Death by starvation had been staved off another day, thanks to Macho Taco. Life was good.
“Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to a second unmarked police car strategically parked a few yards away. Totally camouflaged by darkness. Except for one small, teensy-tiny, minuscule blunder. His parking lights were on. I took a shot and guessed the guy hadn’t graduated at the top of his class.
“That’s Officer Taft,” Uncle Bob said.
“No,” I breathed.
“He volunteered.”
“No.”
“He’s a good egg, that one.”
I rolled my eyes and eased lower into the seat as Garrett opened the back door to get in, shining the minisearchlight directly on me.
“Close the door,” I whispered with a furtive urgency.
Uncle Bob frowned. Again. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like he needed the practice.
“Taft has a fan,” I explained. “An adorable little girl has been stalking him. I think her name is Hell Spawn of Satan.”
Uncle Bob chuckled. “What the Hell Spawn of Satan are you wearing?”
What Ubie was so indelicately referring to was the outfit I’d changed into, carefully picking out my most comfortable black-on-black attire and meticulously applying black greasepaint to my face to complement a desert- at-midnight look. Naturally, I had to struggle through several costume changes as Garrett sat out in his leather- seated truck waiting for me. I sure hoped my time-consuming endeavor didn’t annoy him.
“I’m blending,” I said.
“With what? Evil?”
“Laugh it up, Uncle Bob,” I said before pausing to take a noisy slurp of my soda. “Just wait until someone has to go traipsing through the desert for a closer look. You’ll appreciate my forethought.”
Garrett chose that moment to join the conversation. “I appreciate your forethought,” he said, his tone distant, as if his mind were elsewhere. “Not as much as your fore-
I twisted around in my seat to face him. “My fore-parts, as you so ineloquently put it, have names.” I pointed to my right breast. “This is Danger.” Then my left. “And this is Will Robinson. I would appreciate it if you addressed them accordingly.”
After a long pause in which he took the time to blink several times, he asked, “You named your breasts?”
I turned my back to him with a shrug. “I named my ovaries, too, but they don’t get out as much. Did you ever think that this whole operation was blown when they tortured Carlos Rivera?” I asked Uncle Bob. “If these guys are anywhere near intelligent, they would have cleared out any incriminating evidence the moment they figured out what Rivera did.”
“True,” Uncle Bob said. “But there’s only one way to be certain.”
“Why don’t you just get a warrant, gather a small army, and storm the place?”
“Based on what probable cause? Anonymous tips aren’t enough to obtain a search warrant, pumpkin. We need that flash drive.”
He had a point. Not a particularly pointy one, but a point nonetheless. And he called me pumpkin. I slurped as loud as kinesthetically possible in response. It would help if we knew what we were looking for. I sighed to emphasize my impatience-slash-boredom. Stakeouts were nothing if not boring. I felt it my civic duty as a certified connoisseur of sarcasm to liven it up a bit, so I slurped some more.
“Why don’t you go keep Taft company?” Uncle Bob suggested from behind his binoculars.
“Can’t.”
He lowered them. “Why not?”
“Don’t like him.”
“Perfect. I don’t think he likes you either.”
“Also,” I said, ignoring my unappreciative uncle for the moment, “he has the Hell Spawn of Satan following his every move. Remember?” Then I realized what Uncle Bob had said. “He doesn’t like me?”
Ubie shrugged with his brows.
“What have I ever done to him?” I glared at Taft’s stupid car. “Little punk. See if I help him when demon child starts making her presence known.”
An electric hum sounded behind me as Garrett rolled down his window. “Movement.”
We all looked toward the warehouse, where a vertical shaft of light appeared. The massive doors slid open, spilling light over a waiting van. It rolled inside before the doors closed again.
“At this rate, we’ll never solve the case and Mark Weir will grow old in prison. This stakeout sucks,” I said, whining into my calorie-free beverage. “We can’t see a thing. We need to get closer.”
“Send in your people,” Uncle Bob said.
“I don’t have any people with me.”
“What?” he asked, suddenly panicked. “What about Angel?”
I shrugged. “Haven’t seen that little shit in days. Why do you think I’m dressed like this? Greasepaint wreaks havoc on my complexion.”
“I am not sending you over there, Charlotte Jean Davidson.”
Uh-oh. Ubie seemed
“Fine,” he said with a heavy sigh.
Finally.
“Go do your thing.”
I knew he’d cave.
“But for God’s sake, be careful. Your dad’ll shank me if anything happens to you.”
He handed me a radio, and I traded him my soda. “No backwash,” I warned.
“No getting caught.” He turned to Garrett. “Watch her close.”
“What?” I squeaked into the radio, having been surprised in the middle of my sound check. Uncle Bob scowled. “I am so not taking Swopes. He’s in a bad mood.”
Garrett eyed me, his expression expressionless.
“Either Swopes goes with you, or you don’t go at all.”
I snatched back my diet soda and slumped down in my seat. “Then I guess I’m not going.”
“Be careful.”
I scowled at Garrett through the chain-link fence as I dropped to the other side. Well, not
Garrett followed suit, climbing the eight-foot chain-link fence with way more upper-body strength than I had and dropping beside me. But could he tie a knot in a cherry stem with his tongue?
We started out across the open field toward the warehouse. It took most of my concentration to keep from falling, and even more of my concentration to keep from clutching on to Garrett’s jacket for balance.
“I read that grim reapers collect souls,” he said, jogging beside me.
I tripped on a cactus and just barely managed to catch myself. Night was so dark. Probably because of the time. The moonlight helped, but traversing the uneven ground still proved challenging.
“Swopes,” I said, breathing slowly so he wouldn’t realize I was getting winded, “there are oodles of souls running around, wreaking havoc upon my life. Why would I collect the darned things? And even if I did, where would I keep all the jars?”
He didn’t answer. We sprinted across the parking lot to the back of the windowless building. Luckily, it had no security cameras. But I could tell from the soft glow illuminating the roofline that it did have skylights. If I could get to the roof, I might be able to see what they were up to. No good, surely, but I did need some kind of evidence to back that up.
When Garrett pulled me behind a grouping of garbage bins, I bumped into a metal pipe that led all the way up
