Death On the Flop (25 page)

I couldn’t see it anymore. It must have taken a side road or doubled back to the rest stop or who knows what. Frank was steamed. He cranked the wheel and we did a fishtailing U-turn in the middle of the highway, turning us back to Las Vegas. We had just enough time to catch our breath before the sedan pulled even again. “So they just don’t want us off their tail, they want us dead.” I pointed out, ever observantly.

The sedan dodged just inches in front of our right bumper. Frank whipped the wheel to the left and struggled to keep the Hummer on the road, swearing under his breath as an oncoming car swerved and honked. “We’re going to kill someone.”

“I’m not as worried about them as I am about us right now.”

Frank’s mouth tightened. He angled the Hummer ahead of the sedan and floored the accelerator. We were going a hundred miles an hour. Cars pulled off the side of the road to get out of our way. Smart idea. The sedan was coming after us, but dropping back. I guess those Caddies don’t have the engine the Hummer’s do.

We were a quarter mile ahead of the sedan when Frank spoke again. “We can’t do this all the way back to Vegas. Here’s what is going to happen. You are going to crawl over here and take the wheel. Stay in this lane. Drop the speed about ten miles an hour, gradually, so they slowly catch up. Once they are about a hundred yards away, I’ll tell you when, slam on the brakes.”

“Ninety to zero in five point two seconds?” I asked.

“Less than that,” he answered tightly.

The worst part of the whole thing was trying to get in the driver’s seat. I was rubbing up against him and he was rubbing up against me, but we were going a hundred miles an hour and someone had to keep a hand on the wheel. Once I’d finally taken over everything, including the gas, I followed his instructions. They gained on us. My heart pounded. Frank crawled to the back seat on the passenger side.

“Now!”

I slammed on the brakes. I felt like the Hummer was going to do a somersault, but instinct helped me keep all four wheels on the asphalt.

“Get down,” Frank yelled. I dove my head under the dashboard. I heard five loud pops.

When I peeked out Frank was on the floorboard, with a gun in his hand pointed out the window. “Where’d
that
come from?”

“Move, Bee, move.” He yelled.

“I can’t see.” I argued. Ping. Crack. They got my windshield, dammit.

“Gun the gas, I don’t care where we go right now, just move.”

I moved my foot off the brake, and pressed the gas. We bounced off the road. I hoped my luck held and it was flat desert, not canyon territory. Frank was still focused on the sedan, gun drawn. I thought someone ought to look where we were going, so I lifted my head just barely above the dash.

The sand was dropping off right in front of us into a black hole! I cranked the wheel and threw Frank off balance. He swore. Zing. Crack. Ping. “What are you doing?” he demanded, crawling back to his window and sending off a round of shots toward the sedan.

“Unless this Hummer is really the Batmobile, I think we ought to avoid canyons.”

“Huh,” Frank said, “I’ll cover you. Get up where you can really go and drive. Fast. Now.”

He fired off another volley of shots and I gunned it, four wheeling it to the road, out of gunfire range and back toward Vegas. I looked in the rearview mirror. “Why aren’t they following us? Did you kill someone?”

“No, Bee, I just shot out their tires.”

“But you fired five shots the first time.”

“I wish you weren’t so observant sometimes. I missed one, okay?”

With one last look back at the crippled sedan, Frank crawled back up front in the passenger seat. “You want me to drive?”

I’d started to tremble with the aftermath of the adrenaline rush. “No, I think it will help me to have something to do.”

Frank nodded and pushed his jeans leg up and slipped his gun back into his boot.

“Why do you have a gun?”

“It comes in handy in the—”

“Security business.” I finished for him.

“Uh-huh,” Frank agreed.

“When are you going to tell me what you really do for a living? Where you really live?”

“One day, Honey Bee, one day.”

“And when are you going to tell me how I’m going to repay you for doing all this to help me? I think the rent-a-Hummer is trashed.” I paused to swallow the lump in my throat and was horrified when my breath caught on a sniffly sob.

“Don’t worry about the Hummer. I think we need a new ride anyway. The yellow is a little obvious.” Frank paused and pulled my hair out of its hasty bun. His fingers shook the strands loose to cascade around my shoulders. “As for repayment, I’ve thought of dozens and dozens of ways you can do that.”

I blinked away a tear. I squirmed in my seat. “Hmm, you have?”

“You bet. I love homemade cookies. Oatmeal, chocolate chip, peanut butter . . .”

 
We got back to the Lanai at dawn, having left the
poor Hummer behind an abandoned warehouse in Boulder City and calling a cab. I was going to miss it. I’d talked to Mom again, who hadn’t heard from Ben, “the little rascal,” but had heard from Pauline at the dentist’s office that a woman’s chances of getting pregnant drop from something like eighty percent to two-point-five pecent after she turns forty so Mom decided to make a moral exception and let me and Frank have a baby before the wedding so it wouldn’t be too late.

“What did she say?” Frank asked as we walked to the elevator.

“That she hadn’t talked to Ben.”

“Long conversation just to say that.”

“Uh-huh.”

We waited for an empty elevator because Frank had decided he couldn’t afford to leave me alone. He’d just disable the security cameras along the way to our room, along with those on random floors along the way to throw Conner off track. It seemed to take hours to get to our room. I was so exhausted I almost didn’t care if Conner was waiting for us on the twenty-fifth floor with instruments of torture. I just had to get to sleep.

Joe called as Frank was sliding the keycard in. I wanted to wait to see what he said, but when I saw the disappointment and frustration in Frank’s face I knew it probably wasn’t anything I wanted to hear. Frank swept the bedroom for bad guys and okayed me to go in as he listened. I threw off my clothes and crawled into bed.

“
Bee?”

I snuggled deeper under the covers. Frank’s voice was just playing into my dreams, which included doing X-rated things at one hundred miles an hour.

“Do you always sleep this way?”

“Hmm?”

“I said, do you always sleep this way?”

I cracked open an eye and saw Frank’s right eyebrow hitched in question. Uh-oh. Real life was coming back to me. I was naked. I grappled for the covers. I was on my side, covers tangled around my middle, bare leg over a spare pillow. I think the important parts had been covered, but unless Frank thought I wore a strapless thong nightie, he probably figured out the answer to his question.

This wasn’t the way I’d planned him to be viewing my forty-year-old body, with the afternoon light streaming in, highlighting every imperfection. I sighed. Oh well, all he wanted was cookies anyway.

“I was wondering if you sleep walk, because I think I want to be your roommate a little longer.”

“Very funny,” I told his mile wide grin.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Stan went to one of his babes’ hotel rooms last night. Joe checked after he left—no Ben. Then he went to the Galaxy and Joe lost him.”

“So we don’t know any more than we did yesterday, except Fresh Foods is up to something so no good they will kill to protect it. We have to connect Stan, Conner and Ben to the Galaxy, Fresh Foods, Mexico and snuff films.”

“And one more thing,” Frank said. “Joe went back to the loading dock at the Galaxy and snooped around a bit. Remember me saying the two men wrestled with the trunk and the top came unlatched? Apparently something fell out. Joe found a Ziploc full of pills.”

“Drugs?”

“We don’t know yet. Joe had to drive them to a friendly lab we’ve worked with in California for testing. So he’s out of pocket for a while.”

“Maybe it is that date rape drug. Maybe they use it on the girls they kidnap for the snuff videos.”

Frank’s eyebrows rose. “Good thinking, Nancy Drew.”

The cell phone in Frank’s pocket rang. He answered and I shooed him out of the room so I could shower and dress. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. I felt like my days and nights had been turned upside down here in Vegas. I was going to have more than jet lag when I got home. Whenever that might be.

I lingered in the shower until I heard the bedroom door open. Uh-oh. I stepped behind the towel hanging over the clear Plexiglas, realizing with horror that it only covered my top half. A wet naked me was probably worse looking than a sleepy naked me. After all, things are less likely to sag when a body is horizontal.

“I’m not finished,” I called, hoping the panic didn’t come through in my voice.

“No kidding? Can I join you?” Frank teased.

Hmm. I needed to turn the hot water down. I was starting to tingle all over.

I looked down. Cellulite looked up. “That’s probably not a good idea.”

“Spoilsport!” Frank called.

“Cretin,” I shouted back.

“Then this is fair warning. You have five minutes to get out of there or I will let my fantasies take control.”

Hmm. I could always say the fantasies made me do it. I sighed and rinsed the conditioner out of my hair. In only four minutes I was out, dry, wearing the plush hotel robe and surveying my frightening wardrobe. What was I going to wear on national television tonight? The only good thing was I would only be taped from the waist up. Maybe viewers wouldn’t know I was mixing labels. I needed something powerful, something sexy—something that would match my silver Gargoyles. I’d wear my crimson suede jacket, pewter satin camisole that dipped just a little too low in the middle, my Ziamond teardrop dangle earrings. I’d have to rewear my black satin pants and spangle stiletto sandals.

After the outfit was laid out on my bed, I wandered into the living room.

Frank looked up from his computer. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

“What’s the hurry? The finals don’t start for hours.”

“We’re going to go to the Cook County lockup.”

“I’m sorry Frank, but we don’t have time to go to jail today.”

He glared. “Bee, I’m serious. Deidre called. One of the girls she dances with got to talking and said her boyfriend was just released from jail. While he was inside he was cellmates with a guy from Nogales, on the Arizona/ Mexico border, who told him he works for Fresh Foods.”

“So maybe he can tell us where the Fresh Foods warehouse is,” I said, excited at the break.

“More than that. Maybe he can tell us what Fresh Foods is up to.”

“We can’t get our hopes up. I’m sure most of the employees don’t know what’s going on.”

“This guy does. He indicated to his cellmate that he did a lot more than just move lettuce. He told them he didn’t like what they wanted him to do, next thing he knows he’s thrown in a patrol car and behind bars on what he claims is a trumped up charge.”

“But he didn’t mention Conner or Stan?”

“Not that I know of. But the day after he told the guy this he was attacked by another inmate and was lucky to survive.”

“Coincidence?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. We need to hurry, Bee. I’m not sure how long this guy can hang on.”

I hurried into my bedroom and threw on the clothes I’d gotten ready for that night. Frank had rented another car that was waiting for us outside the front door, a black Lincoln sedan with tinted windows similar to the one we’d left crippled on Highway 93.

“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?” I asked as he held my door for me and tipped the delivery driver.

Frank shrugged. “At least it will be less conspicuous.”

“Actually, I think you should have rented an armored tank.” I pointed out as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“I don’t plan on having a chase today.”

“Good because I didn’t wear my running shoes.”

“I bet you don’t own running shoes,” Frank said dryly as he pulled away from the curb.

“I consider other things better exercise.”

Shooting me a sidelong look full of innuendo, Frank hitched his right eyebrow. “And what would those ‘other things’ that get your blood racing and heart pumping be?”

Wicked man. “Shopping.”

“So, do you like window shopping or really
doing it
?”

I looked him up and down, slowly, appraisingly taking in the swell of bicep below his charcoal knit polo shirt, the press of his quadricep against his Levi’s, the size of those black Roper boots on the accelerator. Hmm. “Depends if I like what’s in the window.”