Read Tempted by Trouble for Free Online

root of all evil took wings and flew into the sky, went as close to heaven as it could, then, like Icarus when he flew too close to the sun, began to fall, rained down like confetti at the Thanksgiving Day parade. Rick stood in the middle of a crimson cloud of money being blown away by a gentle L.A. breeze.
    The freaking money had a dye pack. The pack had been activated by a perimeter alarm that caused it to explode seconds after the pack made it outside. That explosion stupefied Rick. He dropped the red-tinted greenbacks and stumbled. Over one hundred thousand dollars took to the air and scattered across the pavement. My cut of that treasure was going to reverse the curse and change the course my life had taken, get me out of this business. With each windswept bill went a piece of my heart, my future blowing away.
    The guard had broken the bank’s rules, kept yelling and coming like it was his money being stolen. He fired again and the bullet hit Rick in the back. Rick’s eyes widened as his teeth clenched with the pain. Hot lead spiraled through his body and kept going until it struck the passenger window of our stolen getaway car. The window shattered, glass spraying everywhere, then the hot lead kept going and hit the driver’s-side window. By then it had lost its power. The lead hit the window and bounced away, fell into my lap. I looked down at the spent bullet. It was still hot and decorated with a dying man’s blood.
    Rick collapsed, went down hard, and tumbled on the blacktop.
    The car that had stopped between us accelerated and left the scene, the driver terrified.
    A crowd of people dashed beyond the wounded guard and ran toward Rick. People bolted from cars, from trucks, from the ATM, all with their eyes wide, all with desperation.
    The crowd clutched the fallen money, some trying to snatch cash that wasn’t stained and others who didn’t care. The young, the old, Caucasians, Latinos, African Americans, Africans, they all rushed, grabbed what they could grab, pushed each other out of the way, lips pulled back, growling with vengeance.
    What I witnessed was like watching vultures pick at the carcass of what had been left behind. Everyone grabbed money like they were robbing the system that had stolen their dreams.
    This madness was the common man’s corporate bonus.
    Rick looked up at me, his face scratched and bloodied from his fall, his expression panicked and desperate, pleading for me to help him before the parade of sirens came. His hand reached for me the way the poor reached out for their savior. Blood pumped out of his wound as his eyes begged me to save him. I trembled, put my hand on the door’s handle, had to risk it all and get out and help him.
    But I paused when I spotted at least three opportunists capturing the bloodshed with iPhones and BlackBerrys. Eyewitnesses would get descriptions wrong, as most did, but video cameras didn’t lie. This would be broadcast on television, would become breaking news in ten minutes, or on Twitter and Facebook within two. The Internet was a beast that John Dillinger never had to worry about.
    I took a horrified breath, a breath that played out how this could end, for Rick and for me, both of us being caught right here in this parking lot. I played the unfavorable odds that were getting worse with every passing millisecond, and I frowned and shook my head. There was no way out for him. There was no way I could get to Rick and drag him inside this stolen car. And if I couldn’t stanch that wound, I’d end up covered in blood, fishtailing out of there, trying to escape the police with a dead man at my side.
    Hard choices had to be made. My life had always been one hard choice after the other.
    My foot punched the accelerator and I sped off, left Rick on the pavement, his image fading in my rearview mirror as Sammy’s spirit rose above me. I cut a hard left, took to Santa Rosalia, accelerated down the two-lane street that ran by Debbie Allen’s dance studio.