Motor Mouth - Janet Evanovich [61]
“The coach door is too narrow,” I said to Hooker after several attempts. “Try turning him again.”
“Darlin’, we’ve turned him every possible way.”
“It’s this thing sticking straight out. It must be his arm. It just doesn’t fit through the door.”
“Go inside and see if you can find something to grease him up with. Maybe if we get him slippery.”
I took the flashlight and went through the cabinets, but they’d all been emptied. I was checking the refrigerator when I heard a sound like a baseball bat hitting a tree trunk.
I went to the coach door and looked out at Hooker. “What was that?”
“I don’t know, but I think he’ll fit now.”
“What are you holding behind your back?”
“A shovel.”
“That’s disgusting. That’s desecration of the dead.”
“I’m a desperate man,” Hooker said.
We wrangled Bernie through the door, I dried the garbage bag off as best I could in the stairway, and we carted Bernie back to the bedroom and set him on the towel on the bed.
“Maybe we should take the bag off,” I said. “I’d hate to have someone discover him and think he was garbage.”
“No!” Hooker said. “Trust me. You don’t want to do that. He’s a lot better in the bag. A lot better.”
Hooker adjusted the temperature, and we closed the door on Bernie. We walked Beans around so he could tinkle and stretch his legs, and then we all piled into the SUV and headed for the abandoned factory that Hooker hadn’t bought.
The factory was just as we’d left it. No SWAT teams. No flashing police strobes or crime scene tape. Our hidey-hole was still our secret. Inside the building it was pitch black and cold. At least it was dry. It had a bathroom that worked. I took my grocery bag filled with clothes into the bathroom and changed. When I came out Hooker was already dressed and feeding Beans.
We sat in the SUV and ate the rotisserie chicken and drank the beer, then polished off the bags of cookies.
“Do we have a plan for tomorrow?” I asked Hooker.
“Yeah. We abduct Rodriguez and Lucca and beat the crap out of them.”
“And we’re doing this why?”
“To get information. And after we get the information, we’ll get them to confess to everything. I have it all figured out. I can put my cell phone on movie mode and send the confession to the police.”
“Is that legal?”
“Probably not. The police will have to beat their own confession out of Rodriguez and Lucca to make it entirely legal. Our video would be more of a How to Solve the Crime Without Unjustly Arresting Hooker and Barney guide.”
I woke up tucked in between Beans and Hooker. Light was dim in the building interior where Hooker had parked the SUV, but the sun was bright beyond the open garage-bay door. Beans was still asleep, his warm broad back pressed against me, his breathing deep and even. Hooker had me in a stranglehold. His leg was thrown over mine, his arms tightly wrapped around me, his hands inside my shirt, one hand cupping a breast.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you awake?”
“No.”
“You’ve got your hands inside my shirt…again.”
“My hands were cold,” Hooker said. “And your boobs are nice and warm.”
“For a minute there I thought you were getting friendly.”
“Who me?” And he lightly brushed his thumb across my nipple.
“Stop that!” I struggled to slide out from under him and drag myself up to a sitting position. “I’m starving.”
I crawled out of the SUV and cleaned up as best I could in the sink. I washed my hair and finger-combed it dry. Hooker used my toothbrush, but he didn’t tempt fate a second time with the pink razor, so he was looking a little mountain man.
We hit the McDonald’s drive-thru in Concord, and when Hooker reached for the bags of food, he was recognized.
“Omigod,” the girl at the window said. “You’re Sam Hooker. The police are looking for you.”
Hooker handed the bags and coffees over to me. “Sorry,” he said to the girl. “He’s my cousin. Family resemblance. Happens all the time. Sometimes I even sign autographs for him.”
“I hear he’s a real asshole,” the girl said.
Hooker rolled his window up and drove away.
“That went well,” I said to Hooker.