Page 242 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
The male officer opened the police cruiser’s back door. “Come with us, ma’am. We’ll figure this out downtown.”
“You’re not going to handcuff me, are you?” she asked, staring into the back seat.
“Do we need to handcuff you?” the woman asked, again raising an eyebrow.
What?
Libby didn’t answer. She slid her ass in the back of the car faster than you can say holy busted karma. The door slammed, and she stared out the window and raised her hand. “Bye, Mom. It’s still pretty uncool that you took the stone, but I guess it was yours,” she said flatly. What did it matter now? She could start talking to the seat belt or tell them that a birch tree was her great-great-uncle. These cops already thought she was a few slices short of a loaf.
The bird spread its wings, and with the aquamarine secure in its beak, sailed into the sky as the cruiser merged into traffic. As stealthily as she could, she slipped her phone out of her purse and hit the power button.
And…she only had a one percent charge.
Who do you call with one percent? That would give her ten seconds before the power drained.
Think, think, think.
She’d call Penny, and then Penny could ask Rowen to hack into the police mainframe and erase her charge. That was a thing, right? It happened in the movies. She peered at the officers in the front seat, chatting in hushed voices, but they didn’t seem too concerned with her. She tapped Penny’s name, and the phone rang once, then twice, then—
“Hi, Libby, it’s Phoebe! I’ve got Penny’s phone because she’s doing the Chicken Dance.”
No, no, no.
“Phoebe, Phoebe,” Libby whisper-shouted. “Put Penny or your uncle on the phone.”
“What?” the child called as a brass band played in the background.
A brass band? Where the heck were they?
She tried again. “Phoebe, honey, get Penny. I’m in the back of a police car,” she whispered, curling her body into the back of the seat to keep the officers from catching wind of what she was doing.
“You’re driving a pickle car? Wow! I want Uncle Row to get a hot dog car. They make ’em. I saw one on the internet.”
“Not a pickle car. A police car,” she murmured, burying her head beneath her arm.
“I can’t hear you anymore, so bye, Libby. See you soon in your pickle car,” the child sang out before the line went dead and her phone went black.
She moaned. “What am I going to do? What am I going to do?”
“You can get out of the car,” the female officer said.
Libby froze. Tucked into a vertical fetal position, she hadn’t felt the vehicle stop. “The car’s not moving, is it?” she asked, not daring to look at the officers.
“We’ve stopped, and I hope you don’t mind, but we had a little fun with you,” the male officer said.
Libby lifted her head and stared out the open car door. “This isn’t the police station.”
“No, it’s not,” the female officer answered. “We were asked to bring you here as a favor.”
“Why?” she asked, unfolding her body and scooting out of the cruiser.
“That’s not for us to say, but be sure to call down to the station and let us know when and where we can start taking Pun-chi yoga classes.”
“You know that I’m the Pun-chi yoga lady?” she asked.
“Yes, and we know that you won the Ass-in-Nine race while representing Denver’s first responders. Good work! Women get the job done,” the female officer said, offering her a fist bump for a little girl power.
“I can’t wait to try Pun-chi yoga,” the male officer added. “That one-handed handstand you and Erasmus Cress can do is impressive.”
