Nina Wright - Whiskey with a Twist

To Nathaniel, who was eavesdropping, I said, “How do you know what your limits are? Or don’t you have any?”

“We’re not supposed to shame our families.”

“Good plan,” I said. “What about your adventure with the wagon?”

“That shamed them,” he admitted. “To sober me up, my uncle made me swim in the creek with my clothes on. Then he made me rake out the goat paddock.”

Brad laughed into his headset. “Reminds me of myself at your age! Without the goats.”

I was in the midst of male bonding.

“I’m lucky,” Nathaniel told Brad. “She’s going to buy me a six-pack.“

“Who?”

The teen pointed at me. “She said if I helped find her dog, she’d get me something good. Maybe even something with her name on it.”

“I never said I’d buy you whiskey!” I protested.

“Hold on,” Brad said, glaring at me. “You promised to buy an under-age Amish kid booze?”

I felt like the Anti-Christ. Maybe according to the rules of Amish Country, I was.

“Beer only, I swear! His little cousin got confused about whiskey because it’s my name!”

Brad shook his head in disgust. To Nathaniel, he said, “Here’s a better offer. As soon as we finish this job, I’ll show you how a chopper works. That’s way more fun than a six-pack!”

“How about this,” Nathaniel counter-offered. “You drop me off at the Cadillac dealership in Elkhart, and I’ll forget about the beer. And whiskey.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant the beverage or me. Then my cell phone rang; Jeb was calling.

“Where’s MacArthur?” I shouted. When I couldn’t hear Jeb’s answer, I repeated the question. Louder. Three more times. I never did hear his answer. By then Jeb had given up.

“This isn’t working,” I told Brad.

“We’ll track the car as far as the Barnyard Inn,” he said. “Then you can jump in your own car and take it from there.”

“We have to retrieve Chester!” I reminded him.

“I’ll pick him up on the way back from Elkhart. I have instructions from Mr. Davies to return Chester and Jeb to Magnet Springs.”

“Tonight?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Brad said. “Unless they insist on going back tonight.”

“Nobody’s going back tonight,” I growled. “Not when I have to waste all this time looking for dogs!”

I thought about Jeb, his overnight bag, and our passion, the last of which we’d probably squandered. This time I couldn’t blame Abra for everything that had gone wrong. I’d been a bitch, too.

The black Cadillac was directly under us, passing every car in its lane. As Brad observed, they had to know they had aerial company. I asked if he could swoop down and get the license plate number, but he said that wasn’t possible.

“I saw somebody do it in a movie,” I whined.

“Sure you did,” Brad replied. “In a movie.”

My heart sank as the black Cadillac zoomed past the Barnyard Inn, and Brad prepared to land the helicopter in the parking lot. Now it would be entirely up to me to continue the chase. In my own earthbound vehicle.

Peering out the window during our descent, I counted three police cars and nine sign-toting Fleggers still on site. Then I counted my ex-husband-as a major disappointment. He was leaning up against a familiar white Audi, chatting with a woman I had grown to intensely dislike. Although we were too far away to see the bullet holes, I was sure there were still two in Susan Davies’ shiny car. And I no longer gave a shit about who had put them there.

“Thanks, anyway,” I told Brad as I handed back my headset.

Nathaniel made no move to remove his. In fact, he appeared to have settled in happily for the ride to Elkhart.

“Not a problem,” Brad said. “I do what Mr. Davies tells me to. Within reason.”

When I stepped out of the chopper into churning air, MacArthur jogged toward me across the blacktop.

“The dogs are in a black Cadillac heading east!” I shouted. “And Chester is with the Amish.”

Without replying, he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me along until we were well beyond the helicopter’s wind and noise.

“Kori’s gone,” he said without preamble. “Jeb went to interview her, but she’d checked out.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I told him. “I know about her silver pickup!”

“That’s not hers. Kori drives a black Lincoln, courtesy of Liam.”

“From the sky, does a Lincoln look like a Cadillac?”

I filled MacArthur in on what we’d witnessed along Route 20.

“A Lincoln might look like a Caddy,” he said, “to you and an Amish kid.”

“The pilot was there, too! He didn’t disagree.”

“He doesn’t get paid to.”

“Well, all I know is somebody’s driving Abra and Silverado down Route 20 right now! They just passed the Barnyard Inn, and I’m going to follow them!”

MacArthur reacted in a way I could not have predicted. He doubled over in laughter.

“What the hell is so funny, Mr. Never-Here-When-I-Need-You Bodyguard?!”

“What’s funny, Whiskey, is that you have no training whatsoever in aggressive driving!”

He rolled a whole lot of Rs in that sentence, but I was still annoyed.

“Isn’t aggressive driving something you get ticketed for?” I said.

“I’m talking about competitive and evasive techniques used by professional drivers. I took a course in Glasgow. You’re coming with me!”

With that he grabbed my arm again, and we took off running toward… I didn’t know where. Presumably toward MacArthur’s car. Since I had never actually seen his car, I didn’t have a clue what it looked like.

“What’s up with Jeb and Susan?” I panted. “I thought you were going to question her.”

“I did,” MacArthur replied as we ran.

“Well, there he is, flirting with her again!”

MacArthur braked abruptly, pulling me around to face him.

“I can’t keep your man on a leash, and neither can you. Take a wee spot of advice from Fleggers on this one, and let it go. Now, shall we find Abra?”

Off we went again, dashing past many parked cars, including Susan’s. I refrained from waving at her and Jeb. Or giving them the finger.

“Where the hell are you parked?” I gasped as we left the lot behind us and continued along the side of the exhibit hall, running on grass. I knew that MacArthur had slowed his pace for me. Even so, he was twenty feet ahead.

“Over there,” he said at the exact instant I spotted his vehicle.

“Oh no!” I wailed. “I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle!”

“That is no motorcycle. That is a Harley. You don’t have to know how to ride it. All you have to do is hold on. And wear this.”

He tossed me a Darth Vader-type helmet, then leapt astride the machine as if mounting a stallion. How can I put this? MacArthur took what was left of my breath away.

I would have put the freaking helmet on backwards if he hadn’t stopped me. After that I sat where he told me to sit and put my hands where he told me to put them: around his massive chest. Okay, so that part was pleasant enough. When MacArthur kicked the bike to life, I inhaled the last complete breath I would catch for some miles. I only wished I could have seen the expression on Jeb and Susan’s faces as we roared past. Unfortunately, I was too terrified to open my eyes.

“How fast was the Caddy going?” MacArthur whispered in my ear.

That is, it sounded like he was whispering. Actually, he was speaking through the headset built into my helmet. Since I had a mouthpiece in my helmet, there was no need for me to shout. Except of course from pure terror.

“How the hell should I know how fast it was going? I was in a helicopter!”