Thieves Like Us (35 page)

He pressed the tape over her mouth.

Shit.

E
asy wanted to move her. For whatever reason, he prefered the darkness of the room across the hall. It was better for hiding, but Janet thought the uncomfortable looks he kept throwing at the pile of paper towels were part of it, too.

She didn’t want him touching her but the shuffling gait he’d described proved impossible to perform. He grabbed her under the arms as she stood bent at a ninety-degree angle, and half carried, half dragged her into the room. Once there, she saw that it wasn’t completely dark—a wedge of light slipped through from the hallway bulb, gradually allowing her eyes to adjust.

Skeletal metal shelves filled the room in rows. He’d dumped her unceremoniously against a wall at the far end of one shelf. Struggling into a sitting position, she spotted another door to the side, opening into a bathroom. White lines caught the light—the chalk outline of a body covered most of the bathroom floor. She looked away quickly.

Easy sat on the cement near her, playing with the gun he’d pulled out of his bag of tricks. Loading it. Polishing it with his shirt. Pointing it at her while making a soft click with his tongue. Fun for everyone.

She sat quietly, hands dangling between her bent knees as she picked at the twisted length of tape connecting her wrists to her ankles. At this rate she’d be able to rip through it in about another two months.

Progress with the tape on her mouth was more encouraging. For the past hour she’d forced every bit of spit she could muster through her lips, gradually wetting the skin around her mouth and chin. The tape was starting to feel loose. At least if Rocky broke in she’d be able to brush it off with her arm and yell a warning.

That wouldn’t be good enough, though. Even if he could break into this fortress of a store, she doubted he could do it without making a sound.

More than an hour passed, and the cold from the cement floor was spreading through her, stiffening her muscles. Keeping her hands hidden behind her knees, she picked at the tape, irrationally encouraged by the miniscule bit she nicked off as she watched Easy fondle his gun. She was about to give up on being rescued when she heard a small sound from the front of the store.

She immediately shuffled her feet and cleared her throat, but Easy had heard it, too. “Shut up,” he ordered. Just in case she didn’t want to, he touched the gun barrel to her temple. She froze.

Seconds ticked by while her heart hammered in her chest. Her ears strained to hear. Finally, it came again—a clicking sound, like a door closing.

Her heart soared. She rubbed her face on her sleeve, trying to start the edge of the tape to peel away from her mouth. The only way she could help Rocky would be to call out, letting him know where they were.

“Don’t move.” Easy’s harsh whisper was next to her ear, his face touching the side of her head as he spoke. “If you do, I’ll shoot you. He’ll want you even more if you’re wounded, so it makes no difference to me. Understand?”

She nodded, frozen in place.

He stood and crept soundlessly toward the door, gun pointing forward and leading the way. He reached one hand around the corner, flicking a switch. The hall light went out, leaving the storage room in pitch darkness. She could no longer see him—which meant he couldn’t see her. Ducking her head down to meet her hands, she found the edge of the tape and pulled. A few hairs above her lip pulled off with it, but the rest fell away easily. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and paused to listen.

Nothing. Easy had to be creeping toward the front office. If Rocky was out there, she should warn him that Easy had a gun. But if he wasn’t there, she might get herself shot for nothing.

From above her a shadow moved. She couldn’t see anything, but heard something drop through a hole in the ceiling to the steel shelf unit beside her, and from there to the floor. The figure landed at her feet with barely a sound. She gasped and drew back, only Easy’s previous warning keeping her from screaming.

A pencil-thin beam of light swept the room, landed on her, then flicked off. “Shhh!” A hand covered her mouth while the warm body moved closer to her. A familiar scent encompassed her. Behind the hand, she breathed a barely-audible, “Rocky!”

His cheek touched hers as he whispered in her ear, similar to what Easy had done but far nicer to experience. “Don’t talk. Stand up.”

“Can’t. Duct tape.”

He didn’t say anything, but one hand trailed down her arm to her hands and the light shone on the silvery tape for two seconds, then went out. Moments later she felt something cool and hard slip past her hands. With a soft ripping sound, the tape parted. She yanked at it as he slit the tape on her ankles, gritting her teeth as the tape performed as well as a wax, pulling hairs out by the roots.

Rocky tugged on her hands, helping her to her feet. “Okay?” he whispered.

She took it to mean,
Can you walk?
She nodded and grasped his arm, eager to get out of there even if she had to limp and hobble.

An explosion of sound ripped from the doorway and something rang against a metal shelf above her head.

“Down!”

Rocky didn’t wait for her to follow his order. He shoved her to the floor, shielding her body with his own. She tried to flatten herself against the floor, but he pushed her toward the cold edge of a bottom shelf “Go!”

It was tight, but she did, ducking into the open metal shelving and pushing through to the next row as another bullet blasted into the shelf not far from where she’d rolled through, zinging as it ricocheted and sending a vibration through the metal. Easy was aiming low, which meant he must have heard her—or Rocky.

Where had Rocky gone?

She crouched on the cement floor, every instinct telling her to run. But in a pitch black room that plan didn’t seem so smart. Plus, Easy was standing in the only doorway. He’d stopped shooting, but she heard him there, slapping at the wall searching for the light switch. If the lights came on, she was dead. Wounded, anyway. According to Easy, she just had to be alive to be useful, not necessarily whole.

If she stayed calm she might escape. Fortunately, she’d had some self-defense training, thanks to Rocky and the Bloomfield Hills Lady Sparks. A few deep breaths did nothing to calm her racing pulse, but at least it cleared her mind. Concentrate: What had Rocky said about an attacker with a gun? Oh yeah—that he wouldn’t tell them how to defend themselves in that situation because it was too dangerous to try. Great. Scream and run, he’d said. Except no one was around to hear her scream, and there was no place to run.

A flare of light interrupted her thoughts as Easy found the switch. Fluorescent bulbs flickered and caught, illuminating the rows of bare shelves. She ducked from the sudden glare, then shielded her eyes and squinted through the empty metal framework. Rocky, her phantom rescuer, was gone. She staggered to her feet, gaze darting toward the doorway. Easy stood just inside the door, gun pointed outward as his anxious gaze scanned the empty rows. Probably looking for Rocky, too. But Easy’s eyes found hers, and his lip twisted into the semblance of a smile. Through the shelves, the gun aligned with her heart.

She couldn’t look away. Even the flicker of movement in the corner of her eye couldn’t tear her gaze from the gun. Then the flicker turned into a blur as Rocky dropped through an open ceiling tile onto a top shelf, before hurtling outward. Arcing out like a diver in freefall, he slammed into Easy.

Easy yelled in surprise as they crashed to the floor and rolled apart. Easy skidded toward her, while Rocky rolled in the opposite direction. The gun hit the floor with a clatter and slid toward Rocky. She saw him spot it as he got to his feet. If she acted quickly she could get to him, passing Easy before he got up.

She ran. Easy scrambled to intercept. Her leap almost cleared him, but her muscles were stiff and he snagged her foot, throwing her off balance and slamming her into the nearest shelves. She felt like the dummy in an impact test as steel rammed into her hip and shoulder. Bruised, if not broken, she clung to the shelf. An arm snaked around her neck, pulling her backward as Easy put her in a choke hold. He swung her toward the doorway, and she saw why.

Rocky pointed the gun at them. At her. The way he held it with two hands and a braced stance made her think he knew how to use it, but she had no idea how good his aim was. Maybe it didn’t matter; Easy hid every vital part of himself behind her. His hold tightened on her neck, forcing her to gag as her airway constricted.

“Shoot him,” she croaked.

“Go ahead,” Easy agreed, nearly lifting her off her toes as his arm tightened further. “Or drop it and she gets to live.”

On second thought, living would be nice. She tried to amend her choice, but couldn’t get any words out. It took all her effort just to inhale a raspy breath.

Rocky didn’t answer and didn’t move.

Easy did, circling the two of them around Rocky toward the doorway. Rocky backed away, letting Easy drag her along. When they reached the hallway, he finally spoke. “I can’t let you leave, Easy.”

“I don’t see you stoppin’ me. Thing is, I want my gun back. And I’ll bet you want the bitch. So toss it here and I’ll trade you.”

Janet pulled at the arm that cut off her air, fighting to breathe.

“Not much of a choice,” Rocky said in a tone she found altogether too thoughtful. “Could I have a third alternative? There must be something else we can do.”

His steady gaze met hers. As if his last words had been meant for her, she fought to calm herself and focus on the problem. He’d held her like this once, without the constricted airway and the flood of adrenaline that made it so hard to concentrate.

Easy was losing his patience. “You’ve got three seconds to drop it, Hernandez, or I’ll—goddamn son of a bitch!” The exclamation nearly broke her eardrum. She flinched but didn’t release the fingernails she’d dug into his arm or the hunk of flesh she grabbed between her teeth as soon as his grip relaxed enough for her to move her jaw.

“Aiyeee!”
Easy screamed. His free hand batted at her head and connected. As the blow stunned her into letting go, Rocky darted forward. His fist connected with Easy’s face and he fell back, releasing her. She crumpled to her knees, hands on her throat, wheezing painful, wonderful gulps of air into her lungs. Rocky crouched in front of her and she glimpsed his concerned expression before she was distracted by Easy stumbling toward the back door. Unable to shout a warning, she pointed.

Rocky turned. With an almost casual move, he raised his right arm and fired the gun. Easy screamed and staggered. Limping away, he slipped on the pile of paper towels covering her puddle of vomit. Feet flying out from under him, he crashed onto the cement floor and lay still.

Rocky pulled Janet to her feet. “Are you okay? Let me see.”

She nodded and pushed his hands away from her neck. It hurt with every breath, but his concerned look tore at her heart. Fighting off the trembling aftershocks of adrenaline, she stared from Easy’s still form back to Rocky.

“You shot him,” she whispered hoarsely.

He threw a dismissive glance at Easy before taking her by the shoulders. “Just in the foot. Now hold still and let me see your neck.”

She did, her incredulous gaze shifting between him and Easy until he seemed satisfied that she was unhurt. Then he hugged her hard and kissed her, nearly distracting her from the fact that her abductor and almost killer lay on the floor less than twenty feet away. She kissed him back with a bit more passion, then motioned toward Easy. “We should check,” she said, asking as little of her larynx as possible. Easy still hadn’t moved, and Rocky didn’t seem to care.

He sighed and followed as she cautiously approached Easy’s body. Rocky knelt and felt his neck for a pulse, then pulled back an eyelid. “He’s out. He hit his head pretty hard.” Wrinkling his nose, he looked around. “What smells?”

She pointed to the paper towels scattered over the floor. “Whatever he used to knock me out made me sick. I threw up, and he piled paper towels on top of it. Must have been slippery.”

“You took him down with puke?”

She shrugged, not nearly as amused as he was. “Shooting him would have been more satisfying.”

He smiled. “You did exactly the right thing.”

She pursed her lips and sighed, grumbling, “I guess so.” But just for good measure, she kicked Easy’s foot. The one with the neat hole through the center.