Page 1 of Frankie and the Fed (Untamed Rascals #3)

O h, good, an angry man with little dick energy—just what my morning needed. Spittle flew at my face, and a vein pulsed on his reddened forehead as he screamed at me.

“You bitch!” I stepped back to avoid contamination. “How dare you have my car towed?”

I thumbed the knife in my purse, but skipped over it for the pepper spray. As much as I would love to stab him in the balls, I had better things to do with my day than answer questions from the police.

“You were blocking my driveway, and I need to get to work. Now, back off before you get pepper spray to the face.” I held up the can, finger on the trigger, so he knew I was serious.

Men never took me seriously. Between my less than average height and my outrageous wigs, most men saw me as someone to walk all over, or better yet, insane. I was happy to be the latter while I proved I wasn’t the first.

“So, you had my car towed?” He took a step toward me, and I pulled the trigger.

“I do not have the time to entertain the feelings of men who can’t understand basic boundaries,” I said as he doubled over and screamed.

“Fuck you! What the hell?”

“Step foot on my property again, and I will have you arrested.” I stepped around him and got into my car. It was too bad no one was here to see how badass I was.

God, I needed another good mystery to sink myself into so I could work off some of this nervous energy.

My last trip to New Mexico to investigate the UFO wreckage was a bust. I couldn’t remember anything except a sense of dread that put me off hunting for aliens for a while.

Life was getting a little too predictable, and that made me antsy, and now this shit. I’d end up stabbing someone at this rate.

My hands only shook a little as I started the car and drove off, already running late. Not that I cared about being on time for work, but I promised my roommate and best friend, Lily, I would pick her up from her boyfriend’s apartment on the way.

She stood, bouncing on the balls of her feet, in front of the tall gleaming building which housed Duke’s place.

“Why are you so chipper?” I asked before cracking open my energy drink. Thankfully, it was closed and in my purse when I left the house, so it walked away from the pepper spray as perfect as always. “And why couldn’t Duke drive you?”

“He had to go the opposite direction for an early morning meeting.”

I hadn’t even had a sip of caffeine, and I cringed at how chipper and awake she was this early in the morning.

“It’s the robot!” Lily burst out like the words had been bubbling up in her all morning and they couldn’t wait to be free.

“What about robots?” I asked. I couldn’t keep up with the whiplash change in direction this early. “Is it the apocalypse already?”

Lily snorted with laughter.

“Why would I be excited about that?

“I would be.” I finally chugged some of my Wrath energy drink.

The tall yellow can promised an ungodly and possibly illegal amount of caffeine and vitamins no one but the chemists who made it have ever heard of.

It tasted like pineapple flavored piss, and I wondered every time I cracked a new can if the people who made it even had taste buds.

I chugged enough to worry Lily, but at least her voice didn’t pound in my head anymore, and going to work didn’t fill me with dread.

“I’m excited because we are getting new equipment today. It’s a robot that scans pages into high resolution TIFF images for preservation,” Lily said excitedly, bouncing in her seat like a damn puppy.

“Does the museum have books?” I hardly paid attention to anything the museum did beyond my specialty, dinosaurs, which was the best part of any museum, anyway .

“Well, some, but we are partnering with the university on a big project to archive their older, public domain science books and articles. I get to create a whole interactive exhibit that lets people examine the history of whatever subject they could want… that the university has.”

“Sounds cool,” I replied when she stopped long enough for me to talk.

“It is so cool. I’m glad Tom took my advice and spent some of the grant money on it.” She sighed, but I couldn’t tell if it was dreamy or exasperated. “It’s just too bad that I won’t be able to use it.”

“What are you talking about? Isn’t it literally your job to use it?” I knew I said the wrong thing the second it left my mouth. Lily shrugged, but her shoulders were so stiff they hardly moved.

“Tom is taking the lead on the project.”

“Stupid Tom isn’t even an archivist. He’s a pencil pusher who let his title go to his head.” Some of the Wrath splashed on mine and Lily’s arms when I gesticulated a little too hard. I put down the can and wiped it off both of us. “Sorry.”

“Stupid Tom is my boss.”

“Fuck that, we’re going to see it in action. Duke’s out of town tonight. We will simply sneak back in after work. Hell, we don’t even have to sneak. We can just work late.”

The plan was already unfolding in my mind. Everyone scrutinizes Lily because of her autism, but I can get away with anything as their star paleontologist and daughter of their biggest donors. Maybe this will ease that antsy, gotta-do-something feeling that has been plaguing me.

“That’s…” She hesitated, but I could see the excitement etched into her. “What if we get caught? ”

“What if we do?” I asked a little too excited for the possibilities tonight could bring if she said yes.

The likelihood was low. I’d worked plenty of late nights when we got a new fossil in. So many I’d befriended the night security guard, Jo. I’d tried flirting with her at one point, but alas, she was married and very much straight.

I’d have to get my ‘dominated by a woman in uniform’ fantasy fulfilled some other way. Still, she wouldn’t ask questions if I stayed late.

“Then I lose my job. How many times do I have to tell people I can’t risk it? I don’t have a trust fund to fall back on, Frankie.”

I squirmed a bit, because she was right. It was easy for me to forget that not everyone had jobs just for fun. I picked up and drank more of the Wrath to try to abate that guilty feeling that crept into my gut.

“I’ll take care of you. Hell, Duke is gnawing at the bars of his enclosure to be able to take care of you. He won’t even ask questions. He’d just be glad for something to throw his money at.” I flinched at my word choice. “Someone. You.”

She was quiet. I’d said too much again.

“I’d like to take care of myself,” she said with resolve.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“But since I feel like my job is always at risk anyway, let’s do it.”

“Yes.” I pumped my hand, forgetting I still held the pineapple piss go juice, sloshing it around the can. Thankfully, I’d downed enough, and only a few drops spilled out.

Lily sat hunched over her desk, her hair obscuring her face as if that would hide her instead of making her more obvious. I tamped down a smile as I knocked on the frame of her office door.

She jumped but smiled when she saw me.

“Is it time?” She looked a bit like a kid waiting for dessert.

“Yeah. Where is it?” I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see it in the large space they used for photographing the various items that came through the museum.

“Tom didn’t even bring it out today. It’s still in the back warehouse for ‘processing.’” She rolled her eyes. I never paid much attention to what happened with deliveries to the museum outside fossils I was excited about.

“Lead the way.”

“Hold on, let me just message Duke real quick,” she said as she pulled out her phone and started texting. A little knife twisted in me at the unconscious smile on her face. I was not jealous of Duke and Lily. I just missed spending time with her. I may not be her best friend, but she was mine.

“So, I stole Tom’s badge,” she said nervously before thrusting the badge at me. I stood there staring for a moment too long.

“Why?” I took it from her. I wasn’t opposed to theft per se, just surprised she thought it would be necessary.

“It’s to the part of the warehouse we need. I don’t have access. ”

“Right, of course. Glad you know how all this works. I didn’t even consider that.” We snuck down the hallway toward the warehouse, keeping to the shadows and hopefully away from the cameras.

“Hold on.” Lily said as we passed the bathroom, and I rolled my eyes as I waited for her in the hallway—that wasn’t exactly clandestine.

I leaned against the wall, facing the hall to the warehouse. A shadow passed across the floor in front of me. Now, that was interesting. As far as I knew, only one other person should be here, and I’d already checked that she was comfortably ensconced in the security room.

I pushed off the wall and crept down the hall, following the shadow.

The warehouse door to my right closed with a faint click. To my left stood a tall figure in a hat and all black, looking behind them before they turned the corner.

I couldn’t make out much about them, but the face was angular and vaguely feminine. I ducked into the hall I’d come from so she wouldn’t see me and peeked around just in time to see her disappear.

That was not Jo, and whoever it was, she wasn’t supposed to be here. She certainly wasn’t supposed to be in the warehouse in the middle of the night.

“Oh, there you are,” Lily said from behind me, startling me and making me jump.

I looked toward where the woman disappeared one last time, debating following her.

“Ready?” Lily asked when I was too slow to answer.

“Yes, of course.” I looked down the hall one last time, but whoever that was had likely disappeared by now, and following would be pointless. “Lead the way. ”

Lily swiped us in with her pilfered badge.

“I’m so excited you’re bringing me in on one of your adventures,” she said when the door closed behind us. Her voice echoed around the museum’s vast warehouse, bouncing off the crates of priceless artifacts, just waiting for their moment to shine. “Oops. Too loud.”

“I didn’t realize you wanted to come with me,” I whispered.