamb Chop’s bell told me he was nearby. I had to get moving. I needed to find a way out, and I needed to find it fast.

An aggressive bark growing louder spurred me on. The bushes suddenly didn’t appear so daunting, and if Prince Charming could hack through them to rescue a comatose woman he’d never met but intended to marry, I sure as hell could at least give it a try.

Fuck. The rosebushes hurt like hell.

They tore at my bare arm, digging into my already split-open skin. It seemed like every thorn grew an additional six inches simply to rip me open. My jeans protected my legs, and I pulled up the arm still encased in a sleeve to protect my face. I couldn’t see an end to the thicket, and searching for a way around didn’t seem like the smartest use of time. I didn’t know how long the Doberman would be enthralled with my jacket arm, and there was no telling how close the sheep was.

To be fair, he didn’t need to get very close. He just needed a clear line of sight to blow my head off. I didn’t understand his rage, but then I didn’t know the story behind him in the sheep costume or anything about the woman he was with. Something back there was important enough for him to kill someone over, and I would rather that someone not be me.

It seemed to take me forever before I was through the rosebushes, and when I stumbled free of the spindly branches, I found myself facing the fallen remains of a wrought iron fence. I almost kissed its rusty corpse with glee, but I wasn’t quite out of the woods yet. Literally.

The château’s rear neighbor seemed to be resigned to the overgrowth, allowing at least a few yards of thick bushes and untrimmed trees to encroach the property line. They probably let it run rampant solely to hide the eyesore going stagnant behind them. A five-foot-tall decorative wall of stucco and tile jutted up from a strip of well-manicured lawn, offering me the promise of an oasis on the other side.

I broke into a run as soon as I heard the bell chiming behind me.

It felt like I was suffering from a thousand paper cuts, minute slashes from leaves and thorns with an ooze of blood turning my skin sticky. A warm trickle ran down my forehead, getting into my eyes, turning my vision blurry, but I was focused on the wall. I was tall enough to get my hands over the top of it and had enough faith in my abdominal muscles to pull myself over it, but I knew from unfortunate experience that the same could be said about a motivated Doberman.

I was worried less about the dog now. Still kind of worried about the guy with the gun, but I had an intense hope that the neighbors kept their lawn clipped and I would be able to sprint up to the back of their house while screaming my head off for help.

It wasn’t much of a plan.

But it was a plan.

I took the wall with ease, but the scar tissue along my ribs and chest chose that moment to seize up. Healed-over bullet wounds are the worst. They leave a guy with a tangle of keloids wrapped around nerves and muscles that sometimes fire off conflicting messages. In my case it was like being struck with a handful of charley horses knitted through my ribs and down toward my spine.

Getting up onto the wall was easy. Going over the wall was less than ideal. Seized up by spasms and pain, I went down hard, rolled up like