“Are you out of your mind?” Miguel demanded.
“No!” She felt for the clutch, struck by the realization that the steering wheel was on the opposite side of the cars she’d learned to drive on. “Pilar, everything’s backward and I can’t find the clutch!”
“Don’t think it has one, baby.” Pilar was frantically programming addresses into her GPS.
“Oh, yeah. That kind.” Loup put it in drive and hit the gas.
The limo lurched forward. Kate fans scattered.
“Got it!” Pilar said triumphantly. “Take a right onto the Strip!”
“Okay!”
The limo shot out into traffic, narrowly missing getting sideswiped by a tour bus. Miguel pitched sideways and swore.
“Put on your seat belt,” Pilar advised him. “Loup’s a good driver, but her reflexes can make the ride… interesting.”
“Plus everything’s backward!” Loup added.
Miguel buckled his seat belt. “Where the fuck did you learn to drive, you fucking maniac? Bizarro World?”
“No, Scotland.” She gunned it through a yellow light and switched lanes. “What’s going on behind us, Pilar?”
Pilar craned her head around. “There’s no pursuit. We’re fading out of radio range, so I can’t tell anything else. Can you still get Bill?”
Loup tried him on her earpiece. “Nope.”
“Okay. We’ll check in with them later and make sure everything’s okay. For now, we’re on our own. Take a left at the next light. And slow down, we don’t want to get pulled over. On top of everything else, I guess we’re, um, kinda driving a stolen car.”
“Some rescue.” Miguel slumped in his seat. “You two are fucking insane.”
Loup pushed her sunglasses up onto her head and met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, and you’re welcome, by the way.”
A faint smile tugged at the corners of his wide mouth. He shook his head and looked away, trying to hide it, then glanced back at her, smiling more broadly. “It’s good to see you too, you little freak.”
“Now that’s exactly the touching reunion I imagined,” Pilar commented.
“Give me a break! I’m in shock.”
“Hey, I was being serious.”
FORTY-ONE
They made it to the airport without incident and found the car rental agency. Loup and Miguel waited in the air-conditioned limo while Pilar went in to complete the paperwork.
“Why’d you do it?” he asked her. “Seriously, this is just dumb, Loup. It was a stupid risk. You were out, you were free.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t. And speaking of dumb… getting caught trying to cheat a big casino? Hello?”
He scowled. “I didn’t fucking cheat! I banged the guy’s wife. I was just there to meet her for a fucking drink. He framed me.”
Loup laughed. “You banged Mr. Skeevy’s trophy wife?”
Miguel’s scowl deepened. “I didn’t know who she was! She came on to me at the Palms. They set me up.”
She laughed harder.
“It’s not funny!”
“Yeah, it kind of is, Mig.” She sobered. “Sorry. Are you okay? It looked like they were treating you okay. I mean, I didn’t exactly expect to find you playing video games with the bad guys when we busted in to rescue you.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I’m fine. The guards were all right; they were just doing their jobs. And it’s just as boring being a guard as a hostage. Guess things aren’t really all that different here than back home, huh? There’s always a big man and everyone else works a bullshit job for him.”
“Yep. Only here it’s not you.”
Pilar came out. “Loup, they need to scan your driver’s license. You guys catching up?”
“Yeah.” She grinned from ear to ear. “Mig didn’t cheat at cards. He banged Mr. Skeevy’s wife and they set him up.”
Pilar giggled. “You’re kidding!”
“Enough!” Miguel pointed a thick finger at her. “I don’t need to hear it from you, sweetheart. And speaking of catching up, the two of you have a lot of talking to do. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the sight of you with that gun, Ecchevarria, and I have no fuckin’ idea what that business with the rock band was all about.”
“It’s a long story,” Loup said, getting out of the limo.
“Fortunately, we have about…” Pilar consulted her Dataphone. “Three days’ worth of driving ahead of us.”Miguel groaned.
“Hey, if you hadn’t sexed up the trophy wife, we wouldn’t be here,” Loup reminded him. “Hope she was worth it.”
He gave her a dour look. “She wasn’t.”
As soon as the paperwork was finished, they moved the limo to the airport’s short-term parking lot to make it look as though they’d flown out of town, then set out on the road in the rental car. Loup took the first shift driving with Miguel crammed into the front seat beside her and Pilar navigating from the backseat. Once they hit a long stretch of highway, Pilar began making calls.
“Hi, hello. This is Pilar Mendez. About your limousine…”
“Mendez?” Miguel asked Loup. Behind them Pilar explained the situation with profuse apologies.
“Um, yeah. We kind of have these illegal Canadian passports.”
“This just gets better and better, doesn’t it?” He studied her. “So what’s your nom de guerre?”
“Nom de guerre?”
“What does it say on your passport, Loup?”
She checked the speedometer and slowed down. “Guadalupe Herrera.”
“It’s not gonna be enough to protect you, you know. The casino, this car…” Miguel gestured. “Your name’s on the invoice. They can track you down. It’s not like Outpost. They’ve got systems. Computer networks. Databanks.”
Pilar ended her call. “Yeah, we know all about it. That’s why we’re staying in out-of-the-way places and paying in cash.”
“Ooh, my, my. Aren’t you the crafty one?” he observed.
She smiled smugly. “I am, in fact.”
“She is,” Loup agreed.
On her next call, Pilar checked in with Geordie Davies and confirmed that all was well with Kate. “They got detained and interrogated by security,” she informed Loup. “But they played dumb and claimed we used them. There really wasn’t anything Mr. Skeevy could do. He couldn’t exactly admit they were holding Miguel hostage and we stole him.”
“So they’re okay?”
“They’re fine.”
She checked in with Senator Ballantine and informed him that they had Miguel Garza with them and expected to arrive in a couple of days.
“Well?” Loup asked.
Pilar winced. “He says we’re idiots. But he gave me the address of a safe house in Virginia.”
“You are idiots,” Miguel commented.
“Hey.” She gave him a sharp look. “Look who’s talking! Forget the trophy wife. If you’d stayed put, you’d be testifying to Congress in a week’s time, and we’d still be enjoying our European honeymoon.”
“Or at least babysitting the band,” Pilar added.
“Yeah, about that.” Miguel plucked at his T-shirt, glancing down at the image of Loup striking an iconic pose in her security togs. “You wanna tell me what the fuck’s going on?”
They made it to Pilar’s first destination by nightfall, crossing the border of New Mexico and turning off the highway to find a small roadside motel. By that time, Miguel had heard the entire story of their careers as secret agent bodyguards and their liaison with Kate. He was silent for a while, digesting it.
“You okay, Mig?” Loup asked after they checked in.
“Yeah.” He shook himself. “I’m in the middle of nowhere at the mercy of a pair of teenage lunatics who seem to think they’re living in a spy novel and I don’t even have a fucking toothbrush, but I’m okay.”
“C’mon, big guy.” Pilar took his arm. “We’ll go buy you a toothbrush and whatever else you need, and find someplace to eat. I have a feeling if I try to feed Loup another energy bar, she’s gonna throw it at me.”
There was a store on the outskirts of town that sold everything—a massive warehouse of a store with harsh fluorescent lighting and a lone stock boy wandering the aisles. They bought Miguel toiletries, clean clothes, and a cheap suitcase. He grumbled about the quality of everything.
“God, you big baby!” Pilar said while Loup paid the bill. “Just be glad this place is open. Doesn’t look like they have a lot of customers.”
“We’re one of the lucky ones, honey.” The tired-looking salesclerk smiled at her. “We’re still here.”
“The pandemic?” Loup asked.
The clerk nodded. “Rural areas like this, two out of three stores closed ages ago.” She handed her her change. “You travel safe now.”
They had dinner at a roadhouse down the street from their hotel. Loup polished off an enormous burrito platter and a side of nachos. Miguel drank three beers with his dinner and began eyeing the female clientele in the bar.
“Oh, no!” Pilar noticed his wandering gaze. “I don’t think so. That’s what got you into trouble in the first place.”
“I’m just looking!”
“Keep it in your pants for a few days, Mig,” Loup said in a practical tone. “C’mon! You’ll live.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, well, if that’s your advice, the next time you rescue me, you might wanna consider a less provocative outfit. I gotta live with the image of you dressed up as Satan’s French maid seared into my brain. And I’m trying to be a good guy and work the big brother angle, but it’s a little disturbing, you know?”