Full Speed

by Janet Evanovich

  Full Speed

  Janet Evanovich

  * * *

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Jamie Swift paced the parking lot of Hank's Pump-n-Pay as she tried to decide her next move. She was mad enough to chew a barbed-wire fence, and her anger had a name to it: Max Holt.

  Jamie needed help. She needed someone to talk to, and she needed a ride.

  She spied the phone booth and hurried toward it. Who to call? It was after midnight. People with any kind of sense were usually home in bed at this hour. She had to calm down. She sucked in three deep breaths and was immediately hit with a wave of dizziness. She grasped the metal counter beneath the telephone. It would be her luck to hyperventilate right here in the parking lot, fall on her face, and be scarred for life. Yeesh.

  Jamie spied the sticker on the pay telephone that read: DESPERATE FOR HELP? CALL LEND-A-HAND HOTLINE. She leaned closer and read the small print: We're Here for You Twenty-four Hours a Day.

  Desperate, the advertisement read. That was her, all right. Desperate with a capital D. Plus, she was losing her mind. Or what was left of it after two weeks of dodging bullets from a drive-by shooting, almost getting blown to smithereens by a car bomb, and falling into a river and into the path of a hungry alligator. Hell's bells, she was lucky to be alive.

  Jamie plunked two quarters into the pay phone. Her hand trembled. The fact it had started raining didn't even faze her. After what she'd been through, that was small potatoes.

  Big potatoes was being stranded in a Podunk town she'd never heard of in the middle of the night, with her best friend more than two hours away. Big potatoes was being ogled by a gas station attendant whose oil-stained T-shirt stretched tight across a belly that had obviously sucked down a record number of Budweisers. She glanced his way. Even from a distance he looked dumb as cow dung. Probably had a tat-too on his butt that read This Side Down just in case he forgot. He looked at her like he hadn't seen a woman since inside plumbing. Like the kind of man people wouldn't let near their barnyard animals.

  She dialed the number.

  "Lend-a-Hand Hotline, this is Tanisha."

  "Oh, thank God," Jamie said, glad to hear another voice. "I'm, uh—" She glanced down at the ad once more. "I'm desperate."

  "Could you hold, please?"

  There was a click. Jamie blinked. And waited. She would not cry. She was made of tougher stuff than that. Tough as nails, that's what she was. She glanced toward the man inside the gas station, not more than fifty feet away. Yeah, he really did look kind of goofy. Like maybe there were a couple of orangutans hanging from his family tree. Like maybe his parents had been first cousins. Jamie stared right back at him. Finally, he looked away.

  "Hello?" The woman named Tanisha was back.

  "Yes. My name is Jamie, and I'm in trouble."

  "Are you pregnant and scared and suffering feelings of isolation and helplessness? Afraid of telling your parents?"

  Jamie blinked. "No."

  "Are you depressed?"

  "Well, I—"

  "Are you having trouble sleeping at night or sleeping too much? Experiencing appetite changes, feelings of sadness or doom, unable to get up in the morning?" The woman paused, drew in breath, and went on in rapid-fire succession. "Have you lost interest in people, places, or things that used to bring you pleasure? Do you enjoy sex?"

  "Sex?"

  Huge sigh. "Girl, you got to work with me, 'cause I've got a possible jumper on the other line and I'm the only one working the phones tonight."

  "I've never done this sort of thing before," Jamie confessed.

  "Me, neither. It's my first night."

  Jamie slapped her open palm against her forehead. A rookie.

  "Listen up. Does your problem have something to do with a man?" Tanisha said the word as though it weren't fit to be used in polite company. " 'Cause I know about men, honey."

  "Sort of."

  "Sister, you hold right there while I try to talk this idiot off the roof of his house. If he don't get off this time, I'm going over there personally and push the SOB."

  Another click. Jamie wondered if she'd made a mistake by calling. Maybe she wasn't as desperate as she thought; she certainly hadn't considered diving off a rooftop. That had to be a good sign. The man in the gas station had settled down with a magazine, and the rain had slacked off. Things were looking up.

  Tanisha picked up. "OK, I'm all ears."

  * * * * *

  "... And so there I was, running my little newspaper in Beaumont, South Carolina, minding my own business ..." Jamie paused. "Did I tell you that I own the newspaper? My daddy left it to me when he died. It has been in my family for years."

  Silence.

  "Hello? Tanisha? Are you there?"

  The woman on the other end yawned. "Do you think we could cut to the chase, Jamie? I don't need your life history, and to tell you the truth, my attention span isn't that great. I think I have ADHD."

  "Oh." Jamie realized she had been talking for some time, but she'd assumed Tanisha would need background information if she was going to help. "OK, so the next thing I knew, this gazillionaire, Maximillian Holt, blew into my life like a bad wind and turned it upside down. See, I need balance and predictability. Max is not a predictable person."

  "So what's the problem? Were you born without feet so that you couldn't walk away?"

  "It wasn't as simple as that," Jamie replied. "Max is my silent partner. He kept my newspaper from going bankrupt."

  "OK, so this is a business problem."

  "No." Jamie glanced toward the gas station. The man inside was sleeping, head thrown back, slack-jawed. Maybe he was harmless after all. She went back to her conversation. "Max and I were a team. Not only were we trying to investigate corruption in my town, somebody hired a couple of hit men to kill Max. And guess who found herself right in the middle of it? The gunfire shattered the windows at my newspaper office. If Max hadn't pushed me down on the floor, I wouldn't be talking to you right now."

  "Wait a minute, what's with this hit men stuff?" Tanisha asked.

  "We think this big-time preacher from Sweet Pea, Tennessee, ordered the hit. He has mob connections. He wanted to buy Max's TV network, but he couldn't scrape the money together fast enough. When Max sold it to another person, someone was mad enough to hire a hit."

  "Girl, what'choo mean coming to me with hit men shit? Am I going to lose my kneecaps for hearing this?"

  "Nobody knows I called you."

  "Listen to me," Tanisha said. "This is police business. I'm going to hang up now."

  "Hey, I put fifty cents into the phone. Don't I get some advice? Plus, I was hoping you could tell me where I could get a ride."

  "I am not being paid enough to handle mob-related problems. I have a family: a husband, three kids, six brothers, and two sisters. I have cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents. I have three cats and a beagle. I've got more relatives than the Brady Bunch and the Waltons put together. I can't just disappear into one of those witness protection programs, you get my drift?" The woman on the other end of the line gave a huge sigh. "Just answer me this: Where is Max now?"

  "He dumped me."

  "Excuse me
!"

  "We were on our way to Tennessee, you know, to go look for this minister and his mob friends. Max waited until we got two hours out of Beaumont, and he just stopped the car in the middle of the road and turned around. Said he was taking me home. Said I would, quote, just be in the way, unquote." She paused. "After all we'd been through together, I lost my temper. I made him stop the car. We had this huge fight on the side of the road, and, well ..." Jamie paused as she recalled their argument. "It was bad."

  "So what did you do?"

  "Fortunately, it happened close to a gas station, so I walked over."

  "And he just drove off and left you?"

  "Actually, he came back for me, but I refused to get in." Jamie paused. "Maybe I overreacted."

  "You think?"

  "I'm better off without him, Tanisha. All I've ever wanted was to live a normal life. Max is not normal."

  "Girl, there ain't no such thing as normal."

  Jamie thought of Phillip, the man she'd almost married because he'd seemed so safe and normal. Yet his mother had been the ringleader of the corruption in Beaumont. "You may have something there, Tanisha."

  "And you don't want to go nosin' around some crazy preacher with mob friends. Besides, it sounds like you and Max are done."

  Jamie didn't answer.

  "Hello?"

  "It wasn't all about Max," Jamie said. "I was hoping to land a story for my newspaper. I could just taste the headlines, Tanisha: Renowned Evangelist Hires Hit Men to Take Out Millionaire Tycoon. This story could have given me my big break. Not only would it have sold newspapers, it probably would have been picked up by the Associated Press. I'll bet Newsweek or Time magazine would have bought it. This is the kind of story I have always wanted to write."

  "Look, you asked for my advice and I gave it to you."

  "You're saying I should walk away from my big story and let Max have the final say?" She was suddenly indignant. "I don't think so. I have always made my own decisions."

  "Hey, it's not like I'm charging you for this, you know. You want to end up buried beneath a concrete building, go for it." She sniffed as though she were truly peeved. "Besides, I think you had your mind all made up long before you called me."

  Jamie stood there for a moment, letting the words sink in. "You're right, Tanisha. I just needed to talk it out. To hell with Max. I'm going to Sweet Pea, Tennessee, whether he likes it or not. Besides, I got something he doesn't have."

  "And that would be?"

  "I'm a woman, that's what. And from the information we've already gotten on the man, it seems this preacher likes women. They're his weakness. I'm going to bait him, Tanisha. I'll have him eating out of my hand so fast he won't know what hit him, and when I get finished I'll have the story of my life."

  "What about Max?"

  "What about him?" Jamie hung up, a satisfied smile on her face.

  Chapter One

  Jamie's excitement about going to Tennessee was short-lived. How the heck was she going to get there without a car? Her vintage Mustang was in the shop back in Beaumont, South Carolina: dented, banged up, with a couple of bullet holes.

  She needed a plan.

  She needed wheels.

  The rain started to fall once more. What she really needed at the moment was either a really big umbrella or a place to stay for the night.

  Jamie glanced at the sign on the road that read: Whittville: 2 Miles. That didn't tell her much; she'd never heard of the town.

  She watched a tow truck turn in to the gas station and pull up beside one of the gas pumps. A big man in navy overalls climbed out and began pumping gas. He glanced at her, politely tipped his cap, and nodded, as though it were an everyday occurrence to find a woman pacing the parking lot of a run-down gas station at this hour.

  Hmm. Maybe he could give her a ride.

  Jamie approached him. He looked harmless enough. He was middle-aged and wore a wedding ring. His overalls were snug; he looked well fed. Probably had a wife at home who spent a lot of time in the kitchen. They probably ate their dinner on those cute little folding tray tables in front of the TV set while sitting in matching recliners. Their relationship was probably simple and uncomplicated.

  The man caught her staring. "Good evening, ma'am."

  The name Buford Noll had been stitched on a little patch sewn to his overalls. Yep, he looked respectable enough.

  "Good evening to you, Mr. Noll," Jamie said, trying to sound upbeat. "I was wondering if you could give me a lift into town. I'll pay you."

  "Well, sure. Any place in particular?"

  "I need to find a nice, inexpensive motel for the night."

  "Oh, well." He rubbed his jaw. "The one in Whittville is pretty run-down. Probably have to go all the way into Jessup."

  "How far is that?"

  " 'Bout twelve miles."

  "Like I said, I'll pay you."

  "Oh, you don't have to do that. I'm headed that way, but I got to make a quick stop first."

  Jamie was relieved. "Thank you."

  "You can go ahead and climb on in, Miss ..."

  "Just call me Jamie." She hurried around to the passenger's side. Things were definitely beginning to look up.

  * * * * *

  Parked in the shadows across the street, Max Holt watched Jamie climb into the tow truck. She had not seen him return; she had been talking on the telephone.

  "What's she doing now?" a voice asked from the dashboard.

  "Looks like she just found a ride home."

  "Man, you really screwed up big-time."

  Max stared at the blinking lights on the front of the dash. A former NASA scientist had designed his car, a Porsche look-alike, only bigger, with a virtually indestructible titanium exterior. The car held state-of-the-art equipment, which ranged from a global positioning satellite system to a full videoconferencing suite and a high-powered computer that ran it all. Max had personally created artificial intelligence with voice recognition technology that would not be available for years to come.

  His invention, which he called Muffin, had a Marilyn Monroe voice and "she" could literally think for herself. Muffin was stubborn and mouthy and, as ludicrous as it sounded, capable of emotion. She was constantly taking in data, but unlike other computers, she formed opinions and made judgment calls. And thanks to his sister, Deedee, who was in the throes of menopause and had complained to Muffin of her symptoms, Muffin had processed the information and was now suffering the same malady.

  Muffin, too, was going through menopause. She had hot flashes, mood swings, and she threatened to shut down her own hard drive permanently each time Max crossed her. Currently she was having an on-again-off-again on-line romance with a laptop computer at MIT. She was almost more than Max could handle. To say that he had created a monster was an understatement.

  "What are you going to do now, big shot?" Muffin asked. "Mr. Love-'em-and-leave-'em?" she added, never one to mince words.

  "That's not the way it was between Jamie and me."

  "Yeah, and that's what really has you pissed. I mean, who would have thought it? There's actually a woman out there who doesn't think you're the best thing since online trading."

  Max tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he watched the tow truck pull away from the parking lot.

  "I was trying to protect her. This job is going to be dangerous. The good Reverend Harlan Rawlins and his mob pals are probably looking for me as we speak."

  "But that's not what you told her, was it? You told her she would only get in your way."

  "That's how you deal with a woman like Jamie. If I had told her I was afraid for her she wouldn't have listened."

  "So you decided to hurt her feelings instead. Great idea, Max. You shouldn't have agreed to let her come in the first place."

  "You're the one who insisted I bring her."

  "You never listen to me. Besides, I wouldn't have advised you to do it had I known you would dump her halfway to Tennessee."

  "It's better this way
," Max said. "I need to think clearly, and I can't do it if Jamie's around."

  "Look, I don't have time to take on your personal problems, OK? My job is to keep you out of trouble and make you look good by providing you with any and all information you might need."

  "Thank you."

  "You still screwed up."

  Max shook his head as he started his engine and put the car into gear. It shot off, leaving a dust cloud in its wake.

  * * * * *

  Ten minutes after Jamie had climbed into the tow truck, she found herself on a dirt road in a remote area. The truck's headlights provided the only light. "How much farther?" she asked.

  "We should be coming up on it soon," Buford said. "We're looking for a pink-and-white house trailer with a brand-new SUV parked in front of it."

  The shabby-looking mobile home appeared right after the next bend. A white Ford Explorer was parked out front. "Nice wheels," she said. "Looks like it just rolled off the show-room floor. Don't tell me the owner is already having mechanical problems."

  Buford grunted. "The new owner is having problems making payments. That's where I come in." He turned into the driveway.

  "What do you mean?"

  "It's being repossessed. I'm here to pick it up. Thank goodness there are no lights on, that means he's asleep. Makes my job a whole lot easier." He put the truck into reverse and backed toward the SUV.

  Jamie gaped. "You're taking this person's car?"

  "He hasn't made a payment in three months. I'm just doing my job." He put the truck into neutral, set the emergency brake, left the motor running. "Better lock your door. Some people don't cotton to having their vehicles towed off like this."

  "Wait a minute," Jamie said. "You said you had to make a quick stop. To me a quick stop is hitting a McDonald's drive-through window or maybe grabbing a cup of coffee to go at the Waffle House. You never mentioned repo'ing somebody's vehicle."

  "Won't take me long," Buford said, climbing from the truck.

  "Oh, no." Jamie twisted around in her seat and watched Buford unwind a cable and attach a massive hook to the underside of the SUV. He hit a switch, and a motor churned to life. The vehicle climbed upward.