I ran to Hooker and counted his fingers. Ten! Yahoo!
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“Yeah, I just got the wind knocked out of me when Beans hit the chair.”
“What about Gobbles?”
“He’s in the house somewhere. I don’t know what kind of condition he’s in. He might be upstairs.”
“I’ll go look for him,” Rosa said.
“Where is everybody else?” I asked Hooker.
“Gone.”
“That’s impossible. There’s only one way in and one way out, and we were watching it.”
“They left by boat,” Hooker said. “Miranda and his two men. And Ray. And the dog shit. I guess Miranda didn’t think he could get much more out of you or me, so he took Ray. If the chip’s in the bag, everyone will be happy. If it isn’t, I imagine Miranda will hold Ray hostage until he duplicates the technology. And if he can’t duplicate the technology, I don’t think things will look good for Ray.”
Felicia was working on Hooker’s ropes with a steak knife.
“How’s it going?” Suzanne asked. “Is he almost cut loose? We need to get out of here before the police arrive. I don’t want a mug shot with my hair looking like this.”
Felicia made a last swipe with the knife, and Hooker wriggled free. He got to his feet and looked around. “Where’s Beans?”
“He was here a minute ago,” I said.
Hooker whistled, and Beans came into the kitchen dragging Rodriguez, who was obviously incredibly dead.
Felicia shook her finger at Beans. “You got to stop playing with the dead people.”
Hooker found a box of crackers in a cupboard. “Here you go, guy,” he said to Beans. “I’ll trade you a cracker for the dead man.”
I followed the drool smears down a hall to a powder room. The door was open, and I could see another body on the floor. I flipped the light on for a better look. It was Lucca. He was on his back, his black eye no longer seeming like much of a problem.
I know Rodriguez and Lucca weren’t such nice guys. And I know they killed a bunch of people. Still, I felt bad they were dead. Okay, maybe not Lucca. I was a little glad Lucca was dead.
I closed the door on Lucca and returned to the kitchen where Hooker and Felicia were trying to get Rodriguez to sit at the table.
“How’s this?” Felicia asked me. “You think this looks natural?”
“Yeah, if you don’t count that he’s been dead for two days, and you had to break both legs to get him to sit, plus his head is facing the wrong way. He looks like something out of the Exorcist movie.” And then I saw the guns on the table. “I’m guessing those guns belong to Rodriguez and Lucca?”
“Simon laid the guns on the table when they brought Rodriguez and Lucca in,” Hooker said. “And then everyone forgot about them. I’m hoping one of those guns was used to shoot Oscar.”
Rodriguez started to list to one side, and Felicia propped him up on his elbow. “We put this guy here in case Officer Dummy is the first on the scene and can’t figure it out.”
We all froze at the sound of gunfire.
“Upstairs,” Hooker said.
There was a loud crash, and then Rosa’s voice. “It’s okay,” she yelled down. “I got Gobbles, and he’s okay.”
I went to the foot of the stairs. “What was the gunfire about?”
“I had to shoot the lock off the bathroom door,” Rosa said. “I always wanted to do that.” Rosa had Gobbles by the back of the shirt, holding him up like he was a baby kitten. “He’s a little wobbly, but he don’t got any holes in him he’s not supposed to have. At least none I can see.”
“I went outside with the garbage,” Gobbles said, eyes glazed, semi-babbling. “It had the turkey carcass in it. It was a real good turkey, too. Nice and moist. Everybody said so. I made a real good Thanksgiving. Everybody left, and I was cleaning up, and next thing I was in the trunk of a car. And then they gave me some kind of shot, and everything was whirly, and I don’t know where I was, and then I was back in the trunk. And when I was in the trunk, I saw Jesus. And the Virgin Mary. And Ozzie Osbourne.”
“Must have been crowded in that trunk,” Rosa said.
Rosa and I got Gobbles down the stairs and into the kitchen. We walked him to the middle of the room, and he spotted Rodriguez sitting at the table and totally wigged out.
“You!” Gobbles yelled at Rodriguez. “I didn’t get any leftovers because of you. And leftovers are the best part. Everybody knows that. You don’t fuckin’ kidnap someone Thanksgiving night. I fuckin’ wait all fuckin’ year for those leftovers. I hate you. I hate you!” He grabbed the gun from Rosa, and he shot Rodriguez in the knee.
Nothing happened. Rodriguez didn’t jump, didn’t bleed, didn’t blink.
“You do know he’s dead, right?” Hooker asked Gobbles.
“Yeah. I knew that.”
“Feel better?”
“Yeah,” Gobbles said. “But I surely would like a turkey sandwich.”
I noticed a shoebox left on the table. Gucci. “Someone buys expensive shoes,” I said.
Rosa picked the box up and looked inside. “Uh-oh.”
Felicia, Hooker, Suzanne, and I looked over Rosa’s shoulder. There were two cylinders attached to a small electronic component with a clock counting down. Two minutes left on the clock.
“Bomb!” we all yelled.
Hooker grabbed the box, ran outside, and heaved it toward the water. It hit the dock, went into a skid, and exploded. We were all knocked back, and half the windows blew out.
We didn’t waste any time getting off the property. Too much trouble to alley-oop over the wall again. We ran to the water’s edge, carefully stepped into the waist-high water, scooted around the protruding stucco wall, and dragged our soaked selves onto the bank on the other side.
The white light from headlights and blue emergency strobes raced down the street and stopped in front of the gated house while we tiptoed across the backs of yards. We got to the Camry, squeezed six wet people and a big wet dog into the car, and Rosa drove off, down the street then across the causeway, toward South Beach.
I had so much leftover terror my teeth were chattering and I was shaking.
“D-d-do you think it will work?” I asked Hooker. “D-d-do you think they’ll connect Rodriguez and Lucca with the m-m-murders?”
Hooker had his arms locked around me. “There will be a lot of unanswered questions,” he said, “but I’m hoping we left the murder weapon in the kitchen. I don’t see where the police can dispute a murder weapon loaded with fingerprints.”
“Guess we know why they weren’t worried about leaving you behind,” Rosa said to Hooker. “They were going to blow you up.”
“That charge was left in the kitchen, next to the gas cooktop,” Hooker said. “I’m guessing it would have blown everything up and probably burned the place down.”
I woke up in the little bed in Felicia’s house. Beans was on the floor, still sound asleep. Hooker was on top of me, wide awake, his hand on my breast.
“Your hand is on my breast again,” I said.
“And?”
“You might want to move it lower.”
He slid his hand down a couple inches. “Here?”
“Lower.”
The hand went to just below my hip. “Here?”
“Yeah. Now a little to the right.”
“Darlin’!”
Okay, big surprise. I was going to succumb to his charms…again. And I’d probably regret it…again. But I wouldn’t regret it short term. Short term was going to be good. And who knows, maybe it would work out for us this time. And if it didn’t, I’d be smart enough to keep the key to the golf cart.
An hour later we were still in bed, and Hooker’s cell phone rang.
“I hear on the news that the police found the Huevo murder weapon in the possession of two dead suspects,” Skippy said. “It sounds like you’re off the hook. Are you planning on showing up here anytime soon?”
&
nbsp; “Do I have to?”
“We had the parade of cars this morning and your stunt double did a burnout on Forty-second Street and took out Spanky’s car. Marty Smith got to him with a microphone before I could reach him, and it sounded like Marty was interviewing Loni Anderson. If you don’t want rumors going around concerning your sexual affiliation, I think you should get your ass to New York.”
“Did they say anything else about the dead suspects?” Hooker asked Skippy.
“They said the one guy had been chewed up by the swamp monster. Imagine that.”
EPILOGUE
It was sixty degrees and sunny, it was mid-January, and it was the first day of three days of preseason testing at Daytona. Hooker’d rented a beachside house for himself and his crew, and I was included. We’d all left the beach house at seven-thirty and driven to the speedway where his crew had unloaded both triple-two Metro cars from the hauler, then rolled them across the blacktop and into their side-by-side garage bays.
Both cars were flat gray, only adorned by their numbers. No need to decorate the car up with sponsor logos for testing. Only a handful of fans would find their way to the grandstand, and there’d be no television audience. This was a work session to get the car ready to race.
Hooker’s crew was on the car, adjusting the setup. Hooker and I were in front of his hauler, drinking coffee, enjoying the morning sun. Beans was back at the house, taking his morning nap.
The 69 car was three haulers down from us, and Dickie was in the hauler with Delores. Best not to know what they were doing.
Light flashed in my peripheral vision. The sort of blinding flash you get when you tip a mirror to the sun. I shielded my eyes and turned to the light and saw that it was Suzanne Huevo swinging her ass down the garage area, the sun reflecting off her diamonds. She was wearing a Huevo Industries shirt, tight designer jeans, and boots with four-inch stiletto heels. A doggie bag hung on her shoulder, and Itsy Poo’s tiny head was stuck up, her black button eyes taking everything in.
“Yow,” Hooker whispered.
I gave him the squinty eye.
“Just looking,” he said. “A guy can look.”
I waved to Suzanne, and she walked past the two Huevo haulers to come say hello.
“We heard rumors that you were in charge, but I didn’t know if it was true,” I said to Suzanne.
“I was second in line as executor. And since Ray still hasn’t surfaced, I’m in charge until my sons come of age.”
“No word about Ray?”
“Miranda’s been in touch, making ransom noises. I told him he’d have to pay me to take Ray back. He also said the only thing they found in the bag of dog shit was dog shit. I voiced surprise over that. He then offered to market my product for me, and I declined.”
“What happens if Ray returns?”
“I suppose he could fight me for executorship, but I’ve had a chance to go into his files and collect evidence against him. He’d been robbing the company for years. The charges against him would be embezzling, at the very least. And I’m not wasting any time setting safeguards in place to protect Huevo property. The new battery and the wireless technology are in negotiation with a reputable buyer. The process is far enough along that Miranda doesn’t have an incentive to strong-arm me into partnership with him.”
“Looks like you’re going hands-on with the race-car side of Huevo,” Hooker said.
“I’m hands-on with everything my kids own,” Suzanne said. “I thought it would be good to stop around today and make my presence felt.”
Hooker’s mechanic was under the hood of the primary triple two. He revved the engine and the sound was deafening.
“Gotta go,” Suzanne said when the engine cut back. “I need to talk to Dickie before he gets in the car today.”
“Yeah,” Hooker said on a whisper to me. “Shore him up so he’s not too crushed when he loses because he’s not running with traction control.”
“About traction control,” I said to Hooker. “It turned out the gizmo wasn’t working at Homestead.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“Spanky drove a great race.”
“That is so depressing,” Hooker said. “I’m going to need some serious cheering up when we get back to the house.”
“And I suppose I’d be expected to help with the cheering up?”
Hooker smiled at me. “I could cheer myself up, but it’s a lot nicer when we get cheered up together.”
I smiled back at him. Something to look forward to. Getting cheered up with Hooker was one of my favorite things to do these days.
Suzanne had detoured to the garage area to speak to her crew chief. She stood with one hand on the dog bag, one hand at her side, her feet planted wide. She was very much the owner. Woman in charge. She finished her conversation, turned on her heel, and stalked off to the hauler to meet with Dickie.
“Something else to think about,” I said to Hooker. “Here’s the bad news. Any woman who can swing her ass like that in four-inch heels and has mother bear programmed into her hormone system will do whatever needs to be done to keep the cubs in pizza money. I wouldn’t be surprised if she used her technology to keep cheating. It’s virtually undetectable.”
“Is there good news?” Hooker wanted to know.
“Felicia called me the day after we flew out of Miami. She was walking barefoot through her dining room and pricked her foot on something sharp in the carpet. Turned out it was the chip. Beans hadn’t eaten it after all. I sent it to my pal Steven, and he backed his way through it and reproduced it for me. I just got it from FedEx yesterday. And not only do I have the duplicated technology, but I’ve come up with a way to improve on it. Because in our case, the driver would be controlling the technology, I can insert the remote into a man’s sport watch, eliminating the need for the relay.”
Hooker slid an arm around my shoulders and hugged me into him. “Darlin’!”
About the Author
JANET EVANOVICH is the recipient of the Silver Dagger, Last Laugh, Lefty, and John Creasey Memorial awards and the two-time recipient of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association’s Dilys Award. She lives in Florida…sometimes.
www.evanovich.com
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
ALSO BY JANET EVANOVICH
Metro Girl
Thanksgiving
Smitten
Manhunt
Back to the Bedroom
Love Overboard
The Rocky Road to Romance
Twelve Sharp
Eleven on Top
Ten Big Ones
To the Nines
Hard Eight
Seven Up
Hot Six
High Five
Four to Score
Three to Get Deadly
Two for the Dough
One for the Money
Visions of Sugar Plums
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MOTOR MOUTH. Copyright © 2006 by Evanovich, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © August 2006 ISBN: 9780061795824
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN–13: 978–0–06–058403–0
ISBN–10: 0–06–
058403–3
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Motor Mouth: A Barnaby Novel Page 24
