Free Live Bait by P. J. Tracy

full-sized shower and tub. At the far end of the rig was what Harley called the pièce de résistance – an enormous bedroom that had been stripped out and converted into an office. There were four computer workstations, a wall of equipment racks, and a mini-kitchen outfitted with a wine cooler and cigar humidor for Harley; a top-of-the-line, pro-model coffee/espresso maker for Roadrunner.
    ‘This is where our mobile command center is going, my friend. We are going to kick some ass and bust some balls from right here. Bad guys all across the country are quaking in fear as we speak.’
    Roadrunner finally managed to tear himself away from the coffeemaker. ‘Man, Grace and Annie are going to freak when they see this thing. Where is Grace, anyhow? I thought for sure she’d be over here to check it out.’
    ‘Couldn’t make it tonight. She’s at her love palace with the Italian Stallion.’
    ‘You mean Magozzi?’ Roadrunner asked skeptically.
    ‘Yeah, who else?’
    He thought about that for a minute. ‘You think they’re in love?’
    Harley gaped at him in disbelief. ‘You just get a news flash, genius? Where the hell have you been for the past six months? Of course they’re in love.’
    Roadrunner’s lower lip curled down in that tragic, wounded expression he always got when he thought he’d been left out of something. ‘I’ve never even seen them hold hands. I thought they were just friends.’
    Harley rolled his eyes. ‘Jesus Christ, this isn’t think-tank material, Roadrunner. It doesn’t take more than a heartbeat and one functioning brain cell to know there’s something up the minute you see them together, getting all dopey and sloe-eyed on each other.’
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake. That’s why you think they’re in love? Honestly, Harley, you’re such a hopeless romantic. You only see what you want to see. Magozzi gets all dopey and sloe-eyed. Grace always holds back, and if you had two functioning brain cells you would have seen that. I know Magozzi’s in love with Grace, and I really feel sorry for the man, but Grace just isn’t ready to let herself go down that road. Maybe she never will be.’
    Harley glowered at him. He didn’t like what Roadrunner had said, so he decided not to believe him.
    ‘Do not ever quash anyone’s dreams of romance. Love is a mysterious and unpredictable force, and stranger things than Grace and Magozzi getting together have happened. Hell, who knows? One day a human female might actually find you attractive. The world is just full of surprises.’

9
    ‘Puff! Here kitty, kitty, kitty!’ There was a tremor in Rose’s voice, and for good reason. It was dreadfully late and that useless beast was still sauntering around the yard, pretending to be deaf.
    She’d always hated the dark, even as a little girl, and the fear had only grown worse with age. Now, some seventy-odd years later, it had morphed into an irrational, debilitating phobia that made no sense at all. She wasn’t afraid of the mundane dangers that might befall an elderly woman living alone, things like burglars or murderers or rapists; or even of falling down and breaking her hip, all concerns her daughter voiced at every opportunity. It was the dark itself.
    She took another tentative step out onto the back porch and caught a brief glimpse of white in the farthest corner of the tulip bed. Puff obviously assumed that all the hard work Rose had put into the gardens today were for his benefit – the world’s largest litter box.
    ‘Puff, come here!’
    He responded with an irritated twitch of his tail, letting her know he’d come in when he was good and ready and not a minute before. His tiny kitty brain just didn’t understand that once darkness swallowed the backyard, it wouldn’t matter if he were being eaten alive by the neighborhood dogs before her very eyes – she still wouldn’t be able to go out to save him.
    God, she hated being like this, hated the tears of frustration that prickled