Hound Dog Blues (21 page)

After a couple of minutes, it even began to feel rather nice to have the warm weight of the cat in her lap. His purr vibrated softly, and his fur was a soft, dark gray that blended into chocolate brown on his ears and tail. She tentatively stroked him and was rewarded with the feline version of a smile. Not bad. No man in her life had ever responded correctly to her overtures. Sometimes it was nice just to be appreciated, not overwhelmed with emotion or expectations.

She sat that way for a while, and it was oddly relaxing. Maybe she was mellowing out, or maybe she was just so tired she didn’t care, but whichever it was, she woke with a start when the cat finally decided to move. It leaped to the floor, then looked up at her with a strident meow.

“Sorry. I don’t speak Cat.”

“It’s pretty easy,” Cami said, coming up behind her. “Sam wants you to either feed him or let him go out, neither of which he needs.”

“You were right. Cats really are like men.”

“So, what’s on the agenda for tonight?”

“I’m considering a coma. But first, I have to call Eric and let him know Yogi and Diva are okay. Do you know where I left my backpack?”

Her cell phone was nearly out of juice. She found the power cord and plugged it in, then switched it on and dialed her brother. Snake’s answering machine took the call, and she left a brief message for Eric that their parents had called but weren’t back home yet, then hung up.

At least she knew they weren’t being held hostage somewhere, but it wasn’t comforting to think they’d likely end up in police custody. God, what a mess.

Feeling more energized now that she was moving around, she and Cami popped some microwave popcorn and got out the bag of Reese’s. Cami put
Steel Magnolias
in the VCR and they sat in front of her large screen TV, laughing at Shirley MacLaine and crying when Julia Roberts died.

“I just love that movie,” Cami said when it was over, and blew her nose in a ragged tissue. “Do you think we’ll end up like Weezer? Eccentric old Southern women?”

“Hell, Cami, we’re like her now. We’re just younger versions, that’s all.”

“I hear
Dixie
playing. Is that your cell phone?”

“Oh yeah. I plugged it in to recharge.” It took a moment to remember where she’d left it, but she found it in the kitchen on the china cabinet. Sam the cat leaped up on the cabinet shelf purring again, and she petted him as she answered on the third ring.

“It’s been twenty-four hours, bitch. Do you have it?”

Her mind went blank. The voice was low, raspy, threatening.

“I know where you live. I know where you work. I’ll be watching your every move.”

Gulp.

“We’ll make a trade. Give me the necklace and I’ll let you live. For a little while.” He laughed, an eerie sound that lifted the hairs on her arms and fogged her brain. “Next time we meet, I won’t be so nice, cupcake. Maybe we’ll have a little fun first.”

That did it. “Look, asshole,” she snarled into the phone, “I don’t have the necklace, and you aren’t gonna do a damn thing. Now stop calling me.”

There was a shocked silence. She’d blown it. Now he’d come after her with an AK-47 or whatever they were, some big gun that would be lethal and painful.

Then, sounding peevish, he said, “Then who
does
have it? I’ve got to have that necklace back, and I’ve got to have it tomorrow.”

“Well, you’re askin’ the wrong person, dude.” For some reason, it seemed best not to tell him it was now in police custody.

“You have to have it. Or know where it is.” He sounded almost frantic. “I’ve got to get it back.”

An idea clicked into place. She couldn’t believe she even thought it much less said it, but it came out so smoothly it was like she’d planned it. “I don’t have it, but I can get it for you. Call me back at noon tomorrow and I’ll tell you where we can meet.”

She hung up before he could answer. Well. This should be interesting.

“Are you sure, Harley?” Cami looked wide-eyed and excited. She wore the black leather jump suit her ex-husband had bought her, and it fit like a glove. “Do I look like Lucy Liu?”

“You could cash her paychecks and no one would know the difference.”

They stood in front of the long hallway mirror. The ceiling light reflected on Cami’s leather and Harley’s baseball cap. It was a bad hair day. Blond strands stuck out like a scrub brush atop her head, so she’d given in to the inevitable and covered it with a cap. She wasn’t into dress-up like Cami anyway, nor into dying her hair black like Cami had done.

“I guess Jace’s habit of shopping at Frederick’s of Hollywood turned out okay after all. At least this outfit doesn’t have the butt-cheeks cut out like the one he wanted to buy me.” Cami did a little turn, looking satisfied. “If you want a Charlie’s Angels disguise, I have a halter top that might fit you.”

Harley looked at Cami’s generous chest. “Not even in my dreams. It’d be like putting my fists in a five-gallon bucket. They’d be lost. I’m happy with my tee shirt.”

“Well, I can’t argue with success. You’ve got two gorgeous men trailing after you like stray dogs, so you must be doing something right.”

“Yeah? Who would that be, and how’d I miss them?”

Cami slid her a skeptical glance. “You know who—Bobby and Bruno. Both are drop-dead gorgeous.”

“And both hate me. Forget it. I’m not interested anyway.” That wasn’t quite true. She still thought about Morgan’s kiss, and when she did, even her toes tingled. Not that she’d do anything about it. Getting mixed up with cops held little appeal for her. It involved too much stress.

“Okay,” she said, changing the subject, “here’s what we’re going to do. I have a feeling that Mrs. Trumble’s nephew is employed by NuVo Rich. I thought we’d cruise out to their warehouse and see if we can find the black car I saw in her driveway not long before she was shot. If it’s there, we call Bobby. Or Bruno. The fact that the warehouse is on Jackson makes me wonder if Yogi and Diva aren’t in that area, too, since they called me from a pay phone on Jackson.”

“This is so exciting. Too bad I don’t know any karate.” Cami did a couple of jabs at her reflection, looking like a spastic frog.

Harley’s eyes crossed. This could be trouble. If Tootsie wasn’t out doing his thing as Julia Roberts tonight, she would have asked him to go with them. She’d even considered her brother, but Eric hadn’t answered her earlier message. The best she could come up with in the way of safety was a can of Mace and the company stun gun kept in a drawer at work. Just in case. She didn’t intend to get close enough to the nephew or the warehouse to put them in any danger, but it never hurt to be prepared.

They took her motorcycle, partly because it was easier to maneuver in traffic, and partly because Cami thought it would be more like Charlie’s Angels. Since she didn’t have an extra helmet, Cami wore her ex’s old football helmet. Harley began to feel like she was in a bad remake of the movie.

Memphis Tour Tyme offices were dark and closed. If not for the fact that she really wanted the stun gun, she’d have gladly omitted this part of the evening, but Be Prepared was her new motto. Just like the Girl Scouts. Or was that Boy Scouts? Not that it mattered. With nasty phone calls and a head-bashing lunatic on the loose, it was either the stun gun or a rocket launcher. Either would do.

“If you want to stay here with the bike, it won’t take me long to fetch the gun,” Harley said, but Cami shook her head.

“No way. I’ll watch your back.”

“Uh, okay. But I should tell you, there’s a security guard for that kind of thing. Mr. Grinder may be ninety, but he can dial 911 if he has to. It’s up to you.”

Cami chose to go with her. Because she didn’t really want Mr. Grinder to write down in his log that she’d been there—Mr. Penney had a rule about taking company property home—Harley preferred stealth.

“We’ll go in the back way. I have a key, so we can use the stairs. The elevator’s not in use at night anyway.”

Their footsteps echoed eerily on the concrete steps leading to the second floor.

“This is spooky,” Cami whispered, and even that seemed to echo in the stairwell. “I feel like I’m on a Halloween prank and should have rolls of toilet paper under my arm.”

“Yeah, and if we get caught, we may need it for its original use.” Harley wasn’t sure why she was whispering. No one would be here except Mr. Grinder, and he was very nice, but deaf and prone to napping. His gun, if he had one, was probably rusted and had only one bullet.

“You’re kidding, right?” Cami’s voice shook a little.

“Oh yeah.”
Like hell
. “Just kidding. If you want to back out, you can. We’ll just go back to your house once I’ve gotten what I need here, and you can wait for me.”

“No. No, I’m in.”

Harley unlocked the office door and stepped in to turn off the office alarm. She flicked on a light and a subtle glow illuminated the waiting room. It looked more dingy than ever.

“What is it we’re here for?” Cami wanted to know.

“A stun gun. It’s for emergencies only, like a really drunk tourist or a soccer team. If we run into any trouble, it may come in useful. Along with your karate expertise.”

“Right, I can use karate,” Cami said seriously.

Harley gave her a speculative look. “You’re getting too far into this, you know. Let’s be realistic. And prepared.”

“Gotcha.”

The security alarm beeped and she punched in the code, then went to the back office. When she flipped on the overhead light, she squinted in the fluorescent glare, but she found the stun gun stored neatly in the desk drawer where she’d left it.

Cami peered over her shoulder. She stood in the doorway and could still rest her chin on Harley’s shoulder if she’d wanted; it was that small of a room.

Harley held up the stun gun. “It works. I know. I had to use it once. So many who need to be zapped, so little time.”

She pressed the buttons to demonstrate how it worked and a loud
ZZZZZZ
startled Cami. Stumbling back a few steps, her arms flew up and her right hand flapped against the wall. And the panic button on the alarm system.

It sounded instantly, a deafening siren loud enough to burst ear drums. Harley lunged for the cancel button. Naturally it didn’t work. Cussing a blue streak, she frantically punched in codes and buttons with fingers and even the heel of her hand, but the high-pitched wail yodeled on. Cami’s shrieks were mercifully drowned out by the alarm. Harley resisted the urge to pinch her.

“We gotta get out of here,” she yelled, and when Cami just stared at her with wide eyes, she gave up and grabbed her hand, jerking her out the door and down the hallway. No time to do much else. Mr. Grinder would be creaking up the stairs any minute. Even worse, the security system was hooked up directly to the police department. They definitely had more than one bullet for their guns.

Pulling Cami along, she lurched down the hallway and out into the waiting room. The elevator light signaled it was in use. Mr. Grinder. Or the cops. Oh boy.

“This way. The stairs.”

Cami followed close on her heels. Harley snatched at the door to the stairs. It remained resolutely shut. Oh no . . . locked. Another door that was kept locked at night She hated them. She really did.

“Fire escape,” she shouted, and charged down the hall.

When she came to an abrupt halt under a pool of fuzzy light, Cami obviously wasn’t prepared and slammed into her, knocking her against the wall.

“
Ow!
” they said in unison, reeling from the impact, and then both caught their balance. Harley rubbed her head and envisioned them as Lucy and Ethel on speed. God, they were pathetic.

“Door,” Cami gasped, and her leather-clad arm snaked out to snatch at the handle. It turned. Maybe Cami should be in charge of all doors. They opened for her.

This door led to a broom closet. Mops, buckets, but no brooms, cluttered the tiny square of linoleum floor.

“We can hide,” Cami said.

“No we can’t. Unless you want me on your shoulders. We’d never fit. There’s an exit here somewhere. It’s probably marked Men.”

It wasn’t marked at all. That had to be a safety violation. Not that she’d be picky about it. Freedom beckoned. Cool air that smelled of car fumes and asphalt swept in when the door swung open. The sound of traffic flowed past, and in the distance—sirens wailed. Oh joy.

“
Hurry!
” they both said at the same time again, and clambered out onto the metal grill of the fire escape. Harley froze. It was the height thing. Even the second story seemed like the top of Lookout Mountain.

“Come on,” Cami said, grabbing a metal rung to swing her feet onto the rickety, tiny
tiny
steps that looked far too fragile to hold the weight of a crow, much less a hundred and twenty pound woman. “We’ve got to hurry.”

Harley crouched motionless. “Go without me. I’m fine here.”

“Harley, I hear sirens.”