Free Finish the Course (The Barnes Family Book 1) by Becky Riker Page A

“Where is he, and how do you know he is in there?”
    “I looked in the window, and it’s a woman.”
    “How are we going to avoid her?” Hanbali was speaking more loudly than Slater would have liked.
    He put a finger to his lips, “She was on the west side of the building which means we’re probably safe to go that way.
    The trio watched the janitor move her cleaning cart into a room and then quietly slipped past her.
    “I need a water fountain,” he announced as they moved toward the far end of the building.
    Barnes reached into her bag, “I’ve got something better,” she handed him a water bottle. “Not cold, but immediate.”
    He cracked open the bottle, “Who would think it would still be so warm out at seventeen hundred?”
    Barnes waited for him to finish the bottle, “You need another one?”
    He glanced over at Barnes. She had let her hair down, an act that drastically changed her appearance. Her rigid style no longer pulling her face back, she looked younger – softer. Her hair was wavy instead of straight as he expected, and it flowed past her shoulders by several inches. Slater thought the technical term for her its color would be chestnut as it had some hints of red in it, but he wasn’t positive.
    He suddenly realized he had been staring and had neglected to answer her question.
    He shook his head, “Save it.”
    He threw the bottle in a nearby trashcan, “I’d like to find the latrine and a television set.”
    “Are you missing your favorite television program?” Hanbali teased him.
    “Just the news.”
    Barnes didn’t like the idea, “If we turn on the TV, the custodian will hear and call the police.”
    “So we wait until she leaves. Considering the distance she’s covered, I can’t think it will be too long.”
    He was right. The custodian was out within fifteen minutes. Slater followed her, watched her enable the security system, and then disabled it once she was gone.
    “Now,” he found the ladies again, “the news.”
    Barnes had another objection, “Someone is going to see the glow.”
    “We’ll find the media room – closed shades.”
    “Shall we split up?” Hanbali asked.
    “I don’t think so,” Slater shook his head. “We’ll find it soon enough together.”
    It was in the next hall. Thankfully, it was connected to a network, and they had no trouble finding the proper channel.
    Most of it was drivel, but the crime report came on, and all three viewers became more alert.
    A woman’s voice came over the pictures that were flashing on the screen, “The shift manager, Eric Henning, said the only customer they had throughout the day was a short Chinese woman who spoke little English.”
    “She seemed confused about how we rent cars,” he explained. “She said she would come back with her husband.”
    “How did you happen to acquire the troop transport?” the reporter asked him.
    “Someone called and asked how much it would cost to rent that. I told the guy we didn’t have one, but when he said he had just driven by and seen it, I thought, ‘Hey, I gotta see this,’ so I went outside to check it out. It was, like, right out there with the rest of the cars.”
    “I suppose you’ve checked all your inventory to make sure they didn’t take one of your cars.”
                  Slater saw Anna out of the corner of her eye. She straightened.
    “Yeah, when the police came in they asked me for records. There was an old Ford on the back of the building. Can’t figure why they’d take that one since we got nicer things. “
    “Can you describe the vehicle?” she put the microphone back in the kid’s face.
    Slater tried not to watch Barnes as she chewed her lip.
    “Sure. It was a ’98 Ford Explorer. Tan. Been bumped around a little so it’s got dents all over it.”
    “And the license plate number?”
    The kid looked down at a sheet of paper he was holding, “I gave that to the cops too.”
    He rattled it off.
    Anna held up her fist in