Jennifer Rardin [Jaz Parks series book 2] Another One Bites The Dust

business.” He sounded very offhand, but his shelter-bea-gle eyes begged,Feed me, pet me, love me . I wanted to be careful with what I said though. It would suck to jinx the whole deal with too much optimism. You saw that every day on Cinemax.

 “This is stellar work, Miles. Probably your best ever, considering the deadline pressure. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Forget that idea we talked about earlier. I can nail Pengfei with a bolt, no problem.”

 “Are you kidding? I’m on a roll, Jaz. I’ll have that sucker ready for you by dusk!” Scary light in his eyes now. Kinda fanatical, like Dale Spitzer and theOthers Suck crew. Scarier still that I could relate. The work did it, man. It seeped right into your marrow if you let it or, in our case, if you courted and sweet-talked and sometimes pleaded with it.

 I hesitated. “Okay, but I’m warning you. We can’t play outside anymore. Cassandra’s got to do her half of the Pengfei disguise.And I need to figure out how to get back onboard the Constance Malloy.Come on, Wu, grow a set and give me a call!

 A couple of hours later he did just that. Good thing too, because I’d just finished doing eenie meenie minie mo to decide which of my crew I should strangle first, and the future looked bleak for Bergman.

 The biggest problem was that four grown adults weren’t meant to hang together in such a small space with so much at stake. Playing euchre, fine. Making preparations to assassinate two vampires who could easily turn their rig into kindling—nuh-uh.

 Nobody found Cole’s antics amusing, which made him want to grab his toys and go play somewhere else. He disappeared into the bathroom for a while. Nobody even wanted to guess what he was up to in there. Then he ended up in the driver’s seat, flipping through radio stations so fast Cassandra finally yelled at him to either settle on one or put in a damn CD. Yes, she said “damn.” She was really starting to sweat.

 I blamed part of it on the steam rising from the big pot bubbling over the stove. I don’t know why she felt she had to lean her entire face over it every time she stirred the contents, but there you go. I guess some spell casters are very hands-on that way.

 Part of the problem was Bergman.

 “These instruments are very sensitive to temperature,” he’d announce to the room at large. Then he’d subside. Five minutes later, “The metal is perspiring. How am I supposed to do intricate work like this with a metal that’s perspiring?”

 Cassandra strode out of the kitchen and disappeared into the bathroom. Moments later she returned and slammed a stick of deodorant on Bergman’s table. “Try that on your damn metal!” she snapped as she went back to her work.

 He raised his eyebrows at me like,What’s gotten into her? I pointed directly at him. Then I pressed my lips together, made a zipping motion across them, acted as if I was turning a lock at their center, and threw the imaginary key out the window.

 I managed to keep them from open warfare, but Wu definitely heard the relief in my voice when I answered his call.

 “I am sorry I have not phone before,” he said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “There was much work to be done before I can break free.”

 “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m impressed that you’re willing to give us a chance.”

 “I am willing to talk,” he hedged.

 Dammit, I don’t havetimefor negotiations! But one way or another I had to get hold of a Pengfei outfit. And a fan. And maybe some of her makeup and hair doodads. No sense in pushing this spell so hard it burst at the seams. Plus it would be nice to separate her from Lung to start with. Our plan would sail so much smoother if I could kill and become her before Lung even saw her this evening. If I could get into her room, maybe I could find a clue as to where to find her.My job would be so much easier if I just knew where you two stiffs holed up during the day.

 “Miss Robinson?”

 “Sorry, Xia Wu, my mind was wandering there for a second. Um, yes, talking would be great. Can I meet you onboard?”

 “Certainly. As cover, please bring with you the dry-cleaning from J-Pards on Twenty-sixth and Elm. I neglected to retrieve it while in town as an excuse to have it brought to me.”

 “Very clever,” I said.Dry-cleaning! Argh! Pengfei had left an outfit here on land, ripe for the picking, and I hadn’t even considered the possibility.

 “My brother, Shao, have the ticket. He makes sure you get it within the hour. Please to be here before five.”

 Okay, now I had two reasons not to like this guy, maybe three. One, he wasn’t going to jump right in line from the start. Two, he didn’t have a problem involving his brother. Though with a family to support, Shao could not afford to stand this close to the kind of danger Lung represented. And maybe three, isolated by the telephone, the timbre of Wu’s voice led me to suspect the People’s Liberation Army had been recruitingothers . And I didn’t think Wu’s particular brand cared much for mine. In fact, I thought he just might be a reaver.

 CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE

 My first instinct was to get the Xia clan the hell out of town. Stash them somewhere safe until Pengfei, Lung, and Wu were no longer threats. But then it might be obvious they had American allies and that could be even worse for them than what they faced now. Plus I could be wrong about Wu. So, though I would deeply regret it later, I decided the best course of action would be none at all.

 However I had to get that dry-cleaning tag, and the Xias had been seen around our camp way too often. “Cole, you look bored.”

 He rotated his chair to face me where I stood between Mary-Kate and Ashley, still holding the phone. At the moment he was making faces. By that, I mean he’d pinched his eyebrows between the thumbs and forefingers of each hand and was rearranging his expression in time to the song on the radio, which happened to be that timeless classic “Help Me, Rhonda” by the Beach Boys.

 I pocketed my phone. “Are you what happens to little boys when they grow up without ever having gotten to play with Mr. Potato Head?”