Read Online Hot Toy by Jennifer Crusie - Free Book Online

“What’s this thing stuck on the end?”
    â€œA silencer,” Nolan whispered. “If only I had one for you.”
    â€œSo is the gun louder with it off?”
    â€œ Don’t fire that thing, we don’t know what it’ll do.” Nolan peered over the edge of the stairs.
    Trudy leaned back against the staircase and looked at the gun. It was a horrible thing to give a kid. What were people thinking? Evil Nemesis Brandon’s mother must have had a politically correct meltdown when she realized what was in the box, but she got it for him anyway. Well, good for ENB’s mom. Trudy resisted the urge to pull the trigger and pulled on the silencer instead, which popped right off. “Whoops.”
    â€œShhhh.”
    The silencer felt a little heavy for something that was basically a plastic cap. Trudy stuck her hand in her purse and found her miniflash. Hunching over to shield the light from the warehouse, she looked inside the cylinder. There was something rectangular stuck in there, about half an inch wide, with a slice of something white in it.
    â€œOh, hell,” Trudy said out loud.
    â€œShhhh.” Nolan turned on her. “You—”
    â€œIt’s a thumb drive,” Trudy whispered.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe silencer. It’s a USB key, a thumb drive, you know, a mini hard drive. It wasn’t just the code in the instructions—”
    Nolan leaned in to look, and Trudy felt him press warm against her as he took the silencer, his weight a comfort, especially since she knew she was holding something that Reese probably would shoot her for.
    â€œThis is not good,” she whispered.
    â€œOh, honey, this is great,” Nolan said in her ear. “Oh, babe, do you have any idea what you just found?”
    â€œThe thing Reese is going to kill me for?” Trudy said.
    â€œHe’s not going to kill you,” Nolan said, but he didn’t sound as though he were giving the thought his full attention. “Give me that doll.”
    â€œNo,” Trudy said. “You can have the silencer, but you can’t have—”
    She heard something and shut up as Nolan froze.
    Then he leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “I need your tape.”
    She frowned at him, and he began to go silently through her bags until he held up the Scotch tape she’d bought to wrap Leroy’s Mac a million years ago. Then he put the gray plastic silencer on the underside of the gray railing along the wall and began to wrap tape around it.
    Good thing I got the invisible kind, she thought, and wondered if she was ever going to get home.
    â€œOkay,” Nolan whispered when he was done. “We’re going out there again. And I will distract them and this time you will run for the door even if your phone rings.”
    â€œHow are you going to distract them?”
    â€œGive me that cow.”
    â€œThe cow?” Trudy handed over the bag with the cow and hugged the Mac to her.
    â€œYou pull the string and it talks, right?”
    â€œIt says, ‘Eat chicken.’”
    â€œRight. Come on.”
    â€œAren’t you going to kiss me good-bye again?”
    â€œNo. I’m going with you this time.”
    â€œThat’s good, I like that better,” Trudy said, and followed him down the stairs again, clutching the Mac and the Twinkletoes bag.
    When they were back at the end of the row by the door, Nolan pulled the string and wrapped it around the cow’s body. “Door’s there,” he whispered, nodding toward it.
    She nodded back and gripped the nail file in her pocket while he drew his arm back.
    â€œWith your shield or on it, cow,” he said, and tossed it over the shelves.
    The string unwound itself before the cow cleared the top, and it mooed, “Eat chicken” as a fusillade rang out. Nolan shoved her toward the door, and she ran for it, hitting Reese, who was running around the end of the shelves,