Free The Job by Janet Evanovich, Lee Goldberg Page B

was consumed by the bar’s patrons.
    Buck Breznick was a dump truck driver who’d had two pitchers of beer and enough whiskey shots to think it was a good idea to take Willie out to see his massive truck in the middle of the night.
    “Buck, honey,” Willie said, looking up at the 797F, pressing her breast into his arm, “I’d do just about anything to get into the cab of this big boy.”
    The mine was closed and deserted and Buck thought “Just about anything” sounded like exactly what he needed, so they crept up the metal staircase that was across the front of the 797F’s massive two-story grill, and into the operator’s cab. They spent a few hours messing around before falling asleep.
    When dawn broke, Willie slipped into the driver’s seat, fired up the 4,000 hp engine, and pressed the pedal to the floor. Buckwas still passed out in the passenger seat, which was probably a blessing, considering the learning curve for driving the truck was steeper than Willie’d anticipated.
    She stomped on the brakes just before rolling over the car, but the beast didn’t exactly stop on a dime. It continued on course and smashed through the office trailer in an explosion of corrugated metal, glass, and thousands of pieces of paper.
    Willie finally brought the truck to a stop, blew a kiss to Buck, who was snoring away, and snatched her high heels off the floor. She made her way down the stairs, holding her high heels in her hands as if she were leaving an apartment after an all-night party and not fleeing the cab of one of the largest vehicles on earth. By the time she got to the bottom step, two private security vehicles had screeched up, and four uniformed officers were waiting for her. They all looked at her in shocked silence, like she was some kind of alien emerging from her flying saucer.
    Willie tossed the dump truck keys to one of the astonished guards. “You park it, honey. But don’t scratch the paint.”
    “You’re under arrest,” another guard said, holding a pair of handcuffs.
    His hands were shaking, which made Willie smile as she sat down on the step and slipped on her high heels. He was in his twenties and filled out his uniform nicely.
    “I bet you’ll enjoy putting those cuffs on me,” she said. “Bet you’d enjoy it even more if you let me put them on you sometime.”
    A dark Chevy Impala slid to a stop in a cloud of dust. Aman emerged from the car in a dark suit and wearing dark sunglasses. The crowd parted for the stranger, who quickly flipped open a leather case and flashed a badge of some kind, then slapped it shut and stuck it back in his pocket.
    “John Doggett, FBI,” Nick Fox said. “I’ll take over from here.”
    “You know her?” the guard with the cuffs asked.
    “Sydney Bristow. She’s wanted in seventeen states for vehicular mayhem.”
    “I didn’t know that was a federal offense,” Willie said.
    “It is when you do it in seventeen states,” Nick said, taking her by the arm and leading her to his car. “You’re in big trouble, Sydney.”
    “It was a big truck,” she said.
    “You have the right to remain silent. I suggest you use it.” He put her into the backseat of the car, slammed the door, and turned back to the guards. “Tell your bosses they’ll find her at the federal courthouse in Casper.”
    Nick got into the car, backed up, and sped off before the guards could think any more about it. He glanced in the rearview mirror at Willie, and she winked at him.
    “My hero,” Willie said.
    She didn’t know Nick’s full name, but he was hotter than a stolen Ferrari and just as fast, sleek, and dangerous. Over the last year or so, he’d hired her a few times to drive a variety of cars, boats, and planes in several big cons to bring down bad guys for some shadowy firm called Intertect. It was fishy, and very illegal, but she liked adventure. And she liked him.
    “What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?” Nick asked.
    “I’d have been arrested. So I