by Diana Layne
“Shh,” Tasha motioned with her fingers before stepping through the panel. “Sounds like people are still in the room. Damn it. I need a shower.”
“You were going to take one here?”
“You’re not the one with wine and slobber and blood all over you, thanks.”
That would explain why Tasha carried her pants, which were still intact, instead of putting them on. That fact had really just registered with MJ, given her scattered thoughts of the last few minutes. “I see your point. You’ll have to tough it out until we get to the hotel.”
“I’ve been through worse. Is there a window in the bathroom?”
“Yes, but it’s a two-story house, you planning on jumping?”
Tasha pulled on her pants, then stuffed her gun in the waistband. “I’d rather not.”
MJ snooped through the cedar-lined cherry wood wardrobe. “What about these ties? We can make a rope.”
“That’ll work. Let’s find some clothes.”
The old guy certainly had enough clothes from which to choose. In a drawer of the wardrobe they found a variety of expensive Ralph Lauren polo sweaters. They each chose one, MJ blue and Tasha red, pulling them over white dress shirts. MJ found a pair of wool pants that almost fit. She tried on his costly leather belt, but there weren’t enough holes to make it fit. If she had a knife she could punch extra holes but the knife was downstairs, covered in blood. She tugged the belt out of the loops and threw it on the floor.
Tasha chose a leather jacket as an overcoat while MJ chose a thermal lined walking coat. After both of them slipped on their sneakers over a pair of thick wool socks two sizes too big, Tasha said, “Let’s get busy.”
With an ear toward the door, the two women tied fancy silk ties together to make a rope.
“That looks long enough.” Tasha walked into the bathroom, climbed on the toilet and looked out the window. “Thank goodness this room is on the back of the house.”
“Where’s our car?”
“Car. Where are the keys if we find it?”
“Damn.” The women looked at each other and said in unison, “medical bag.” It was still downstairs. Tasha flipped the lever and MJ ran back down the stairs, nearly losing the wool slacks on the way. She grabbed the medical bag, checked for the keys and sprinted back up the stairs. “Give me one of those ties,” she whispered, setting the bag down. “I need some sort of belt or my butt’s going to be naked again.”
Tasha tossed her a tie. “Can’t have that, we’re already going to attract too much attention in this neighborhood as it is.”
Someone laughed in the senator’s bedroom. “Hope no one needs to piss,” Tasha commented in a soft voice. She carried the makeshift rope into the bathroom. “Do you think the towel rack on the wall or the shower door will be sturdier?”
MJ picked up her pistol, stuffing it under her improvised belt and followed Tasha into the bathroom. “I think the toilet would be the sturdiest.”
Tasha studied the distance. “We don’t have enough to go around the toilet and reach close enough to the ground too.”
“Hang on, I have an idea.” MJ went back to the closet and grabbed the belt she’d thrown on the floor. In the bathroom, she looped the belt around the toilet base and fastened it. “Hand me an end.” She looped the makeshift rope through the belt and tied it off. “That gives us a little more rope now.”
“Good.” Tasha hopped onto the back of the toilet and unlocked the window. “Ready.”
“It would help if we knew where the car was. I’d like to get my backpack.” Not that it had anything traceable in it, but her own throwaway cell phone was in there and she wanted to call Dottie as soon as she could.
“Well, there’s good news and bad news,” Tasha said, looking out the window.
“What?”
“I see the car, that’s the good news. The bad news is it’s behind the pool house and I don’t see a way to get past all the security and officials that will be out front.”
“Then I definitely need my bag. I have a small tool kit might help me steal us a car then. Though I don’t know about this neighborhood. All the expensive new cars are hard to jack with the computer chips in the keys now.”
“We’ll cross that bridge later.” Looking out both ways, she dropped the medical bag then climbed in the window. “Maybe we’ll find an older car,” she said before she took the tie rope and climbed out.
MJ waited until Tasha reached the ground, then scrambled after. The silk ties felt more like a bungee cord the way they stretched. MJ used a rappelling technique down the side of the house.
“Damn, we’re going to be sitting ducks crossing this lawn to the pool house,” MJ said once they were on the ground, a wide expanse of green grass with no trees or shrubbery before them.
“Hopefully they’re all distracted.” Tasha picked up the medical bag. “Run.”
They sprinted across the manicured back lawn, skirted the pool and dashed behind the pool house. Tasha unlocked the trunk. “Grab your backpack.”
MJ looked around, there was no other way to drive the car off the property. Fences surrounded each side and across the back. “Looks like we’re leaving on foot.”
Tasha tossed the rental car keys inside. “This is another reason I never drive my own car.”
“Oh, had to leave on foot often have you?”
“You have no idea.”
“Which way?” MJ asked, then pointed toward the fences. Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe…”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Hey, I have a toddler. This works as well as any.”
Tasha shook her head. “The back fence will get us away from the neighborhood faster.”
“Provided there are no big dogs,” MJ agreed.
“We have guns.”
“I don’t think these people would appreciate having their dogs shot.”
“Then they better not get in our way.”
“You, the dog lover?”
“I only love my dog.”
“Actually, I’d use the term dog loosely if I were you. More like a furry rat, nothing like a dog.”
They lightly threw jokes and insults, as easily as if they’d been long time partners. Strangest thing, MJ had never felt so close to Tasha in all the years they lived together.
The eight foot custom-designed wooden fence might have stumped them if they hadn’t had the backpack or medical bag. MJ took her backpack and jumped up to loop the strap over the pointed part of the fence post, while Tasha did the same with the medical bag.
“Hope the straps hold,” MJ said as she crawled up the fence like a climber on a mountain. She paused and peeked over the fence, saying, “No dogs,” before she swung over and dropped to the ground.
Dropping down beside her, Tasha nodded toward the house. “Motion detector cameras though.”
“By the fence, we should be out of range.”
Skirting the perimeter of the yard, they slowly worked their way toward the front of the house, keeping an eye on the camera. Unlike the senator’s house, this backyard was landscaped with trees and shrubs and flowers, a little easier to keep out of sight.
They scaled the locked gate with the same medical bag and backpack-as-a-rope trick that they used on the back of the fence. They stopped behind a large bush on the front corner of the red brick house, scanning the street. No cars in sight to steal, except . . . .
“Look,” MJ pointed. “A van.”
Two houses down a white van was parked out front.
“Dog grooming service?” Tasha read the scripted words printed on the side.
“Pick-up-and-delivery,” MJ confirmed. She pulled open the medical bag and tossed Tasha a pair of medical gloves so there would be no fingerprints. Pulling on her own gloves, MJ scanned the area. “All clear. Let’s go.”
“Can you start it?” Tasha asked as the sprinted from behind their cover.
“Piece of cake.” With all the unplanned exercise she was getting today, MJ was grateful she’d kept
in shape. “I can use my screwdriver as a makeshift key.” Of course it would ruin the ignition switch but no help for that.
Longer-legged Tasha reached the van first. “Or we could use the key in the ignition,” she said, looking in the driver’s side window.
“That’ll work.”
“I’ll drive, you probably want to call the babysitter.” She opened the door, and every dog in the kennels started a racket loud enough to lift the roof. “Get in,” she yelled over the barking.
MJ hurried around to the passenger side. “Damn, how many dogs are there?” She twisted in her seat and counted. Six kennels on each side of the van. All but one was filled. “Are there that many people who need their dogs groomed?”
“Who cares?” Tasha threw the van into gear. “Uh, oh,” she indicated the side mirror.
“What?”
“A naked guy’s chasing us.”
“What?” MJ looked out her own side mirror. Sure enough . . .“Er, looks like he might’ve been doing some intimate grooming at the residence.”
Tasha laughed. “Seems like it.”
“That makes one too many naked guys I’ve seen today.”
“Yeah, and none of them were Ben,” Tasha joked.
“Time to shut up now.”
Tasha laughed again.
As Tasha drove out of the ritzy neighborhood in the barking dog van, MJ fished the phone out of her backpack, dialed the number, wondered if she could hear Dottie over the racket.
No one picked up the phone. MJ frowned.
“No answer?” Tasha said, turning the last corner to take them to the main road.
MJ shook her head, checked the time. “Her workday should be over, maybe they went somewhere.”
“A grocery run, or something. Call when we get back to the hotel. I want to ditch this van soon. No doubt the dog groomer is calling the cops right now.”
Tasha stayed on the main highway for only a couple of miles before she took an exit onto a side street. “See what sort of back way direction you can find on the GPS.”
“Thank goodness this van has one.”
“Only practical for a delivery van. Though I don’t know who’d be crazy enough to pick up and deliver dogs. Shut up, dogs, or I’ll feed you to my dog, Cy,” she threatened to the still barking pack.
“That’s sort of an empty threat, don’t you think, since most of these dogs are bigger than that little pipsqueak you call a dog.”
“Shut up and get me the directions,” Tasha snapped.
MJ entered the info into the GPS chuckling to herself at Tasha shaken out of her calm, cool and collected persona by a bunch of dogs.
Ten minutes later, Tasha turned the van into a restaurant parking lot. “Here’s a good place.”
“Pretty far away from the hotel,” MJ pointed out. Then she read the sign over the restaurant. “Texas barbecue? You gotta be kidding.”
“I thought you’d appreciate it, want to get some?”
“Dressed like this?”
“We can get it to go.”
“We’re going to carry hot barbecue back to the hotel however many miles away that is, in addition to our other stuff?”
“There’s just no pleasing you is there? Sheesh. I thought you might be hungry. We’ll stop on the way out of town.” Tasha pierced her with a look. “Not a word of complaint out of you either.”
MJ opened the door. “You’re a bossy bitch.”
“Me? Bossy?”
“Bye dogs, we’ll miss you.” MJ blew them a kiss before she shut the door.
“Not.” Tasha closed her door as well.
* * *
“Hey, there, how’s Tex’s girl?”
Tex loved coming home at the end of the day and having MJ’s little girl toddle up to him with her arms held wide. She was such a tiny little thing and with her curly black hair and big brown eyes, looked just like a real life baby doll. Thank goodness there was no Christmas play rehearsal tonight. Now, they could just enjoy a quiet evening at home.
Tex loved kids. His heart gave a clench every time he thought about not having any of his own. Though over the years the clench had gotten softer, sometimes barely noticeable. And he could be satisfied with that as long as he had his dear sweet Dottie who had come so close to death. A double ectopic pregnancy gone horribly wrong, a hemorrhage that nearly ended her life; he’d happily taken the trade off of her having the emergency surgery that made her sterile over not having her at all.
And while all children were special to Tex, and he’d seen a lot of them through the years Dottie had worked in daycare and foster care, little Angelina found a special place in his heart. He felt like her grandpa.
And maybe that was because her mama felt might near a daughter to him, especially since he’d known her when she was a baby herself. And how she’d grown up. She was like a maestro on the cars, positively making an engine sing. Her presence lighted up his old garage and made his days go faster. He couldn’t imagine feeling any happier than if she’d been his real daughter and Angel here, his real grandchild.
“Tex.” Her little fingers grasped at him.
“Yes, ma’am, old Tex is home.” He picked up the little girl and swung her in a gentle circle to the sound of delighted giggles.
“And not a minute too soon,” Dottie said coming out of the kitchen to give him his nightly welcome home kiss. “I just poured her the last of the milk.”
“Guess we’re going grocery shopping,” Tex said.
Dottie didn’t drive. She had her driver’s license, but she didn’t like it, and since she couldn’t go anywhere during the day anyway with all the little kids, she waited until he got home and could take her to the store.
He didn’t mind. He loved spending time with his Dottie. And taking Angelina with them would make it feel like they were grandparents on an outing with their grandbaby. “How ’bout we go to the Hamburger Shack and grab us some burgers before we go.”
“Why, Tex, I already cooked supper.”
“Leftovers tomorrow night. Little Angel here will have a good time playing on the indoor toys. Go grab your purse, sugar and let’s boogie.”
“I need to put the food in the fridge.”
“Okay, I’ll keep Angel entertained while you take care of it. We’ll sit down and read a story.” Tex pulled out a child’s story book off the shelves in the toyroom and settled his bulk into the rocking chair.
“Once upon a time . . . .”
It was a couple of hours later, even with all the noise and bright lights, Tex noticed Angelina nodding off in the grocery cart in the checkout line. “This little girl is beat after all that playing.”
“She’s got a full tummy too,” Dottie said. “I don’t suppose she’ll last long enough to get a bath.”
“She’ll survive going to bed dirty for once.” Tex picked her up from the buggy, and she laid her head on his shoulder. She stirred long enough to mutter the word “momma” when he strapped her into the car seat.
“Yes, little sugar, momma will be here soon,” Tex whispered then placed a kiss on her head.
“You know,” Dottie said when he got into the mini-van. “I haven’t heard from MJ today.”
“Day’s not over yet.”
“Usually she calls once during the day and once at night.”
Tex pulled out of the parking lot and turned on the road toward home. “No doubt she’ll call when she can. She might be in that place again where she didn’t have service.”
“Even then, she called at least once a day and earlier than this.”
“Don’t fret, sugar.” Tex reached across the seat and patted her knee. “MJ’s fine. Anyone who can work on an engine like she does can handle most anything.”
“I just wonder what she’s doing.”
“Family trouble she said.” He kept with MJ’s story. “And you know that families sometimes can be big trouble.” He chuckled. Over the years, with both he and Dottie in the service business, he’d seen some doozies. Especi
ally early on, given their mixed marriage. Of course, folks were more tolerant now, but back in the early 70’s a white man married to a black woman was still a cause for an ass-whuppin’.
“You remember that time when old man Jonas and his wife–” A jarring jolt to the back of the van, the sound of metal grinding metal and Tex suddenly found himself fighting for control of the mini-van. “What the hell?”
A car pulled up beside him, way too close.
“Tex, that car just hit us!” Dottie said, alarm in her voice.
“It’s fucking trying to run us off the road now, too,” Tex growled. “Sorry, sugar,” he said apologizing for his language.
“He must be drunk,” Dottie said.
“A little early in the evening for such a bender.”
“Tex, watch out!”
The car made a sharp turn into them. Tex slammed the brakes and swerved. The van jumped the curb, grazed a sign post with the front right fender and came to a stop, just inches from an ancient oak tree.
“Are you all right, sugar?” Tex looked at Dottie who hadn’t made a sound but was holding her head.
“I hit my head on the window.”
Heart pounding faster than a racing engine’s pistons, Tex unhooked his seat belt. “Let me see.”
“The baby?” Dottie asked.
He’d forgotten. Damn. He glanced into the back. Angelina made a whimpering noise, opened her eyes and saw him then settled back into sleep. Thank God for car seats.
“She’s okay. Let me see your head.” He turned Dottie’s seat where he could see the right side of her head. “It’s not bleeding, but that’s a pretty good knot. I’m gonna run you by the emergency room, make sure you’re okay.”
“No, it’s not that–” She stopped abruptly and then said, “Look, the man driving that car is coming back this way.”
Tex turned his attention from Dottie. Sure enough the man had stopped his car a few yards in front of them, and was running toward them.
“He’s in such a hurry, he must want to help.”
Just didn’t seem right the man would be running. Tex squinted to see in the dark. What he thought he saw raised his hackles. “Dottie, I think he has a gun in his waistband.”
“A gun? Are you sure?”