“ We’re cops,” Mouledoux shouted again.
“ Step out, hand’s high.”
Mouledoux did. Peeps followed.
“ On the floor.” There were six, no seven cops Mouledoux counted facing them down from the exit. How bloody stupid, he thought as he dropped to the floor.
“ Move, move, move!” one of the cops shouted and Mouledoux saw them charging forward. In seconds they were on him, jerking his hands behind his back, cuffing them with cable ties.
“ My shield is on my belt,” he said as he was being hoisted to his feet.
“ Son of a bitch,” one of the cops said. “He’s a cop.”
“ That’s what he’s been trying to tell you!” Peeps tried to shake free of the two men holding him.
“ Let him go,” a plainclothes cop said.
“ You wanna cut these off,” Mouledoux said.
“ Explain.”
“ You just let the fucking shooters go,” Peeps shouted, agitated. “The two women and the black man.”
“ The big guy we helped into the car?” a cop said.
“ Probably,” Mouledoux said.
“ Shit,” the cop said.
“ Go back to the hotel,” Izzy said.
“ Not a hospital for Black?”
“ No, not right away.”
“ You know what you’re doing?”
“ I hope so.”
“ Me too, but why back there?” Lila said as she turned the car in the direction of the Marriott Suites.
“ We’re going to hide in plain sight. It’s the last place they’ll look for us.”
“ Gotcha,” Lila said. “Good thinking.” At the hotel she pulled the car into the same spot it had been parked in about fifteen minutes ago.
“ I’m guessing they’ve already figured out who we are and how stupid they were for letting us get away,” Izzy said.
“ Yeah, probably,” Lila said. Then, “Did you check out? Do you plan on us using the same room?”
“ No, I think the woman at reception might have recognized me. Besides, I was off the books and the people who paid for the room could show up at anytime.”
“ I’ll get us a room.” Lila started to get out of the car.
“ Wait!” Izzy said.
“ What?”
“ If you use your credit card, they’ll be able to track us.”
“ Please. I’ve got more IDs than you can shake a stick at.” She got out of the car.
“ Get a room near the back entrance,” Izzy said after her.
Lila didn’t turn around. She just raised her right hand and waved it as she walked away.
“ Right,” Izzy muttered to the dog, who’d scooted over into Lila’s place behind the wheel.
Lila stopped at a black XKE Jaguar, reached behind the passenger seat and pulled out an expensive looking grip. She slung it over her shoulder, then entered the hotel.
Izzy curled her fingers into fists, fighting an urge to bite her nails. It seemed like she’d been waiting forever when she saw Lila push out through the hotel doors.
“ How’d it go?” Izzy said, when she reached the car.
“ Fine.” Lila didn’t seem tense at all. How’d she do it? “I got us the room by the back entrance. Told the woman I was a heavy smoker and would be going out a lot.”
Izzy started the car, moved it to the spot closest to the rear entrance.
“ Coast is clear,” Lila said and the two woman helped Black, who was conscious and able to assist, out of the car, with the dog following. Lila keyed the back entrance and then the door to their room, 114, which was directly opposite the last room Izzy had been in. Inside, they led Black through the suite to the closest bed.
“ Blood’s gone,” Lila said as they eased him onto the bed.
“ Yeah,” Izzy said.
“ I don’t remember anyone cleaning it off.”
“ No, no one did.”
“ I understand why we couldn’t take him to a hospital, what with a couple dead cops back there, but it seems like we never really had to take him to one, after all. Did we?”
“ Doesn’t look like.”
“ So, when you rubbed your bloody hand into his wound, is that what did it?”
“ I don’t know. It’s just a guess.”
“ Darned good one, it looks like.”
“ Seems so.”
“ Sweet,” Lila said. Then, “I know you think hiding out here is a good idea and it probably is, but we have to do something about the car. I don’t think those cops got the tags, but they’re not stupid, they got the make and model and one of them is more than likely going to remember it’s got Nevada plates on it, so we should move it and I’m thinking we should drop it off by one of the used car lots up the street.”
“ Why?”
“ Because we’ll need to get another car. We’re four, with you and the dog. We can hardly all fit in my little Jag.”
“ I knew that you were going to stay and see it through.”
“ How’d you know that?” Lila smiled.
“ You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t in it till the end.”
“ Yeah, the end,” Lila said. “I’m guessing you don’t have a clue.”
“ Not a clue.”
“ So we’re gonna be like Thelma and Louise, us against the world and we die in glory, that what you think?”
“ Not like Thelma and Louise.” Izzy smiled. “We got a dog.”
“ And a large black man who thinks fast and is very good with a gun.”
“ A couple handy traits. With him and the dog, maybe we can change the ending.”
“ That would be cool.” Lila held out her hand.
“ You’ll stay with me? All the way, no matter what?” Izzy took Lila’s hand.
“ No matter what.” Lila squeezed Izzy’s hand, not too hard, but hard enough so that Izzy knew that whatever happened, they were in it together. “Now, about the car, you take it. I’ll follow. We gotta go now, before they start looking.” Lila glanced down at Black. “Think he’ll be okay?”
“ Yeah, I kinda do.”
“ Then let’s go,” Lila said. “Only instead of taking the car to a car lot, which would just tell them we got another one when they find it, and find it, they will. We’ll take it to the airport and put it in long term parking. They’ll find it there, as well, but maybe they’ll think we got on a plane. Then we’ll drive back and pay cash for something down the road.”
“ Sounds good,” Izzy said.
Fifteen minutes later Izzy parked the Crown Vic between matching white vans at the Medford International Airport. She locked it, then jogged to the terminal where Lila was waiting in the passenger pickup outside of U.S. Air in her black Jag.
“ What kind of car you wanna get?” Lila sounded like a kid at Christmas. Her eyes were sparkling, almost as if she’d been brought back from the dead.
“ Jeez, you look happy.”
“ Yeah, it’s a change for me.” Lila smiled. “A lot’s been going on in my life. I thought I’d been slipping up, getting sloppy, but I don’t think that’s it. I think I’m altering my priorities.”
“ And is that a good thing?”
