Tiny Glitches: A Magical Contemporary Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

plane landed in forty minutes. We might beat her home.
    “And she’ll be okay with you showing up unannounced with an elephant?”
    I smiled. “Yeah.”
    “She sounds a lot cooler than my relatives.”
    Hudson merged onto the 10, easing into speeding traffic with skill. I’d powered the window halfway down while we were on the surface streets to air out the stench embedded in my clothing, and when I attempted to power it up, the glass moved half an inch, the mechanism in the door fired off three rounds, and the door lock snapped home. I eased my arm onto the window ledge and pretended the gap pleased me.
    The interior electronics were always the first to go. They were the most sensitive part of a vehicle. The entire truck was delicate, no matter what the manufacturers wanted you to believe in their ads. Cut a vehicle’s electricity, and it became little more than a lump of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Given the rate of electrical deterioration, it seemed my terror in the trailer had shortened the truck’s life span by half the normal Eva-passenger time. Our brief interlude at the café hadn’t given it the recovery boost I’d hoped for. The knot in my stomach fisted tighter.
    “What do you know about Jenny?” Hudson asked. “Anything at all?”
    “Nothing.” I didn’t even remember my Honors English teacher’s name junior year. “I guess she was nerdy. I have a vague memory of a skinny girl with glasses, but I could be making that up. I’m shocked she remembered me .”
    “She said she tracked you down.”
    “I don’t know what to do with that, either.”
    “Where’d you say you went to school?”
    “Santa Monica High.”
    “And you live in Santa Monica now, too?”
    “I moved to Mid-Wilshire after I graduated.”
    The truck’s clock light faded in a slow death. Hudson didn’t seem to notice. Dread sank into my spleen, and I reined it in along with the rest of my emotions. Any agitation on my part would kill the truck faster. Substitute agitation with fear, spike it with confusion, and spritz it with sexual attraction, and I was the perfect cocktail for vehicular destruction.
    “You remember anything else?” Hudson asked.
    I shook my head.
    Hudson darted his gaze to mine, then back to the road. He’d gained a silver top hat to match the terrier. The man liked to accessorize with his apparitions.
    “What was she talking about, all those brownouts? What does that have to do with the elephant?”
    Adrenaline spiked, and I squashed it. “I don’t know. Maybe she was trying to prove we went to school together. She seemed skittish. Paranoid. Oh, crap. Do you think she’s on drugs?” Why hadn’t that occurred to me before?
    “If she is, they’re pharmaceutical, not recreational. I’d guess she’s off her drugs.”
    I dropped my head in my hands and took deep breaths. My life teetered in the hands of a mental patient.
    “Huh.” Hudson tapped the dashboard. The lights had died there, too, and it no longer displayed our current speed. “You’d think a new truck like this wouldn’t have any problems.”
    “You’d think.” A brand-new horrible thought popped into my head. “Is it possible this truck is stolen?”
    Hudson grimaced. The silver Scottish terrier in his lap grew to Labrador size, its insubstantial body engulfing Hudson’s arms. “Probably. Trailer, too. I’ve been keeping my eye out for cops just in case.”
    Traffic slowed to stop and go. It was midmorning on a weekday, but traffic in LA didn’t need a reason to turn into a parking lot. Hudson slipped into the slow lane behind a semi. The truck stuttered; then the gas caught again and it smoothed out.
    “What’s that all about?” Hudson asked the truck.
    I could have answered, but the truck did it for me in the form of a grinding squeal under the hood.
    “Uh . . .” I said.
    “Shit.”
    Hudson steered toward the off-ramp we were approaching at a crawl. The truck lurched, then lurched again on the echoing jerk of the