“I did not mug you, so don’t you even go accusing me of that! Finlay and I found you that way. And just because a guy holds a door open for me doesn’t give you the right to get all pissy about it.”
Javi settled back against the booster seat, the tension in the van abating as he lowered his voice. “If you found me that way, then why’d you take my stuff?”
“Why do you keep so many condoms in your wallet?”
“Who’s pissy now?”
Vero’s mouth snapped shut. She turned around in her seat. “We emptied your pockets on the way to the hospital in case the doctors needed to cut off your clothes.”
“For a concussion?”
“Happens all the time. If you watched Grey’s Anatomy, you’d know.”
Javi shook his head. “Are you going to tell me what really happened last night?”
“Do I have to?”
“You want me to ask Ramón?”
Sleet pinged off the car as Javi and Vero stared at each other.
“You might as well tell him,” I suggested cautiously, hoping she’d read in my tone the details she should probably leave out. “We have to get rid of the car somehow. It can’t stay where it is.” Not anymore.
“What car?” Javi’s eyes glinted as I met them in the rearview mirror.
Vero threw up her hands, deferring to me.
“How long would it take you to strip and sell off an Aston Martin Superleggera?” I asked him.
A low chuckle of disbelief started in Javi’s chest. It died as he looked from Vero to me, then back again. “What the hell are you doing with a car like that?”
“It’s a long story,” Vero said.
“Does your cousin know?”
“It’s in the shed in his scrapyard.”
“If he knows about the car, then why all the secrecy the other night?”
“Ramón made me promise not to tell anyone.” Javi slouched into the booster seat like the wind had been knocked out of him. He scrubbed a hand over his face, staring through the icy window beside him. “It’s not what you think, Javi. He just worries. He doesn’t want his garage tangled up with anything questionable.”
Javi’s laugh was cynical. “I’ve known Ramón my entire fucking life, V. I promise you, it’s not the garage he’s worried about.” His eyes found mine in the mirror. “How much do you need for it?”
“As much as you can get without raising any red flags,” I said. “We can’t have it traced.”
“I take ten percent off the top.”
“So do the people I owe,” Vero muttered.
Javi swore, shaking his head as if he was holding back a lecture. He leaned forward in his seat with a heavy sigh. “Give me the keys. I need to take a look at it before I make any calls.” He held up a hand when Vero started to protest. “I’ll go after hours. I won’t say anything to Ramón. I promise,” he added.
Vero unspooled the shed key from her key ring and passed it back to Javi with a quiet thanks. He slipped it in his pocket and pulled up his hood. “I’ll come by Finlay’s house in a couple of days and let you know how long it’ll take to unload it.”
“We won’t be home,” Vero said as he slid open the van door.
His face was unreadable under the shadow of his coat. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and tossed it to her.
“Keep it on. I’ll know where to find you.” He got out and loped to his car before either of us could warn him not to come looking for us.
CHAPTER 10
Vero and I boarded the charter bus to the citizen’s police academy just after sunrise on Monday morning. I fell into one of the last available seats toward the back, cradling my thermos of coffee, my eyelids already threatening to drift shut. I’d been up most of the night, staring down my revision for Sylvia, and while I had no problem envisioning the hot cop’s very impressive assets （or what the heroine would like to do with them）， whenever I began typing, the bad guys closed in and someone managed to die. Last night, it had been a huge, tattooed street fighter named Refrigerator Mike whom my heroine had mowed down with her car, and at four in the morning, before crawling into bed, I’d deleted the entire chapter.
Vero nudged me awake as she arched up in her seat, checking out the other passengers around us. “Did you know Mrs. Haggerty was coming?” she whispered.
I sat up, holding my thermos away from me as coffee dribbled from a leak in the top. “Where?” Vero pointed to a nest of gray hair a few rows in front of us. Great. The woman who’d been watching my house like it was a Netflix Original would be spending a week getting up close and personal with the detectives who were unknowingly investigating us.
“Who’s her friend?” Vero asked as Mrs. Haggerty chatted up the tall, attractive gentleman seated beside her. He looked familiar, but it took me a minute to place him.
“I think that’s her grandson.” He’d visited her over the holidays, and I vaguely remembered a rushed and clumsy introduction as he was taking out her trash and I was emptying my mailbox.
I clutched my chest as a head popped up in the seat in front of me. A young woman in tortoiseshell glasses smiled at us over her headrest. She didn’t look much older than Vero, and I wondered how she had afforded the police academy registration. The week of room and board hadn’t been cheap, and after considering the meager funds in both of our accounts, Vero and I had charged the fees to my credit card. A young man with a shock of unruly red hair popped up beside her. He extended his hand over the headrest. “I’m Riley. This is Maxine,” he said, hitching his thumb toward the girl.
“Call me Max,” she insisted. “We’re so excited for police academy! Aren’t you?”
Vero jabbed an elbow in my ribs before I could answer that.
“What do you all do?” Max asked us.
“Finlay is a famous author—”
“I’m really not,” I corrected Vero. Judging by the likely trajectory of my career, infamous was probably more accurate.
“And I’m her accountant. We’re here doing research for her next romantic suspense novel.”
Max’s eyes went wide over her seat back. “Seriously? Riley and I are in the entertainment business, too. We’re podcasters.”
“True crime,” Riley explained. “We’re recording a behind-the-scenes series about criminal investigations. We’re going to document everything we do this week for our show.”
“We’d love to feature you,” Max suggested. “You know, ask you some questions about why you came and what you hope to get out of your week here. I bet people would be really interested to hear how you get your ideas.”
My smile was so tight, it hurt. “I bet they would.”
“She’d be happy to,” Vero said, throwing me on the altar.
The bus started moving and Riley and Max turned back in their seats.
“We’re not talking to anyone this week,” I whispered. “We have one job, and that’s to find EasyClean.”
“Correction. You have two jobs. One for Feliks and one for Sylvia. You’re going to finish your revision so we can get paid.”