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’sEasyClean.”
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.
“Didn’t he say he was meeting with his buyer for the Aston Martin tonight?”
“Doesn’t look like it’s going well. Hand me the binoculars.” I withdrew them from my purse and passed them to Vero.
“What about the car across the street. You think he’s with them?” I asked, pointing at a dark blue Audi. Its headlights were off, its pale yellow license plate clearly visible between them. Vero adjusted her focus. “Definitely not with them,” she said, thrusting the binoculars in my hands. “His plates are from New Jersey.”
I raised the binoculars to my eyes. The driver hadn’t seemed to notice us. His huge camera was aimed at Javi and his buyers as their argument began to escalate. The camera panned over Ramón’s parking lot, then the street, swinging slowly toward us. The photographer did a double take through the windshield, staring at me through his lens. I pulled the binoculars from my face. “Shit, I think he saw me.”
The Audi’s high beams came on. Vero and I shielded our eyes from the glare.
“So that’s how you want to play it,” she said, reaching for the buttons on the dash.
“Vero, this is not a good idea!”
Her grin was wicked as she began flipping switches. Our high beams turned on. Blue lights flashed and the siren whooped. There was a flurry of movement by the gate to the salvage yard. Javi’s buyers tripped over each other as they fled to their SUV. Javi started to backpedal toward his Camaro, his eyes narrowing at the giant penis on the side of our car. He gaped at us, ignoring the fleeing SUV as it climbed over the curb and sped away. Tires squealed as the Audi peeled out after it.
