Remember the Future by Bryant Delafosse Read Free Book Online Page B

exclaimed, pounding his fist on the steering wheel.
    “I’m a lot of things, Grant, but I’m not a criminal,” she snapped, then glanced ahead of them and pointed.  “We should get on the beltway south and head towards Interstate 10.”
    Grant ignored her and continued down the feeder road, increasing his speed slightly.  “I’m waiting for some sort of reasonable explanation for everything that just happened.”
    Maddy studied Grant.  “You would think I’m crazy.”
    “Lady,” Grant said with exasperation.  “I already do.”
    Maddy stomped the floorboard.  “I know Rudy’s type.  He’s a man of action.  Not a man of thought, like you.”
    “You don’t know me,” Grant growled.
    “I know this.  Without me, you would be dead or in the backseat of that hoodlum’s car.”
    “Hoodlum?” Grant murmured under his breath, impressed at the anachronism.  How old was this girl anyway, he wondered?
    “I’m the one who separated him from his gun and I have him second-guessing himself right now.  Also, he’s on edge because he’s trying to quit smoking.”
    Grant raised his brows in interest.  “And how do you know that?”
    Maddy kicked the empty cigarette boxes at her feet and pointed to the plastic box of nicotine gum in the dashboard console.
    “And you know for a fact that this hoodlum had a gun?”
    “What?” Maddy exclaimed in exasperation.  “Are you serious?”
    She suddenly glanced around in agitation.  Turning in her seat and climbing up onto her knees, Maddy craned her neck over the seat.  Finally, she straddled the center console and pressing in close, reached around onto the floorboard of the backseat, her behind waving beside Grant.  Glancing over, he gripped the wheel more tightly.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    Maddy yanked Rudy’s jacket up and returned to her seat.  She retrieved a gun from one of the pockets and displayed it to Grant.  “See!”
    Grant leaned away from her, swerving slightly out of his lane.  “Whoa!  Easy!”
    “What did I tell you?  Bad guy.  Bad,” she exclaimed, looking out over the road behind them.  “What do you think this is for?  Shooting cottonmouths in the back yard?  This was for you, Grant.”
    Grant leaned in toward the wheel, grip increasing, his face reddening slightly.
    Maddy watched Grant with a slight smirk.  “Are you angry?”
    “I’m glad I stole his goddamn car,” he remarked stiffly.
    Maddy nodded in satisfaction.  Catching a glimpse of red within the black interior of the jacket, she laid it on her lap and turned it open.  There, sewed in red thread into the black lining of the jacket, were the words “R. Pedroza.”
    “Pedroza,” she whispered to herself in sudden understanding, then turned her attention back to the weapon in her hand.  “We have to get rid of these guns as soon as possible.  Are we going over any bodies of water?”
    Grant massaged the bridge of his nose, while he consulted a map in his head.  “No, nothing.  Dumpster?” he managed lifelessly.
    “That’ll do,” Maddy responded.
    He pulled off the road and took the car behind a strip of shops, finding the inevitable set of dumpsters and pulling the passenger side window as close as he could to an open container on the end.
    Grant watched Maddy as she tossed Rudy’s gun into the dumpster.  “You knew him.  You knew his name,” Grant said.  “And the thing is, I’ve been going over the conversation at the coffee shop, and I’m positive I never told you my name.”
    Maddy unzipped the satchel at her feet and retrieved the police officer’s gun.  “Maybe it was Rudy then,” Maddy replied, tossing the second gun in the dumpster after the first.
    “He’s never used my first name.  Ever.”  Grant peered down at the satchel on the floor and saw money.  Twenties and fifties and hundreds, stuffed in and around clothes and shoes and a make-up bag.  Grant straightened in his seat, his face paling.
    Maddy rolled up