I smiled. A small piece of me felt proud that my little brother — idiot that he was at the moment — would want to defend me against his pervy friends. Maybe I hadn’t done too bad a job in raising him after all. Again I grabbed Seth’s shirt and yanked him backward — not easy since the kid was already as tall as me with my boots on. “Let it go, Bro,” I said, and began tugging him toward the back of the cemetery. There was a place near the very back left fence where the ground sloped upward — enough for us to climb out. I glanced at Seth’s friends and inclined my head. “Let’s get out of here before the cops show up for real. I’m pretty sure you guys don’t want your parents to get a knock on their doors tonight. It’s a federal offense to desecrate a grave, you know.” That was all we’d need, especially since the cops already knew exactly who I was.

“Dude, what’s desecrate?” one of the boys said.

“You want us to go with you?” Riggs said, a smirk on his adolescent face. “So you can rat us out to our parents? No, thanks, babe!” He turned to the others. “Come on!”

“Hey, wait!” I called, taking several steps and thinking that I’d let Riggs find out on his own that his mom already knew about his little scheme. “Come on, guys! I’ll drive you home.” I couldn’t just leave them out in the middle of the night. No way. “Swear to God, I won’t rat you out.”

“No, thanks, sexy!” Riggs hollered, laughing, and he and the others took off into the shadows. He called back, “You’re fine as hell, but I ain’t letting you hand me over to my mommy!” More squeaky male laughter; then their voices grew faint as they slipped off into the night.

Somehow, that made me very uncomfortable, and yet as agile as I was, even in spike-heel boots, I knew I couldn’t catch Riggs and his friends, corral them, and drag them all to my Jeep. I gave a sigh and shook my head. “Come on, Bro. Let’s get out of here.”