A tiny, horrible tendril of panic curled in my stomach. “Hooker, do you remember Beans coming into the house with us?”
Hooker opened both eyes. “No.”
“Do you remember him being in the SUV with us?”
“No.”
Our eyes locked. “Did you ever take him out of the hauler?” I asked Hooker. “He was sleeping in the lounge. You locked him in when Felicia came to help us.”
“Don’t tell me I left him in the hauler,” Hooker said, hands over his eyes. “I’m still sleeping and this is a nightmare, right? Jesus, pinch me or something.”
I bit into my lower lip. “I’m going to throw up.”
“Shit,” Hooker said, on his feet, hunting down his shoes. “I don’t fucking believe this. We were so careful not to leave prints, and then we leave the dog.”
I had the SUV keys in my hand and my other hand on the doorknob. “Maybe we can get to him before Huevo’s people.”
I drove because Hooker couldn’t afford to lose his license by doing a hundred on the interstate. I took the off-ramp on two wheels and laid four feet of rubber when I jumped on the brakes in the strip-mall lot where we’d parked the Huevo hauler.
The SUV rocked to a stop, and Hooker and I sat in frozen silence. No hauler.
Hooker cut his eyes to me. “You aren’t going to cry, are you?”
I blinked tears away. “No. Are you?”
“I hope not. I’d feel like a real pussy.”
“We need to get Beans back.”
“Yeah, and Beans isn’t our only problem. We just told the Huevo team we stole their hauler and made off with their cars. And we told the guy who killed Oscar Huevo that we found Huevo wrapped up like a Christmas ham.”
“You’re in big trouble,” I said. “They’re going to come looking for you. Good thing I’m not involved.”
“I’m going to tell them it was all your idea.”
I smiled over at Hooker. He might be a jerk when it came to fidelity, but he’d protect me with his last breath. “What do we do now?”
“They might not be too far in front of us. We could cruise north and try to catch them. They might not even know Beans is in the lounge. Maybe we could sneak in and get Beans when they stop for lunch.”
I wheeled the car out of the lot and was turning toward the interstate entrance when Hooker’s cell phone rang.
&nb
sp; “Yeah?” Hooker said. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” And he disconnected.
“Who was that?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t give me his name. He said I was a rotten bastard for abandoning my dog. That I didn’t deserve to have a great dog like Beans. And that he was going to kill me.” Hooker slouched in his seat. “I can’t believe I left Beans in the hauler.”
“We were exhausted. We just weren’t thinking.”
“That’s no excuse. This is Beans we’re talking about. Beans is…family. He’s special. And he’s kind of dumb. How’s he going to get by without me?”
“Well, at least the killer likes Beans; that’s a good thing, right?”
“Of course he likes Beans. How could anyone not like Beans? I tell you, this is war. No more Mr. Nice Guy. I’m getting my damn dog back. I’m going to find this Beans snatcher, and I’m going to get medieval on his ass. Oscar Huevo won’t be the only one with bullet holes and tooth marks in him. This piece-of-shit Beans snatcher is going down.”
“You’re sounding a little on the edge here,” I said to Hooker. “We need to get Beans back, but maybe you want to chill. You wouldn’t want to do anything rash, right?”