Read Online Bending the Rules by Susan Andersen - Free Book Online

sucked into a bad decision once again by her damn impulsiveness and never-ending curiosity.
    From her vantage point she watched kids pour out of the shop’s back door and realized the stories she’d thought a couple of taggers had been making up must be true: there was a youth gang robbing city jewelry stores. Given that most of the kids looked young even to her, she couldn’t imagine they’d come up with the idea on their own.
    The thought had no sooner flitted across her mind than a man stepped out behind them, shoving both a gun and what looked like a black hood in the waistband of his slacks. He paused beneath the dim light that shone over the door, but with the brim of his porkpie hat throwing his face in shadow she couldn’t make out his features. And that was just fine with Cory, since the most painful lesson she’d learned in her life was that the wrong kind of knowledge could kill you.
    That’s how it had worked with her dad.
    “Move your asses,” the man growled, and the kids scattered in six different directions. “Fucking amateurs,” he muttered and lit a cigarette as he pushed away from the door.
    And, oh, crap. The flame of his Zippo briefly illuminated his face.
    She knew him. Well, she didn’t know-him know him, but she recognized who he was. She’d overheard someone saying he was, like, the muscle for some local crime boss whose name she couldn’t recall. But she knew he had a bad reputation. And she really, really didn’t want to bring herself to the attention of the top dawg or his henchman. Not when it was obvious the Hench had just shot someone.
    But she must have made some sort of noise or moved without realizing it, because even as Muscle Boy was stalking purposefully down the passageway between the two buildings toward the street, he looked up.
    Straight at her.
    Cory’s heart stopped and for a moment she merely gawped. Seeing his hand go for the gun in his waistband, however, unfroze her but quick and, scuttling backward, she scrambled to her feet and raced across the rooftop, leaping up onto the roof of the south-side building with strides long and sure even as her mind screamed in panic. Her daddy had been a track star way back in his high-school years, and he’d taught her to run practically from the time she could walk. He used to say she was the son he’d never had and the daughter he’d always wanted.
    But she couldn’t think about that now because it made her knees weak. Shoving all thoughts of her family aside, she sprinted across the second building and up onto a third. This one had a working roof with heat or air shafts or whatever they were sticking out, and a little shedlike structure with a door that led to the building. She came to an abrupt halt. She couldn’t simply keep going—at least not without trying to think it through. The Hench hadn’t come up onto the dentist’s roof after her, so he was no doubt headed straight for the last building to await her descent. At least she hoped that was what he would do. Because her plan was to bail midblock. She sped over to the door and reached for the knob.
    It was locked. But there was a fire escape going down the back of the building. Cautiously, she approached it and peered over.
    And damn near wet her pants. In the millisecond before she jerked back again she glimpsed Muscle Boy—a big, ugly boogeyman of a guy—pointing his gun at her in a two-handed grip.
    A gun that he’d already proved he wasn’t shy about using. The crack of it discharging at her in the next second sounded louder than thunder.
    Almost simultaneous with the report, the bullet hit high on the air vent thingie behind her and ricocheted off. She managed to bite back the girlish scream bulging the back of her throat, but it was a close thing. She’d learned a long time ago to dress like a boy when she went out tagging. It was just safer and even with the cops and the store owners who’d busted her two weeks ago, she’d stayed in character. She