Crazy for You: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance)

by Juliet Rosetti

  He didn’t; his hold tightened.

  A buzzer sounded, a long, jarring brazzz that made both of us jump.

  “Goddammit!” All traces of Pepé Le Pew vanishing, he released me, stomped over to the console phone on his desk, and jabbed the talk button. “What?” he snarled.

  A male voice came over the intercom, bored but official-sounding. “I got a vehicle out here parked in the handicapped zone without a disabled parking permit. License plate 402-JPK.”

  “That’s not my vehicle,” Kennison snapped.

  “It’s mine,” I said, snatching up my coat and purse.

  “Mazie,” Kennison said. “Wait—”

  Ignoring him, I breezed out of the room, levitated up the stairs, and bashed out the front door. I took a deep, invigorating breath of cold, fresh air.

  A police cruiser was parked next to my car and a large, grumpy-looking cop was standing with his foot on my bumper, writing out a ticket. He looked up as I approached.

  “Something wrong with your legs, lady?” he growled.

  “What? No.”

  “You got a heart condition?”

  “No.”

  “So why’s an able-bodied person like you hogging a handicapped zone?”

  I gestured around the empty lot and said in a small voice, “It’s after hours?”

  “So that’s okay, huh? What if there was an emergency and some poor cripple needed a doctor?”

  I tried to imagine the kind of emergency Dr. Dreamboat would be forced to handle. A pesky liver spot that needed lasering off?

  “It’s lazy, selfish persons like you who are ruining this country,” scolded the cop, taking a deep breath, obviously primed to go into full lecture mode.

  Maybe I could head him off at the pass. “You’re right, Officer,” I cut in, frenziedly rummaging through my purse. “It was selfish of me.” My hand closed around a stack of Hottie Latte coupons. The coupons for a free cappuccino were Juju’s scheme for drumming up business. Each employee had gotten two dozen coupons, with orders to spread them around our home neighborhoods. I waved the sheaf of coupons at Officer Grumpy.

  “What’s that?” he said, sounding suspicious.

  “It’s for free coffees at Hottie Latte. We have doughnuts, too.”

  “That the place with the naked waitresses?”

  “We model lingerie.”

  “My Aunt Fanny. This better not be a bribe, lady.”

  “Of course not. Just our way of supporting our men in blue.”

  He thrust the ticket at me. I thrust the coupons at him.

  Somehow the parking ticket found its way back into the cop’s ticket book. Stuffing the coupons into his parka pocket, the officer told me to have a good night, went back to his car, and pulled away. Even his car sounded grumpy.

  I gazed at the clinic door. I should go back, see what Kennison’s computer search had turned up. But now that I was outside, it suddenly didn’t seem so urgent after all. I crawled into Pig, locked the door, and felt an enormous wave of relief wash over me as I realized that there was no way I was going back in that building tonight.

  Because somewhere along the way tonight, Dr. Dreamboat had morphed into Dr. Nightmare.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  You can’t get a man with a gun. So try a flying tackle.

  —Maguire’s Maxims

  Buddwinkel’s Bungalows was a popular stopover for travelers in the 1930s and ’40s, back in the days when it lay along the most direct route between Chicago and Minneapolis. The bungalows were one-room cabins set on a rise above Lake Waupoose, a small, glacial lake on the border of state forestland. But a new interstate highway was built in the 1960s, bypassing the lake and spelling disaster for Buddwinkel’s. The tourists stopped coming and the bungalows went bust. For years, the place sat neglected, its cabins collapsing, its boat dock sinking into the lake, it parking lot overgrown with weeds, until the Wisconsin Paintball Association bought the entire forty-acre site for combat games.

  Buddwinkel’s was hard to find if you weren’t sure where to look. Despite Labeck’s directions, I managed to take two wrong turns and get lost on the winding backcountry roads before I finally stumbled across the paintball grounds.

  The predicted storm had roared in on schedule and snow was falling fast and thick as I drove into the parking lot. A guy wearing an orange snowmobile suit was directing traffic. He pointed me to a corner of the lot and I wrangled a space between two vans.

  I left my purse in the car, figuring I wouldn’t be here long enough to need it. I was only putting in a token appearance at the tournament to placate Rico and Eddie, then I’d pick up Labeck and we’d be on our way to Quail Hollow. As I made my way toward the motel office, which was now the paintball association headquarters, Eddie Arguello jogged up to me. He was wearing a green camo vest over a black snowmobile suit and heavy boots.

  His face split into a grin. “Maze, you made it!”

  “Do you think they’ll cancel?” The snow was falling at a thumping rate, propelled by a strong northwest wind.

  “You kiddin’? Snow makes it more fun. Come on, meet the team.”

  “Is Labeck here?” I asked.

  “He’s holed up in Gozzy’s cabin.”

  “Gozzy?”

  “Romy Gozchika. The guy directing traffic. Everyone calls him Gozzy. I told you about him. He’s the caretaker here—plows the lot, does the upkeep in exchange for living in one of the old bungalows. Labeck’s paying him to let him hide out in his cabin.”

  “Do you trust this Gozzy?”

  Eddie shrugged. “The guy’s elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top, know what I mean? He’s always buzzed on meth, and I think he’d sell his own granny for a can of Miller, so it’s a good thing Labeck’s getting out of here.”

  I was about to ask Eddie how to get to Labeck’s cabin when Rico shambled out of a nearby building, followed by a herd of teammates. He gave an exuberant whoop when he saw me, hugged me, and introduced me to his team, the Mojos. All wore olive camouflage vests and had comic-book names like Thor or Hulk or Wolverine. Most were kids around Rico and Eddie’s age, but Captain America had gray hair, and Hulk was forty if he was a day. Eddie’s paintball name, I discovered, was the Silver Surfer. Rico’s was The Punisher.

  “Where’s Spawn?” Eddie asked.

  Rico looked worried. “He’s late.”

  “The Cobras are gearing up,” Batman said. “We better get ready.”

  I assumed the Cobras were the team across the parking lot, dressed head to toe in camo brown. They’d arrived in a school bus and were standing behind it, sheltering from the wind as they inspected their weapons and put on their helmets.

  “How does this tournament thing work?” I asked, clapping my gloved hands like seal flippers to keep the blood circulating.

  Rico was checking his paint gun. He gestured toward a nearby scraggle of pines and oaks. “That’s our playing field, okay? Our enemy is the blues.”

  “I thought they were the Cobras.”

  Eddie pointed to his helmet, striped with red fluorescent tape. “We’re red, the Cobras are blue,” he explained. “The tape makes it easier for the marshals to tell who’s who, because everybody looks alike out in the woods. We already won the coin toss, so we opted to have our base set up here on this side. The blues’ HQ is half a mile away on the opposite side of the woods. Whoever brings the other team’s stick back to their base first wins.”

  “It sounds like Capture the Flag,” I said.

  “Right. Except it ain’t a flag.” Eddie took a glow stick out of his pocket, a tube about the size of an electric toothbrush, and showed it to me.

  “You get points for shooting the enemy,” Rico explained. “If you get shot in the torso or head, you’re dead.”

  “Can you come back to life?”

  “No resurrection. Once you’re dead, you got to go sit in the stands.”

  Not a very pleasant version of the afterlife. “Don’t people cheat?” I asked.


  The Mojos roared with laughter.

  “Yeah, the Cobras cheat like shit,” Eddie said. “But so do we.”

  A warning whistle blew. The Mojos all picked up their weapons, checked their ammo, and donned their helmets. Instantly, all traces of personality vanished. They looked like riot police, faceless and menacing.

  “Good luck,” I called as they trooped off. I hurried over to the spectator area, a row of wooden bleachers at the south end of the field. A portable jumbotron screen was set up to one side of the stands, presumably hooked up to videocams in the woods, so spectators could view what was happening on the field.

  As soon as the game started, I planned to sneak away to find Labeck. I sat there for what seemed like ages, stamping my feet on the bleacher floor and whacking my arms against my sides to keep the circulation going. What were they waiting for—the Air Force flyby?

  The longer I sat there, the stronger the sensation grew that I was being watched. Craning my neck, I let my eyes rove over the spectators. Everyone looked nearly identical, dressed in dark hooded parkas, their faces mere blobs in the falling snow.

  I thought of the silver car I’d noticed when I’d left the café today. It had kept four or five lengths back, but every now and then I’d glance in the mirror and spot it again. When I pulled onto the freeway, it had vanished in traffic and I’d dismissed it from my mind. But as I blundered along the backcountry roads, I thought I glimpsed a silver car about a half mile behind. Coincidence, I tried to assure myself. There were millions of silver cars out there. Anyway, the pelting snow made it hard to distinguish car colors; I could have been mistaken.

  Eddie came tearing off the field. He clumped up through the bleachers, found me, ripped off his helmet, and panted, “Maze—you got to come in the game.”

  I gaped at him, wondering whether chemicals were leaking out of his helmet into his brain.

  “Spawn just called. He was in a car accident. He’s at the hospital, he’s got broken ribs. He tried to sneak out, but they caught him and strapped him to a bed.”

  “What kind of sissy doesn’t show up just because he’s strapped to a bed?” I said.

  “My point exactly,” Eddie said, my sarcasm missing him by a mile. “So the marshals say we forfeit the game, because there’s got to be exactly ten players on a team, except it turns out the Cobras are short a man, too. So both sides now got five minutes to come up with replacements.”

  “Man, Eddie. You said you’re short a man.” I gestured toward the crowd. “There’s men all over the place. Just pick and point.”

  “Can’t trust ’em.” Eddie’s brown eyes took on a paranoid glint. “They might be Cobra fans. You’re the only one here I know is on our side, Maze. C’mon.” Grabbing my hand, he hauled me down the bleachers and across the lot to a van loaded with paintball gear. He rummaged around until he found a helmet. Ignoring my protests, he clapped it over my head. I felt encased in a portable tomb. Staring at my reflection in the van window—bulging black visor, safety goggles, and a snout-like breathing tube—I was seized with the sudden urge to start exterminating termites.

  “Nothing to it, Maze,” Eddie gabbled. “Us guys will be out in the woods, working our way toward the enemy base. Alls you gotta do is stand by our goal. Any dummy could do it.”

  “Just stand there,” I repeated, my voice sounding like it was coming from inside a manhole.

  “Yeah. And shoot the shit out of any Cobra that tries to get past you.” Eddie thrust a paintball gun into my hands. “This is your marker. The big thing on top there is the hopper, loaded with a paintball clip. You put it up to your shoulder and just pull the trigger.”

  “You know I hate guns—”

  “Shut up, Maze—we got like thirty seconds.”

  My finger jumped and I accidentally pulled the trigger. The marker made a kachunka kachunka kachunka sound and spat a round of red paint against the side mirror of a nearby minivan. Startled, I screamed. Then I screamed again because my first scream, ricocheting around inside the helmet, had scared me. Eddie rolled his eyes so far back in his head he probably was going to need an eyeball splint.

  “Stop screwing around,” he snapped. “Listen! If your marker stops working, check this thing here.” He pointed to a button that looked like a doorbell. “That’s the safety. Safety off, you can shoot, safety on, you—Cripes! We got fifteen seconds. Echa la cookie, girl!”

  Eddie hauled me across the field so fast there were times when my feet actually flew off the ground. If he could have loaded me in a cannon and shot me across the field, I think he would have done it. Chivalry was all very well in the proper time and place, but this was not a time for gallantry—this was a time to beat the crap out of the Cobras.

  Apparently the Cobras had picked up their extra player, too, because the head marshal gave a thumbs-up. The Cobras took off toward their base on the far side of the woods that separated the two teams.

  Our base was simply a U-shaped net that looked like a junior-hockey-league goal. Eddie ran over, took the glow stick out of his vest pocket, and shook it. Its chemicals activated and it began glowing with an unearthly rosy-red gleam. He jabbed the stick into the ground.

  “Guard it with your life,” Eddie growled at me. “And be careful, okay? Cuz if you get bumped off, we don’t got a replacement.”

  “Thanks for caring,” I yelled, but he was already dashing away, vanishing into the undergrowth.

  I stood there, feeling like a dodo. What the hell was I supposed to do? I was exposed here, clearly visible to the crowd, who were probably sniggering about the Mojos’ runty loser goaltender. Deciding to strike a more aggressive pose, I swiveled my gun left, then right, trying to appear sort of paramilitary, even though my interior dialogue sounded like a whiny five-year-old.

  This is boring. Why do I have to do this? This is stupid. When will this be over? I’m cold. This gun is too heavy. I don’t want to do this. I hate this. I want a cocoa.

  To keep warm, I started pacing in front of the goal. Pretending to shoot other human beings, what a terrific concept. Did Amnesty International know about paintball wars?

  The snow had picked up; it was like a heavy white curtain. Maybe they’d have to call off the games because of low visibility. Maybe they’d—

  A sound to my right made me jump, my heart nearly bursting its walls. Through the white curtain I could dimly make out a moving tree branch. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just shoot without knowing what it was. What if it was an innocent squirrel or rabbit, and I blinded the poor thing?

  “Behind you,” someone in the crowd shrieked.

  I jerked around. The snow was so thick I actually pawed at it with my hand. And discovered that the curtain was just a layer of snow built up on my goggles. Now I could clearly see a Cobra jogging toward our flag. He’d thrown a snowball at the tree to distract me, and was going to grab our stick. He was sneering at me! Even though I couldn’t see his face through the helmet, it was a body sneer, a nanny-nanny-boo-boo posture that showed he wasn’t intimidated by some pussy scared of her own shadow. In his mind, the stick was already his.

  A jolt of adrenaline shot through me. Not until you rip the gun out of my cold, dead hands, buster! I aimed. I pulled the trigger. Kachunka! A bright red stain blossomed on the Cobra’s groin.

  “Crap!” he yelled, staring down at himself in disbelief. He shot at me as he died.

  His pellets whizzed past me, splattering spectators in the front row.

  A whistle blew. “Foul on the blue team,” boomed a voice. “Ten-point penalty.”

  I gazed up at the sky, gobsmacked. Where had that voice come from? It sounded like the voice of God, and God was not pleased.

  Then I realized that the voice was a loudspeaker. Amplifiers were hooked up to nearby trees and an announcer was doing commentary. I looked up at the jumbotron. It showed a replay of what had just happened, the Cobra darting out of the woods, throwing a snowball to distract me, and then darting for our glow stick. And
there I was, clumsy and clueless, getting off the world’s luckiest shot. The Cobra wasn’t allowed to shoot people after he was dead, and that’s why the Cobras had been hit with a ten-point penalty.

  “And the first elimination in the game comes from …” Paper rustled as the announcer checked his notes. “Substitute goaltender Margery Maguffin.”

  Potato, potahto; close enough. People were actually cheering for me! Beneath my helmet, I grinned. This wasn’t such a bad game after all.

  But it went on for ages. An early dark fell and the lights above the field turned on, haloing the thickly falling snow. Out in the woods, the Cobras were trouncing us. The scoreboard on the electronic screen had us down by fifty points. According to the announcer, the only way the Mojos could still win was by capturing the Cobra flag. One by one, the dead Mojos limped off the field, riddled with the hated blue paint. Spidey, Hulk, Batman, Captain America, Thor…

  The Cobras attacked four times, but each time I managed to drive them back. After I’d taken out their first guy, they became more wary. No more foolhardy frontal assaults. I didn’t hit anyone again, but managed to pump out a fierce enough spray of pellets to force the blues back into the trees. Beneath my heavy clothes, I was sweating buckets, but during the long periods of inactivity the sweat would freeze and I would start shivering so violently I could barely hold my weapon.

  Eddie and Rico were lethal out in the woods. Between them, they eliminated five blues. But at last a Cobra nailed Rico in the back with a sneak attack. Shortly after that, Eddie was tagged. He came trotting up to me, exhausted and spattered with blue paint.

  “Mazie,” he rasped, “you’re the only blue left. There’s still two Cobras out there. Watch out for the tall guy—he’s the one who spiked me.” He jammed an extra pack of pellets in my pocket, squeezed my frozen hand, and jogged over to the sideline.

  The only one left.

  I’d never felt so helpless in my life.

  I tried to load the extra pellets into my gun, but my hands were shaking too much. Both Cobras attacked at once. The shorter one pinned me down with a hail of pellets, while the tall one lunged for the glow stick. He snatched it; he ran with it; he was going to run it back to his base!