Page 78 of Devoted in Death

When she’d finished, clicked off, she looked over at Roarke. “It’s a good angle. The locals should have been all over it. You’re handy.”

“I do my best.”

“Maybe it happened that way. I like the logic of it. Maybe they boosted whatever they dumped—or just dumped. Either way it could take us back to the prior step, the earlier location. It may give us names.”

She looked at the board, at Jayla. “Coffee,” she said.

“I’m all about that,” Banner agreed. “Dallas, I may know somebody who knows somebody around there. I’m a little pissed I didn’t think of it before.”

“Spend any time boosting cars, Banner?”

“I didn’t, but I can’t claim not to know some who did. I may be able to help your people down there.”

“Then get on it. Peabody?”

“Sir.”

“Coffee. Lots. Now.”

•••

While they worked the new angle, Ella-Loo, in a micro skirt taken off an LC they’d killed and whose name she’d forgotten, struggled with a bulky armchair.

She was freezing in the skirt, in fishnets, and a short, fake leather jacket—taken off yet another victim—but inside she was furnace hot.

The guy came bustling along, ’link in hand, hood of his parka thrown up. “Yeah, yeah, I’m on my way. Jeez, it’s like the South Pole out here tonight. I’m nearly there. Fire it up!”

“Hey, cutie?”

She called out, shook back her hair, saw him turn his head, give her the eye.

“Back to you,” he said into the ’link and stuffed it in his pocket. “What’s shaking, baby?”

“Could you just give me a hand, for one little minute? I can’t lift this silly thing in here, and I need to get it in before my completely ex-boyfriend comes back.”

“Sure, no prob. Bad breakup?”

“So bad. He hit me!”

“Ah, come on.” The guy hunkered down to lift the chair. “You’re better off. I can get this if you take that side and—”

Darryl leaped in, weighted sap—Ella-Loo’s idea—whacking down on the back of his head.

He made a sound like a balloon letting the air out, and crumpled.

“Quick, baby, quick, before somebody comes!”

It took a couple of hard hefts to get him and the old, reliable armchair in the back of the van. Ella-Loo scrambled in after, happily giving the groaning man another good whack before yanking the duct tape around his wrists.

“Let’s go, baby! We got him good. I can’t wait! I’m already wet. I’m already hot.”

“Save it for me,” Darryl called, zipping out to drive the short two blocks back home.

Jayla knew struggling only caused more pain, but she went into a frenzy of it when she heard them leave. She screamed against the gag until her throat felt burned and bloody, twisted her body, strained up with her arms with everything she had left in her.

It wasn’t enough.

Fresh wounds opened on her wrists, her ankles so the thick tape binding them rubbed raw and wet. Her fight cracked the NuSkin they’d slapped on some of her wounds, so they seeped again. She tasted her own tears and hysteria until, exhausted, she went still.