Motor Mouth

white. The curtains were drawn, and I thought this was probably to keep the sun out so she didn’t go snow blind.
    “This unit has his and hers bathrooms,” Suzanne said. “My bathroom is through the door to the right. And
his
bathroom is in here.”
    Suzanne took a key off the dresser, unlocked the door to
his
bathroom, and stepped back. Ray was prisoner in the little room, still dressed in the clothes he’d worn to the beach meeting. He was tethered with an elaborate system of clunky chains that wrapped around the toilet and the pipes under the sink. His hands were free to do whatever he needed to do, but he didn’t have enough chain to do what he really
wanted
to do…which was to choke Suzanne. He had a pillow and a quilt, a stack of magazines, and a tray with leftovers from takeout.
    “Now you’re all accomplices to kidnapping,” Ray said. “If you don’t get me out of here, you’re all going to jail for the rest of your lives.”
    “What did he do?” Felicia asked. “He cheat on you?”
    “No. He’s my brother-in-law,” Suzanne said. “He rudely killed my husband before I had the chance to do it myself. And now he’s planning to swindle my kids out of their inheritance.”
    “You have no proof,” Ray said.
    “It’s always a mistake to mess with a mother,” Suzanne said.
    “So this is where Ray went after he talked to Hooker and me,” I said.
    “It was easy,” Suzanne said. “I told him I wanted to talk to him in private about transferring the boat over to him. He came up here. I hit him with a blast from a stun gun, trussed him up, and I was in business. I guess the moron never told anyone he was coming here.”
    “Ask her about the chip,” Ray said to Suzanne.
    “Shut up.”
    “Ask her!”
    “What about the chip?” I said to Suzanne.
    “Ray and Oscar have a product in R and D that’s worth a
lot
of money. They didn’t realize I knew about it, but I keep my ears open.
    “I knew it was ready for sale, and I knew Oscar was using it on the cars. It got him a championship, but more than that, it was a flashy way to demonstrate the technology to prospective buyers. I was willing to be the good corporate wife and keep my mouth shut. I was even willing to be the good ex-corporate wife and keep my mouth shut. I’m
not
willing to be the widow who sits by and watches the slime-bag brother rape the company.” Suzanne’s frozen eyebrows narrowed ever so slightly. “So I had to bring Ray in for questioning, right, Ray?”
    Ray gave her the death glare. And Suzanne ignored it.
    “And now the prototype has disappeared, and Ray doesn’t want to tell me where it’s wandered off to,” Suzanne said.
    “I told you where the chip is,” Ray said. “Jesus, why don’t you just ask her?”
    Suzanne kept her eyes on Ray. “Ray has this insultingly ridiculous story he’s constructed about the product disappearance. His contention is that you and Hooker have it. And it gets even better. He claims you got this particular product by stealing a car hauler. The same hauler that was supposed to carry Oscar back to Mexico.”
    “Are you talking about the gizmo in the gearshift knob?” I asked her.
    Suzanne turned to me, mouth dropped open, eyes as wide as they’d go on Botox. “I thought he was lying. The story was insane. I mean, who would believe something like that? Don’t tell me it’s true!”
    “It’s true,” I said.
    Suzanne tipped her head back and gave a whoop of laughter. She looked over at Beans. “I guess the tooth marks in Oscar make sense to me now. You should give him an extra dog biscuit for that one.”
    “He thought Mr. Dead Guy was a big chew toy,” Felicia said. “He’s just a puppy inside.”
    “So where’s the circuit board?” Suzanne asked. “Do you have it?”
    “Not exactly. But I know where it is.”
    “And it’s safe? You can get it for me?”
    “Yes.”
    Suzanne gave a sigh of relief. “You can’t imagine how much time and money went into the making of that thing. It’s my sons’ future.”
    “So it wasn’t about the boat?”
    “Not entirely. The boat was just part of it. By the time Ray’s executorship ran out, there wouldn’t have been anything left of the company. Ray would have stripped every asset from it.”
    Ray didn’t say anything. They’d obviously had this conversation before and it didn’t end well for Ray.
    “There are a couple things I don’t understand,” I said to Suzanne. “I know the value of traction control