“It’s not a baby, Joe,” she reminded him as she restrained her grin. It was an old argument, and one of the few she often instigated herself.
“ ‘Course she is,” he sighed, as his hand slid over the hood before releasing the lock and raising it slowly.
The penlight beam moved slowly over the engine, as Joe leaned in, checking around it and inside the fender walls.
“Finding parts for her was a bitch,” he said softly. “There are very few original parts left for this model. She’s a true classic.”
Yeah, yeah yeah, Maggie smirked. Joe was doing more than just checking for whatever Grant may have hidden, he was petting and caressing that damned engine like it could actually feel his touch.
“Do I need to leave the two of you alone?” she asked, keeping her voice at a whisper as he ran his fingers in and out of the maze of parts that made up the engine.
“You might want to look the other way,” he murmured. “She gets embarrassed if others see her naked like this.”
Maggie rolled her eyes.
Finally, he straightened from the motor with a sigh before lowering the hood back into place.
“Nothing in there.” There was an edge of relief in his voice as he moved along the side of the car.
His hand smoothed over the top before trailing down the door and gripping the handle. “Do you know how hard it was to find completely original parts? How many years I spent putting her together perfectly?”
“Your dream woman, huh?”
“She doesn’t back-talk me.”
“She can’t get on the kitchen table with you, either. I’d remember that one if I were you.”
He turned back to look at her, and even in the dim glow of the penlight, his gaze was frankly sexual.
“Oh baby, that one is just set in stone,” he murmured. “You have nothing to fear.”
She rolled her eyes at him again as he turned back to the car, moving into it to begin searching the interior. Maggie drew in a deep breath, rubbing her hands against her arms as a nervous chill raced over her flesh.
The garage was damned creepy. There were too many shadows, too many places where someone could hide. She stared around the dark interior, her eyes struggling to pierce the darkness of the corners, the long shadows cast by the multitude of boxes, appliances, and only God knew what that had been stacked against the walls. If she wasn’t mistaken, she had even glimpsed the hull of an old motorcycle hanging high on the far wall.
“You’re a pack rat, Joe,” she muttered.
He grunted from inside the car, the shadow of his large body moving in the interior as he searched each nook and cranny. He was thorough, and though her freedom depended on finding the information, she was beginning to pray it wasn’t here. If it wasn’t here, then she couldn’t be implicated, and there would be no reason to fear Joe’s distrust.
Tucking the small handgun he gave her into the back pocket of her jeans, Maggie bit her lip and waited in nervous fear as Joe took his good ole, easy time searching. He worked his way from the passenger side, back to the driver’s side, searching under seats, along the sides, the carpet, the walls, anywhere that Grant could have hidden whatever it was he hid.
As he knelt at the driver’s side door again, he ran his hands along the sides of the seat, pushing beneath it, then paused. She heard his muttered curse, heavy with bitterness, a second before he pulled a small package from beneath the seat.
“He cut my seat,” Joe muttered. “Bastard. It took me two years to find that seat.”
He sat back on his haunches, staring down at the dark package in his hands.
“Is that it?” She moved closer.
“Yeah.” His voice was heavy with distaste. “I pretty much bet this is it. Feels like a few discs, a video, pictures.” He felt around the wrapping. “I think we have it.”
The garage door opened abruptly.
“And here Santiago was certain our friend Grant was such a liar.”
The heavily accented voice was followed by four large bodies stepping into the garage, weapons raised, and their guns sure as hell looked bigger than hers and Joe’s.
“Down.”
A hard hand locked around Maggie’s wrist, jerking her down, as Joe pulled her around the side of the car and toward the long shadows cast from the junk piled along the walls.
She expected gunfire. Pain. Blood.
“Get them,” the order was harsh, commanding, but the sound of bodies moving behind them was the only indication that the Fuentes gang was in pursuit. The fact that they weren’t firing guns yet made her even more nervous.
“I’m going to assume you are going to be difficult about this,” the voice sighed as a bright light suddenly flared and began sweeping through the garage. “Don’t risk your lady’s life, Agent Merino. Give us the package and we will leave as quietly as we came in.”
Maggie felt the tenseness of Joe’s body, just as she heard the lie in the stranger’s voice. They would never make it out of there alive, no matter what they did.
“Jose, kill them now. You are making Roberto’s mistake in attempting to play with them,” a younger voice hissed. “Finish them off and we leave.”
“Shut up, Santiago. Roberto was less than the piss running down his father’s leg. He had no concept of the lessons Carmelita tried to teach us, whereas I paid careful attention. I will defeat this American dog on my own terms. Is this not so, Agent Merino?” He laughed slyly. “There is no triumph in a quick death. A humiliating life is another matter.”
Maggie had a feeling Jose had no intentions of allowing them either choice. She could hear it in his voice, feel it in the tension whipping through the room. She stayed down, pressed against the side of an old washer, with Joe in front of her, completely hiding her. She bit her lip, fighting back her harsh breathing, forcing herself to stay utterly silent as the flashlight swept through the garage.
Crouched low, with decades worth of junk heaped around them, Maggie bit her lip as the sound of footsteps neared. They were searching around the stacks of accumulated boxes, appliances, and miscellaneous junk heaped six to eight feet from the sides of the large garage. It was a mess. Thank God.
She held her breath as the footsteps passed and moved away, the bright flare of the light skirting inches in front of where Joe crouched.
“Agent Merino, we can do this the easy way, or we may do it the hard way. If you make me exert effort, then I will take your woman and play with her a bit before I allow her to die. I will let you live long enough to watch. Or you can hand over the package easily, and you may just walk away.”