Asking For Trouble (28 page)

Susan looked in the side view mirror and
stiffened. "Looks like our party of five has arrived at its
destination," she said then cranked the van.

"I think we should hang back when we get
there and let Dave scan the building and tell us how many people
are in there...and the likely places the hostages are being held,"
Beau told her. Going into that warehouse undermanned was one thing,
doing it blind was another.

Susan glanced over at him then said, "You
know they're going to have to stay hostages for at least two days,
until the shipment moves, right?"

"If we give them Frankie before then,
they'll just kill them all, and probably us too," Beau told her
then added, "I just want to know where they are, so I can protect
them until then." Beau wanted to get them the hell out of there as
soon as he found them, but Susan was right, they would probably
have to remain there until the shipment...or blast their way out of
there. With the number of men probably guarding the place, that
would be a suicide mission, at best.

"Okay, you've made your point, Frankie is
bait...and I'll tell Dave to run the scan. But don't you dare give
up this operation trying to protect them. We have a dual purpose
here."

"Thank you," Beau said and turned to face
forward. He couldn't give a flying fuck about the operation
designed to get her brownie points with her bosses. All Beau cared
about was rescuing Jazzie and Carlos. He'd play her game though and
wait the two days, but if shit went down, he was getting them the
hell out of there.

***

Jazzie woke up in the dark airless room and
her mouth felt like it was lined in cotton. She tried to roll over,
then remembered her hands were bound. The pins and needles in her
hands, and her stiff muscles in her arms, were blatant reminders.
When her mind cleared, her first thought was her brother tied to
the bed across the room, probably injured more than he'd let
on.

She tried to work up some saliva, then
croaked, "Los--you there?" He didn't respond, so she repeated her
query a little louder.

"Yeah," he said and groaned.

"Are you okay?" she asked with a tremble in
her voice. Jazzie felt like bawling, but she was not going to make
things worse by doing that. She needed to be strong right now, for
herself and her brothers.

"Ribs just hurt," he told her weakly.

"I have to go to the bathroom, but I'm
scared to ask them," she admitted and crossed her legs.

"If you can get them to let you go, maybe
you can find a way out. Don't worry about me, just go if you get
the chance," he told her fiercely.

"I'm not leaving you here!" she told him
forcefully.

"You can go get help...if you stay here
we'll both die, sis. Just do it!" Carlos hissed, then told her,
"Call them...I'm going to pretend to be unconscious."

Jazzie swallowed as best she could with her
insanely dry mouth, then yelled, "Hello! Anyone out there? I need
to go to the bathroom!"

A minute later the door was flung open and a
big bulky ape-looking guy stood backlit in the doorway. He flicked
on a light switch and the bright florescent light blinded her. She
pulled on her bonds, wanting to cover her eyes, but had to settle
for closing them tightly.

"What do you want?" he asked gruffly with
some kind of accent she didn't recognize.

"I need to go to the bathroom," she told
him. She heard his big boots stomp across the floor, then suddenly
her arms were free. They felt like heavy weights on her shoulders,
and burned like crazy as the blood flow tried to return to her
limbs. Jazzie rubbed her raw wrists and opened her eyes to look at
the big behemoth. He jerked her up to her feet by her arm, as if
she was a rag doll. The grip of his huge beefy hand was painful on
her upper arm.

"Move," he grated then started toward the
door. He glanced at Carlos playing possum on the bed and she got
her first look at her brother in the light. His shirt was off and
his face and upper body were a mass of bruises. It looked like
someone had beat the shit out of him. One of his eyes was swollen,
there was a cut through his eyebrow that was caked in blood, and
dark purple bruises and welts covered his chest.

Jazzie stifled a whimper and the urge to run
over there and help him, as the big man holding her jerked her
forward through the doorway. He slammed and locked the door behind
them. Discreetly, Jazzie looked up and down the long narrow hallway
trying to get the lay of the land. A glowing 'exit' sign at the far
end of the hall caught her attention, and she wondered if it was
locked.

"Don't get any ideas, or I'll kill you now,
instead of later," he threatened in a deep gruff voice, then jerked
her to the right toward another door, that definitely wasn't an
exit. Freedom was in the other direction.

The concrete floor beneath her feet was as
cold as the blood in her veins, as he shoved open that door and
pulled her into a huge cavernous room. Scanning the room, she saw
several people, a few men in suits and two well-dressed women
sitting at a table, and at least five guards, two by what she
assumed was a main entrance, and the rest scattered around the
room.

One of the men at the table happened to
glance their way and he slammed his hands down on the table, then
stood and yelled at the guy holding her, "What the fuck are you
doing, Mo? I told you to keep them in there!" The guy looked
vaguely familiar to Jazzie, but she couldn't place him.

"She had to go to the bathroom," he said
then shrugged.

The guy at the table looked at Big Behemoth
like he was dumber than dirt and shook his head. "Take her, then
get her the hell out of here" he said roughly, before sitting back
down, but his eyes followed their progress to the bathroom at the
far side of the room.

He let go of her arm when they got to the
bathroom, and she rubbed it sure she was going to have a bruise in
the shape of his fingers there tomorrow. Twisting the knob, she
pushed open the heavy door then locked it once inside. A temporary
relief settled over her, and she put her back to the door and slid
down to sit against it and look around. There were two stalls and
sinks, but no window in the room. Her gaze moved up the concrete
block wall and she saw a large rectangular grate she assumed was
the air conditioning vent.

Even standing on the sink, she realized that
she was too short to reach it. To the right of the grate, there was
a pipe that jutted out of the wall about eight inches lower than
the grate. It looked to be pretty sturdy, and would be easier to
reach, maybe she could sit there and take off the grate. Getting up
there would be the issue though.

Frustration filled her, as she realized she
was even too short to reach the pipe, by about four or five inches.
A rope is what she needed, but she knew that was wishing on a star,
because the most the stark utilitarian room was going to offer her
was toilet paper.

Jazzie glanced down at her legs and an idea
sprouted in her mind. Maybe she could use her jeans to get up onto
that pipe. Quickly, she stood up and unfastened them and shoved
them down her legs. Walking over to the sink, she hoisted herself
up on it, then threw one leg of her jeans over the pipe, then
straddled the sink below it, and took hold of both pant legs as
high up as she could, then walked her feet up the concrete block
wall to the base of the pipe.

Her arms and legs burned from the exertion,
and she made a mental promise that when this was over, she was
going to start working out religiously. A lot of good that did her
now, but if this shit ever happened again, she would be ready.
Inwardly she groaned, she never wanted to go through anything like
this again.

Hanging there by her pant legs, she
contemplated her options for getting up onto the pipe. Jazzie
channeled her inner ninja and grabbed the pant legs in one hand,
then wrapped her other arm around the pipe, before letting go of
the pants and clinging to the pipe. Her jeans slid off the pipe and
to the ground.

Now, she was hanging under the pipe, and had
her arms and legs wrapped around it. This idea had been good in
theory, but in practice it sucked. She realized now there was no
way she was going to be able to swing herself up on top of it.

Her muscles just weren't strong enough, and
the pipe was smooth and there weren't any handholds to grab on to.
Assessing her situation, she realized that the worst part now was
she was stuck up here, because her rope, aka jeans, were on the
floor. Her only options were to either stay clinging to the pipe,
or break her legs falling to the floor six feet below.
Dumb,
dumb, dumb, Jazzie
, she chided herself.

Now, what the hell are you going to do? The
door is locked, Big Behemoth is on the other side with a gun,
you're hanging from a pipe in your underwear, thongs no less, and
you're suspended six feet above the floor with no way down.
Real
smart, chica
.

She didn't have to wonder long what she was
going to do for long, because Big Behemoth banged on the door with
his fist, and shouted, "You've been in there long enough, open the
door!" Jazzie whimpered, and readjusted her grip on the pipe with
her rapidly numbing limbs. When he banged again more forcefully,
she started trembling. "You have five seconds to unlock this door,
or I'm busting it down!"

Five seconds or five hours, it didn't matter
to her, because there was no way she
could
open the door, so
she guessed he was gonna come through it and be madder than a
hornet when he did.

Jazzie flinched at the sound of the crash
and splintering wood, as the man smashed his big body into the
door, and it flung inward on its hinges then banged against the
wall, hanging drunkenly.

"
What the fuck are you doing?!?
" he
shouted in a high-pitched voice full of disbelief. He didn't have
any problem reaching the pipe from the floor, or her.

His big beefy hands closed around her waist
painfully, and he pulled her down, and put her on the floor. Off
balance, Jazzie stumbled backward and landed on her butt, then her
head slammed into the porcelain sink and she saw stars, then felt
something warm and wet trickling down her scalp. She reached up
with a trembling hand and touched the spot, then pulled her hand
away and it was covered in blood.

She was bleeding! And from the looks of it,
not a little either. Her hair was in a braid and she felt the
liquid sluicing down her neck now and swiped at it, which smeared
it all over her neck and shirt.

"I need a towel or something," she informed
him flatly, and wiped her hand on her shirt.

"Too fucking bad, get up!" he grated then
grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet. He grabbed hold of her
braid and yanked it hard enough to bring tears to her eyes, then
got down in her face. "I should just kill you and be done with
it..."

Jazzie whimpered and tears actually did fill
her eyes as she begged, "No, please--I'm s-sorry. I won't do it
again."

He held her gaze with his flat snake-like
eyes and his jaw worked a few times, then he swung her by her braid
so she was in front of him, then pushed with his fist at the back
of her skull to propel her forward. Pain shot through her skull and
she fought back instant nausea. Jazzie sure hoped she didn't have a
concussion, along with the evidently substantial gash in her scalp.
She put her hand to the back of her head and tried to put pressure
on the cut, and warm blood trickled over her fingers and down her
wrist.

"Move, before I change my mind," he told her
and she started forward, with him very close behind her.

Cool air hit her behind, and sent a chill
skittering along her spine, which reminded her that her jeans were
on the floor of the bathroom, and her butt was exposed for the
world to see. Her mother had always told her to wear clean
underwear in case of an accident, but Jazzie was sure this wasn't a
circumstance, or the undergarment, her mother had in mind. She felt
naked and exposed as he led her across the huge room.

The people she'd seen at the table earlier,
were still there, along with four others she hadn't seen before who
were standing tensely by the people sitting at the table. They had
on black knit caps and were dressed in all black, so it was hard to
make out their features. The woman in their group had blond hair
and had on some kind of big yellow-tinted glasses.

Big Behemoth yanked on her braid and she
came to a screeching halt, and fell back against his big body.
"Stop looking and keep walking," he said meanly, his rank breath
insulting her nostrils.

She swallowed a couple of times then said
softly, "I'm bleeding pretty badly, could you please find me a
towel?"

The slick-looking man in the suit who'd
yelled at Big Behemoth earlier glanced their way and his eyes
widened. "What the fuck, Mo? You were supposed to take her to the
can, not rape and beat her! Jesus!"

The three people standing by the table all
looked in her direction, and Jazzie's knees almost gave out. The
nausea she'd felt a few minutes ago, returned with a vengeance. One
of the men looked a lot like Beau, but he had on gold-rimmed
glasses and the knit cap covered most of the upper part of his
face, so she wasn't sure. She probably wanted to see him so badly,
that she was imagining things, either that or the knock she'd
gotten to her head had made her loopy.