Chapter 2 #2
Ida Belle strapped in, and Hot Rod pressed a button on his key chain. A garage door on the back of the building started to open, and he fired up the SUV. The engine roared to life, and he revved it a couple times. The echo in the metal building was almost deafening.
I should have expected it, but I wasn’t ready when Hot Rod put the SUV in reverse and floored it. The truck launched out of the building so fast, I banged my head into the back of Ida Belle’s seat. I’d barely managed to get upright again when he put it in gear and floored it again.
The truck raced forward like a roller coaster.
I spent a single second admiring the ability of the engine to move this much weight that fast and with linear power distribution, then I switched right back to hoping I’d make it out of the vehicle alive.
Hot Rod headed across the yard, but some distance from the driveway.
I kept thinking he was going to turn and slide out of the driveway and onto the road, but instead, he ran straight into the ditch, launching all of us out of our seats.
I put my hands up to keep from hitting the top of the vehicle while Ida Belle and Hot Rod whooped it up in the front. They had both officially lost their minds. Or at least, Ida Belle had. Hot Rod might have never had one.
I thought hitting the ditch would slow him down, but it didn’t.
He launched out of the other side and I swear we were airborne.
We crashed into the road and he turned the wheel, sliding us sideways in a layer of mud that covered this section of asphalt.
Once I stopped bouncing, I clutched the grab bar, briefly wondering if I had time to get my nine-millimeter out of my waistband and shoot him before he pulled another stunt like that.
“Now for the real power,” he said, and I’m certain my eyes widened all the way to my scalp.
He punched the accelerator and the truck leaped forward, throwing my head back in the seat.
It felt as if we were taxiing down a runway in a private jet.
Maybe faster. I was pretty sure I was getting younger.
The marsh grass on the side of the road blurred into a haze of brown and green, slowly losing color as speed increased even more.
I leaned over to look out the front window and I swear it looked like one of those sci-fi movies where the spaceship is just about to go into hyperspace.
I caught a glimpse of a bend in the road ahead of us, then realized it wasn’t a bend at all but the entrance to the highway. And we were flying toward it at lightning speed.
“The highway!” I yelled.
Hot Rod glanced back. “Yeah, that’s the highway.”
I didn’t have time to say anything else. It was too late. We were already there.
I started to ask forgiveness for all my sins but then figured this ride had been enough penance to get me through the pearly gates.
I tried to close my eyes, but I couldn’t stop looking at my impending doom.
The concrete of the highway seemed to fill the windshield and then suddenly, Hot Rod yanked the wheel to the left and shot off the road and onto the embankment, launching the vehicle slightly sideways.
He never let off the gas as we made a loop up and down the embankment like a NASCAR racer.
When we were back on flat ground, he jammed the brakes and we slammed to a stop.
The seat belt tightened so hard it almost knocked the air out of me.
Hot Rod and Ida Belle sat there, grinning at each other like idiots, apparently no worse for the wear.
Ida Belle turned around to look at me. “Isn’t it great? Now we have a real getaway vehicle and no one will suspect a thing. The brush guards will keep most vehicles from ramming us off the road and the winch will get us out if we get stuck.”
Hot Rod shrugged. “I don’t know what kind of business you ladies are up to with this car, but whatever it is, the car can handle it.” He looked over at Ida Belle. “You want to give it a test drive before you buy?”
“You know it!”
She hopped out and went running around the front of the SUV. Before Hot Rod could get around to the passenger’s seat, I crawled over the center console and jumped out of the vehicle.
“You want to ride up front?” Hot Rod asked.
“No,” I said. “I want to walk. Assuming I still can.”
He looked confused. “It’s almost a mile back to the shop.”
“I’ll be fine. You’ve got paperwork or whatever to do, right? Don’t worry about me.”
Ida Belle frowned momentarily, then excitement took over again and she motioned for Hot Rod to get in the SUV. “Hurry up. It’s just a mile. She’ll be fine. Trust me, she’s the deadliest thing out here.”
No. I’m not.
I watched Ida Belle tear off down the road in the SUV and couldn’t decide which was scarier—her in that vehicle or Gertie with old glasses in her ancient Cadillac. I was considering opting for separate vehicles if we had to go anywhere together. Or maybe a cab. Even a cab in New York was safer.
I set out at a slow jog back to Hot Rod’s warehouse of motorized doom, trying to burn off some of the fear I’d collected during the ride. It said a lot about the choices you made in life when jogging actually lowered your heart rate.
By the time I got back to the warehouse, Hot Rod was handing Ida Belle a set of keys and an envelope of papers. Both were still grinning.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” Hot Rod said. “I can get that bulletproof glass you asked about. Just have to order it.”
“Go ahead and order it,” Ida Belle said, glancing over at me. “You never know with the hunters around here.”
Hot Rod nodded. “That’s the truth. I was fishing last week and someone put a hole right through the side of my boat. Must have been in the next channel and overshot, but a couple inches to the left and he’d have taken out my knee.”
“Did you see him?” I asked, starting to worry a bit since Gertie had been fishing a lot lately. With her refusal to get new glasses and her propensity to be heavily armed at all times, it was more than a passing concern.
“I tried to catch him,” Hot Rod said, “but he must have caught on that he overshot when I yelled. He took off out of the channel, and with my boat taking on water, I couldn’t keep up. Plus, it was late—sun was already going down so I couldn’t see so good.”
Ida Belle glanced at me and frowned, and I knew she was wondering the same thing I was. “Did you get a good look at the boat?”
“A decent one. It was a flat-bottom aluminum with an Evinrude motor. The guy didn’t look all that big, but he never turned around so that I could see any of his face. Probably too far away to get much of a look anyway, especially with him wearing a ball cap pulled down that low.”
Ida Belle’s frown disappeared and I took that to mean that Gertie’s boat did not have an Evinrude motor and that she was in the clear. It was always a good day when you found out your friend didn’t almost accidentally shoot off a man’s kneecaps.
“Did you report it to the sheriff?” Ida Belle asked.
“I talked to Carter about it. He came out here and took a look at my boat and said he’d check into it. He’s a good guy, but I’m not sure what he can find. Probably wasn’t even someone from around here. That’s usually the way it goes.”
“Well, we’re going to get out of here,” Ida Belle said. “Thanks so much for the vehicle. It’s going to be perfect.”
“I’m glad you like it. I have to admit, I thought hard on keeping it myself.” He looked over at me. “When you get ready to hop up that Jeep, you let me know. I can do some serious modifications to a Jeep. Can even get you some artillery racks for the top.”
In any other place except the Middle East, I would have found his last statement alarming, but in Sinful, it sounded almost normal. “I’ll let you know,” I said.
“You want to race home?” Ida Belle asked.
“Are you going to drive in reverse to make it fair?” I asked.
Ida Belle laughed. “Good point.”
“You go ahead and do Mach 1 or whatever,” I said. “I’ll catch up with you in the next dimension.”
“I’ve got a DeLorean on its way from Los Angeles,” Hot Rod said. “Check back with me in a couple months. I can get you in that race.”