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"WHY THE SMIRK?" Ric asked, swinging an arger toward the road, bu hips and weapons systehts to uy

"Look at Quicksilver," I told him instead

As usual, Dolly had her top down, and Quick had raced ahead to jump into her backseat "He’s ready to roll"

The wolf-spitz family dominated the wolfhound in Quicksilver’s looks, so he was a "s face that looked ever so friendly It was hard to tell when he was just happy to see you, or ready to attack His paler beige face showed a gray lupine ’s peak, but his eyes were a lovely "spacious skies" shade of blue, a trait that caene

"Do zo wouldn’t knohether to attack or bury ’e out here like Xanax addicts must really confuse the issue"

I patted Quick between the ears before working the car keys out ofaround to Dolly’s driver’s seat while Ric stowed les in the trunk

Ric imitated Quick and bounded over the convertible’s closed front door into the passenger seat, just to prove he was fully recovered from the Karnak Hotelhe was out to prove soo to Wichita, we share the driving," Ric said, glancing at the luminous dial of his seriously ent, he knehere to get all the latest paraizmos

I’d never let anyone else drive Dolly before Well, except for the Inferno and Karnak Hotel deencies Dolly had been o, when I’d been nineteen Her looks were electric Licorice-black body paint, channel-stitched red leather interior, and white convertible top I didn’t lightly let other hands curl around her extra-large pizza-size steering wheel

"Sure," I told Ric, o halves all the way to yellow-brick-road country I don’t knohy you’re so keen to leave Vegas for the boonies right away"

By then I had Dolly’s three hundred and sixty-five vintage horses kicked in and we--slowly--hway

"You do let her stretch out all her horses on the freeway, right?" Ric asked

"Actually, I don’t like state highway patrol stops"

"No probleotta knohere they typically lie in wait"

"You do?"

"First thing you figure out in the FBI We didn’t like local cop stops, either"

I heaved a drao anywhere, speed deht was as white as Quicksilver’s "What a waste of un"

His hand stroked h "Any Navy Seal would salivate to have this Inferno Hotel battle suit As impenetrable as Teflon, you say, yet the surface feels as ser and Dolly swerved a bit "No steel studs here, chica? You’d think Snow of all … people would kno much va-repellent studding everywhere"

By noas lad the suit was also waterproof Did I even re her period the first tias’s Sunset Park a h road and parted h-tech wet suit was suddenly looking really hot

Too bad Ric didn’t realize this was just necessary physical therapy

Yowsa! Iret in as she broke out of solitary for a weakto be quite a road trip, Montoya," I muttered

Behind us, Quicksilver stopped the heavy doggy panting and gave a sharp yip, like a basso coyote alert Was he jealous ofor …

"Holy s wheel

As we neared the loneso hadtoward Dolly’s chrome front bumper like a solid wave of storm cloud

"Flash flood?" I murmured uncertainly

"That’s no flash flood," Ric shouted, grabbing the fifteen-shot auto suit

I looked hard Yes, the as s

I accelerated Dolly’s buht of furred shoulders and snarling, snapping ray tide flowed around Dolly’s red taillights into the desert beyond

The dog was already over the rear door and on the desert floor, giving chase

"Quicksilver, no!" I shouted again I’d recognized the pack’s breed, and mere olves would have been an improvement

"Quicksilver, come back" Yeah, like a locomotive would spin on a dime and jump its tracks

"Quicksilver, leave kitty!" I screa a voice as e

I squealed Dolly into a too-rapid right onto the earded hed up Dolly’s brake shoes, but had avoided a fishtail as the car stopped Toleap over the trunk and into the backseat

"Good dog, good boy," I said in that exaggerated praising tone deluded dog "owners" use

Ric was still watching me as if I was nuts "‘Leave kitty’?"

"It’s the one coed apology "If it’s late and deserted I let him off leash Of course that’s when the cats come out"

"So the only way you can call back Killer Dog is to scream ‘Leave kitty’ for all the world to hear?"

"It did work And it’s not easy to turn a hundred-and-fifty-pound half-wolfhound frohty-pound le "Did you have to call out the hounds on o?"

I turned with Ric to eye Quicksilver’s "aren’t-I-really-good-to-listen-to-you?" sht flash of gold wasbehind it

"What on earth?" I asked "Soreen flash at sunset?"

"What under the earth," Ric said, stretching out of his seat to see "Holy se"