The Bliss Factor

by Penny McCall

  Conn bent, picked up a handful of dead leaves, and crumbled them in his fist. “I see no merit in speculation.”

  Considering the path of her thoughts, Rae wholeheartedly agreed. If Conn was a criminal, she didn’t want to know why her parents were protecting him. “How about breakfast? You always feel better when your stomach is full.”

  Conn took in her soft smile, a smile that accepted without judgment, without pity. She was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, that smile said, but when she held out a hand he didn’t take it.

  She kept saving him, and he didn’t want to get used to being saved. Not by her. He had no doubt he could protect her from the men chasing him, but when it came to returning the favor in ways that really counted, he had a feeling he wouldn’t be so successful.

  THE DEALERSHIP WHERE RAE HAD BOUGHT HER CAR, and where it was currently being serviced, was located in Troy, on a side street that curved around from West Maple Road to North Crooks.

  Thanks to Conn’s early morning upheaval, they arrived long before the office was open. The service department was in full swing, though, so Rae pulled into the lot and parked by the service entrance. She didn’t get out of the vehicle.

  “Worried about the Stooges?” Conn asked her.

  “The mall is less than a mile from here,” she said. “They found us once, by accident from all appearances.”

  “Then it’s unlikely they will be so lucky twice in two days.”

  “True, and the real problem is them.” She pointed at a pair of black Lincoln squad cars, white stripes along their sides bearing the seal of the city and the words “Troy Police Department,” parked at the curb in front of the main office.

  Cole sat up straight in his seat. “Do you think they’re here for us?”

  “Why don’t you sit tight and I’ll go find out.” She opened the driver’s-side door and hopped out, literally, then looked back in at Conn. “Aren’t you going to ask me how one sits tight?”

  “I think I can figure it out this time.”

  Rae grinned at him, then took herself off in the direction of the police cruisers, going right to the source. She didn’t even have to ask any questions. It was pretty clear what had happened, and when she joined the circle of gawkers, it turned out that most of them worked there. Just listening to them talk filled in the rest of the blanks.

  “They were broken into last night,” she told Conn when she got back to the Hummer.

  “Broken?” he said, craning his neck see the front of the office.

  “Someone went into the dealership illegally after hours. To steal things. From where I was standing I could see one of the computers on the floor by the door, but they didn’t get away with it, and from what I heard nothing was actually stolen. The police responded to the silent alarm too fast.”

  Conn didn’t have anything to say about that, but he must have been scenting trouble, because his expression had gone flat, the blue of his eyes going impossibly sharper as he scanned the dealership.

  “You think this has something to do with us,” she said.

  “Don’t you?”

  Rae clambered into the Hummer, but she left the door open, folding one foot under her so she could sit facing Conn. “If we stick with the assumption that they don’t know who I am, the only way they could trace us would be the dealer plates . . . Shit.”

  Conn twisted around. “Where?”

  Rae pointed to the multi-colored Honda, parked just inside the driveway, the driver’s and front passenger’s side windows covered with plastic and duct tape.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone is in there,” Conn said.

  “Hard to see, considering the makeshift windows, but I’m willing to bet they’re there. They probably got stuck when the police showed up. And we stumbled right into their laps. I guess they don’t want to start anything with the Boys in Blue right there.”

  “Boys in—”

  “The police. Blue uniforms.”

  “Right. We can’t sit here forever.”

  “Neither will the police. As soon as they leave Harry and Joe are coming for us.”

  “Then we leave now. We already know this vehicle is proof against their worst.”

  Rae sighed. “I’m getting really tired of this.”

  “Then change the rules,” Conn said, as if it were the obvious course.

  “Change the rules?”

  “Like this.” Conn got out of the van, sauntered into the service bay and up to the little counter where the orders were written up.

  Rae froze, all her breath leaking out at the idea of Conn working without a net. She fired up the Hummer, jammed it into gear, and wheeled it into a tight turn, flooring it into a parking space she’d never have been able to navigate without desperation on her side.

  She got inside just as the counter guy, whose name, according to the embroidered patch on his pocket, was Jim, said to Conn, “Can I help you with something, Mac?”

  “Who’s Mac?” Conn asked him.

  “He’s with me,” Rae said. “I’m here to see if my Jaguar is ready.”

  “Name?” Jim said, standing a little straighter, which made sense when the other customer said, “What about my van?” and Jim pointed behind him to a sign that said, DEALERSHIP CUSTOMERS HAVE PREFERENCE.

  “I’m a customer, too,” the other guy protested.

  “You’re here for an oil change. Not the same thing.”

  “If I don’t get the oil changed in this thing every three thousand miles like clockwork it breaks down. This is the only place open this early, and time is money when you’re self-employed. I ain’t losing half a workday waiting.”

  “That’s all right,” Conn said. “We’re in no hurry.”

  “Fine with me, Mac.” Jim turned back to ask the other customer for his mileage, then rolled his eyes when he didn’t get the answer he wanted. “What, you’ve never gotten your oil changed before, genius?” he said, heading out to the parking lot, the less-than-apologetic customer trailing along behind him.

  “We’re not in a hurry?” Rae said to Conn.

  He shrugged, but this time she could tell he was up to something. His shoulders were loose, but his eyes were focused, watching Jim and his customer stop at a white delivery van parked a couple spots down from the Hummer with a HOW’S MY DRIVING? sign on the back.

  Jim opened the door and bent into the van, getting the mileage, Rae presumed. She turned back to Conn, just in time to see him reach over the edge of the desk and pick up the keys lying on the partially filled out work order.

  “No,” Rae said, keeping her voice down, staring at the mechanics in the other service bays.

  By the time she’d assured herself Conn’s larceny had gone unnoticed, he was headed out to the parking lot. She caught up with him at the door and dragged him to a stop. It wasn’t easy. “We are not stealing that van.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  He was already shaking his head before she said, “The police—”

  “We only go far enough to lose the Stooges, then we leave the van and double back here. No one will be harmed.”

  She blew out a breath. “That’s it. I give up. I’m going to jail, but at least it will be peaceful.”

  “At last, you learn to find the silver lining,” Conn said, grinning. “Can I drive?”

  “Let me put it this way, I want to be alive to go to jail.” She took the keys, but Conn was running the rest of the show. Except he didn’t seem to realize that. “We should probably go before Jim comes back and notices the keys missing.”

  He bowed slightly, gesturing her to go ahead.

  “This is your operation. You go first.”

  The word operation seemed to do the trick. Conn stopped smiling and started moving. He led her across the parking lot as if they were headed for the Hummer, passing Jim and his customer, still bickering, on the way back. As soon as they were out of sight of the guys in the Honda, Conn caught her by the wrist, towing her around to the pas
senger side of the white HOW’S MY DRIVING? van. As soon as Jim and the driver had finished with the odometer reading and closed the driver’s-side door, Conn stuffed Rae in, and climbed in behind her. Rae moved over into the driver’s seat.

  So far so good, she thought, firing up the van before she could have second thoughts. She eased it out of the space, driving down to the end of the parking aisle, away from the open service bay. They would have gotten away with it, if they hadn’t needed to go right by the Honda to get out. And if the Honda hadn’t been full of guys who wanted to stop them—even with the police sitting mere yards away.

  They were almost on top of the Honda, still moving at a speed designed to evade notice, when the Honda’s driver popped up behind the wheel. His gaze locked with Rae’s.

  She didn’t hesitate, putting the gas pedal to the floor. The van sputtered and coughed, barely picking up speed, which meant its front bumper and the Honda’s got to the same place at the same time. The van shuddered to the sound of metal shrieking, and for a second they were hung up on the other car’s bumper before they tore free and shot toward the driveway.

  The Honda, minus its front bumper, the hood partially buckled, makeshift plastic windows flapping, swung out behind them. A few seconds later she heard sirens.

  “The Honda is chasing us,” she said to Conn, needlessly since he was watching it in the side mirror. “So are the police.”

  “Lose them.”

  Rae had a feeling that order was more about the cops than the Honda. She made a left on North Crooks Road, headed for Big Beaver and the entrance ramp to I-75. It would have been the quickest way to get rid of the Honda, if not for the van, which was old and clearly not well-maintained, still sputtering and coughing its way up to speed. The police were another story. The police weren’t known for giving up.

  It was a concern for Rae, even before they got on the highway, which was bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go rush-hour traffic, the kind of traffic that freaked her out even when she wasn’t being chased by the police.

  She swerved around cars, cutting the wheel right and left, shifting the van into spaces that didn’t look big enough for a moped. The Honda, being smaller and more maneuverable, forged its own path, trying to come up beside them. The two squad cars were bringing up the rear, one parked on the Honda’s back bumper, the other sticking with the van. Even though they were running full lights and sirens the other vehicles couldn’t get out of anyone’s way.

  And then the radio bolted to the dash started to squawk, a man’s voice yelling about phone calls and lawsuits and unemployment.

  Conn reached for the handset.

  “People must be calling the toll-free number.” Rae flipped the radio off. “Best we stay out of it. They’ll figure it out later.” She saw brake lights up ahead, three lanes of them, and shook her head. “We’re not going to outrun the police,” she said to Conn.

  “Not in this,” he said, sounding disgusted. “If we still had the Hummer—”

  “It has nothing to do with what we’re driving. It’s rush hour, and trust me, that isn’t what it sounds like. There are so many cars on the road we won’t get anywhere fast, and I won’t put other lives in danger by trying to. Besides, these things never end well for the people who aren’t in uniform. The police can call out as many squad cars as they want. Sooner or later we’ll be caught, and it won’t be pretty.”

  If Conn had been driving, they’d have kept running, that much was clear. But Rae was at the wheel, so she bullied her way over to the right lane and shot off at the next exit, blasting through a yellow light that was just turning red, trapping the squad car at the intersection. She took the turnaround and got back on the highway, going southbound now, staying in the right lane until she saw the sign for Big Beaver. She got off there and took a left, pulling into the Troy Police Station not far beyond. The Honda kept going, one of the squad cars from the dealership hot on its back bumper. The other car screeched into the lot behind the van.

  Rae was already parking at the curb by the entrance, and she wasn’t waiting for the chase officers. They’d pull weapons and get out handcuffs, and she wasn’t about to be cuffed and arrested in public, not to mention the part where she’d probably have to lay facedown on the ground.

  “Trust me, this is our only option,” she said to Conn.

  She jumped out of the van, Conn right behind her. They went inside, and when the officer at the counter stepped up and asked what he could do for them, Rae said, “I just stole a van. But I have a really good reason.”

  chapter 12

  THE POLICE WERE HAVING A HARD TIME WITH the whole stealing-a-van-to-get-away-from-the-guys-in-the-Honda justification. Especially since they’d lost the Honda. They really had a hard time with Conn’s memory loss.

  They’d taken his fingerprints and run them against every known database with no luck. Rae had to give it to the Troy Police: They were thorough. And stubborn. She was getting a kick out of the show, though.

  They were sitting in a small office, she and Conn on one side of the desk, a Detective Hershowitz on the other. He was rapidly losing patience.

  “Where are you from?” he asked Conn for the third time. When he didn’t get an answer, he said, “Clamming up isn’t going to do you any good.”

  “Clamming up?”

  “He means you’re not answering his questions.”

  “Why doesn’t he say that then?” Conn said, arms crossed, face set into a frown, not bothering to hide his irritation. Since they’d stepped foot in the place, he’d acted . . . not superior, exactly, but definitely dismissive. If he kept it up they were the ones who’d get dismissed. Right into a cell.

  “He has a hard time with sayings,” she told the detective.

  “He has a hard time with his hearing, if you ask me.”

  “I meant slang and colloquialisms. Like ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’ ”

  “Especially if you’re hungry,” Conn added.

  “Not helping,” Rae said under her voice.

  Detective Hershowitz sat silently through the Laurel and Hardy routine. He wasn’t amused. “You should be grateful you’re not handcuffed or in a holding cell.”

  “We are,” Rae said. “Very grateful. Especially about the handcuffs.”

  “Don’t like handcuffs, huh?” Detective Hershowitz asked, leaning in her direction and shifting from stern to . . . not so stern. With an overtone of Ick. “Bad associations?” he asked her. “I mean, you don’t have any record or anything, so . . .” His eyes shifted in Conn’s direction, went hard again. “King Kong like to get rough?”

  “Hey, personal! And he is not my boyfriend.”

  “Boy?”

  Rae whipped around. “Now is not the time to worry about how manly we think you are.”

  “So what’s the deal with you two? Him not being your boyfriend, why are you together? He doesn’t need an accountant, he needs a psychiatrist.”

  “Uhhhh . . . I should get that,” Rae said, when her phone, sitting on the desk with all their other possessions, rang.

  Hershowitz slapped a hand on hers, then picked up the phone himself. She was praying the call wasn’t from her parents.

  It wasn’t. The way Hershowitz sat up straight in his chair was her first clue. Her second came when he handed the phone to Conn.

  Rae intercepted it. “Who is this?”

  “Put Larkin on.”

  “Not until you tell me who you are and where you’re from.”

  “I’m the guy who can have you thrown into a cell and charged with any number of crimes, regardless of what you actually did and what the local yokels decide to do about it.”

  “It’s for you,” she said, handing the phone to Conn. “If this guy is an example of your friends, I can see why you wouldn’t want your memory back.”

  But she moved in close so she could hear both sides of the conversation. Conn didn’t discourage her.

  “You missed your last check-in,” the grump on the ot
her end of the call said. “I was about to send someone after you—until your prints turned up in the system, then I was pretty sure you were dead.”

  “Who is this?” Conn asked him.

  “You’re joking, right? It’s Mike.”

  “No, Mike, he’s not joking,” Rae said. “He got hit over the head a week ago, and lost his memory.”

  “Jesus, Conn, you’re letting a ci—You’re letting her listen in? You really have lost your memory. What if she’s one of them?”

  Rae snatched the phone out of Conn’s hand, saying, “Let me handle this,” when he wanted to move in close.

  “One of whom?” she said into the phone.

  “A criminal,” Mike said.

  “That’s interesting, because I was wondering the same thing, Mike. How do we know you’re not the criminal?”

  “Because I’m not,” he said with the kind of authority and a lack of patience that told her he was an important guy. It didn’t tell her he was on the up and up, so either he worked for some law enforcement agency, probably federal, or he was with the mafia.

  Either way it wasn’t good for her.

  “Put Larkin back on,” he said in a voice that sounded like he was chewing rock.

  Rae looked at Hershowitz, then at Conn, not sure what to do. Conn didn’t have a clue what was what. He needed her. On the other hand, she had a pretty good idea she didn’t want any part of whatever Conn was mixed up in.

  And then she remembered her parents. “Look,” she said into the phone.

  “Handcuffs, jail cell, serious criminal charges,” Mike said. “Any of that meaningful to you?”

  Rae huffed out a breath, handing the phone to Conn again, and this time she didn’t bother to listen in. She just didn’t have the heart to find out any sooner than necessary what new detour her life was going to take.