Page 13 of Race With The Devil

I chuckled at the thought. “I’ve advanced a little beyond that. I like to read about human behavior, the brain, medical things, psychology, and of course dogs. A chimp’s genome is 98.6 percent similar to a human’s. It’s leading us to redefine the nature of humanity. I like biology. They keep discovering old genetic similarities linking different species, whether it’s a mammal, bird, or reptile. Almost identical batches of genes have been handed down for billions of years. So a common genetic ‘blueprint’ formed the fetuses of a dolphin, deer, eagle, and Kim Kardashian. The same blueprint tells them to grow flippers, hooves, beak, and, ah . . . “

Unity helped me out. “Big butt.”

I was going to say that, but since Unity herself packed a lot of junk in the trunk, I refrained. “Right. So we share these genetic seeds with almost all animals. It’s fascinating. It proves that all organisms alive today are long-lost relations.”

“Even plants?”

“Even plants. Hey, come inside. Let me buy you some corny romances.”

“Well, I usually get ebook versions for my Kindle so I don’t clutter up my tiny apartment. But I can tell you’re dying to buy yourself something in there.”

“How’d you guess?”

I took all responsibility for it. It wouldn’t do to seem too generous or soft for a girl as hardened by a gritty life as she was. I wondered who her boyfriends were. If making out with her was like wrestling a tornado, how would she ever embrace a fuck without flashing back to unsavory memories? Then thinking about fucking her caused my cock to enlarge, so I looked at some diagrams of brains.

I’d just emerged from a painful affair. The woman Joy—although she didn’t bring me any—ran a dog rescue op in West Memphis, my old stomping ground, the site of so much agony. It was a four-hour drive or what amounted to a four-hour flight, what with getting the weather briefing, pre-flight checks, and making sure chains and chocks were off, so I’d term it a long-distance affair. It wasn’t that hard for me to take my Piper to Memphis. I just couldn’t get enough of her. Passionate, wild, blindly devoted to her dog cause, she expressed everything my crusty soul couldn’t. She loved blowjobs. On her knees, on my knees, edge of bed, edge of playground slide—edge of co-pilot’s seat. She gulped with gusto, and what man didn’t crave endless blowjobs?

I was ignorant of her past. All I knew was she was single, available, childless, free of commitments, and I fell for her, hard. By the time I was ready to spit out the dreaded L word, she had turned off her passion like a loudspeaker. All business one day, she informed me she was going back to her ex, a live-in guy I thought was long gone. I guess he had been out of the picture for a couple months, but who knew how long he was sniffing around her again? I shuddered to think of infidelity. It had broken up my parents, not once but twice, after Dad returned to bring me books in prison. Cheating brought ruin to at least two more of my stepfathers. It was all I saw around me. I knew it was wrong.

But there’s no arguing with something like that, so I had to embrace the suck. I even had to say no to helping rehab a beautiful golden retriever who had been chained in a backyard for two years. I did help facilitate another party to do it, but I just couldn’t stand the sight of Joy one more minute.

I knew I should become a player to erase Joy’s memory from my cells. A strange report just said that women carry the DNA of every man they’ve ever fucked. Well, I needed to wipe out Joy’s DNA from my genes. Only by doing that could I go with love and a clean slate to a more appropriate woman. More and more, I was doubting one existed.

So we were standing in the checkout line at the bookstore when Wolf’s Roman nose appeared at the glass door. When Beetle saw me, he went wild, jumping with giant paws like plates on the glass. “He’s gonna break the door!” someone cried, so I sent Unity out to see what the fuck.

She stuck her head back in. “Poo bags. He’s out of poo bags.”

Paying with cash, I chuckled. I could see Wolf panicking about some steaming pile left smack out front of The Bum Steer. Actually, the truth wasn’t too far off. The pile sat between two Fat Boys and time was of the essence. Just as I was going to leap up the stairs to Unity’s apartment where Diesel was the keeper of the poo bags, Tutti Morgan literally popped out from under the stairs. I sent Wolf to get the bag.

Tutti said, “I heard the Bare Bones has officially tasked you with finding Lavinia. Them being a do-gooding sort of op.”

Unity stuck her chin forward. “They are. They just saved my little sister in Cottonwood from being molested by our father.”

“Well. Well. I’m all for that.” Tutti actually had a toothpick between his teeth. “I just want to tell you, Tanner, Lavinia wasn’t in the honeymoon phase. Not at all.”

Unity frowned. “She wanted to settle down and have kids.”

“I’m a hundred percent convinced she went off with this Jose guy. He owed her money. She fixed his car for him.”

I asked, “He the guy with California plates?”

“Could be. I heard he was from Paso Robles, or one of those Spanish-sounding names they have out there. I want to tell you, this afternoon I found her cell in our garage.”

Unity gasped. “She’d never go anywhere without her phone.”

“Do you have it?” Both Unity and I asked at the same time.

With a passionless shrug, Tutti delivered the phone. “Nothing on there.”

Whatever he’d wiped, Wolf Glaser seemed capable of reinstating.

“It’s not the first time she’s taken off all night. She liked to go to sideshows while I hung in my lab. She drove 130 miles per hour. She could be in Vegas already. Raced hardcore.”

I slapped Tutti on the shoulder as though we were butt buddies. “All right, Tutti. You’ll be the first to know when we find something.”

By encouraging him we were on his side, we were able to get rid of him. Unity took her side stairs two at a time, bashing into Wolf who was on his way down with a pink bag fluttering from his fingers.

“Tutti found Lavinia’s phone,” I told the numbers cruncher.