“Becca—”
“And you’re letting me drive.” Becca plucked the keys from Jo’s fingers, chimed open the door, and slid inside the Bentley.
“Becca—”
“Trust. Trust builds relationships.” Becca patted the wheel cheerfully. “Get in, please.”
“Building trust, hell, you want my Bentley,” Jo grumbled. She made her way to the passenger’s side, unsettled by this change in plans, but resigned to it.
Becca pulled away from the house, smiling broadly.
“Spare us the queen’s wave, please.” Jo clicked her seatbelt shut. “Keep both hands on the wheel.”
“I’m an excellent driver. Lots of parking tickets, but that’s Seattle. Not one moving violation in twenty years.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Jo tried to maintain her sulk, but Becca’s obvious pleasure as she steered the elegant car down Aloha was infectious. She turned on the radio, clicking past NPR to a classic rock station, and regretfully turned to business. “We need to tell Pam about our talk with John William Voakes.”
Becca nodded. “Yeah, she might be able to connect us to the cops who investigated him. I’m hoping she’ll have a lead on whoever trashed your office.”
“Well, none of our usual suspects fit. Even if Voakes could have snuck out of that guarded room the other night, he’s too physically weak to do such damage.” The same could be said for Rachel Perry, and Jo couldn’t imagine the pristine Patricia or Mitchell Healy wreaking that havoc. “Becca, the station’s at Twelfth and Pine.”
“Oh. Right.” Becca hit the turn signal. “Sorry. I was just grooving on the ride.”
Jo looked at her. Pam Emerson had given her nine minutes to reach the station, and she had spent one of them kissing Becca. She couldn’t regret that. But the rest of her time had fled long ago, and Pam was waiting. She opened her mouth to say so. “Go ahead. We can cruise for a while.”
“Yeah?” Becca darted her a delighted look. “Hot doggy. I’ll just go around the block.”
She clicked the signal the other way and turned onto Denny. Apparently, the block would include all of Seattle’s downtown district, but Jo sat back to enjoy the ride. They both deserved a little respite under the morning’s mild sun and blue sky, and she was able to relax against the plush seat.
“Becca!”
The static of the Bentley’s radio crackled hard, and Madelyn Healy spoke.
“Becca, the gift held blood.”
“Jo?” Becca sounded suspiciously calm. “I think our brakes are out.”
Becca kept mashing the pedal to the floor, but the effort was increasingly futile. The elegant car shuddered and picked up speed as they rolled down Denny.
“The Bentley has the finest emergency brake ever made.” Jo calmly grasped the hand brake that rested on the console between them and pulled it up. There was one jagged pause in their forward motion before the car rolled on.
“Well, shit,” Jo suggested.
Becca was afraid she might. Denny was a long, straight avenue that sloped sharply down toward the Space Needle, and it intersected with busy streets. They were hitting the end of the morning rush. Becca gulped in air, gripping the steering wheel fiercely.
“Can you turn toward the sidewalk?” Jo clenched the dashboard.
“Wish I could.” Becca darted her eyes left and right, relieved there was a pocket of space around them. Grinding the wheels against open curb would slow them, but no curb was open on Denny. Becca had a choice of crashing into parked vehicles or roaring up on a sidewalk and killing one of many pedestrians. There was time to jump out, but someone could still be killed by this car if they did. “Oh Jesus, Jo, Fairview.”
“Just keep us steady.”
They were rolling down toward one of the busiest intersections connecting to downtown. Becca caught a dizzy flash of a bilious green building coming up on the left — a walk-in haven for homeless youth — seconds before she saw two ragged kids crossing the street in front of them. Becca slammed on the horn.
“Right!” Jo yelled, but Becca was already spinning the wheel hard. She saw the kids’ two white faces jerking toward them. A Prius loomed next to them in the same instant. Becca made the wheels kiss the curb, some alien logic in her mind telling her not to over-correct.
Horn blaring, the Bentley skittered between the two gawping young people and the Prius, but even with Becca’s caution, their momentum sent the car tipping wildly, lifting up on two wheels. It slammed level on the pavement again and coasted through the intersection.
Becca’s mother, the Lady of the Rock, or some god Becca still wasn’t sure existed had to be looking out for them. Fairview’s miraculous red light allowed the Bentley to swerve around the one passing car. The street was leveling and they were slowing, and Becca was able to turn them into the wide dirt lot of a factory on their right.
They rumbled to a stop inches from the chain-link fence bordering the lot.
Becca still gripped the wheel, her eyes wide and staring, not wanting to believe she had pulled it off. She turned calmly to Jo.
“Are you all right?” she barked. “Are you all right?”
“Why wouldn’t I be all right?” Jo snapped irritably, still gripping the dashboard as tightly as Becca held the wheel. “I’m sitting right here. You did it, Becca. You saved us.”
“Now we’re getting the hell out of this car.” Becca turned the key and the oddly hissing engine quieted. Jo seemed to read her mind, and they elbowed open their doors. If the brakes of this thing had so obviously been messed with, she wouldn’t be surprised if a bomb went off under the hood. She wanted them out of there.
They walked stiffly together across the lot, stood side by side, and stared at the treacherous Bentley.
Jo flipped open her cell. “Where are we?”
“Denny and Terry Avenue.”
Jo clicked keys and spoke tersely into her phone. Her tone was stoic as she talked to Pam Emerson, but Becca could feel her trembling beside her.
Jo snapped her cell shut. “What’s the matter with you?”
Becca looked up at her, puzzled. “Besides almost flattening two homeless kids, I’m fine. What do you mean?”
“You’re so calm.”
“Oh. I’m in crisis mode.” Becca clasped her hands behind her, enjoying the familiar, but temporary, cerebral tranquility that saw her through emergencies. “Trigger my phobia and I’ll freak right out, but throw me a threat that makes sense and I can usually handle it. Social work. I promise I’ll be a basket case by tonight, though.”
“Well, I’ll have my nervous breakdown now, then.” Jo was pale as chalk.
“That’s okay. Go ahead. I think there are two rules in good relationships: I get to drive, and only one of us gets to go crazy at a time.” Becca tugged Jo’s sleeve gently. “Come on. Sit down. We found a patch of shade.”
They settled together into the dirt in the shadow of the building. Becca wrapped Jo’s cold hand in hers and held it on her knee, and they were quiet for a while.
“The gift held blood,” Jo said.
Becca closed her eyes, her tranquility fading fast. “I don’t know what that means. I don’t understand what gift she’s talking about.”
“We heard her voice just before we realized the brakes were gone.”
“Was she warning us? Trying to get us out of the car?”
“Your mother spoke in the past tense. The gift held blood. It didn’t sound as if she was warning us of a current danger.”
“You had just mentioned John William Voakes before she spoke.”
“True.” Jo was watching her closely. “Becca, I can fly us both to the finest hotel in London. We can be there in ten hours.”