“Did I mention she’s in a hurry?”
Alan cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. “Very well,” he said in a low voice. “Wait here, please.” He disappeared into an office. A moment later, he returned and discreetly slid a key fob into my hand as he shook it. “Please tell Mrs. Borovkov we hope she enjoys her test drive.”
I fled the showroom with a muttered “thanks,” frantically pushing buttons on the fob until lights flashed and an engine roared on. The taillights of a sleek matte black sports car burned a hot, bright red. Vero made a sound that bordered on erotic as she eased into the driver’s seat. My heart raced as I ducked into the passenger side and locked the door. I stared at the dashboard, unable to form words. The exterior of the car was a giant phallus, and the interior looked like Darth Vader’s bathroom.
“I told you to pick something practical!”
“You also told me to pick something fast. This baby has over seven hundred horsepower.”
“We don’t need seven hundred horsepower! We need room for Carl!”
Her eyes drifted closed as she revved the engine. “Shhhh, I think I’m having a religious experience.”
“You can pray to the car later. We need to get out of here before we attract any more attention.” I twisted in my seat to see Alan watching us from the sidewalk.
“Don’t worry. I picked a very subdued color. See? Minimalist.” Vero handed me a spec sheet from the glove box. “We’ll be far less noticeable in the dark.”
My breath felt thin when I saw the price at the bottom of the page. “Vero! This car is worth three hundred thousand dollars!”
Vero threw the car in gear. “You told me to channel my inner Irina. And Irina Borovkov gives zero fucks.” Vero hit the gas, swinging the Aston Martin out of its parking space. Alan raised his arm against the glare of our headlights as Vero gunned it, our tires leaving him in a cloud of smoke as we tore out of the parking lot.
CHAPTER 38
Vero and I raced back to the motel and transferred the bag containing Carl from the minivan into the trunk of the Aston Martin. I left the van keys under the seat, along with Steven’s phone, and pocketed the hotel key, resisting the urge to unlock the room and check on him. We had a long night ahead of us, and I wasn’t sure how long we could keep the car before Alan grew anxious and called Irina.
As I’d feared, the car attracted a lot of attention until we were several miles west of the city, where the twelve lanes of the interstate narrowed to six and the darkness thickened to conceal us. Vero navigated toward Carl’s address as I studied Google’s satellite image of his five-acre plot on my phone. The lot appeared to be heavily wooded. The western side of the property bordered a rural road and a country store.
“We can park behind that little market. There’s a clearing in the trees about an acre in. We should have a clean line of sight to the rear of the house.”
We took the rural road that ran alongside Carl’s property, dimming the headlights as we pulled in behind the store. We left Carl in the trunk and locked the doors, using the light of our phones to see our way through the woods. Dead leaves and frosted ground crackled under our shoes.
“I think we’re close,” I said after we’d hiked a good distance, pausing to consult the GPS on my phone before turning it off. We picked our way through the trees in the dark. The clearing ahead was small, the ground irregular and mounded. The trees thinned on the far side of it, and through them, we could make out the lit windows of a house. “There it is,” I said, pointing to a sprawling rambler down a shallow hill.
“Ow!” Vero jolted to a stop, hopping up and down on one leg and grabbing her foot. “What the hell was that?” I looked around her, but hardly a wisp of moonlight filtered through the dense pockets of clouds. I could barely make out Vero’s features beside me, much less the ground.
I switched on my phone light, careful to keep the beam pointed down. It bounced off a shiny surface, the reflection nearly blinding me. I blinked down at a thick slab of glossy marble.
“This isn’t a clearing. It’s a private cemetery.” I aimed my light left, then right, counting four grave markers. “These must belong to Carl’s family.” The frozen ground crunched as Vero and I walked between the headstones, shining the beam over the names.
“You must be kidding. This is perfect!” Vero said.
“What do you mean?”
“Remember in one of your books, how you said the heroine hid a body in a grave that belonged to someone else? We can bury Carl right here with his family. It’s the one place no one would think to look.”