My brain was skittering around, looking for possibilities and trying to formulate plans, but I still felt dulled from what I now figured was the same thing Julian had been drugged with and my eyelids were so heavy. I felt like keeling over, myself. I heard footsteps in the hallway, and hugged Julian again.
"I think someone's coming," I whispered in his ear, in case the room was bugged. "Do you know how many guards?"
He squeezed me back and said aloud, "Try to get some rest." In an undertone, he added, "I've only seen three. Two big, dumb oxen, and a woman once, who brought in my pills. She looks like one cold fish, though, so something tells me to be glad I didn't see more of her."
I nodded and reluctantly let him go as the door opened again.
One of the men who'd been in on the ambush in Fisher's room, the one with the Tommy gun, stuck his head in the doorway. He had short brown hair, deep-set dark eyes and a set of pitcher-sized ears that looked designed for flight.
"Let's go, old man. Back to your room."
Julian stood with his usual dignified grace and gave me a last look over his shoulder as he was ushered out. The door closed again and silence settled into the opulence around me. I couldn't even hear traffic outside. Feeling so utterly isolated made me want to jump out of my skin, so I crossed the room to the record shelf and pulled one out at random. The Anderson Sisters smiled up at me brightly from the cover, and when I turned the machine on and dropped the needle down, the first notes of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy tinkling out made me feel a little better. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend I was in my own living room, with my own beat up record player. My record player that had met an untimely end along with all of my other precious junk treasures. Except—I leaned down and squinted—for my Sinatra records, apparently. Either those were my stolen albums, or in an amazing coincidence, Dominick had scored a copy just like mine that also had a Salvation Army price tag covering the "R" in the title, A Swingin' Affair.
Abruptly, another wave of weakness hit me and I shuffled back toward the bed like an old woman. Kicking off my flats, I climbed beneath the covers. As the Andrews Sisters sang about their military man, I pictured Chance's face in my mind and clutched the pillow tightly.
Chapter 25
A clatter woke me, and I jolted upright in bed, gripping the covers to my chest. It was Big Ears, and he was carrying a silver breakfast tray. Without so much as a word, he carefully arranged a red rose on the salver with his thick fingers and then left the room, never even glancing my way. The slide of the lock snapped firmly behind him.
My stomach growled at the smell of fresh bacon, and I got up. At this point, I figured practically, I might as well eat whatever had been sent. It wasn't like Dominick was going to poison me before he'd gotten a chance to rape me, murder me, and fit me with size 8 cement shoes.
Pushing my hair back, I sat down at the small table. Dominick obviously believed in breakfast being the most important—or at least the most luxurious—meal of the day. Crisp bacon was nestled beside buttery scrambled eggs that still wafted steam. Two lightly golden pieces of sourdough toast lay next to a small dish of plump, blushing red strawberry halves. There was even a small, ribbon-wrapped box of Godivas, and a delicate glass of champagne next to a shorter tumbler of juice. Great, the bastard was wooing me with food and Mimosas.
I wolfed it all down, setting aside the Godivas for later and leaving the champagne untouched. My head had cleared after sleeping, though I wasn't sure if I'd been out for an hour or three days, and I wanted to keep it that way. I had some escaping to do.
I prowled through the room, looking for air vents, deadly weapons, or escape hatches, and tried to keep Chance and the others out of my head. The all had to be alive. I was sure that Dominick would want to toy with everyone a bit more before his big dénouement, and if they were here, which I desperately hoped, they were probably in other rooms nearby. I'd hit my fists as hard as I could against all of the walls in the room, hoping at the least to get some kind of a response and at best to suddenly find superhuman strength and knock a me-sized escape hole, but from the dull thumps and sore fists that resulted, I figured the walls were heavily soundproofed and reinforced.
My inventory left me with nothing more deadly than a toothbrush, some bottles of expensive French perfume, and the vase on the table. If I were MacGyver, I'd already be out of here, but since I was just plain old Lucky MacFarlane, I was shit out of luck. I did, however, have the means to smell good and keep my teeth clean while I was confined. I briefly considered hiding behind the door and beaning Big Ears with the vase, but I figured that was too clichéd to ever work. I also considered dressing in one of the vintage evening gowns in the wardrobe and pulling a Mata Hari—tricking Big Ears or his compatriot with a seduction act and then slicing them up with a broken bottle of Worth perfume—but I discounted that one as stupid, too.
After racking my brain until it hurt, I still didn't have any ideas. Lacking anything better to do, I showered quickly and changed into the least flashy outfit in the wardrobe. The Chanel dress was deep red with a full skirt, nipped in waist and ballerina neckline. A rose was outlined on the bodice with tiny silver Swarovski crystals. He might have been obsessed with the 1940's, but Dominick obviously didn't know enough about women's fashion to claim historical accuracy. This one was early 1950's, postdating his current favorite decade by a few years. It was also pretty, but the fact that it fit me perfectly completely weirded me out.
I didn't want to use the brush, since there were blond hairs already tangled in the antique boar bristles, so I just knotted my hair in an unflattering bun and mentally added "hairpins" to my weapons roster. Then I put on my shoes on, cranked up the phonograph with an old Bing Crosby album and sat on the bed to wait.
The album had almost played through when the doorknob rattled again and my pulse spiked. This was it—I still had no freaking clue what I was going to do, but dammit, I was going to do something.
Chapter 26
Big Ears came lumbering through the door with another tray.
I smelled pork chops.
"What the hell is that," I shrieked, and he jumped, looking at me for the first time.
"What?" He looked around wildly, startled, and his baffled expression would have been hilarious under any other circumstances.
"Is that pork?" I demanded and stalked over to where he had paused in confusion while lifting the silver lid from the tray of food.
"Uh…"
"I can't stand pork!" I screamed and grabbed a fork, stabbing it into his other hand where it rested on the table.
We both drew in a deep, shocked breath and stared at the fork where it stuck out of his hand, still quivering from the force I'd used. Blood welled up around the tines. I swallowed hard. Puking would ruin my absolutely messed up in the head, nonexistent plan. I looked up into his face and saw the exact second his bewilderment turned to rage.
Crap, here comes act two, I thought, and grabbed the empty breakfast tray, sending dishes flying everywhere. The tray was solid silver and weighed a ton. Big Ears started to lunge for me and I gripped one end of it hard with both hands and swung it into his face with everything I had. Bone crunched and blood spurted when the tray connected with his nose. He bellowed in pain and confusion. But, unlike I had imagined in the nanosecond before I'd hit him, he stayed conscious and upright and livid with a strong urge to kill me.
Oh, God. Act three? What's act three? The Mata Hari? I scrambled around the table as he grabbed for me, yelling incoherent curses that were becoming muffled around the obscene swelling in his face. He switched directions and headed the other way. We were playing freaking ring-around-the-rosie and I was going to die.
Biting back a moan, my eyes fixed on the huge vase between us.
Cliché or not, it was my last option.
I dodged the meaty fist that swung at me from across the table, taking the bruising jolt to my shoulder instead of the side of my head that it was meant for, and stumbled. Fear greasing my mus
cles, though, I recovered my balance and kept moving like a spider monkey in front of an especially murderous rhinoceros. I scooped up the vase mid-flight and grabbed the roses from the top with one hand. Big Ears had switched direction on me and was moving clockwise again when I crushed their fragile blooms in one fist and lashed their stems hard across the side of his face. Crimson petals scattered in an explosive burst and he howled and grabbed at his eye where the thorns had bit deep into tender skin.
Awkwardly, I flipped my grip so my fingers were hooked tightly in the ceramic neck. I grunted and heaved the twenty pounds of porcelain over my head, landed a brutal kick to his knee that felt like it broke three of my toes but had the advantage of making him temporarily stumble, and then brought the vase crashing down on his head with all of the strength in my terrified body.
I leapt back and watched, winded and sore, as Big Ears made a rumbling sound deep in his throat and collapsed, landing a few inches from my throbbing toes in a heap.
Oh, there was no way that had worked. I stared at his still form on the floor for a few seconds, my mouth gaping in shock. Then, still flying on adrenaline and disbelief, my heart nearly bursting and a coppery panic taste in my mouth, I lifted one of the chairs. With shaky arms, I slammed it down against his prone back, WWF-style, because I believed in hedging my bets. The chair splintered into three pieces but Big Ears didn't even twitch.
Panting and searching wildly around for another weapon, but finding only a pork chop, I turned back to the where Big Ears was still sprawled on the floor, facedown. He still wasn't moving.
And unfortunately, I didn't see a ring of keys conveniently hooked to the back of his belt. My instincts were hollering to move, move, get out!
Crap. I was going to have to roll him over.
Shaking and quivering with the urge to throw up, I hooked my fingers under his outstretched arm and tried to pull. Except for the arm I was yanking on, he didn't even budge, and I let it flop back to the floor. Moving around to his other side, I grabbed fistfuls of his suit jacket, and wrenched so hard on it, a side seam ripped. Damn it! I turned around to find something to kick in fury and saw a ring of keys on the floor a few feet away. Hysterical laughter bubbling in my throat, I snatched them up and moved cautiously toward the open door.
Behind me, Bing Crosby sang cheerily, advising me to accentuate the positive.
Chapter 27
The hallway was a surprise. Based on my room, I'd have figured I was tucked away in a creepy gothic mansion somewhere, but overhead, plain old fluorescent office lights buzzed. The hallway stretched down a good distance, carpeted in plain beige, with four heavy oak doors on either side. Going to the door immediately next to me, I fumbled with three keys before one finally clicked and the door swung inward.
The room was dark. "Chance?" I whispered. "Julian? Is anyone in there?" I had the sudden thought that maybe the other guard was inside and scooted backward just as a weak light clicked on to illuminate a bare room with a linoleum floor, a small table with a lamp on it and a bed. Nothing else.
A girl that looked to be about sixteen was sitting up, eyes dilated with fear. I was baffled.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
The girl clutched her thin blanket tighter and I saw that she was naked, her arms blotched with deep bruises that looked black in the dim glow of the lamp. "Please don't hurt me," she whimpered. "I just want to go home."
My heart wrenched and I slipped cautiously into the room. She cringed away from me as I moved slowly toward the bed until I was close enough to see needle marks in her arms and her eyes so dilated from terror that I couldn't tell what color they were. She was fine-boned and china doll pretty, with a tangle of golden hair that flowed down her back.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I said softly. "I'm trying to find my friends and get the hell out of here. My name is Lucky. Can you get up? Are you hurt?"
She just stared at me with fear-deadened eyes.
"He sent you to do this, didn't he? To make me think I could get away? But he's going to punish me if I really try to leave."
"He, who? One of the guards? Dominick?"
The girl paled when I said Dominick's name and shook her head frantically, pressing back against the headboard of the twin-sized bed.
"No," I said forcefully. "I'm not with him." I tried to think how to explain the situation to her quickly, but that instinct was warning me to move again. I summarized as quickly as I could. "Dominick kidnapped a friend of mine and I was trying to rescue him with another friend and some FBI agents when we were caught. I'm hoping to God that everyone else is still alive and here someplace, because I just beat the hell out of one of the guards and I'm sure the other one is out there somewhere and I'd really like to turn this over to the professionals to handle so we have to go now." I reached for her hand, pleadingly.
"But the way you're dressed… old-fashioned, like him," she said uncertainly.
"I dress this way because I'm cool. He's just crazy," I retorted impatiently, my heart drumming in my chest with the need to hurry. "Please, you need to either come with me or I'm going to have to leave you. The other guard could come any minute to see what's taking Big Ears so long."
It was an empty threat, since I'd sooner club the poor girl with the lamp and drag her out by the ankles if I had to, but she scrambled out of the bed and wrapped the blanket around her like a toga. The skin she revealed while she was knotting it at her chest was mottled with more of the same ugly bruises that were on her arms.
She stopped me at the door with one small, pale hand before we went back in the hallway. "My name is Kristy Williams." Her words came out in a rush. "If he catches me, please, please tell my mom I'm sorry."
"You can tell her yourself," I said firmly. "We're getting out of here."
With Kristy hovering anxiously beside me I got another door open, only to find another young and frightened girl, this one also blonde and painfully thin. I sent Kristy in for her and went to work on the next door. This one was Julian's.
His room was a carbon copy of mine, and he was sitting at his table, finishing his pork chop when I burst in. "Oh, thank God, I didn't think I was going to find you."
He dropped his napkin and pushed to his feet. "Who are those ladies with you?"
"It looks like Dominick is a collector," I said shortly. The two females supporting each other behind me looked like they were on their way to a frat party in full Greek regalia, except for their ravaged faces. "Let's go," I said. "I've still got to get these other doors open."
Julian grabbed the pill bottle on the table and tucked it inside the pocket of his jacket, and then followed me out.
The first room across the hall held a woman this time, a brunette, maybe in her early twenties. It was hard to tell. Her face had been badly beaten, recently, judging by the colors and the swelling that left her eyes mere slits. Her features were probably unrecognizable to her own parents. I left her staring after me for Kristy and the other girl to collect. Two doors later, I had added two more to my bedraggled entourage—a voluptuous Latino woman who spoke very little English and a tall black teenager—and my revulsion mounted. Dominick either trafficked in the human trade or he was operating his own harem. Any one of these women could have been me. Still could be, if we didn't get out of here.
Only one door remained. Peeking cautiously around the doorframe to the room I'd been locked in, I checked on Big Ears, who still hadn't budged, and then went to work on the last lock. "Please, Chance, be in here," I murmured as I tried to jiggle a key in the lock. But the door opened under my hand. This room looked like the dressing room of a 1930's Hollywood ingénue, all pink satin frills and fussy luxury. It was also empty and my stomach plummeted.
Where the hell was Chance? There were more keys on the ring, I told myself. I just had to find the rooms the others were kept in. Which were probably downstairs. With the other guard.
Wishing for the umpteenth time that I had some kind of a weapon, I motioned for Julian to come
forward. He was helping to support the badly injured woman and he gently handed her off to two of the others. "We have to go downstairs," I murmured. "And I really don't like knowing where the other guard is."
"Or the woman that's been with them," he muttered darkly. "But this is probably her room, so maybe she's with Dominick and we don't have to worry about her."
"I'll go first," I said, glancing toward the dark stairwell.
"Not without me, you won't," Julian replied, taking my arm. "Remind me to ask you later how in the world you managed to take down that ox in there," he added as we began to descend the steps, five traumatized women shadowing us. "And to stay on your good side from here on out."
Chapter 28
When we reached the lower level, it was identical to the upper, except for an open door at the far end with the noise of a television—one of those daytime court TV shows, from the sounds of it—spilling out. Overlaying the sound of the television was the unmistakable thunder of a snore. Before I could stop him, Julian slipped silently down the hallway to stand nearer to the open door, posting himself as lookout. He nodded his head back toward the first door, indicating that I should get a move on.
Cupping the keys in my palm so they wouldn't jingle, I carefully tried four of them before I found one that worked. It was a room like the ones the girls were held captive in upstairs, bare except for a bed, and the lights were off. I thought I could make out a shape on its side.
Lucky in Love Page 11