Chapter 6
Thirty minutes later, I sat on a step of Valencia’s front porch, dazed and edgy—my bleary eyes fixed to the firetruck parked in front of Valencia’s house.
Behind me, cops were talking. It seemed they’d picked up one of the perpetrators a few streets away. The two jerks had been on foot, but one of them had managed to jump a fence and temporarily elude the cops. The cops weren’t concerned. The guy who’d held the gun to me—a fake one I’d soon found out—was already sitting in the precinct’s interrogation room, spilling his story. They were young thugs. One of them had been Valencia’s student last year. She’d given him painting lessons and Amadeo thought maybe the young guy had heard her talking on the phone to her niece about the money behind the painting.
Valencia really needed
