Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun (Finlay Donovan, #3)(62)

“Nothing,” Charlie said, kneeling in the brush. “Probably just a couple of raccoons making trouble. Come on.” His light swung away, his footsteps fading with it.

Nick’s light made another slow pass before clicking off again. Vero and I waited until they disappeared up the hill before breaking into a run.





CHAPTER 23


Vero and I stumbled out of the woods, breathing hard.

“That was close,” I panted.

“You think they saw us?”

“I don’t know, but let’s get out of here before they decide to come looking.” I sagged against the passenger side of the training cruiser, clutching a cramp in my side as Vero rounded the hood. She paused beside the driver’s door and looked at me over the roof. “What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?” I hurried around to her side of the car and stopped in my tracks. “Oh, god. That’s…”

“A whole lotta penis.” Vero and I both took a few steps back to absorb the entire image. The giant blue phallus spanned the length of the car. Its testicles had been artfully spray-painted around the rear wheel well, encircling the tire treads and dripping down the lug nuts.

“Jesus.”

Vero reached for the door. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”

“Go where? We can’t drive it back to the academy with a giant penis painted on it!”

“We have to take it somewhere. Nick and Charlie could come rolling by any minute, and we do not want to be sitting in the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile when they…” Her face fell as she patted the pockets of Ty’s pants.

“No. No, no, no! Do not tell me you lost the keys!”

“They must have fallen out while I was running! I told you running was a bad idea!”

“What do we do?” I asked, trying the handle of every door. We were miles from the nearest town and my purse was under the passenger seat.

Vero stared at the car. With a swear, she leaned over the hood and pulled the windshield wiper toward her. Prying back the soft black cover, she extracted a thin metal rod from underneath.

“Don’t judge,” she said, ignoring my dubious look as she bent the end of the rod and slipped it through the gap between the car door and the window frame. She worked it down the side, wiggling it into place. After a few tries, she gave a sharp, upright pull. “Get in,” she said, hauling her door open.

By the time I made it to the passenger side, Vero had the driver’s seat slid all the way back and the plastic cover removed from the dashboard under the steering wheel. “I can’t believe we’re hot-wiring a police car.” I gnawed my thumbnail as she fiddled with the wires. “It feels like we’re stealing it.”

“We stole the car three hours ago.”

“We didn’t steal it. We borrowed it. We had a key.”

“Like we had a key to the Aston Martin?”

She had a point. “Did Ramón teach you how to do this?”

“Ramón would kill me if he knew I knew how to do this. I watched Javi do it. Twice.” Vero held two wires together. The car started with a cough. She slapped the plastic cover back in place and eased onto the road as she tossed me her phone.

“Find me the most scenic route you can to Ramón’s. The fewer cars and traffic lights, the better.”

“But the garage isn’t open.”

“Exactly. And he might have something in his shop that will get rid of the spray paint.”

I directed Vero along the most rural routes I could find. The trees rushed by in hypnotizing patterns as the adrenaline rush of the last hour began to wane.

Vero’s attention was split between the road and her rearview mirror. “Don’t you think it’s strange that Nick didn’t tell his own partner he was coming out here?”

“Nick obviously didn’t want to wait until the morning. And Joey’s a stickler for the rules.”

“Is he really though? Or does he just want people to think he’s all virtuous and righteous. Maybe it’s all just a show. Charlie seems suspicious of him.”

“Charlie also seemed eager to go poking around without a warrant.”

“I don’t know, Finn,” Vero said with a thoughtful shake of her head. “The more time we spend around Joey Balafonte, the more convinced I am that he’s EasyClean.”

I couldn’t necessarily argue with that. Nick obviously had reservations about his partner. And Charlie was openly skeptical. Still, I wasn’t ready to sic Feliks’s dogs on Joey. Not until we had proof.

We fell silent as unmarked rural roads gave way to painted lines and traffic lights, checking every side street we passed, anywhere a real police car might be waiting to pounce. Vero eased to a stop, parking along the curb a block away from Ramón’s garage. She killed the headlights and left the engine running.

“Why’d we stop?”

Vero pointed at the gate to the salvage yard. A familiar black Camaro was parked in front. A sleek black Cadillac SUV idled alongside it. “Javi’s here,” she said, squinting through the windshield, “but I don’t know those two guys he’s talking to.”

The men’s expressions were severe under the glare of their headlights. One of them threw up his hands and shouted at Javi.