“I’ll be right there.” Flashing me a dazzling smile, the scummy creep quickly handcuffed me to the gurney.
I held my right arm up. “What’s this for?” Like I didn’t know.
“Commander Sloan wants to make sure you don’t wander off.”
“How far does he think I’ll get with a concussion?”
“He said you were a slippery little thing and I shouldn’t take any chances.” The doctor patted my shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
And I would be long gone. I pulled a lock pick out of the nifty belt buckle Uncle Aldo had given me and quickly unlocked the cuffs. Easing the IV
needle out, I swung my legs over the bed and stood.
“Whoa!” I waited until everything stopped spinning and the funny black dots went away before peering around the curtain.
Doctor Giggles and another man in combat khaki were busily examining x-ray films of what had to be Sam’s arm. Yeow! That was a pretty nasty break. I snuck past them and peeked out of the tent.
Yippee! The coast was clear and thankfully my car hadn’t been towed. I staggered over to it and let out a growl of rage. That bastard had flattened all four of my tires. Like that would stop me. I eyed his Hummer and smiled. I’d never driven one before.
Retrieving my hide-a-key, I popped the trunk, got my emergency bag and tool kit. Uncle Aldo had made me a special electronic car key that would override any security system. With one push of a button, I was in Derek’s Hummer. I inserted the key and it started right up. Boy was he gonna be pissed.
Especially when he found the note I left him.
A black Maricopa County Sheriff’s helicopter landed on the far side of the parking lot. With a grin, I cranked up the AC and drove off.
Chapter Six
“You ungrateful child,” Granny Annabel chided, “your man risked his life for you and this is how you repay him?”
“Risked his life? When and where did this wonderful event happen? Cuz I think I missed it.”
“That Apache warrior would have killed you if he had not intervened.”
“Possibly, but at no time was Derek in any danger.”
Granny snapped, “He risked his life to pull you from the burning helicopter.”
“Wow and how did he manage to do that without getting his shirt singed or his hair mussed?”
Okay, I was being a cranky butt, but geez, she was like a broken record.
The temperature dropped fifty degrees. Great, I had pissed her off. I shot a cautious look at the passenger seat. Granny was back in her gypsy garb.
I always wondered where she got all those bracelets. Ghosts R Us?
“I insist you go back and apologize.”
“Apologize for what?”
“For stealing Derek’s cookies, shocking him with your stun gun and getting him attacked by a swarm of angry bees.”
I rubbed my throbbing head. “The jerk deserved it. Did you forget he had Uncle Aldo, your son, arrested?”
The temperature in the Hummer dropped another twenty degrees. “You owe him.”
“For putting a tracker on me like I was some migratory elk?”
“He saved your life.”
“And I saved his butt when I took down the Thunder God. So, we’re even.”
“You have not completed your training. Until you are powerful enough to defeat Sophie, you need a strong man…”
I turned up the radio to drown out her lecture.
The radio crackled and died abruptly. “For God’s sake, give it a rest. Aunt Sophie’s my problem and I will deal with her.” Sometime in the next fifty years.
Granny suddenly cried, “Derek’s very angry, bella.”
Rolling my eyes, I pulled onto the freeway and kicked it up to eighty. “So?”
An image abruptly formed in my mind.
Frustrated rage simmering in his eyes, Derek stormed out of the emergency medical tent. He spat a foul curse when he realized his Hummer was gone.
A grinning Ed followed him into the parking lot.
“Aw, she left you a note.”
Sloan’s furious gaze settled on the piece of purple paper flapping under the windshield wiper
blade of my Sonata. He snagged the note, read it and wadded it up.
“What did it say, boss?”
“Outclassed, my ass.”
Ed laughed. “She’s a feisty little thing and the only woman who hasn’t fallen all over herself trying to please you.”
Derek smiled. A menacing, you’re-so-going-to-die kinda smile. “That ‘feisty little thing’ is about to learn who’s boss.”
The bellow of an air horn snapped me back to the here and now. Shit! I swerved back in my lane, barely missing a tanker truck.
The truck driver flipped me the bird.
I waved at him and yelled, “Sorry.”
“You will be,” Derek’s cold voice announced from the speakers.
I just loved cars equipped with On Star. It made life so interesting. “Your Hummer pulls to the left.”
“Turn my Hummer around and get your ass back to the command center.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll have you arrested for grand theft auto.”
“I’ll just bet you have the County Attorney in your pocket and you’ll get me released into your custody.”
“Something like that.”
“Gosh, I think I’ll have to pass.”
“Get ready to meet Phoenix’s finest.”
“Whoopdee-do,
I’m
all
atwitter
in
anticipation.”
“You might be able to outrun the cops but I can find you no matter where you go.”
“Gee, I’m surprised I don’t have my own satellite by now.”
“You do.”
I laughed. “Right. Like the U.S. government would just let you borrow one, when you needed it.”
“You have sixty seconds to get to the emergency lane before I disable the engine.”
“Good luck with that. I overrode your security system.”
There was a long pause then he snarled, “One of your uncle’s gadgets?”
“Yep.” I glanced in the rear view mirror and frowned. Was that a gang of bikers on my ass?
“Granny, does that look like the Dirty Dozen or the Pirates?”
“Dear God, that’s One-Eyed Jack.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I sucked in a calming breath.
It’d be okay, there was no way they knew I was in this Hummer. Unless… I groaned. “Please tell me you didn’t broadcast my name across the police scanners?”
“It’s standard procedure,” Derek growled.
“Well your standard procedure is going to get me killed.”
“Nice try.”
Eight motley bikers encircled the Hummer like a pack of hungry wolves.
A cry of alarm tore from me as they started bashing out windows with crowbars and heavy chains.
“Pull over,” One-Eyed Jack shouted.
I floored it, darting across three lanes in a desperate attempt to lose them in the heavy traffic. “Sic’em Granny.”
She vanished. In the rear view mirror, I saw her materialize on the handlebars of Renegade’s Harley.
Renegade’s eyes bugged out, his bike wobbled dangerously before he slammed on the brakes and was rear ended by a Volkswagen.
Sloan demanded, “What’s going on?”
“My imaginary pack of bikers broke out your windows and are chasing me,” I answered, veering around an old lady in a Cadillac who was crawling along at a sedate twenty-five miles an hour.
“Give them a bad reading?”
“Har. Har. Their girlfriends wanted to know their futures and I told them.”
“Let me guess, unmarked graves in the desert?”
“You get a gold star.”
“The girlfriends turned the assholes in?”
“Yep, they handed Sheriff Joe a flash drive loaded with enough evidence to put the entire gang behind bars for the next four hundred years.”
“How did they find out about you, Angel?”
“One-Eyed Jack’s bitch had a change of heart,”
I answered, zigzagging around two slow moving semi-trucks.
“She’s dead?”
“Oh yeah, they’re still finding pieces of her.”
“You wouldn’t be in this mess if you stayed where I put you.”
“News flash, I’m not your trained hunting dog and I’m not letting you walk away with all the treasure.”
“I’ll give you ten percent of the gold.”
“Why that is mighty generous of you but I have to pass.”
One-Eyed Jack roared up to the shattered driver’s window and waved a . Magnum, Dirty Harry special at me. “Pull over, bitch.”
I shouted back, “You need a big gun to make up for your little dick, asshole?”
He cranked off a round.
I shrieked and flinched. To my utter amazement, the bullet hit the door frame, ricocheted off the metal and struck One-Eyed Jack in the shoulder.
His Hog careened wildly and crashed into the freeway wall. One-Eyed tumbled head over heels and was hit by the old lady in the Cadillac.
“Ouch! That had to hurt.”
Derek bellowed, “Do you have a death wish?”
“Stop yelling at me. I’ve got the headache from hell, every inch of my body hurts and I really need some chocolate,” I ended on a wail.
“I’ll buy you a fucking box of chocolate every fucking day; just don’t get dead on me.”
“Okay, but it’s gotta be Godiva.” Veering around a freaked out teenager in a Camaro, I heard a loud bang and the Hummer fishtailed wildly. “Oh God! Oh God!”