I pushed the thought from my mind, told myself to buck up, and wiggled into a sitting position. First things first—get free of these ties. With a little luck, I’d be able to get my arms in front of me.
I worked my legs through my arms a little at a time, then my hips. I was breathing hard and even felt slightly warmed by the exercise by the time I had my arms in front of me and pushed up to a stand. My ankle was killing me. With my ankles bound together it was impossible to shift my weight to my good foot.
How long had I been here? Was anyone besides Emma looking for me? I guessed they were probably still too involved in the “other” kidnapping.
I clenched my teeth against the pain and cold and felt around for something to cut the zip ties. A box cutter. Anything. Struggling would only rub my wrists raw. Nothing. The room was sharp-object-free.
I switched to Plan B—escape still bound. I inched toward the door and gave it a try. It was locked tight. One thing was for sure—I wasn’t kicking the door down any time soon.
I briefly considered screaming for help. But the room was insulated. I could scream my lungs out and no one would hear me.
Panicky Plan C—jump Emma and subdue her when she returned, if she returned. I felt up the shelves around me, assessing the odds of getting one to topple where I wanted it, thinking I could push one or two over on her.
I gave one a tug. It didn’t budge. On closer examination,
I realized it was bolted to the wall. I tried using my highly prized acrylics like a screwdriver. Turns out they weren’t as tough as grade-A steel. I broke one in the effort, shaking my finger and sucking on it, fighting back tears.
That small failure almost did me in. My courage faltered. I let out an exasperated sigh, feeling on the edge of a major crying jag and totally betrayed. How could Emma want to kill me? How could she actually do it? Swing something at my head, give me a concussion, store me here either to let me rot or to come back to finish me off in some gruesome way? All for what—money? What happened to loyalty and friendship? It sucked. It really sucked.
Exactly what would Bond do in my situation?
Probably pull out a Swiss army knife specially designed by Q with a laser beam that cuts through steel doors. Then he’d save Max. Only I’d probably get Torq and Fry to help me first. Bond would never give up and neither would I!
With no laser and no other weapon, I’d have to use my head. Literally. Emma was a hundred-pound pixie still recovering from chemo. I could take her. One good head-butt to the gut …
I heard something. I cocked an ear and went stone silent at the sound of a key being inserted into a lock. The handle to the fridge door turned. I put my head down, ready to hobble to a charge.
It was a great plan, and it would’ve worked, too. Except that crafty Emma had a stun gun. She waved it and reached for me. I ducked out of the way, making as much of a dash for the door as a woman with a bum ankle and bound feet can. I’d just about reached freedom, too, when Emma grabbed me by my darn long hair extensions and jerked me back.
“You should have heeded my warning when I packed your bag. I really didn’t want to have to do
this.”
“I can’t believe you defaced my Louis Vuitton like that,” I said, truly indignant and trying to shame her. “Look. This is all just silly. Can’t we talk it out?”
Ever eloquent, Emma stuck the stun gun in my arm.
Chapter Twenty-one
“I’ll take that as a no,” I said, once I regained enough muscle control to speak. I also took the opportunity to look around for Torq. No hero in sight.
“You’re making a big mistake. I have fuzzy, spotty memories at best. I’m sure I can completely forget this little episode.” I looked at Emma for confirmation.
“Why don’t we just team up and go find those fake kidnappers?” I put on the rah-rah attitude. “Just forget this all ever happened?” I gave Emma a hopeful, Pollyanna look.
Her returning look was distinctly disgusted and cynical with a twist of “as if” thrown in for good measure.
She pointed her gun, a real gun that looked suspiciously like Pussy’s, at me. “Get up and march to the car.”
“You have a car?” I tried not to sound too smartass.
“What do you think took me so long to get back? I had to borrow one from the garage. I’ve gone soft. My hotwiring skills are rusty. Then I had to go pick up our buddy Max.” She arched a brow. “He’s been my target all along.”
There was no use denying what I knew any longer. “Yeah. I figured that out too late.” I paused. “I can’t walk well with my feet and wrists bound.” I held my wrists out to her. “It would speed things up if you cut me loose.”
“Nice try.” Emma grabbed my arm and dragged me outside to a waiting FAV with the motor running.
Large, Seattle-sized drops of rain began falling, making mud spots in the desert dust as Emma buckled me into a seat and I craned around to get a look at Max.
“He’s still alive. Just drugged,” she said as if reading my mind.
Off in the distance, thunder crashed and lightning lit the sky at irregular intervals.
“You picked a good night for this,” I said conversationally as Emma hopped into the driver’s seat and I was frantically trying to come up with a plan. When conversation stalls, discuss the weather. That’s what Mom always said. “Nice gothic mood and weather tonight. Very horror-flick. All we need to make it absolutely perfect is the howl of a werewolf, or an obliging coyote.”
Emma smiled. “You know, I really hate that I have to kill you. You’re an entertaining girl.”
“Yeah, I hear ya,” I said, squirming to find a comfortable position, marveling at her understatement. “It’s the pits when you have to kill a friend.” I paused significantly. “You could always reconsider.”
She rolled her eyes.
We jounced across the countryside, obviously off-roading it to our final destination. I was plotting escape. I figured I’d be able to unbuckle myself and then, like it or not, I was going to have to try out a jumping-from-a-moving-vehicle maneuver and go for help. There was no way I could get Max out with me. Feigning nonchalance and a fascination with the distant lightning-lit horizon, I reached for the seat belt buckle. I’d barely tickled the buckle with my fingertips when I felt a gun pressed against my head.
“Bang!” Emma laughed as I jumped from the start she gave me. “Sorry. Spy humor.”
“Uh-huh.”
She had one hand on the wheel with her body twisted to face me and her other hand holding the gun against my head. “Try it and your brains will be splattered over five miles of desert. Now just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Okay, I saw micro expressions serious and murderous on her face. I carefully put my hands in my lap where she could see them. “Just when did you turn into a maniacal killer?”
“Just be quiet and behave,” Emma said. “I’m like every mum in the world—I have eyes in the back of my head. Try another escape maneuver and I’ll shoot … to kill.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, feeling surprisingly bold and sassy. After all, what did I have to lose? “Sound like you mean it. Dear old Mom scared me more and she only ever grounded me.”
“Dear Dom.” Emma grinned and returned her attention to driving.
The rain fell harder and harder. Emma switched her wiper blades into high gear and punched the accelerator. It was dark, but I believed we were headed in the direction of the dry Hassayampa River. Emma was doing some impressive high-speed off-road driving.
“Boy, Davie’d be proud. I think you’re the star driving student,” I said, trying to goad her and hoping to make myself a real person to her again, instead of a victim. I’d seen enough Oprah episodes to know this sometimes worked.
Emma laughed. “Davie’s in driving heaven.” She paused. “He didn’t teach me much anyway. I have previous experience.”
“Don’t tell me you went to Bondurant, too? Didn’t know they had a branch Down Under.”
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She didn’t reply, just grinned enigmatically.
“Okay,” I said, giving the Velveteen Rabbit stiff competition in the race to be real, “you might as well tell me now—who hired you to hit Max?”
She grinned, but there was a hard set to her chin and her eyes glittered with greed. “You’re too smart for your own good.”
“And nosy,” I added. “So who?”
“Max’s dear little half sister, Kendall. She hired both me and Davie. But Davie screwed up. Twice. Then he lost his nerve and tried to bail on me. What could I do? He gave me no choice.” She switched the wipers into even higher gear as the rain pelted the roof and washed in sheets across the windshield.
I was from Seattle, but I still didn’t like driving in the pounding rain. This was scaring me. I fought to keep the fear and edginess out of my voice and attitude. “You don’t have to kill Max and me. I know you lost your fortune. But I can give you financial counseling. Help you get back on your feet. I promise I’ll never mention a word about Davie. He wasn’t a good man, anyway. Why not just live and let live?”
“So you can love and let spy?” Her tone gave hard-core cynicism a heavy sarcastic edge. “I refuse to be poor again. You should have kept your nose out of my business. Then we wouldn’t be in this here pickle where I have to kill you.” She sounded more like a lecturing big sis than a killer.
“Hey, you can’t lay that on me. You got sloppy.” I pointed a broken-nailed accusing finger at her.
“My bad. I got desperate.”
I shivered and decided a change of topic would be nice. “Are we there yet?”
Emma grinned and pulled to an abrupt stop. “Good timing. We’re here.” She jumped out of the vehicle, came around to my side of the car, and opened my door with her gun drawn and pointed at me. “I’m going to free your ankles.” She cut my zip ties off. “Get out of the car.”
Emma grabbed me and held me in front of her with her gun pressed to my head. “One false move and you’re dead. Now help me get Max.”
Somehow we managed to wrangle Max out of the vehicle. She motioned in the direction of the river. “We’ll drag him there.”
The rain pelted down, quickly drenching us as we dragged Max into the center of the riverbed. Tiny rivulets of water cut through the river bottom. At the heart of the rapidly filling riverbed, Emma ordered me to stop our death walk. I recognized the spot from the desert ambush game the day before, a narrow canyon that the guys had mentioned was notorious for flooding.
We dropped Max.
“Lie down beside him.” Emma waved her gun at me.
I felt sick. Certain Emma was going to shoot us execution style, I hesitated.
“Let’s make this quick and humane,” Emma said as she shoved me to the ground.
I landed in a puddle, partially breaking my fall with my bound arms as mud splashed up my legs.
“A flash flood’s headed our way,” Emma said. “How long can a CT tread water?” She laughed.
I expected her to leave me to be washed away, bound and helpless. Instead, she pulled a pair of wire cutters from her pants pocket and cut the zip tie from my wrists.
“Can’t have my accidental drowning victim found bound. That wouldn’t look natural. If you’re ever found at all.”
“Stop it! Stop it. Enough’s enough, Susan!” I screamed, trying to shock some sense and decency in her. I was soaked. My tank top stuck to my body. My hair was matted. But my inner sense of dignity was perfectly intact.
Emma grabbed my arms and shook me. “I don’t have a choice!”
I pulled loose and rolled away from her.
She hit me with the stun gun.
I expected to be jolted and go limp, but nothing happened. I didn’t feel a thing. Then I realized she’d used it on my fake breast. Embracing my good luck, I played dead instead as she tagged me twice more. The silicone inserts protected me from the electric shock. But I pretended to be jolted.
She turned to leave me to drown, or so I thought. The water was definitely rising and now covered the bottom of the river in a thin sheet. Incapacitated, a person could drown in an inch or two of water. I watched Emma, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. She turned and grabbed a nearby boulder with two hands and held it over her head, ready to crush me with it.
Something caught her attention and distracted her. She paused and I heard it, too. The gentle shake of a rattler’s tail. God bless that rattler. It distracted Emma just long enough for me to lunge at her.
She screamed and fell back, dropping the rock. We grappled like a couple of mud wrestlers as we fought for control of her gun and stun gun. I fought using every aspect of my FSC training. I scratched and pulled hair and, disgusting as it was, reached for her nose to gouge her sinuses out. She took evasive action and dodged me.
Undeterred, I parried back. Hey, she was a heck of a lot smaller and less tough and protected than a padded Torq. And I was a whole lot angrier.
Emma screamed and fought back with equal vigor. I got the gun. Emma knocked it from my hand. It went flying, lost in the rising black water.
Emma cursed and swore and reached for her stun gun.
“Try that and you’ll electrocute us both,” I said, swatting it away into the rushing water as I tried another wrestling move on her.
Without warning, Emma gave up the fight. She wrenched free and raced for the shore and the waiting FAV. I took two steps to follow her and slipped in my damn flip-flop, losing her.
The water was rising quickly now. The flip-flop kept wanting to float and slowed me down as I tried to get up, pulling Max with me the best I could. I kicked it free and staggered back to my feet with Max in my arms, fighting the rising water. I took a step and froze.
The rattler was back, shaking its booty-thing just inches from us. I’d always been told that snakes are more afraid of us than we are of them.
“Shoo,” I said to the snake, trying not to make any sudden movements that might remind it of prey. “Shoo. Go away. You’ve done your job and I’m very grateful, now scat!”
To my surprise, the snake skedaddled, though I think self-preservation had more to do with its departure than my intimidation tactics. I heaved a big sigh of relief as I fought to remain standing in the rising water.
And then suddenly a light appeared on the dark water. I looked up into a pair of headlights hydroplaning across the river directly at us.
Chapter Twenty-two
So what did I do? Run like hell? Nope. I couldn’t leave Max. I cowered, resigned and ready to be mowed over and join the roadkill of the world, ruing my bum ankle and Max’s lack of consciousness. As I was saying my final prayers of contrition and wondering why my life wasn’t passing before my eyes yet again, the FAV jolted to a stop next to us in a fanfare of murky water. Torq jumped out, taking in the situation with a glance.
“About time you showed up, Spy Guy. I was beginning to doubt your spook powers.” I think maybe Torq grinned. I was faltering under the weight of holding up Max. Torq took him from me and I helped load him into the FAV.
When we finished, I reached into my bra and pulled out the now-soggy picture of Emma/Susan and held it out to him, tapping it. “Did you know that Emma, aka Susan Saliner, is trying to kill Max?”
“Yeah,” he said, taking the disintegrating paper from me. “Get this from my room, did you?”
“Yeah. Well, I figured you owed me for taking my camera.”
Best I could tell in the dark, he was still grinning and amused. “I’ll explain that later.” He took my arm. “Let’s get you in the car before we drown out here.” He pointed to the tires, where the water had risen so fast it was midway up the hubcap. “We have to get out of the river before we’re washed away.”
I was nodding my agreement when I was blinded by yet another pair of approaching headlights.
Another FAV barreled toward us.
“Oh, brother! Not again!” I said.
“Emma! Shit!” Torq shoved me toward the driver’s
side. “Jump in and drive!”
“No, you drive,” I said. “You have more experience. You’ve been to the Bondurant School—”
“And you have a perfect driving record.” His voice was only slightly mocking.
“Only if you discount that one blown-up car,” I retorted, wondering what the world had come to when I started pointing out my driving failures.
Ignoring me, he buckled himself into the passenger seat. “I’ll ride shotgun. I have a hell of a lot more firearm experience than you do. If we manage to get out of her path, she’s gonna come at us with all the firepower she can muster. The woman’s part of a major crime family and she can shoot to kill. Now move!”
I jumped into the driver’s side, buckling up and adjusting the mirror.
“To hell with the mirrors,” Torq said. “Punch it!”
Emma was flying at us on the perpendicular, ready to T-bone us right into oblivion.
I hit the gas pedal and we peeled out, wet sand and water flying in our wake.
“Veer right. Take us up the far bank. We’ll never make the east bank here. It’s too steep and she’s cut off our downriver path.” He paused. “Once up, get us a few hundred feet away from the river so she can’t ram us back in,” Torq directed.
I followed his directions, remembering the spot he meant from our ambush day. I got us ashore, but barely. By the time I’d pulled out of the riverbed, the water had reached our undercarriage. Another inch or two and we would’ve been floating.
Emma turned and pursued us with her brights on, trying to blind me in the process.
“We have to get back to the camp side of the river,” Torq said as he craned around to watch Emma’s progress. “If we can outrun the water, there’s a spot a mile or so ahead where the county built an access road, complete with a bridge across the riverbed. Emma will try to stop us.”
I nodded my agreement with his plan. “Just tell me where and when to turn.”
Emma had now turned and was following us, hot on our tail, closing the gap. “She must have the souped-up FAV,” I said. “You couldn’t bring the fast one?”
Spy Candy Page 24