Before A Perfect World: Movie Trilogy, Book Two (The Movie Trilogy) (23 page)

“Get away from her, before I blow your fucking brains out.”

“Okay, okay,” Keaton snapped, inching toward his side of the seat.

“Good, Director. Actress, put your seatbelt on.”

I scrambled for the belt, trying to clasp the metal pieces together, but my fingers were shaking too badly.

Keaton tried to reach for me, but the man pointed the gun at me.

“Let’s try it this way. You touch her again, I shoot her. Maybe that will motivate you to fucking listen.”

The man wasn’t wearing a mask.

He’s not wearing a mask.

He wasn’t wearing a mask, and in the movies, it meant that we were going to die.

We could describe him. I know he has a tattoo crawling up the side of his neck, some kind of webby wording; he has a scar on his left cheek.

I fi
nally got the seatbelt to lock and slammed my back against the seat. The driver was barreling down Santa Monica, and I was positive that our security guards or police escort had to be right behind us.

Right?

My stomach lurched.

“I’m going to throw up,” I realized, and the gun moved back to Keaton.

“Don’t move.”

“I’m sorry,” I wailed, turning away from them both and gripping the door handle.

I wretched, emptying my stomach along the galley between the door and the edge of the seat. The horrible smell only made me gag once more, and I heaved again.

“Fuck
me
,” the driver groaned, cracking both his and the gunman’s windows. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?”

“
I’m sorry
,” I repeated, pressing the back of my wrist to my mouth. The gunman tossed a wad of Starbucks napkins at Keaton, gesturing my way with the gun.

“Fucking help her.”

Keaton was on me in a flash; I held my hands up helplessly, and he wiped at my mouth, holding my chin in his hand.

“Look at me,” he urged, and I focused on his eyes, tears streaming down my face. “Just breathe. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I’m sure this is about money, and if these jackasses had done their assigned reading in
Forbes
,” he snapped his face toward the front seat, “they’d know Spielberg would have been the more lucrative choice.”

“That’s enough,” the g
unman sneered, throwing a stack of glove compartment manuals at Keaton. “Shove this shit along the side of the door. Try to cover the smell. And then get back on your side.”

Keaton
smoothed my hair, whispering against my forehead. “Breathe.
Breathe
, kiddo.”

I nodded, sucking in a breath, exhaling, once, twice.

“They’re going to kill us,” I managed, between breaths. “No masks, Keaton.”

“Calm.
Down
.” His authoritative voice was almost comforting at that moment. “No stress.”

The baby.
No stress?

His words
forced me to focus. I nodded, and he backed away, still grasping my hand.

As the driver shifted the car, I realized where we were going.

LAX.

“A plane? Why are we getting on a plane?” I begged.

The car came to a skidding stop. Keaton flew forward, slamming against the back of the driver’s seat, and my seatbelt cut against my chest.

Both the car doors were wrenched open, and I heard cursing from my side.

“Drag her out the other way. She fucking puked there.”

Bruising hands locked on my upper arms, and I was pulled through Keaton’s door. An unmarked, white cargo van was par
ked parallel with the Mercedes.

“Phones. Keys. Empty your pockets.”

Keaton reluctantly handed over his phone, and I looked between them nervously.

“I left mine in my purse, I don’t have it-”

“Shut up. Get in.”

Keaton blocked him from me, urging me forward, into the vehicle.

The sliding door slammed shut.

The force of the van’s acceleration sent us both tumbling to the walls of the van. We were alone, but the space was dark and seemingly empty.

“Vivian. Give me your hand,” Keaton ordered, and I followed the sound of his voice until I felt his strong arms around me.

“W
e’re in a fucking van!”

“Listen, i
f you don’t calm down, I’m going to make you ride up front.”

“Keaton! Stop making jokes!”

He held me tighter, and I gripped his shirt, pressing my face to his chest.

“
V
. Listen to me. We’ve both seen enough movies to know that we shouldn’t antagonize them. Wherever they’re taking us, we’re together. We have to keep thinking. Be smart. Neither of us can do that if you’re rocking back and forth in the corner.”

“I know,” I agreed, taking slow, deep breaths. “Who are they? Did you recognize them?”

“No. Neither of them. But we’re in a cargo van. We’re either dealing with caterers, pedophiles, or it’s the Libyans trying to get their plutonium back.”

I
nearly screamed at him for continuing to make jokes.

“I’m scared,” I
cried as the van hit a bumpy part of the road.

“
I know,” he replied.

Quietly.

Those two, short words unnerved me. Suddenly, I
wanted
him joking.

L
etting him continually run his fingers through my hair, I stiffened. We were silent for a long time, and he shifted to pull me more fully into his arms.

“Do you think this is the
Round-Up
killer?” I finally whispered.

“No.” He shook his head firmly. “No, they think that’s one man, working alone.”

“
Think
being the operative word.”

We fell into silence again.

I thought of my parents.

We’d left on such awful terms.
And Gram… if she knew that I’d been abducted, I didn’t know if her aging heart could take the worry.

And Matthew.

I pressed my hand to my heart, trying not to break into hysterics again.

We both jumped as the tiny slat of a window slammed open between the front cab and the cargo a
rea, and the gunman had his face in the opening.

“Get cozy. It’ll be about ten hours.”

He forced the window shut again.

Ten hours?
I couldn’t spend ten hours on the cold, aluminum floor of the cargo van! I needed to pee every forty-five minutes, and I already was feeling nauseated again!

“Ten hours from LA, in every direction. If the van stops moving, we’re on a boat. And they’d need to inspect the c
argo. Tucson, Reno… Sacramento…”

“Keaton.”

He came to the same realization that I did, tightening his grip on my hand.

“Utah,” he said in an uneven exhale. “The
amusement park by the movie set.”

“You think they’re going to kill us and dump our bodies there?” I demanded, forcing myself to breathe evenly.

“Sounds like the kind of cliché you’d write,” he agreed, shifting out of his sport coat, trying and failing with the snarky comment. I hadn’t even realized that the temperature in the van had dropped, and already he was wrapping his jacket around my shoulders. “Try to close your eyes.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then
act
like you can,” he ordered.

I sighed, my chin moving against the warmth of his stomach. His muscles flexed beneath my mouth, and I kissed him, so lightly, through his shirt.

“
V
,” he whispered, his fingertips tracing my face.

“
I love you Keaton.
If anything happens to me… to us… I need you to know that I fell so hard and fast for you. You’re all I’ve thought about since the moment that you walked into my video store. And I only… went home with Matthew… because I couldn’t hurt him. I did love him, once, but not like
this
, not like I love you,” I poured, my emotions taking over my words and fresh tears dampening his shirt. “I’ll never love anyone as much as I love you.”

He pressed
his strong hands against my back. “I needed to hear that,” he admitted.

“I’m sorry,” I
hushed.

“
You know you’re my world now, V. I’m right here,” he said, linking his pinky finger around mine. “
Right like this.
Wrapped so tight that I can’t do this without you.”

The emotional silence echoed in the cold
cargo hold.

“
What about the baby?
” I finally whispered, shivers beginning at the base of my neck and rolling down my spine. “They know.”

“I won’t let them hurt either of you. I’ll protect you
… or die trying,” he replied, the resolve in his voice both comforting and unsettling.

His hand
tucked over my abdomen, and I forced my eyes closed.

K

The daylight was almost blinding as the men threw the van door open.

“You get two minutes. P
iss and get back in the van.”

Vivian was drifting between sleep and awake, and I felt her entire body tense up in my arms.

“Okay,” I replied for both of us, gripping her hand and leading her outside.

We were in some wooded area, no sign of people or business.

Just highway and woods.

The two men had nine millimeter pistols aimed at our heads, and Vivian turned to me with frightened eyes.

“Right here?” she clarified, and I knew that she was asking if she had to squat in the middle of the forest and urinate.

“Hurry,” I replied. She nodded, her hands shaking as she balanced against a tree.

I turned to unzip, keeping my back to the men and my eyes on Vivian.

Where were the fucking police, the FBI, or the useless bodyguards that I’d hire
d? Was this just a routine, run-of-the-mill celebrity kidnapping?

O
r are one of these assholes the killer?

I was guessing the latter.

I had a feeling that we were headed to Utah, and this man had every intention of killing us and dumping our bodies at the Round-Up at the park near the set.

Just the perfect fucking clichéd ending to our perfectly clichéd relationship.

I wished to God I was alone, and that they’d left Vivian behind.

She
did her best to shake off, keeping her dress down for some modesty. I had attempted to control my temper and comply, per the recommendations of all television psychologists on how to behave during an everyday kidnapping, but I knew that if either of them tried to touch Vivian in any way I’d fucking lose it.

“Get back in the van.”

She scrambled into my lap again as the door slammed closed.

“
How long have we been traveling?” she asked.

I glanced at my watch
, thankful they’d at least let me keep
that
. “Five hours.”

“
Do you think they want money?”

“I don’t know, V.
How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” she assured me through the shadowy darkness.
“Do you think we can overpower them?”

I sighed, sitting back against the side of the van. “I’d love to be your hero here, but between two of them and two nine millimeters, I’m pretty sure it won’t go well.”

“Can we make… some kind of weapon?”

“We’ve got my watch. I can channel my inner MacGyver and build a quick bomb.”

“I don’t know how you can keep making jokes.”

“You asked me if we could make some kind of weapon. I thought we were joking.”

“It’s not completely out of the realm of possibilities to make a weapon, Keaton.”

I could tell that her
words were edged with irritation.

Sighing, I squeezed her hand. “Just hang on. I’m sure they want money. The FBI will comply
, and we’ll be back to filming before we know it.”

“If they wanted money, they could have just taken one of us. Not both. It feels personal.”

Fuck
. I swallowed hard, hating how goddamn quick she was. “I’m sure I’ve made a laundry list of enemies over the years. But I’ve been through all of them with the FBI.”

“
These guys seem like hired guns. Do you think… it’s possible… that Kelsey is behind this?”

I scoffed, and then chuckled softly.  “No.”

“Don’t laugh. She was really angry when she came to the set-”