Amy Maxwell & the 7 Deadly Sins (The Amy Maxwell Series Book 2) (21 page)

“Like HELL,” I hear Claudia shout and then I hear my sister screaming somewhere near my left ear. I think they are still standing next to the passenger side of the car. I continue to blink, hoping my eyes will adjust to light quickly so I can see what the heck is going on.

“Surrender your weapon, ma’am,” the booming voice orders. “Let Mrs. Katz go.”

Let Mrs. Katz go?
I squint and I can see that Claudia has her arm wrapped around my sister’s neck and she is pointing the gun at her temple.
Oh my GOD! Yes! Yes! Let Mrs. Katz go!

“Over my dead body!” Claudia snarls. “And hers,” Claudia adds victoriously as she pulls Beth a little closer to her side, causing Beth to let out a wail that sounds an awful lot like a dying cat.

I feel sick to my stomach, realizing that this in not just a kidnapping anymore. Now we are in a
hostage
situation…my sister being the hostage. One false move by anyone and we’re not just talking about a stray bullet to the shoulder or leg like Kevin got. Claudia is pissed and she’s like a rabid dog out for blood. I know in my heart she won’t hesitate to pull the trigger and splatter my sister’s brains all over the front of her Dulce and Gabana sweatshirt.

I am not even thinking about myself as I creep backwards in the trunk, toward the right side of the car (my right, the driver’s side if you are approaching the road). Hoping the cops do not shoot me, I stick my (now freed) right leg out of the car, feeling around blindly with my foot until I come in contact with the bumper. Steadying my trembling body with my hands, I throw my left leg over to meet the right. My entire body is quivering as I grasp the back of the trunk and lower my feet silently to the ground. I am wordlessly muttering a prayer while I creep around the driver’s side of the car.

My plan is to grab a stick, tiptoe around the front, smack Claudia in the head with it and free Beth. All without getting shot by Claudia, or the police. I’m worried because I assume that since I can’t see them, they can’t see who I am either and won’t realize I am not one of the kidnappers. I am trying to send my agenda to the police via mental telepathy (you know, just keeping them apprised of how I’m planning to single-handedly save the day), I am also sending messages to my sister, hoping she going along with this plan.

Unfortunately, that scenario doesn’t happen. The next thing I hear is that voice in the megaphone blasting, “Don’t
anybody
move!”

With my hands against the side of the car I completely freeze in place, foiled in my valiant efforts to save Beth.
Damn it! They won’t even let me help my sister? They’re not doing anything; are they just waiting for Claudia to shoot her?

I can hear her whimpering around the other side of the car as Claudia shouts back, “We’re going to get in the car now and you nice gentlemen are
not
going to follow us. Is that understood?”

Get in the car? Where in God’s name does she think they’re going to go? At this point, even if the ransom money has been wired to their bank account, there’s no way they’re going to be able to jump a plane and escape. The security in the airport would be all over them. Unless…

Then I realize with sickening certainty that Claudia Fox must have a private jet waiting somewhere to whisk her away. And if the police have no idea where that is, she would be able to escape, wouldn’t she? Claudia’s back is against the wall now. She’s got nothing to lose by trying to escape. After all, she’s got Beth as a hostage…even Kevin, if you think about it, not that I’m sure the police would do much to save him considering he brought this upon himself. Although, the cops aren’t really allowed to make moral judgment calls like that, are they? We haven’t gotten to that chapter in Professor Cummings’ class yet.

“Get down,” a very familiar male voice whispers into my right ear. I freeze and a tingle rips through my body.

What the hell is Jason doing here?

~Fifteen~

My heart freezes as well; my entire body feels hot and cold and non-functional all at once. I turn my neck ever so slightly to the side, convinced that it is not Jason Collins crouched next to me in the dirt, but just some other cop and my mind is automatically associating law enforcement with Jason.

Silly Amy,
I am admonishing myself.
Jason would have nothing to do with a local kidnapping! He’s a DEA agent! Your mind is just working overtime. This is because you keep daydreaming about running into him.

My eyes connect with the steel blue (gray in this lighting) eyes that I am all too familiar with. Not that I’ve ever stared at them or anything. Nope, my mind is working just fine. It really
is
Jason Collins crouched in the dirt next to me on this lonely gravel road.

Jason does a double take. “What the hell happened to your face?” He squints as he whispers, “Did you lose a fight with a baseball bat?”

“What are you doing here?” I manage to hiss as quietly as possible while ignoring his comment.

He doesn’t answer me; instead, he clamps his hand over my mouth and implores me to shut up with his eyes. I am tempted to bite his hand just to piss him off.

The nerve of him, swooping in like a knight in shining armor, just to steal my thunder.
I ought to have a hissy fit. In fact, if we weren’t in such a tricky situation, I
would
have a good old fashioned Allie temper tantrum.

He jerks his head to the left; I guess he is trying to get me to follow him as he duck walks in a crouched stance to the front of the car. If we weren’t in a dire life or death situation, I would probably find it pretty humorous.

Instead of laughing, I follow behind and am staring at the car’s grill as it starts to drizzle. I am having an overwhelming sense of de ja vu. Creeping along the side of a cabin in the woods in the rain and climbing in through the bathroom window as Jason boosted me up in order to sneak in on a person who was holding a family member of mine hostage…the parallels are eerily similar.

He reaches the hood and turns to pat my arm firmly. His eyes say ‘
stay here out of the way
’. Needless to say, I ignore him and stay close behind as he continues his ridiculous creeping along the front of the car.

“Ma’am! I’d advise you to stay exactly where you are!” The voice from the megaphone is announcing with a warning tone.

For a second, I think that he is talking to me and I glance around nervously as if Megaphone Man is going to swoop down from the trees and snatch me up and swing away like Tarzan on a vine. But then I realize he isn’t even talking to me. He’s speaking to Claudia who is now starting up the car. The car that Jason and I are currently squatting in front of and are going to be hood ornaments on if we don’t get the heck out of the way.

Then, it all happens so fast; my brain is like a blur trying to piece the events together. The engine revs and I hear the crunch of gravel just as Jason pushes me out of the way. I scream…at first I think it’s because of the sudden movement and my shoulder hit the ground, but then I realize it is because of the searing pain that is now shooting up my leg. Starting at my foot.

“Amy!” Jason shouts as I realize,
that bitch ran over my foot!
That wasn’t the sound of crunching gravel that I heard. That was the bones in my foot crunching.

I stare up at him from my sprawled position on the ground. I can’t move and now I’m totally relying on him to save me…
again
. I am not sure whether to laugh or cry at the irony of this situation.

For a split second, it appears as if he is going to scoop me up in his arms and carry me to safety (while I swoon) but then he thinks better of it and whirls around pointing his gun at the escaping vehicle.

POP, POP! The right front tire blows out. Jason aims again as the car slows down noticeably. POP, POP!  Right back tire. Thump, thump, thump. The car is still limping along. POP, POP! Left back tire. Car screeches to a halt.

Jason steps toward the car, gun pointed at the back window. A half dozen local police officers scoot down the hill behind us, crouching low. I can make out the top of Beth’s head in the back seat. I am praying she uses her good sense and ducks down to the floor boards once she realizes the car has completely stopped and Claudia is going to be out of options soon. These cops mean business and Beth needs to get the hell out of the way.

“Put your hands up where I can see them!” Jason shouts authoritatively.

An officer scoots closer to Jason and remarks firmly, “Thank you for your assistance Agent Collins. We can take it from here.”

Jason lowers his gun and appears crestfallen, but despite his rank, he is out of his jurisdiction. In fact, I have no idea how he is even here to begin with. Why in heaven’s name would a DEA agent be working on a kidnapping case? The FBI wasn’t even involved yet as far as I could see, and I really don’t think Claudia and Kevin had any drug issues. I mean, I could be wrong, but Jason’s presence was entirely out of the ordinary and highly unusual.

“Come on, let’s get you to some place safe,” Jason remarks almost grudgingly as he reaches my side. Before I can protest, he has scooped me up and is carrying me off toward the source of the blinding light. I guess that’s where the rest of the police officers are, but I don’t want to go. Beth is still trapped with Claudia and Kevin. And Claudia still has a gun. I suddenly feel maternal toward my older sister, like I can’t leave until I know she is safe and out of danger.

“No!” I am yelling at Jason as I beat at him with my fists. “We have to help Beth! We have to go back and get Beth before Claudia shoots her!”

“Knock it off, Amy!” Jason growls while he struggles to hold on to me. “You need to get your foot looked at. It may be broken.”

“I don’t care!” I wail, not caring that my tears are soaking Jason’s shoulder as he lumbers up the sloped hill. “My sister is in that car and I have to help her! I have to save her!”

“Let the police officers do their job. They’ll get her out,” Jason tries to reassure me while he shifts my weight to his other side. “Man, you’re heavy,” he grumbles.

“Hey!” I reply while pounding him in the shoulder (and not playfully, either). I’m insulted. I’ve been trying not to stuff my face lately; saying no to the lattes, limiting myself to one, er, two glasses of wine, not eating the food Evan has left on his plate…

Jason ignores my blows, because truthfully, it’s probably like a mosquito swatting at his big powerful, rippling…um, arms. As we step into the area where the police have set up, I hear a very familiar voice call out, “That was awesome, dude! I totally would have gone trigger happy and shot out the back window, but you held your cool!”

River? What the heck is
he
doing here?

He slaps Jason on the back as Jason lowers my body on the gurney that the waiting ambulance has set up.

“Ouch!” I yelp because River’s tap to Jason’s shoulder has jostled him, causing Jason to momentarily smack my foot on the side of the gurney. And momentarily is enough for me to see stars.

Man, that really, really hurts!
I suck in my breath as I contemplate whether this is
more
or
less
painful than childbirth, which is pretty much my barometer for any kind of pain I, or anyone in my household, should be experiencing. For example, I would only allow Roger to take one Percocet every four hours when he pulled a back muscle because it was “less painful than childbirth”, but when he passed a kidney stone, I gave him two and even snuck it in under the four hour mark because it was “almost as painful as childbirth” and I felt sorry for him (slightly). I would rate this pain as a three Percocet every two hours kind of pain (which is still not childbirth pain, but it’s pretty darn close).

“Sorry,” Jason apologizes while grimacing. He now proceeds to lower me to the gurney with care.

“What are you doing here?” I ask River, clenching my teeth. A rather full figured female EMT wanders over to the gurney halfheartedly. I guess watching the standoff was exciting for her and she is now unenthused about having to actually provide medical care for someone. She tugs off my shoe without unlacing it and the stars I saw a moment ago are nothing compared to these fireworks. This is a “please give me an epidural NOW” type of pain, and I bite my lip to prevent myself from uttering a blood curdling scream directly into her eardrum. I think I’ve seen professional wrestlers handle each other more gently than she’s handling my injured foot right now.

“I got your message so I called my cousin Jason right away,” River is telling me as I white-knuckle the sides of the gurney.

This statement actually distracts me from the pain.

“Your
cousin
Jason?” I squawk, whipping my head around to stare at both Jason and River. They are standing shoulder to shoulder next to the gurney and despite the obviously dissimilar skin tones (I have a feeling River hasn’t seen the sun since he was a toddler), I can see the similarities in their faces. They have the same eyes and nose and oh my God, they have the same shape of their lips.

I shudder as I recall how many times I fantasized about kissing those lips (and the one time I actually did). I am now thoroughly disgusted with myself.

“Yeah, our mothers are sisters. Well,
were
sisters until Aunt Mary was killed last year. Remember I told you my cousin was a cop? Well, he’s actually a DEA agent but…” River is trying to explain.

“I know what he is,” I manage to snap, nearly back to my old self, ignoring the fact that my foot may possibly be broken. The pain is still stinging, but starting to become numb since the EMT dropped an ice pack on my foot.

“He asked me to keep an eye on you when he found out we were going to the same college-”

“What?” I am now in a fully erect position, staring down Jason. “Why would he do that?” I glower at Jason and expect him to shrink back from my glare. He doesn’t he must be immune to my stare just like Roger is. “You had an undercover cop following me?”

“Oh, I wasn’t undercover or anything, Amy. And I’m not a cop yet,” River is telling me. “I just took all the same classes as you…”

“And befriended me. So that’s why you followed me and sat next to me and offered to help me with the group project. I was your
assignment
,” I mutter. I should have known that River wouldn’t have sought me out if he didn’t have an ulterior motive.
Did you really think you were the type of person River would hang out with voluntarily, Amy?

River shrugged. “But it was fun. You’re cool,” he assured me with a smile. “Trust me, I would have just done the bare minimum if I didn’t enjoy your company.”

I try to be buoyed by that comment, but I am too busy being annoyed by Jason’s distrust of me. “Why did you think I couldn’t handle going back to school, Jason?”

“It’s not that I didn’t think you could handle school. I did it for exactly this reason,” Jason mutters while raising his eyebrows. “Trouble seems to find you Amy Maxwell.”

“Once!” I argue while poking my finger in the air. “
Once
! There was no need to sic your nephew on me!” I am not sure whether I am annoyed that Jason would think I need babysitting at college or flattered that he was thinking of me to begin with. I am considering playing up the annoyed angle while secretly being flattered.

“He’s my cousin,” Jason corrects with a coy smile.

“
Whatever
!” I reply with annoyance.

“Aren’t you glad I had you followed then?” Jason asks with a grin. I look away, ignoring those sparkling eyes and those kissable lips…

“I still want to know what you’re doing
here
? Why didn’t you just call the cops, Jason? Isn’t this a little out of your jurisdiction?” I remark with sarcasm, enjoying the little dig.

I have to assume I am being mean to Jason because I am in pain. There is no other logical explanation. Other than the fact that I am mortified that he had to come along and rescue me
again
and that irritates me. I am a strong independent woman. I am
not
one of those sissy women who need a man to save them. I am
not
a damsel in distress. I do
not
need to be rescued by a knight in shining armor…except, apparently I
am
and I
do
.

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of gunfire. Not a shot.
Gunfire
.
Rapid
.

I bolt up on the gurney and scream, “What was that?”

“Lie back down,” the EMT instructs, while pushing my body to the gurney. She is craning her own neck to view over the crest of the hill as she repeatedly blindly jabs me in the arm with a needle. I normally would be screaming at her ineptitude, but the pain from my foot was masking any pain from being frequently poked in the vein. And the gun fire. That’s a hell of a distraction.

“I don’t want to lie back down!” I shout as I try to swing my good leg over the side. “I need to help my sister! And my niece!” I yelp, suddenly remembering the reason we’re in this predicament to begin with. “My niece has been kidnapped! I’ve got to find her!” I glare at him. “The police have to find Jillian! I have to talk to the police!” I realize I now sound like a hysterical female but I can’t help it.