I held up my hand. “Not here. And not now,” I said. “And no bloodstains in the car either. It’s a rental.”
—
We collected our bags andmade our way to the car with all the usual squabbles about who was going to sit where and what music we should play. Since I was driving, I decidedboth of those. I put Mary Alice in the front passenger seat where she was less likely to inflict injury on Natalie, and pulled up some vintage Linda Ronstadt for the playlist. I was just easing into the trip, tapping my fingers to “When Will I Be Loved,” and passing a semi on I-95 when Natalie piped up from the back seat.
“So, odds on what Naomi wants from us?”
“It can’t be good,” Mary Alice muttered.
I glanced over and saw she was slumped in her seat, watching nothing in particular. She and Natalie always scrapped, but they were off to a faster-than-usual start, and I had a pretty good idea why.
I caught Helen’s eye in the rearview mirror and she gave the tiniest of nods.
“Well, I have high hopes our pensions have finally been approved,” she said. Retirement benefits from the Museum included substantial pensions, but ours had been canceled when the Board of Directors had decided to kill us instead. Naomi, the acting director when the smoke cleared at the end of our retirement mission, had promised to reinstate them, but so far she’d been stonewalling. There had been a single payout—a generous one, if I’m honest—but nothing since.
Mary Alice snorted. “It’s been nothing but delays and excuses. There’s no reason to think they’ve suddenly decided to live up to their promises.”
“They’d better,” Natalie said, rummaging in her bag. “I need some capital. I’m going to open a new Etsy shop and I need some start-up money.”
“For what?” Mary Alice demanded.
“For these,” Natalie said, pulling out a crocheted pouch. It was striped in lurid shades of blue and orange and embellished with a pair of tiny white pom-poms.
“What is that, dear?” Helen asked.
“A dick warmer,” Natalie explained as she waggled her fingers through it. “There’s an extra pocket down here for the balls.”
“Ingenious,” Helen said kindly as she fingered the pom-poms.
“That is the most disturbing thing I have ever seen,” Mary Alice said.
“Really?” Natalie’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. “I once saw you put an ice pick in a woman’s eye andthisis the most disturbing thing you have ever seen?”
“The woman in question was the highest-ranking member of the Nigerian mafia and had personally tortured her own brother to death,” Mary Alice pointed out. She gestured towards the penis warmer. “These atrocities will be perpetrated upon the innocent.”
“Now, see here, Mary Alice, I have had just about enough of—”
I would have reached out and turned up the radio until Linda’s voice was rattling the windows, but Helen was already taking charge.
“I have the briefing packet,” she announced. Helen has three voices—debutante, kindergarten teacher, and Girl Scout troop leader handing out demerits. This voice was the last one, and Natalie and Mary Alice knew better than to test her when she was in that particular mood. Helen went on, skimmingthe pages she had been sent. Her airmail envelope was thicker than mine, including a map of Colonial Williamsburg and a hotel confirmation. “Did anyone else think the travel arrangements were curious?” she asked.
“Coach seats,” Natalie said scornfully.
“They were Premium Economy,” Mary Alice corrected.
Natalie rolled her eyes skyward, but Helen carried on. “I meant the travel agency. The tickets were not issued through the Museum’s travel office. Although Nat is right—they weren’t first-class seats, which is odd, especially as Billie and I both flew in from Europe.”
One of the perks of working for the Museum was luxury travel unless it would have blown our cover stories. A group of nuns or broke grad students swilling champagne and snacking on caviar might have raised a few eyebrows. For those trips we packed granola into backpacks and slept on yoga mats, dreaming of the return travel when we would be handed martinis and monogrammed slippers. For all other trips it was strictly first class with all the bells and whistles. Chauffeured cars, corner suites, and concierges. It wasn’t a bad life.
“Furthermore,” Helen went on, “our accommodations are booked at—” She peered through her glasses at the tiny print. “Oh dear. A Best Western.”
“Jesus Christ,” Mary Alice muttered. “Do we at least have separate rooms?”
“Doubles,” Helen told her.
“And this rental is a compact,” I pointed out as I dodged around a semi. The trucker had a book propped on the steeringwheel and was spooning up cereal out of a bowl as he drove. The last car the Museum had rented for me had been a Maybach. It was enough to make a girl cry.
“So what’s with all the penny-pinching?” Mary Alice asked. “Budget cutbacks?”