No Kitten Around Read online

  Sudden deceleration shouldn’t have left parts of the car on the ground, especially not the calipers—two of them. I stared at the primary part of the brake assembly, a chill sweeping through me. One caliper failing meant bad news and could happen in an older vehicle—or if the bolts got loosened. Two falling out at once meant trouble.

  “Uh, Kennedy?”

  “What, Reed?” she whispered.

  There was no nice way to say it, so I drew a deep breath and dove in head first. “You better call your FBI friends, because I think someone might have tried to kill us.”

  “What?” Her howled curses made my ears hurt, and my ex scrambled out of the car and up the bank to join me. “What are you talking about?”

  At least she wasn’t completely down and out for the count still. I could work with gasping but functional. “Deep breaths and count them,” I advised. Once she obeyed, I pointed at the pair of calipers on the ground. “That’s part of your brakes. You hit them, they fell off. Then we went in the ditch and dropped the transmission. I’m pretty sure that sort of catastrophic mechanical failure shouldn’t happen on a newer car. Any one of those things happening could be a fluke.”

  “All three of them happening is by design,” she muttered.

  “Right.”

  “Okay. This isn’t good.”

  I reached out, slipped my hand into her pocket, and retrieved her phone, offering it to her. “Perhaps you should call your boss and tell him.”

  Her hands shook, but she nodded. Instead of calling, she took pictures of the calipers, slid into the ditch, stopped, and snapped pictures of the undercarriage and the dangling transmission. I followed, looking over her shoulder.

  She texted the images, and the contact label informed me her boss was about to get some very unpleasant news.

  Within twenty seconds, her phone rang. With her expression grim, she answered, “Young.”

  It didn’t take long for the conversation to sour and join us in the ditch, although Kennedy wisely amended her statement to avoid mentioning why she’d hit the brakes in the first place. When she finally hung up, she turned to me but said nothing.

  “If I had known you’d react that—”

  She shut me up with a kiss.

  Chapter Twelve

  I kissed my sanity, common sense, and peace of mind goodbye. In the grand scheme of things, who needed sanity, common sense, or a peace of mind when I could have Kennedy? Maybe in a ditch after a car accident wasn’t the brightest idea, and to my complete disappointment, Kennedy came to the same conclusion. She broke away from me, covering my eyes with her hands, which made it difficult to keep kissing her.

  A pity, that.

  “I have one question for you, Reed.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t break the car so we had to go to a hotel room tonight, did you?”

  “I solemnly swear I didn’t intentionally break the car. I may have contributed to the transmission dropping by shunting it into park like I did, though. I definitely had nothing to do with the calipers ending up on the asphalt.”

  “Good.”

  “I wouldn’t even think of it. Sabotaging the brakes could get someone killed—and not just us.” I frowned. “Is there a reason you’re covering my eyes?”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Since I was following the honesty policy, I said, “I’m very confused. And maybe it’s a good thing you’re covering my eyes, because I want to find out if ex sex in a ditch is as spectacular as it is in a hotel room.”

  “Not in a ditch we aren’t, especially not a ditch that’s now a crime scene.”

  How disappointing. “That’s a pity.”

  “It seems I’ve made more than one miscalculation.”

  “I’m sorry I made you crash the car.”

  “You surprised me is all.”

  “You slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel.”

  “I slammed the brakes, but the wheel did the turning all on its own.”

  “Maybe that happened when the brakes broke.” I frowned, casting a doubtful look at the car. “Or the steering was sabotaged, too.”

  “I lied. I have another question for you.”

  “Go for it.”

  “When did you become Mr. Popular?” Kennedy lowered her hands from my eyes, turned, and kicked the SUV’s tire. “At least this was an FBI vehicle and not a damned rental. They’re going to love having their SUV returned to them in pieces.”

  “I’m no expert in investigations, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be kicking the evidence.”

  “The evidence can kiss my ass!” She kicked the tire again, spun around, and crossed her arms over her chest. “So help me, if some dumb fuck shows up trying to get you, I’m going to shock the shit out of them—literally. I will literally shock the shit out of them, and the forensics team can kiss my ass, too.”

  All right. I held my hands up in the universal sign of surrender. “I have no idea what I did to make people want to either kill me or kidnap me and dump me in Mississippi. My life is boring, I make other people money, and I try to make as few ripples as possible. I have no idea what I did, I swear.”

  “You rescued a kitten that should be filed as a weapon of biological warfare. That’s hardly boring.”

  “Point to you,” I conceded.

  “And getting kidnapped and dragged to Mississippi isn’t boring, either.”

  I indulged in crossing my arms, leaning against the SUV, and scowling at the ground. “Then there was the plane crash, a tornado, and then because the plane crashing once wasn’t enough, the tornado crashed it again.”

  “Also not boring. Last night was anything but boring, too.”

  “And yet another point to you.”

  “Under other circumstances, I would claim you then made me crash the car, but considering the number of parts left on the road, I’m pretty convinced the first time I hit the brakes hard, there was going to be a crash.”

  “I’m going to just claim something startled you into slamming the brakes without specifying what. That’s totally honest.”

  “I’m going to second that motion.”

  “I’m pretty sure there was some sort of rattle at the end there, too.”

  “Definitely.”

  “I meant every word I said.”

  “I know you did. You just surprised me is all.” Kennedy dug her toe into the torn-up grass and weeds, kicking a rock up the bank onto the road above. “I ended up going dumpster diving to get it back.”

  I tried to imagine her in a dumpster, and the idea was so foreign to me I couldn’t. “You went dumpster diving.”

  “If I’d been smart, I would have just got it back right away, but no. I waited until they tossed the trash and went dumpster diving.”

  “I’m afraid to ask if you found it.”

  “Considering there was no fucking way I was leaving that dumpster until I did, of course I found it.”

  I still couldn’t imagine her digging around in a dumpster for any reason, let alone to retrieve the ring she’d thrown out—and rightfully so. Worse, I wasn’t sure how—or if—the knowledge she’d gone dumpster diving changed things.

  Considering she’d never been the type to dig through a trash can for any reason, often begging me to do it for her when she’d accidentally thrown out something she needed, it changed things. It changed a lot of things.

  Old doubts, doubts I thought I’d abandoned years ago, resurfaced and reared their ugly heads. My eyes never lied. I’d lived the entirety of my life with that certainty. My eyes never lied, and Kennedy had hated me in the courthouse. I’d been so certain of that.

  Yet she’d gone climbing into a dumpster to fetch the ring I’d given her, a ring I’d saved pennies and nickels to buy, one that didn’t even have diamonds. I hadn’t been able to afford the one with the diamonds, so I’d gotten her a ring with an opal instead. Diamonds were supposed to last forever, but the opal had more fire, reminding me of her
far more than any clear stone ever could.

  I couldn’t bring myself to ask what she’d done with it after digging it out of the dumpster.

  “It turns out opals are really delicate and shouldn’t be carried around in wallets,” she mumbled.

  All right. I struggled to process the fact she had carried the ring around in her wallet to begin with, assuming the stone had somehow broken as a result. “Well, any time I’m told a rock should take a bath in olive oil, I wonder about its durability.”

  “To be fair, my wallet didn’t survive the incident, either.”

  I went from hesitant to confused, joining her in digging up rocks and kicking them around whenever I found one. “This is doing more damage to the crime scene, isn’t it?”

  “If you’re not going to let me kick tires, I’m kicking rocks.”

  “I never said you couldn’t kick the tires, I just pointed out you were kicking evidence.” I scooped a rock up onto my toe, tossed it in the air, and caught it, focusing all of my attention on the game to see how many times I could bounce it off my shoe. “You really carried the ring in your wallet.”

  “I stopped carrying my wallet in my back pocket after getting shot in the ass. Also, opals and wallets? Definitely not bulletproof.”

  I blinked and the stone bounced off my foot and fell to the ground. “Let me see if I have this straight. You were carrying your wallet in your back pocket, and someone shot you through your wallet.”

  “Right through the ring, too. I had opal shards in my ass, Reed. The surgeon wanted to know why I was carrying a ring in my wallet. Apparently, he didn’t appreciate picking out opal shards from my ass. It wasn’t a good day.”

  No matter how long I thought about it, I doubted I’d be able to wrap my head around our conversation—or accept she had actually retrieved the ring and carried it around with her until its ultimate demise in her wallet after being shot in the ass. “I would think being shot would automatically make it a bad day.”

  “Well, I don’t recommend getting shot for starters.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Do.”

  “I don’t recommend getting into car accidents you can’t remember. Waking up in Mississippi wasn’t my idea of a good time.”

  “At least this is an upgrade, you remember this one.”

  “Technically, I caused it.”

  “I’m going with whoever sabotaged the car as being the one responsible for causing the crash. Otherwise, we never would have ended up in the ditch.”

  “That’s fair.” I rubbed my temple, the start of a headache brewing behind my eyes. Instead of the trembling anxiety I should have endured, I got a mix of confusion, annoyance, and something far more dangerous: the hope things could get better, no matter what direction Kennedy and I took with our lives.

  We could walk away with clean slates, unburdened by bad circumstances. We could spin wheels and go nowhere fast, too. Other options lurked on a distant horizon, ones I hesitated to even consider. I’d gone from unable to think of anything else to accepting what I couldn’t change and all the way back to the precipice. I’d spent years trying to move on for a few minutes to send me circling right back to the beginning.

  “Well, isn’t this awkward?”

  The distant sound of an approaching vehicle drew a sigh out of me. “No, awkward would have been if I had gone with my first plan, which involved having ex sex in a ditch. We would’ve gotten caught. Good luck explaining that away.”

  “I really wish I had my gun right now.”

  “I hope you’re saying that because of the car.”

  “Yes, Reed. I’m not going to shoot you because you’re a pervert and want to have sex in a ditch. Who am I to judge? I blindfolded myself and used a lure of ties to get your attention.”

  “Good to know.”

  The car proved to be a police cruiser, which made Kennedy far happier than it did me. It took counting my breaths to control my growing anxiety.

  The older cop, a man with more gray hairs than black ones, didn’t pay me much attention, focusing on talking with Kennedy about the circumstances of the crash. His partner, a woman who couldn’t have finished police academy long ago, wouldn’t stop staring at me, and she insisted on getting in my face.

  Some cops believed the truth could only be discovered by staring someone in the eyes. My nervousness grew the longer she hovered, and I expected she would begin her interrogation the instant she thought she had unnerved me enough to catch me in the act. Of what, I had no idea.

  I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Since I couldn’t ask the woman to stop staring at me, I dug out a rock with my toe and bounced it on my foot while I waited for Kennedy to finish dealing with the cops. When the cop stayed silent, I bounced the stone from foot to foot, aware the oxfords would be scuffed beyond redemption given twenty minutes.

  Instead of breaths, I counted how many times I could bounce the rock without losing it.

  I made it to thirty, then Kennedy swept in and punted it up and over the road. “You should think about joining a soccer team with that sort of footwork.”

  “You stole my rock.” I kept my gaze lowered, searching the churned soil for a new one.

  “Officer Hank wanted to know if you noticed anything unusual when the brakes busted.”

  “I definitely noticed when they hit the asphalt and we ended up in the ditch. Beyond that, nothing mechanical. You hit the brakes, the calipers dropped, then you lost control of the vehicle. It happened pretty quickly.”

  “You a mechanic, Mr. Matthews?”

  “I know just enough to get myself in trouble with my actual mechanic. I can do the basics and identify some parts, but that’s it. I’m better at the at-home stuff, but I try to do my own work on my car whenever possible.” I shrugged. “Calipers are pretty distinctive.”

  “Transmissions, too.” The cop crouched beside me, peeking under the SUV and pointing underneath towards the engine. “I’m no mechanic, either, but I’d bet my badge your axel dropped along with your brakes. You’re damned lucky your car didn’t flip right over its own nose.”

  I got on a knee and leaned over for a better look at the SUV’s undercarriage. “Can that even happen?”

  “It happens time to time, usually at highway speed.”

  I grimaced. “That sounds painful.”

  “Not for long.” The cop turned to Kennedy. “How long have you had the vehicle?”

  Kennedy nudged my foot with hers in what I interpreted as a warning to keep quiet. “It was dropped off by the FBI this morning a little before eleven. We were in the hotel lobby when they brought it in, and no one messed with the car. The other driver got out, gave me the keys, and we talked for a few minutes before we left.”

  “Did you drive straight here?”

  Getting to my feet, I dusted my slacks off the best I could, although I left a spot of mud on my knee to go with the muck covering my shoes. The woman frowned in my direction.

  “No. We had a quick stop for breakfast, but Mr. Matthews stayed in the car while I went inside.”

  “No one came near the car while she was inside,” I added.

  “And neither of you noticed anything odd?”

  I shook my head. “It sounded fine until she hit the brakes, then we were in the ditch.”

  Officer Hank shook his head and pointed down the road. “You’re lucky you weren’t a half mile farther along the way. The ditch is a lot deeper there.”

  “How much deeper?” Kennedy shoved her hands in her pockets and shot the SUV a sour look.

  “About a hundred feet. Someone goes through the rail every year without fail and gets themselves killed. The river’s about twenty feet deep at the bottom there. Locals call it Devil’s Bend, especially during a cold snap. What brought you this way, anyway?”

  Kennedy hopped to the driver’s door, opened it, and pointed at the SUV’s navigation panel. “GPS. Route was already programmed in.”

  “Who did it?�
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  “I don’t know. Not uncommon for someone to plug in the best routes for visiting agents. I assume someone from the FBI did it when prepping the car for my use.” Kennedy planted her fists on her hips, and I suspected only the presence of the cops kept her from aiming another kick at the wrecked vehicle. “I do the same when my vehicle gets designated as a loaner to a visiting agent. More efficient for those who know where they’re going to handle the navigation. It isn’t a secret we’re headed to Indianapolis.”

  “Would’ve saved you some time through rush hour, but without traffic, taking this road would have added an extra half hour to your trip—and a lot of gas.”

  I wondered which one of us was the target, as I hadn’t had any trouble at all until Kennedy Young had stormed her way back into my life. Then again, I hadn’t any trouble at all until I’d adopted Kitten, Destroyer of Worlds, either.

  Either way I looked at it, I was screwed, and I couldn’t tell which one of them was the most dangerous of all. Both of them had managed to worm their ways places they didn’t belong, like it or not. I was just along for the ride, for better or worse.

  I really needed to stop accepting the things I couldn’t change. One day, it would probably get me killed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It took a lot longer than I thought for the FBI to arrive, people to go over the crime scene, and Kennedy to finish answering questions so we could escape and finish our trip to Indianapolis. What should have taken five hours ended up taking twelve, an hour of which involved a CDC representative checking over the new SUV from bumper to bumper, giving the all clear before allowing us to hit the road.

  I ended up driving the final hour of the trip to avoid another accident. While Kennedy cursed complaints, she pulled over and swapped seats with me readily enough. It took her less than five minutes to fall asleep, which suited my purposes perfectly. The first thing I did was tap into her phone with the SUV’s sound system, calling a number that eventually put me in touch with Luna, who promised to bring Kitten, Destroyer of Worlds to a gas station on the outskirts of the city.