“Take her out to the van. We’ll meet you there in a couple of minutes.” Bleak was on the phone to Eliot, who Esme could see crouched behind her mother, cutting away at the tape holding her to the chair. He’d already uncuffed her arms, which tactically wasn’t the advantage it should have been. Her mother was either in shock, or her arms had fallen asleep, because she wasn’t moving, not until Eliot finished with the tape and hauled her to her feet, and even then, she wasn’t exactly moving, just swaying, until she started to collapse. Eliot caught her, threw her over his shoulder, and headed out a door leading to the outside on the south side of the building.
“So where are we going?” she asked, though she already knew the answer-nowhere. Whatever was going to happen, she was going to make damn sure it happened right here, where she still had backup and a chance.
“ Mexico,” Bleak said, giving her ass a little pat before he turned away and started across the office. “I’ve got a place down there on the beach.”
“I like Mexico,” she said, not taking her eyes off her mother until the door closed behind her and Eliot.
“You’ll really like my place.” Bleak gave a little chuckle, and Esme turned. “I’ve got maid service and a pool.”
He really was crazy. He’d kidnapped her mother, and he thought she’d like his place on the beach?
He knelt down in front of a very large floor safe and started dialing in a combination, and she tallied it up as mistake number five, right after kidnapping her mother, beating her father, blackmailing her, and assuming she either wasn’t armed or didn’t have the sense to take the initiative. He glanced back once, but the only possible reason he could have for taking his eyes off her for even one second was that he didn’t consider her a threat.
He was wrong.
She moved and had her gun jammed up against the back of his skull before he had the safe door open, exactly where it would have been if he’d taken his eyes off her or not.
“Get facedown on the floor.”
He started to splutter, and she pushed the gun harder against him. He’d either get the picture, or he wouldn’t. The choice was his.
He chose to lie down on the floor, exactly as she’d ordered, which saved his life. She didn’t have time to mess around with him, not with her mother outside and in Eliot’s clutches. She didn’t have any handy restraints on her, either, but it didn’t slow her down.
With the gun still pressed against the bottom of Bleak’s skull, she slipped her knife off her skirt and thumbed it open. She made two quick cuts, slicing the backs of each of his sleeves and a little bit of him in the bargain.
He squirmed and squealed, and she’d had enough.
“I’d just as soon blow your brains out here, Bleak, as turn you over to the cops, so shut up and put your hands together.” He’d either obey, and she’d tie him, or he wouldn’t, and she’d shoot him. He seemed to get the message.
He held his hands together, and she wrapped one slit-open sleeve around both his elbows, the silk tightening as it twisted. Then she cold-cocked him with her pistol, knocking him out.
In seconds, she was through the door leading to the room where her mother had been held, and she was running down the stairs.
The minute Johnny got through the door to the outside, he peeled off from the “Let’s Rescue Burt Alden” group and started down the loading docks. Burt Alden was on his own with two Crazy Spider boys, and Johnny wished him the best of luck. From the looks of him, he was going to need it.
All Johnny needed was Esme.
There were no outside windows on the warehouse, except for in some of the doors, and what Johnny was looking for was a door on the south side, the side Esme was in.
Now that they’d met face-to-face, so to speak, that bastard Bleak was at the goddamn top of his freaks and perverts list, and his skin was crawling just thinking about her being alone with the guy.
At the corner of the building, he slid up next to the wall and looked to see what was on the other side. Lights from the parking lot in front didn’t reach back this far, and it was dark except for one bare bulb hanging over a closed door.
He avoided looking at the light and instead looked beyond it. He could hear someone walking, but didn’t hear any taps, so he knew it wasn’t Bleak. Silently, he dropped off the side of the docking bay and crouched low to the ground. One of Bleak’s white vans with his logo on it was parked about ten yards from the door with the light above it, and once Johnny slipped into the shadows away from the building and along a fence enclosing Bleak’s property, he could look back and see the man heading toward the van.
It was the fighter, and he was carrying something, a woman, but it wasn’t Esme. This woman was heavier, not by much, but she was definitely rounder and more softly built than Esme, and she was dressed in scrubs. The fighter opened the back doors on the van and unceremoniously dumped the woman inside. Johnny didn’t know who she was, but she hadn’t been struggling, and wasn’t moving, which made him think she was out cold, and there was just something about putting an unconscious woman in the back of a panel van that didn’t set right with him, especially by a guy the likes of the fighter.
He moved quickly and silently along the fence, getting into position, when the back door of the warehouse swung open.
“Eliot!” Esme yelled, her gun drawn and aimed. He didn’t know at what the hell what. Standing in the light, looking out into the darkness, she couldn’t be seeing a damn thing. It was just too damn dark, a new-moon night with the sun not quite breaking the horizon.
The fighter stopped and turned. Johnny could see the expression on his face, and it was one of confusion again.
“Let my mother go!” Esme said, her voice carrying across the lot, her steps carrying her down the side of the building.
Her mother, Beth Alden? Franklin Bleak had been damn busy tonight.
“Where’s Mr. Bleak?” the fighter, Eliot, asked, his confusion turning into belligerence.
“He’s on his way down, but he wants my mother to stay here. He’s not taking her to Mexico with us.”
Oh, hell, no, Johnny thought. No women from here were going to Mexico tonight.
“Walk away from the van, Eliot,” Esme said, continuing to move away from the light, he was sure in an effort to see her opponent more clearly. “Mr. Bleak wants you back up in his office. He needs help with the money.”
Nice try, but actually, Esme was not a very convincing liar.
“No,” Eliot said, a little unsurely. He was facing Esme, but reached back into the van and threaded his fingers through Esme’s mother’s hair before taking a strong, one-handed grip on her head. “Mr. Bleak told me to snap her neck, if things went wrong, and I think this is wrong.”
And that’s what came from thinking-trouble.
Johnny raised his pistol, lining up on Eliot’s head and moving forward. If the bastard made another move, he was dead.
And the bastard did, but it wasn’t to snap Beth Alden’s neck. With his attention on Esme, the fighter slowly slid his other hand to his waist, thumbing aside his jacket, his hand open. The instant Johnny saw the guy’s gun, he fired.
Eliot dropped like a stone, his pistol never leaving its holster.
Inside the warehouse, three of Bleak’s guys scattered like rats at the sound of gunfire, all of them heading in some fashion toward the loading docks door, leaving Dax and Duce squared off with Dovey Smollett and some big guy in a Chicago Bears jacket. But it wasn’t a contest. Within a split second of the gunshot, Dax had drawn his pistol, getting the drop on everybody, and was moving toward the back of the warehouse.
“Duce, you cover them.”
“I’m cool,” the Locos shot caller said, drawing a big, old, unwieldy but intimidating “Dirty Harry”.357 Magnum out of the back of his pants.