Joyride

by Patricia Coughlin

  Bolt held up his hand. “That’s all right, Robertson. I didn’t know for sure myself when I would be getting back.”

  Robertson’s eyes widened behind his owlish glasses. “Is it true you were off driving a fifty-seven Chevy?”

  “It’s true.”

  Robertson gave a shrill whistle. “What was it like?”

  “She was a beauty,” Bolt told him, thinking about more than the car he’d just spent the week with. “All curves and spirit.”

  “Fast?” Robertson asked, eyes glittering.

  “Fast enough for me,” he said simply.

  “Boy, oh, boy, would I love to get behind the wheel of one of those babies,” Robertson said, sighing. “How about you, General?”

  “Well, to tell you two youngsters the truth, I owned a fifty-seven Chevy back when it was the latest thing to roll off the assembly. The American Dream Machine, they called her. And with good reason,” Hollister added with a chuckle. “Mine wasn’t a convertible, of course. That would be a bit showy for my taste, but it was quite a car just the same.” He shook his head, his eyes slightly glazed. “They don’t make them like that anymore.”

  “You said it, sir,” Robertson agreed. “Two-hundred-eighty-three-cubic-inch V-8 with optional Ramjet fuel injection. Golden grille, blade fins and all those miles of chrome, sweet chrome.”

  “And the trunk,” the general continued as Bolt listened to the two of them with amusement. “You could fit everything you needed for a six-month trip in that trunk. Wide, deep, long...”

  The trunk.

  Bolt tuned out what they were saying, instead picturing the trunk of the Chevy with Cat’s bags and camera cases in constant disarray from being shoved and squeezed and rearranged. Sure, he’d grumbled about her packing for an army, but Hollister was right, the trunk of a car that old and that size should have swallowed those bags like jelly beans and begged for more.

  “The trunk,” he muttered. “Damn it, the trunk.”

  He twisted around and grabbed his phone. “General, do you know Cat’s number?”

  “Of course,” Hollister replied. “But why...”

  “Please, General, the number.”

  He recited it for Bolt, who hurriedly punched it in and listened to it ring a dozen times before he gave up and slammed the receiver down.

  “What’s her address in Sarasota?” he asked, already starting for the door.

  “It’s 1522 Addison Way,” the general replied, a worried frown deepening the creases in his forehead. “First floor left. But see here, Hunter, I want to know what’s got you—”

  “Later,” Bolt interjected. “Don’t worry, General, I’ll explain it all to you later.”

  He made it to the car in record time and sped from the parking lot thinking he wasn’t sure what he would have to explain to Hollister later. He purposely hadn’t asked him along on what might well turn out to be another false alarm. It would be bad enough having to talk about that afterward, much less have the general witness the fruit of his paranoia.

  All he knew right then was that the Chevy’s trunk had been tampered with. Maybe there was an innocent explanation. Maybe the car had been in an accident or had rust damage and the trunk had been replaced with a smaller one from a different model. Spare parts were as scarce in Cuba as gasoline was, which accounted for why so many vintage cars in pristine condition could be found on the embargoed island. Maybe there was a simple explanation for the trunk, but he wouldn’t bet on it.

  He found Cat’s apartment with little trouble, parked in a no-parking zone across the street and ran to the door. The convertible was nowhere in sight. Not a good sign.

  He pounded on the door, waited and pounded some more. Where are you, Cat? Where the hell are you? The sure, strong sense that she was in trouble and needed him, which he’d been alternately trying to ignore and convince himself was simply the result of being overtired, was suddenly too strong and too certain to be denied.

  His mind reeled with frustration and self-recriminations. Why hadn’t he insisted on going along with her to drop off the car? Because he was too busy compromising, he thought with disgust, too busy being Mr. Patient and Agreeable. Well, no more. He loved her, damn it and there was no way he was going to let anything happen to her. If that meant being overbearing and bossy and impatient, then that was what he was going to be. He also wasn’t going to let her out of his sight again, he decided.

  But first he had to find her, and this was getting him nowhere fast. There was only one thing to do. Something he’d done hundreds of times, but never expected to resort to again once his Special Services days were over.

  He glanced around to see if any of her neighbors were watching. Not that it would have stopped him if they were. He was that desperate. He pulled his wallet from his pocket and removed a thin metal bar resembling a nail file. Forcing it into the space between the door and casing, he worked it in until he got precisely the right angle and leverage. Some things you never forgot, he noted with satisfaction. Then he landed his shoulder hard against the door and felt it give.

  He was inside, surrounded by the colors and textures and scents of Cat, but he had no time to waste savoring any of it the way he had planned to the first time he was there. He hurriedly walked through the entire apartment, then looked for the telephone. She had an answering machine, but no new messages. He hit rewind and listened to the ones she’d received since yesterday.

  There were several from friends whose names he didn’t recognize, one from the magazine editor she’d mentioned and two from Gator, one returning her call and a second that she had obviously screened and picked up. Gator. That was a lot to go on. Why hadn’t he thought to get that jerk’s whole name from Cat? he thought furiously.

  He was looking around for the phone book, wondering how many LaComptes there were in Sarasota, when he noticed the notebook shoved to the back of the cluttered countertop.

  “Thank God,” he muttered as he glanced at it and realized what he had found. The directions were written hastily, in a confusing sort of personal shorthand of letters and symbols that he recognized as Cat’s. He could at least make out the route numbers, however, and the words “Grant’s Ser Stat” with a box drawn around them.

  Grant’s Ser Stat had to mean Grant’s Service Station, and if he was half as good at cracking codes as he used to be, it was located just outside of town on Route 17. That had to be where Cat had gone to drop off the car.

  He tore the page out of the notebook and was out of there. With every mile he got closer to Route 17, the more convinced he was that something was wrong, and the faster he drove. This was just too far out of the way to be legit.

  When he saw the drooping sign for Grant’s up ahead, his heart clenched with fear. In the dirt out front was parked an old Volvo that had seen better days. Might be the old bomber Cat had referred to, he thought. Along the side of the building was parked a Caddy. Nothing sinister about that, to be sure, but his stomach started churning just the same. Always a bad sign.

  He braked sharply, pulling off the road before reaching the run-down station, and approached on foot. Except for the cars outside, the whole place had an eerie, abandoned look, with the doors closed and the windows in the garage area covered with boards on the inside. An ancient advertisement for engine lubricant flapped against the office door, the sound it made a lazy counterpoint to his hammering pulse.

  Moving cautiously, he circled to the back of the building, hoping for a way to get a look inside. He didn’t find a window there, but he did find all the proof he needed that he wasn’t paranoid after all. The black Mustang. He didn’t need to take a closer look to make sure it wasn’t a different car from the one that had shadowed them on the trip. That would have been too much of a coincidence, and while he’d changed his mind about a lot of things during the past week, that wasn’t one of them.

  He turned to make his way to the front and froze where he stood.

  “How you doing?” drawled the man standing behin
d him. The small automatic in his hand was aimed at Bolt’s gut.

  It was his friend from the rest-stop men’s room. The gun was a new touch, but Bolt recognized the shaggy blond hair and the earring. A faded rock-concert T-shirt had replaced the red plaid shirt he remembered.

  “You sure do get around, don’t you?” Bolt responded, his composure as ingrained as his methodical survey of his surroundings and his options.

  “Me?” The man grinned. “I could say the same for you, pal.”

  “We do seem to be traveling in the same circles these days,” he countered dryly.

  “Don’t let it get you down, the trip’s almost over.” He motioned with the gun. “Let’s go inside.”

  “I think I like it better out here.”

  Another man rounded the corner of the building. Bolt recognized him as the man who had helped Cat with the loose wires on the Chevy.

  “Gator, what the hell is taking you so long? Tony wants...”

  He stopped abruptly at the sight of Bolt.

  “Look what I found,” the man with the gun said.

  Bolt glared at him contemptuously. “You’re Gator?” he asked. “Cat’s friend? Or should I say her supposed friend?”

  Gator’s look was between a scowl and a pout. “Hey, don’t try and dump this all on me. If you hadn’t butted in to start with, everything would have gone just the way we planned.”

  “Meaning you could have used Cat without her ever knowing about it.” Bolt breathed deeply, not wanting to sound as desperate as he felt as he asked the one thing he wanted to know above all else. “Where is she, Gator?”

  “Come on inside and see for yourself.”

  Suddenly there was nothing he wanted to do more than go inside. He started walking, cognizant every step of the way of two important facts. There was a gun at his back, and he had nothing with which to defend himself or save Cat except his bare hands and his wits. From what he’d seen of old Gator, if he acted fast, that shouldn’t be a problem.

  He saw Cat the instant he walked in. Even before his eyes fully adjusted to the dim lighting in the windowless garage, there was no mistaking her as she sat huddled in the corner, her hands obviously tied behind her back. In that grimy, stinking hole, she was a beacon of everything good and light in his life. A single step closer and he was able to feel as well as see the panic in her eyes, and he was filled with a rage so powerful it had no focus or target, only a raw, burning drive to set her free.

  “Bolt, you’re here,” she exclaimed, amazement lifting some of the fear from her face.

  He smiled and winked at her. “Sure am, Tiger.” He kept walking toward her, leaning down as if to help her up. “Now it’s time to go.”

  All the while his attention was riveted on the tire iron laying on the floor about two feet to her left. If he could just grab it in time, he was convinced the odds would swing in his favor and they would be out of there in a—

  “Bolt, look out,” Cat screamed.

  He straightened, but before he was able to turn he felt something as hard and heavy as a steel bat connect with the back of his head and he crumbled.

  He came to with the smell of oil filling his head and darkness all around.

  “What the heck?” he muttered, shaking his head to clear it and wincing as he was accosted by waves of pain. His head hurt, his neck hurt and his right arm felt as if it was broken in half a dozen places. It felt as if Gator and his pal had continued to amuse themselves with him for a while after he’d left the party.

  What had they done to Cat?

  He struggled upright and reached out to touch the wall beside him, feeling it slick with oil. Glancing up he saw daylight, or at least a patch of something marginally brighter than where he was, which he realized must be the pit under one of the garage bays.

  He heard Cat’s voice calling his name and had a feeling she had been calling for a while before his head had cleared enough for him to hear it.

  “Here,” he shouted to her. “I’m down here, Cat.”

  “I know where you are, Bolt. We have to get out of here.”

  “We will,” he replied, struggling to sound confident. “Let me think.”

  “There’s no time to think,” she snapped. “Bolt, I think they started a fire around here somewhere before they left. I know I smell smoke.”

  He struggled to his feet, inhaling deeply. All he could smell was oil, thick and rancid, about fifty years’ worth from the stench.

  “I don’t smell anything, so just try to calm down,” he said, running his hands over the ten-foot-high walls that surrounded him. He could see clearly enough now to see that they were smooth and oil-slicked, with no place to get a decent hand or toe hold.

  He was going to have to pull himself out.

  He jumped and managed to just barely curl his fingertips over the edge at the top.

  Somehow he was going to have to pull himself out.

  “Did they leave you tied up?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I’ve almost got the rope around the post behind me undone. Then it will only be my hands that are tied.”

  “Good girl. Keep working at it.” He jumped again and missed the edge entirely. “I’ll be out of here in a flash.”

  “Is there a ladder or something?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then how—”

  “Just be quiet, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She sounded worried, and very, very scared.

  He might be hallucinating, but he swore he could smell smoke now, too. He jumped a third time, lowering to a crouch first to get a little extra power, and hooked his fingers over the edge. The pain that seared in his right arm sent him plummeting back to the bottom.

  He cursed loudly.

  “Bolt? Bolt, what happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m...fine, damn it all. I just fell.”

  There was a long moment of silence while he rubbed his arm.

  “You can’t get out of there, can you?” she asked at last.

  Bolt’s heart turned over inside his chest. “Oh, baby, I’m going to get out, just give me a minute. Then I’ll get us both out of here safe and sound. I promise.”

  Silence.

  “Listen to me, Cat,” he said, standing once again. “Nothing is going to happen to us. I swear to you.” He waited. “Say you believe me, damn it.”

  “I believe you, damn it,” she shot back.

  He grinned. “That’s more like it.”

  “I did it,” she shouted. “I got the rope undone.”

  Three seconds later she was peering down at him over the edge of the pit.

  “Now I can help you out,” she exclaimed excitedly. She hung her hands into the pit. “Come on. We have to hurry, Bolt. I know I smell smoke now.”

  He thought about the gas tanks buried right outside. He didn’t have to wonder what would happen if they went up. He’d already seen a gas explosion turn a house into a pile of Lincoln Logs.

  “Grab my hand,” she ordered.

  “Don’t be stupid. If I grab your hand I’ll end up pulling you in here with me.”

  “I’ll hold on to this bar behind me with my feet.”

  “Cat, it won’t work. I must weigh—”

  “We don’t have any choice,” she cut in. “Just do it.”

  “No. I can make it on my own.” He rubbed his hands together to wipe off some of the oil.

  “Your arm hurts, doesn’t it?” she demanded.

  “I’ll survive.”

  “No, you won’t,” she said frantically. “Bolt, listen to me. This place is on fire and it’s full of gas and old oil cans and—”

  “Get out,” he shouted. “Right now, Cat. Get the hell out of here and I’ll be right behind you.”

  “No.”

  “Look, don’t—”

  “Will you shut up and stop wasting time? There’s no way I’m leaving here without you.”

  He made a frantic jump, bracing himself ahead of time for the pain in his
arm, and managed to hold on.

  “You are the most stupid, pigheaded, stubborn...” He grunted between words before he ran out of breath to do either and just hung on for dear life.

  “Maybe,” Cat retorted, “but I love you, Hunter. Don’t you dare mess this up on me now.”

  He dragged his head up until he met her gaze. In too much pain to speak, he just stared at her, seeing everything she felt burning in her violet eyes, and he managed to pull himself up another inch.

  She loved him. There was no way he was going to get blown up in this stinking pit and lose out on a lifetime with Catrina Amelia Bandini.

  His elbows shook and his forearms quivered.

  Sweat dripped from his forehead and ran into his eyes. They stung and burned from salt and the fumes and watered until all he could see was the blurred image of Cat’s face. It was enough.

  Another inch.

  He grappled wildly with his feet, as if a foothold might miraculously materialize down there.

  Another inch, then another. His head was above the edge, but pain was blazing in his arm and he couldn’t feel his fingers on that hand. He could hear Cat urging him on as if she was far away instead if close enough to touch, and he could hear the sound of his own whimpering, like a puppy left alone in the night.

  He was almost there. All he had to do was get his elbows up and then switch from pulling to pushing his weight up and over, and he would be home free. He just didn’t think he had the strength to do it.

  He grunted and strained, his elbows trembling as they bore all the weight of his efforts.

  He bore down once again, heady with the pain and only vaguely aware of Cat’s movements, of her still bound hands thrusting downward and then the tug on his belt as she gripped it and pulled for all she was worth.

  It gave him just the lift he needed to reposition his elbows, and then he was pushing himself onto the dirty cement floor of the garage and sucking in gulps of stale air. It hadn’t been pretty or graceful, but, thanks to Cat, it had worked.