Overdrive

by Dawn Ius

  The Aston Martin is just plunked dead center of the floor, covered only by a thin tarp. Almost like it’s on display.

  My blood turns to ice.

  I spin around and run toward the exit, moving so fast I can barely breathe. The Bluetooth isn’t working so I start screaming, “You guys, get out of here, it’s a tra–”

  I run straight into a brick wall.

  Not a wall. A chest.

  My heart–

  Stops.

  Some goon grabs me by the wrist. I yelp and struggle to break free but then my gaze locks on the two shadowed figures behind him.

  Riley.

  And Nick–with a gun pointed at his head.

  My chest fills with hot air.

  They step from the shadows and Riley’s mouth widens into a grin. “Well, I’ll be damned. It really is you. Pleasure to finally meet you . . . Ghost.”

  28

  A SHARP PULSE THUMPS AT my temples, blinding me.

  I’m clearly dreaming, because this can’t be real. I stumble forward, trip, and lose my balance. Everything goes–

  “Jules!”

  The panic in Nick’s voice snaps me back to my senses. I take in a deep breath and slowly raise my head to meet Riley’s stony black eyes. I can’t face Nick; I’m already teetering on tears.

  Riley waves the gun around. “So, Kevin says to me, ‘That’s the Ghost.’ And I laugh, because what the hell was she ever doing with that loser? Right?”

  I feel my face go hot.

  “And then the loser comes to me and says this asshole”–he taps the side of Nick’s head with the barrel of the gun–“took a boost he couldn’t handle. And again, I laugh, because there’s nothing Nick can’t handle.”

  My skin tingles with unease.

  “We both know Kevin isn’t much a man of his word,” Riley goes on. His mouth turns into a sneer. “But I guess you’d have a more intimate knowledge of that.”

  I glare at Riley. I’ve disliked a lot of people in my life, but nothing compares to the hate I feel for this man. The pit of disgust in my stomach burns hot.

  Nick’s jaw tenses. “Lay off, Riley. She’s not part of this.”

  “See, that’s not what Kev says.” He cocks the gun and rests his finger on the trigger. “And I think this time I should believe him.”

  Blood drains from my face. “You can have the Aston Martin.”

  Riley chuckles. “That’s generous of you.” He nudges his chin toward the car. “But, as you know, I’ve already got it.”

  We’re totally fucked. Guys like Riley don’t let people who betray them walk. The best we can do is stall him until Mat and Chelsea go for help. They’ll call Roger, the police . . . someone.

  “What do you want, Riley?”

  He licks his lips. “I thought we could have ourselves a little conversation.” His teeth look fluorescent in the bright light. “Me and my guys . . . and the four of you.”

  My heart feels like it’s being squeezed right out of my chest. I want to deny it, tell him he’s too late for Chelsea and Mat. But that’s when I hear her voice.

  “Get your ape hands off me.”

  Riley’s goon shoves her into the room and another walks in with a pistol aimed at Mat’s head.

  The rest of my hope bursts like an exploding exhaust pipe.

  Riley smirks. “About that talk.”

  The fear in Chelsea’s eyes makes my knees go weak. My gaze flits between Mat and Nick, searching for solutions, ideas, some way to get us out of this jam. I have absolutely no doubt Riley will kill us if we don’t deliver what he wants.

  That’s my only leverage.

  Riley leans up against the wall, adjusting the gun so it practically sticks to the side of Nick’s head. One sudden move and he’s a dead man. I stand very still, like I’m rooted to the ground, but my insides are a writhing mess.

  “It don’t make sense.” Riley waves the gun back and forth between Mat and Chelsea. “These two are a couple of idiots, so maybe I can see how they thought they’d get away with this.” His eyes land on Chelsea’s chest. “Nice work with the fake tits, I’ll give you that.”

  He turns back to me. “But you and Nick are pros.” Is that supposed to be a compliment? “You know better. Which got me thinking that maybe there’s more to this than the Aston Martin.”

  I swallow hard. “It’s worth millions.”

  Riley nods thoughtfully. “It sure is, and I’m going to make a mint off your great detective work.” He nudges his chin toward Mat. “Nice job there, paco–or is that Ringo?”

  Mat’s lips press into a firm line.

  “I heard you’re all living up in that big mansion on the hill. What’s his name?” Riley snaps his fingers twice. “Rick. Richard. Roger. That’s it. Roger Montgomery. Seen his name in the paper a few times.”

  I straighten my back. “You going to shoot the shit all night, or get on with it?”

  “That’s fair,” he says. “Bottom line is, we’ve been scanning the airwaves and I admit, you kids got balls. Covering up the fact that–not counting the Aston, because that was my good work–the four of you did five major boosts in as many weeks. I figure they gotta be connected.”

  I open my mouth but he shuts it with a wave of his finger.

  “Things’ll go much smoother if we’re honest with each other going forward,” he says. “Let’s start with this. Who are you working for?”

  “Why? You offering me a job?”

  I’m stalling, but Riley’s too smart to fall for it.

  “A few months ago, sure. But after a mistake like this? You’ve lost your edge, kid.”

  I don’t know why the words sting. I blink away a tear that’s more fear than anything else.

  “A piece of whatever job you’re working,” Riley says. I blink, surprised. Maybe I should have expected this. “Give me that, and we’re square.”

  Nick shakes his head with such subtlety I almost miss it.

  “The Aston Martin was the last car on the list,” I say.

  Riley arches an eyebrow. “I’d like to believe you, Ghostie. I really would. But . . .” He presses the gun harder against Nick’s temple. “I’ve got like this sixth sense, you know? A feeling there’s more to this gig. A lot more.”

  Nick’s Adam’s apple bobs.

  Riley points the gun at the guy holding my wrist. “Take her phone.”

  I don’t bother arguing. My cell’s password protected, and even if he finds the list of cars, they’re all in code. The goon yanks it out of the front pocket of my leather jacket and tosses it at Riley. He enters the password with one thumb and flashes me the screen.

  Emma.

  Her face is my background picture, and her name is my password–which means Kevin didn’t just tell Riley about me, he also told him about my sister. Bastard.

  “Cute kid,” Riley says.

  My knees threaten to give out.

  He starts thumbing through the phone and I know the exact moment he lands on the list because he lets out a low whistle. “What’s this? Keeping track of all your exes? Looks more like a shopping list to me.”

  “Reggie–gotta be the Camaro that got picked.” He sticks his tongue into the side of his cheek. “George. That’s clearly the Cosma Ray grabbed during the Barris show.” He leans toward Nick. “That one had you written all over it, Barker.”

  “Just fucking get on with it,” I snap.

  He looks up from the phone and grins. “Eleanor. Come on, guys. That’s the best you could come up with?” He chucks my cell aside. The glass shatters and sprinkles onto the concrete. “I’ll give you points for creativity on the others. But this isn’t even a challenge–who doesn’t want a ’67 Shelby? Your buyer’s got good taste.”

  It’s at this moment I realize we’ve caught a small break, because while he might know the make and model we’re after, he doesn’t know the specifics–the fact that it’s Jim Morrison’s long-lost car we need. We could pass off any of the three in Roger’s garage for the last ca
r on the list.

  Roger might not even miss one of those Mustangs.

  Riley digs a cigar out of his front pocket. He lights it and takes a long pull. “All right, this is starting to get a bit boring. I’m sure we’re all looking forward to some sleep–big days ahead of us.”

  My nostrils flare. “Quit dicking around.”

  Maybe I should make like the rest of my team and keep my mouth shut, but I’m pretty sure the guy’s going to blow our heads off anyway. I’m sick of waiting for the inevitable.

  “You’re going to steal Eleanor,” Riley says. “For me. And then I want an introduction to your boss.”

  Yeah, like that’s happening. My lips turn up in a smirk. “You expect me to believe you’re going to let us go?”

  “Oh, I have a feeling you’ll believe anything I tell you.” He waves one of his men over with two fingers.

  “Yeah, why’s that?”

  “Because I have something you want.”

  The goon dials a number and then hands over the phone. Riley puts it on speaker. Kevin answers on the third ring.

  “Kev, why don’t you fill your ex-girlfriend in?”

  The line crackles a bit before a young girl’s voice whimpers in the background. “Jules?”

  I feel the blood rush through my veins and my heart picks up pace. My knees buckle. Oh God, no . . .

  Emma.

  29

  “RUN IT AGAIN.”

  Mat flinches. I’ve totally snarked at him, but at this point, I’m desperate. Emma’s been missing for twelve hours and we’re no closer to finding her, Eleanor, or frankly any Shelby–aside from the three in the Trophy Case. We might be able to leverage one of those to get Emma back, but how the hell are we supposed to break into that fortress?

  Every nerve in my body feels thin, stripped.

  I’ve gnawed my pen cap down to a twisted mess. Blisters have formed on my heels with all my pacing. I should have been at Emma’s audition. We all should have been–together. Like the family she expects us to be. Deserves us to be.

  “Run. It. Again.”

  Mat’s fingers fly over the keyboard. “It just keeps coming back to the same thing.”

  I grab a pillow off my bed and fling it at my dresser. It bounces off the lampshade and skids across the surface, taking down two picture frames before hitting the floor.

  The monitor pings.

  I hold my breath, waiting for Mat to say something, to tell me he’s wrong. He has to be, because I can’t take it if he’s right. I wrap my arms around myself to stop the shudder. Everything comes rushing back, sending my senses into overdrive–the scent of Riley’s cigar, the fear in Nick’s eyes when the gun was pointed at his head, the sound of Emma’s voice. That’s already too much. But if Mat’s right, we’re all screwed.

  Because it means Roger has had Eleanor all along.

  Mat takes a deep breath. “Same result.”

  Blood shoots to my temples and I feel my face go hot. I scream out in frustration and slam my fist into my bedroom door. The wood splinters on impact. Pain radiates up my arm.

  Mat tosses his laptop onto the bed and springs off his chair to pull me into a hug. “There’s got to be a logical explanation for this.” He turns my hand over in his–the skin is scuffed, but not broken.

  Yeah, I dropped my guard. Trusted Roger when I should have known better.

  I choke back a series of cries. My shoulders shake. I bury my face deep into Mat’s chest, drawing comfort from his warmth. He’s safe.

  Family.

  Mat grabs the back of my neck and pulls me closer. He’s trying to stop me from worrying, but his voice cracks when he says, “We’ll find her. I’m good at what I do.”

  Except Mat doesn’t have a special trawling program that will find people. Nothing that will pinpoint Emma’s exact location, let me know she’s safe. Unharmed. Even if we could get our hands on the car, it’s only half the puzzle: Riley won’t let Emma go until we set up a meet between him and Roger.

  Tears stream down my face. “Run the program again.” I’m almost whimpering now. “Please, Mat. Just one more time.”

  • • •

  We gather at a park a few miles from Roger’s mansion, cobbling together a plan, some kind of next step. I’m only half listening. Emma’s voice whispers in my head about how I’ve fucked up, how I should have been there with her. How she knew I was up to no good.

  I press my lips together, holding firm to the last of my worry. I can’t break now. Emma needs me.

  Where is she? Has she suffered another anxiety attack? God, how could she not? Being kidnapped by my ex-boyfriend is not exactly the definition of stability.

  Nick reaches under the picnic table and takes my hand, his skin cool to the touch. I know he’s shouldered some guilt of his own on this.

  “We could go to the police,” Chelsea says.

  The tips of her chrome fingernails are chipped and torn. I haven’t bothered to see if she’s changed the color on her toes to Nightmist Blue.

  “Going to the cops means owning up to what we’ve done,” Mat says. “We’ll go to jail.” His eyes meet mine. “But if it means saving Emma, I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes, just so that’s clear.”

  It’s this combined love for my sister that holds me together.

  Nick shakes his head. “Riley isn’t afraid of the police.”

  “And some of them are on his payroll,” I say, thinking back to when the Aston Martin was taken from the airplane hangar. “We have no evidence to link back to any of this.”

  But there’s a mountain of it that could bring the four of us down. I can’t help but think the rest of them are paying for my mistakes–especially my sister.

  Nick rubs the top of my knee. “Riley’s a thug, but he won’t hurt Emma. Not as long as we stick to the plan.”

  When it comes to his former boss, Nick’s instincts have backfired, but I have to believe Riley is more interested in his business than in hurting a kid. “It’s different now that we know Roger has had Eleanor all along.”

  Saying the words makes my stomach roil. I’ve worked through every possible scenario, but none of them explains it. I suck in a breath to stop from crying. To think I almost started trusting Roger.

  “Go through it again,” Nick says. “How did you find Eleanor, Mat? Maybe it will give us some perspective.”

  Mat sets an old laptop on the picnic table. I stand behind him to block the sun from hitting the screen. A smiley-face sticker mocks me from the corner of the computer case.

  “I started noticing weird patterns whenever I entered key words into the trawling program.” He powers up the screen. “No matter what I typed into the search, I got the same six dead ends. Like I’d been blocked or something.”

  Technology shit usually goes over my head, but even I understand that there should be more than a half-dozen combinations, especially given the extensive list of key words we came up with. “Roger?”

  Mat shrugs. “I had no reason to think so at the time.”

  “Why would you?” Chelsea picks at the peeling blue paint on the picnic table. “Far as we knew, we were supposed to find the car for him.”

  “I thought maybe my IP had been tracked,” Mat says. “So I switched computers. Twice. I got the same dead ends. I figured it had something to do with the laptops Roger bought, so I went back to old faithful.” He taps the top of his screen. “After shit went down last night, I installed the trawler and tried again.”

  “Smart,” Nick says.

  “I started a new scan, using some of the same key words . . . plus a few extras,” Mat says.

  “Like asshole and dickhead  ?” Everyone looks at me and I shake my head to stop from blubbering. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt betrayed, but it doesn’t make sense that Roger could be so cruel. Why send us on this wild goose chase? “What could you have added?”

  “Hacking isn’t always about exploiting technology,” Mat says with a slight grin. “It’s also
about exploiting humans. I dug around in Roger’s virtual files”–he raises an eyebrow–“and his password to almost everything is the title of a Doors song. I also found this.”

  He points to a picture on the screen. It’s old and faded, probably taken in the late sixties. Just two guys standing next to Eleanor. The first guy is Jim Morrison–I recognize him from the poster in the basement. The second . . .

  “Dude. Is that Roger?”

  “That mustache,” Chelsea says with an exaggerated shudder.

  “Okay, so he’s clearly had a boner for this car for a long time,” Nick says. “But that doesn’t mean he has that car.”

  “Every car has a VIN number,” Mat says. “A unique code that includes a serial number for tracking. I hacked into his personal files and found a spreadsheet listing the VIN numbers of the cars he owns. There’s no description of the cars, so at first glance, it looks kind of random, but I plugged in the VIN for Eleanor and it popped up right away.”

  My entire body goes limp with defeat.

  “That car is not in the Trophy Case,” Nick says. “I’d have remembered the color. So, where is he keeping it?”

  “The garage,” I say quietly. “It’s the one place Roger has banned us from.” A sliver of hope cuts through the gloom. Busting into the Trophy Case for one of the Shelbys might be a challenge, but breaking into the garage would be child’s play for Chelsea.

  “It’s not in the garage,” she says. All eyes land on her. “You think I didn’t tap that lock? Come on, guys.”

  My optimism hits a dead end. “Anything in there we can use?”

  She rubs her temples. “Nothing I can think of. It wasn’t even a satisfying break-in–some junk, a bunch of movie memorabilia . . .”

  I scrunch up my nose. “Jesus. What’s the deal with that, anyway?”

  “He likes to collect things, but . . .” Chelsea’s eyes brighten. “Holy crap, that’s it!” She stands and begins to pace. “Something has always bugged me about the props in the house. How they looked out of place, but somehow familiar.”

  “Maybe they’re from well-known movies,” Mat says. “Why else would Roger collect them?”