Taxi (Take It Off #11)

by Cambria Hebert

  TAXI

  (a Take It Off novel)

  The meter is running…

  One night as Rose Crawford steps out of a bar, she gives no second thought to lifting her hand to signal a cab. After all, it’s the responsible thing to do.

  A common occurrence.

  Far safer than walking several blocks, alone, in the dark.

  A familiar-looking yellow taxi with black, faux-leather seats, running meter on the dash, and a smiling driver pulls up to the curb.

  Rose slides in. Gives the driver her address…

  But she never reaches her destination.

  Instead, she finds herself captive, at the will of a man who isn’t a driver, but a bona fide psychopath.

  Trapped in a taxi she can’t escape, Rose begins to panic. As the miles between her and safety grow, hope dwindles. It isn’t until someone else joins her in captivity that her spark of hope is rekindled.

  Derek is strong, capable, and surely together they can fight their way to freedom.

  Then Rose finds out exactly why she’s been driven into hell. Derek may be an unwilling captive, but he isn’t going to help her.

  In fact, he’s there to do the exact opposite.

  TAXI

  Take It Off Series

  CAMBRIA HEBERT

  TAXI Copyright © 2016 CAMBRIA HEBERT

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Published by: Cambria Hebert

  http://www.cambriahebert.com

  Interior design and typesetting by Sharon Kay of Amber Leaf Publishing

  Cover design by MAE I DESIGN

  Photograph by K Keeton Designs

  Edited by Gathering Leaves Editing

  Copyright 2016 by Cambria Hebert

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-938857-87-4

  Table of Contents

  CONTENTS:

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  DEDICATION

  For anyone who has an irrational fear.

  This book probably won’t help with that.

  My bad.

  1

  Rose

  I was going to regret this.

  It was hard enough to drag my butt out of bed at the ungodly hour of four a.m., but add the heavy weight of regret, and yeah, I was pretty much guaranteed a hellacious morning of kicking my own ass as well as nursing a hangover.

  Well, at least I’d have good coffee.

  Good coffee always made any situation just a little more tolerable.

  People that didn’t drink coffee? I didn’t understand them.

  How could you not enjoy the aromatic, rich scent of freshly ground roasted beans as it wafted up to tickle the underside of your nose in the form of curling steam? The mug would permeate your palms and fingers with warmth, soothing any kind of frazzled nerves or just plain offering comfort in a world that moved so fast it was almost impossible to keep up.

  Coffee wasn’t just a drink.

  It was an opportunity.

  A chance to not only refuel low energy stores, but to rejuvenate the mind. It was a brief reprieve in a cup, a chance to have something exactly the way you wanted it. Made just for you. It was basically a selfish desire, and no one ever criticized you for it because everyone could be selfish when it came to coffee. There was enough for everyone to have some exactly as they wanted it.

  And if they wanted it black?

  Well, who was I to judge?

  I’d pour it. I’d serve it with a smile.

  In the back of my head, I might recall the article I read stating those who drank black coffee were likely psycho… but I wouldn’t say it out loud.

  A girl could learn a lot about a person from the way they took their coffee.

  My mind was wandering. Blabbering on and on about my passion. At least I wasn’t saying all this out loud. Good grief, I’d never get a cab standing here on the sidewalk visibly talking to myself.

  I was drunk. Maybe not full-on drunk… just tipsy.

  Slightly smashed.

  I giggled.

  I liked that. I needed to create a drink to go with it for my menu.

  I stepped out of the slightly covered doorway of the pub and farther onto the sidewalk. The familiar sight of a yellow cab with a lit-up sign on the roof made me rush a little faster.

  I held up an arm. “Taxi!” I called out.

  Then I promptly stumbled over my own two feet and almost face-planted right there on the concrete.

  Okay. I admit I wasn’t slightly smashed. I was totally drunk.

  Here I’d been annoyed I couldn’t catch a cab when I wasn’t even far enough out on the sidewalk to hail one. Not to mention I was reciting an inner monologue all about my love for coffee, and I almost broke my face by tripping over air.

  The second I was back in balance and sure I wasn’t going to intimately meet the concrete, I noted the cab sailing right by without even so much as a thought to stop.

  “I didn’t want you to stop anyway!” I yelled after it.

  About half a block away, a couple turned to stare. I waved at them.

  I didn’t want them to think I was insane.

  “Ugh,” I muttered. “Stupid shoes.”

  I was wearing high heels. Not the wedge kind or the kind with a nice platform either. I was wearing the full-on dangerous but sexy-as-hell stilettos.

  They might be sexy, but my God, I was going to need to wear orthotics for a month after tonight. No wonder I drank so much. I had to dull the pain of these heinous death traps on my feet!

  Enough was enough.

  The first red pump came off and filled my hand. I stepped down and wobbled a little because now I was decidedly lopsided. The heels added a good four inches to my height.

  I yanked off the other and gripped the pair in one hand while trying to talk myself out of throwing them in the nearby trashcan.

  I wouldn’t. But only because they cost me a butt load of money.

  It seemed unfair and somehow barbaric to pay so much green for a pair of shoes that would leave me limping with feet full of Band-Aids the next day. I missed my Converse. And socks.

  I liked socks; they were comfortable.

  Another cab headed in my direction, and I forgot about how much I hated my shoes, loved socks, and tucked the red pumps under my arm and raced to the curb to lift a hand.

  The couple up the block did the same, and the cab pulled over beside them.

  Now I regretted waving. Maybe if I hadn’t, they really would have thought I
was nuts and let me have the cab.

  Why was it whenever I needed a cab and tried to hail one, they never stopped? Yet when I didn’t need one, they were always around?

  After two more failed attempts, I considered going back in the pub where my friends were still enjoying another round, but in the end, I hefted my shoes a little higher and started walking.

  I needed to sober up. Making coffee drunk would not be good for my little business.

  I didn’t get very far down the block when a car slid to the sidewalk. I glanced over, and the passenger window slid down.

  “Need a cab?” the driver called out.

  Anyone see the irony here?

  The minute I stopped trying to get a cab was the minute one showed up.

  “Yeah,” I called out and muttered under my breath about the injustice of public transportation on my way over to the door.

  The inside of the taxi looked like the hundreds of other cabs driving around this town. The bench seat was made of some fake leather material, and if I wasn’t drunk, I’d cringe at having to put my butt on it. The carpet covering the floorboards was also black and needed a good vacuuming. It smelled like stale fast food, which made my vodka-saturated stomach lurch. If I wasn’t so desperate to get home to my bed and shower, I’d get out and walk.

  Walking wasn’t safe anyway.

  Raleigh, North Carolina, wasn’t exactly the most dangerous place to be, but in my opinion (and if you don’t agree, just watch the news), being out in the dark anywhere alone as a woman was hazardous to one’s safety.

  The second I was seated, my shoes hit my lap. Yeah, I know. I should have put them back on, but, ugh, my feet really freaking hurt.

  The driver looked over his shoulder with a smile. “Long night?”

  “Early morning,” I quipped, still thinking ahead.

  He chuckled and hit a button on the meter so it could start adding up my fare. “Where to?”

  “Thirty-Five South Parker Street,” I replied.

  The car moved away from the curb and onto the fairly empty street. I glanced back at the pub and then leaned my forehead against the cold glass window. The tires jolted over what felt like a crater in the street, and my entire body jostled, my head smacking against the glass.

  Ow. Pulling back, I straightened and glanced around at all the familiar stickers that littered many surfaces of the interior.

  The cab is under surveillance. Buckle Up. Licensed driver number 509.

  There should have been a sticker warning passengers that cabbies usually drove like lunatics.

  “Night out with your friends?” His voice filtered to the backseat.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. I wasn’t a fan of talking to drivers. It was weird. I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me. I’d be in this cab for all of ten minutes, and then I’d never see him again.

  It was actually a bizarre thing, riding in a cab.

  I’d just been sitting here thinking how dangerous walking home would be. But wasn’t this just as dangerous?

  I was alone in a car with a man I didn’t know anything about. I’d given him my home address, so not only would he know my face, but also where I lived.

  Why is walking considered more dangerous…?

  I glanced at the sticker disclosing the cab was under surveillance. That made me feel better. Usually, I wouldn’t want to be watched or recorded, but this was good. It meant the driver couldn’t do anything shady to me.

  Right?

  Besides, there was one of those thick Plexiglas partitions dividing the front seat from where I was in the back. Not all cabs had them, but this one did. The center panel was open so we could exchange directions, but I could see there was a panel that slid over it so we could be completely shut off from each other.

  That feature was probably more to protect the driver than a passenger, but it still made me feel better. It also made me feel better to think about how the driver himself was sort of at risk. He might be a stranger to me, but I was just as much one to him. God only knew the kind of people who got in the back of his cab.

  I shuddered at the thought.

  Poor guy.

  “So, uh, what do ya do?” the driver asked, breaking into my inner thoughts, which took away some of the pity I felt for him.

  He was a chatty fellow.

  “Why?” I asked suspiciously.

  “You said you were worried about your early morning. Must have a job that has an early show time.”

  I blew out a breath and felt like the world’s largest, paranoid idiot. He was just making conversation. Maybe he thought talking to me about stuff I’d said would make me feel more at ease during the ride.

  Maybe I wasn’t the only woman who ever started to freak out about being in a cab alone.

  “I actually own a coffee truck,” I replied. “I park it over by Raleigh Regional Hospital.”

  “Ah, so you gotta be up to make the coffee for all the doctors.”

  “They definitely like their caffeine,” I said, glancing out the window. Just up ahead was my street, and I’d be home. My body relaxed back into the seat, and my fingers, which had been gripping my red pumps like my life depended on it, relented.

  He made a sound. “Who can blame them?” He tossed the words over his shoulder. “Good stuff.”

  I felt my nose wrinkle. An odd sort of déjà vu moment hit me. I glanced over the seat at the driver. Why did it suddenly seem like he was familiar to me?

  “Maybe you’ve been to it?” I asked, peering over the seat at him. “It’s called Curbside Coffee. It’s a light-green van.”

  I hated telling people it was a van. (Who wanted to buy coffee from the back of a van? Ew.) It was… But it wasn’t. It was a Volkswagen Vanagon—a hybrid between a van and a bus. Think Mystery Machine in Scooby Doo. But mine wasn’t for solving mysteries. It was modified for serving coffee. The best damn coffee in all of North Carolina.

  “Don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t get to that side of the metropolitan area very much. I drive mostly on this side.”

  That seemed a little odd. It wasn’t that far away. But of course, most people didn’t travel to the hospital by taxi.

  He didn’t look familiar, not at all. Not that I would remember every face to come to the truck; that would be impossible. I did have a lot of regulars, though. They made up a large percentage of my customers. After all, parking at the same place every day did kind of ensure that. This guy was definitely not a regular.

  And now he not only knew what I looked like and my home address, but also where I worked.

  Good going, Rose. You’re on a roll tonight! Next time some friends asked me out for drinks, I was going to seriously consider staying home.

  Speaking of… Shouldn’t I be there by now?

  A quick glance out the window had me straightening up like I’d been prodded with a hot poker. “You missed my street!” I exclaimed, pointing out the back window to punctuate my words.

  “What was that?” he said.

  There was no way in hell he didn’t hear me. I practically yelled.

  I sprang forward, teetering on the edge of the seat, and pushed my face up to the window opening between the seats. “You missed my street. Turn around.”

  “Nah, I didn’t miss your street,” he mused. He wasn’t concerned at all.

  A feeling of creepy intuition started to unfold inside me. My pulse picked up. I felt it thudding with restrained dread as blood hammered through my veins. Low in my stomach, the muscles clenched tight, as if they were preparing for a fight, and the back of my neck tensed so quickly I felt like I was locked into place.

  I blinked and scrutinized the back of his head and side of his face from this closer perspective. There wasn’t anything special about him. He was ordinary, just another cabbie from the city. Not one thing about him screamed I should be afraid.

  But I was.

  Oh, I was.

  “You did,” I ground out, trying to unlock my jaw to speak without indicating how p
anicked I was becoming.

  He laughed. A low, amused chuckle, the kind belaying I was missing some private joke only he was privy to.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “Pull over,” I demanded, forgetting all about not wanting to sound freaked. “Pull over right now.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.” The utterly calm and even tone to his voice scared me more than anything. He was totally in control.

  Shoving back away from the glass, I reached for the handle to open the back door. Screw this. I’d just jump out!

  My fingers ached I gripped the handle so tight and pulled.

  Nothing happened.

  I pulled again. And again.

  The door was locked.

  I threw my body across the seat and tried the other door. It was locked, too. My body shot up and my palm hit the glass right behind his head. “Stop the car!” I yelled.

  He kept driving.

  I beat on the glass, and it was like he suddenly forgot I was here. He acted as if he had no idea there was woman in the backseat of his cab, going ape shit.

  There were no handles or buttons to roll down the windows. There was no button or way to unlock the doors. There was no way out. I was trapped.

  Adrenaline and fear roared inside me, my hands shook, and my stomach rolled. My chest squeezed and my vision dimmed when I glanced out the window and noted the streets and buildings just flying right by.

  Where was he taking me?

  Oh my God. I was being kidnapped.

  It was the middle of the night. It was dark. I was drunk, alone… completely at this taxi driver’s whim.

  NO. Hell no.

  I wasn’t going to let this happen. The more miles he drove, the more likely I would never go home again.

  A sob ripped from my throat. I beat on the glass some more.

  Searing anger rose up inside me. It eclipsed some of my fear and gave me some courage. My heels had fallen onto the floor in my attempts at getting free. I picked one up, wrapped my palms around the toe, and brandished like a weapon.

  “I said stop this car!” I screamed and shoved my arm through the window between the seats. I pulled back my wrist and fired back down, smacking the heel into the side of his head.