Above The Law

CHAPTER 62

CASEY BLINKED AND RUBBED HER EYES WITH THE PALMS OF HER hands, clicking the pause button on the computer.

"I can't even keep my eyes open," she said, hiding a yawn in her elbow and swinging her legs off the motel bed. The room was a room like a million others, flowered bedspread with assorted stains and spots, cheap furniture, and a small television with a pay-per-view box for porn on top. Jose had dismantled the box and hooked up the laptop.

"Eight lanes of truck traffic," Jose said, his voice trancelike. "Too bad half of the hundred billion we export to Mexico comes from Texas."

He sat slumped down in the desk chair, his eyes half shut but unblinking as he stared at the screen. He picked up the menu of television choices from a little table by a bank of windows. "Lord of the Cock Rings? Must be epic.''

"You're losing it," she said. "You're running what? Thirty-six hours without sleep?"

Jose held his Rolex out in front of his face, then moved it farther away, trying to focus. "Forty."

"We have to do this," Casey said, "but we also have to sleep. You should see what you look like. Come to bed."

"You go," Jose said, his eyes glued to the screen. He flipped the porn menu into the trash can.

Casey shook her head, got up, and went into the bathroom. She examined the hint of crow's feet in the corners of her eyes, then stretched the skin taut to make them disappear. She ran the water hot enough to fill the small tiled bathroom with steam before dropping her clothes and stepping into the shower. She got clean and let the water run over her hair, covering her face.

A hand on her hip made her jump and let out a shriek.

"Jesus," she said.

Jose stepped in behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle, pulling her tight and resting his head on top of hers.

"Something about those three words," he said. "I lost my concentration."

"What three words?" she asked, turning to kiss him.

His lips grazed hers and his hands moved down the small of her back. In a whisper, he said, "Come to bed."

Casey woke with a start, sitting up in bed and feeling for Jose even as the sight of him back at the computer registered in her brain. The streetlight outside their window cast a trapezoid of pale light across the musty carpet.

"I'm guessing 'come to bed' doesn't work twice in the same night?" Casey said, sweeping the hair from her face and looking at the clock. "It's four o'clock."

"Can you come here?" he said, still hunched over, his voice laced with excitement.

Casey broke free from the covers and crossed the small room. She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned past his neck.

"Look familiar?" he asked.

Casey sucked in a breath of air at the sight of the black rooster painted on the truck's red cab.

"That's it," she said.

"Then we've got him."