Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(28)

She really never stopped until they were up the hill at Victorville, an hour out of the house, not even when she’d bent herself over the seat to get a different set of clothes out of her bag and her naked and, honestly, totally excellent ass was rubbing Beauchamps’s right cheek, which made it even harder to maintain his lane. In Victorville, they pulled into a Mobil station for gas and food and cold drinks.

As they were gassing up the vehicles, Cole told Beauchamps and Deese, “I got my laptop, if we can find some WiFi, and we can get the news.”

“Wait until we get to Vegas. There won’t be anything yet anyway,” Beauchamps said. “We need a better place than the trailer park, we can’t all four stay there. Geenie’s already driving me crazy with her whining.”

“You think Vegas is far enough?” Deese asked.

“Orange County would have been far enough, except for that fuckin’ LA television. Vegas is quick, and we got the trailer and can lay low for a while until we can find a house to rent,” Beauchamps said. He looked at Cole. “We’ll get to Vegas, buy some wedding rings for you and Geenie, and you can rent a couple of houses. Nobody knows your face. And it’s easy renting houses there.”

“We can do that,” Cole said. He lit a cigarette. “If Geenie’s getting on your case, she could ride with me.”

“There’s an idea.” Cox had gone to the restroom to change clothes. When she came back, they’d transferred Cole’s stuff to Beauchamps’s car and Beauchamps’s stuff to Deese’s truck.

Beauchamps told her about the wedding rings and renting houses, and she said, “Hey, my friend rented an apartment for two months with that Airdnc thing. She said there was this girl in Vegas who’ll get you into one of them, no questions asked, and you can stay as long as you want, if you pay up front. All furnished with WiFi and TV and everything.”

“That’s a possibility,” Beauchamps said. “We’ll check it out when we get there.”

“How come I’m riding with Cole?” Cox asked, looking among the three men.

“’Cause Deese and I got things to talk about. And because you’re driving me fuckin’ nuts,” Beauchamps said. “Besides, you and Cole can work on your husband-wife act.”


THEY WERE out of Victorville before it got hot, and Cox, who’d changed into shorts and a T-shirt in the Mobil station restroom, started talking again, about leaving California, about life in general, and though Cole didn’t have much to say, he’d chip in with a word every now and then, encouraging her to go on, which she appreciated, because sometimes she had the feeling she talked too much.

Once past Barstow, with the sun now getting up in the sky, she said, “This is the part I hate. There’s nothing from Barstow to the Nevada line. Two hours of nothing. Down in Tucson, they got great-looking cactuses. Up here, we got shit.”

“Time passes,” Cole said. “Mind if I smoke?”

“I don’t mind, but crack the window and blow the smoke out,” she said. She looked out the window at the Mojave as he lit up. “Absolutely nothing out here. It’s like looking at a TV with the power off. We’d usually get about halfway up there and Marty would make me go down on him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Something we did. He’d be swerving all over the highway when he got close. Couple of times, we got passed by a semi and the driver saw what we were doing and he’d honk his horn at us. You know, real long . . . Hooooooonk.”

Cole grinned and took a long drag off the cigarette.

Deese’s truck was a quarter mile ahead of them, both vehicles rolling along at a steady 80 miles an hour. “So fuckin’ boring,” Cox said. Then, “You know, the brothers are going to take care of themselves. They’re not going to take care of us. I don’t even know why they’re taking me along. I could go back to LA and who’d guess I even knew you guys?”

“Remember about the fingerprints,” Cole said. “If you’ve ever been printed—”

“I haven’t been. I never been arrested for anything,” Cox said.

“Really?”

“Really. What’d you think, that I was on the corner?”

“Well, I never figured out you and Marty,” Cole said. “You didn’t exactly seem like a girlfriend. Like when he was banging that actress chick, he was right out front about it. You didn’t seem to care.”

“I didn’t. Less wear and tear on me,” Cox said.

“So . . . I thought maybe he was paying you to hang around.”

“He was, sorta. Not like a hundred bucks a time, or whatever,” Cox said. “But, well, two words: ‘money’ and ‘cocaine.’ I wasn’t on the corner, but I do like money and cocaine. I like rich guys, especially the ones who like to spend the money and who like to go out clubbing. Dancing. Who’ll loan out their Amex cards. I dated a lot of Arab boys from USC.”

“Huh.” Cole thought about that, then said, “I only had one legitimate credit card in my life. From Sears, and I think they went broke. I got it when I was a kid so I could buy tires and tools and shit.”

Cox reached across the seat and patted him on the leg. “You always seemed like a nice guy to me, a lot nicer than the others,” she said. A minute later: “If Marty and I develop a problem, would you take care of me?”