Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Through the kitchen window, I could see Hendrix pacing in the shaded part of the yard, every once in a while glancing up at the roof.
I wanted to leave him to his misery, shirk all responsibility where he was concerned, but guilt niggled at me. Hendrix had always shared everything with me. His house, his food, his love…
Afternoon sun warmed my face when I pushed open the screen door on a sigh and stepped outside. “I know a guy who buys cars.”
Hendrix’s gaze moved to me, and the frustration on his face shifted. “You know a guy?” A dark, cynical brow lifted.
As if I couldn’t possibly know anyone.
I wanted to flip him off and keep my secrets to myself, but I fought the urge and tried to be the bigger person. “I’ve been paying rent, haven’t I?”
“From stealing cars?” He snorted a laugh. “You’re shit at hotwiring.”
Calm, Lola. “Do you want my help or not?”
He moved past me, the backdoor groaning when he yanked it open. “I have to go to House Depository and get a tarp. Maybe they know a guy, too.”
“Fine. Figure it out on your own, dickhead.”
* * *
The sun hadn’t even set that evening before someone knocked on my door. Of course, Hendrix didn’t wait for an invitation.
I looked up from my book as he stepped into my room, his gaze drifting from my bare legs to my face.
“So, how does it work with your guy?” he asked.
“Oh, so now you’re interested?” Annoyed, I turned my attention back to my book.
“Do you like having a roof over your head? Because if that doesn’t get fixed, your room is gonna cave in next.”
Didn’t mean he had to be such an ungrateful asshole. “You steal a car. He gives you money, obviously.”
“Any car?”
“Yeah.”
“That sounds shady as fuck.”
Hendrix was the definition of shady. I slammed the book and glared up at him. “Because stealing cars in the first place isn’t shady as fuck?”
“There are fifty shades of shady as fuck, Lola.” He stole some change from my dresser and started for the stairs. “Come on.”
“Come, where?”
“To take a car to the guy you might know.”
Like he expected to just snap his fingers and I’d follow. I waited for a second, groaning when I realized how badly we all needed the money. “The guy I do know…” I said, jogging down the steps.
“Whatever. I saw a car when I was over by the Home Depository. It should get us a good chunk of change.”
The streetlights flickered on, casting an electronic glow over the empty Dollar Lobby parking lot.
“How much do you need for the roof?” I asked, following Hendrix across the cracked asphalt.
“I don’t know. Zepp thinks about five grand.”
Shit. That was a lot of cars.
I picked up my pace when he disappeared around the brick side of the building. As soon as I stepped around the side, I stopped. Hendrix popped the lock of a white Firebird with a golden eagle stenciled across the hood. Only two kinds of people owned a car like that in Dayton. Pimps or drug dealers.
Before I made it ten steps, he had his ass behind the wheel, fiddling with the wires in the steering column. The engine roared to life, headlights flickering over the parking lot. Jesus Christ, he was fast. I’d still be picking the lock.
My door had barely closed before Hendrix took off in a screech of spinning tires.
“Do you need to call him or something?” he said over the loud rock music blasting through the stereo.
“No.” Willy was always there.
Hendrix gripped the stick shift, his tattooed forearm tensing when he shifted gears. “Again,” he said. “Shady as fuck.” Then he floored it.
Chapter 32
HENDRIX
Lola’s guy–Sweet Willy– was an old redneck in overalls and a camo ball cap with a tattoo of Betty Boop on his flabby arm. And he paid like shit.
I snatched the cash from his outstretched hand and then told him to go fuck himself before I stormed past the stacks of beat-up cars littering his mosquito-infested yard.
Three hundred and fifty bucks. For grand theft auto!
I almost got back into the stupid car, thinking I’d get more satisfaction from sinking it in a lake than letting him bend me over the barrel.
“Three-fifty is a hundred bucks more than I usually get…” Lola’s voice came from behind me, breaking the chirp of crickets.
And that was the last turd in my boiling bucket of shit.
I spun around so fast my head spun. “You’ve been stealing cars—” I jutted my chin toward the crazy man’s compound hidden in the dark. “And bringing them to Willy Van Ripoff for two-hundred and fifty bucks?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “I guess it’s scrap?”
She had been stealing cars for scrap money? I grabbed my hair and pulled it to keep myself from losing my shit. She’d spent her entire life around Zepp and me. How in the hell did she think that was okay? Or worth it?