Booby Trap (24 page)

“Seems your duties at
Seventh Veil extend far beyond managing the costume business.”

While she ignored my comment, I studied the woman standing before me, the gun in her hand contrasting sharply with her tasteful pantsuit, conservative makeup, and Coach shoulder bag. I’d been held at gunpoint before by women, but they’d all been nut jobs and often looked the part. There was something truly disturbing about being threatened by a woman who looked like she should be shoe shopping at Nordstrom’s.

Maria Santiago didn’t seem at all surprised to see me at Lisa’s. With confidence, she ignored my comment and pointed the gun at my stomach.

“Why don’t we all go down to the parking lot together? And I wouldn’t advise trying anything foolish.”

Like ducklings crossing a busy street, the three of us left the condo single file and started down the path to the parking lot. I was in the lead, with Lisa sandwiched in the middle—the only thing between me and the gun. I would have preferred being directly in front of Mrs. Santiago. If I came up with a plan of escape, it would be too difficult to implement it with Lisa as a buffer. And Lisa seemed too shell-shocked to think of anything clever on her own.

“I thought you said Kirk picked you up last night,” I said to Lisa over my shoulder.

“Actually, it was very early this morning.”

“You should have just left, Lisa. You’d be far away from here by now if you’d forgotten about Muffin.”

“Enough!” Mrs. Santiago barked.

As we made our way into the parking lot, I looked around. There was not a soul in sight. Not surprising, considering it was a workday, even for a Friday.

“Which car is yours?” Mrs. Santiago asked. I pointed in the direction of my sturdy old Camry, and she steered us in that direction.

Of course, Muffin was not in the car. The little cat was at home, probably snoozing in a ball on our bed, happy to have it all to herself. I had no idea what I was going to do once we reached my car and Muffin’s absence became apparent. My mind worked faster than a Weedwacker as it went through possibilities and cut them down as too harebrained and dangerous.

As soon as we approached my car, I noticed a black SUV start to pull out of a parking space not very far away. Maybe I could somehow flag it down without getting us shot. I quickly judged my position. Maybe I would throw myself at Maria Santiago and knock her sideways before she could get off a properly aimed shot. A gun blast would certainly get the attention we needed, as long as it didn’t hit one of us. I had to act fast, and I had to act now.

Once at the car, I went to the back door on the passenger’s side. Maria told Lisa to go to the back and put her hands on the trunk where she could see them while I retrieved Muffin—the cat who wasn’t there.
“Remember,” Maria said to me, “nothing foolish.”

As soon as I opened the back door, I knew something wasn’t right. The blanket I keep in the car to cover the back seat when Wainwright rides with me was sprawled on the floor. And it looked lumpy. Positioning my body so that Maria couldn’t see into the vehicle, I cautiously pulled back a corner of the blanket and found myself eye to eye with a hot and sweaty Silas. He was scrunched up, his small body molding as best it could to the contours of the floor and the small space between the front and back seats. He looked at me wide-eyed and fearful and, thankfully, kept silent.

Doing my best not to let out the shriek of surprise that hovered on my lips, I mouthed a
shhh
to him and replaced the corner of the blanket. Then I turned back to Maria.

“Where’s the cat?” she asked me, still holding the gun on Lisa.

“She’s not here. I lied. I never brought her.”

Lisa’s eyes begged me to say it wasn’t so. I glanced at her and looked away. I didn’t want Lisa shot, but I didn’t want Silas found either. I didn’t know if Maria would shoot a child, but I wasn’t about to take that chance. Though, heaven knows, I wanted to strangle the kid myself for stowing away and complicating matters.
Just wait until we get out of this mess
, I promised him silently.
If
we get out of this mess.

When Maria looked skeptical, I made a motion to get out of the way. “See for yourself.”

It was a bluff move. I was praying she wouldn’t call me on it and search the car, but I knew if I tried to keep her from searching, she’d do it for sure.

I also was stalling, praying that the damn SUV would get moving and finally drive by. It had to pass us to leave the complex. If the driver was even paying a modicum of attention, he or she would see Lisa and me being held at gunpoint. But the vehicle seemed to be taking forever to back out. I glanced quickly in its direction. Its backup lights were lit and it had pulled out slightly, but not all the way. What the hell was it waiting for, gas to go back down to two dollars a gallon?

Then, like a Louisville Slugger to my skull, it hit me. Maria was totally unconcerned about the driver of the SUV. The SUV was waiting—waiting for us. Or a least for Maria Santiago.

Questions peppered my brain like buckshot. Had I brought Muffin to Lisa, would Lisa have gone off with them as soon as I left? Would I have been
allowed
to leave? Would Lisa have lived after handing the cat over to Maria? And what about the cat? What was so special about that scrawny little furball? I needed time to dissect each question, to play with the facts and the suppositions and see what presented itself to me in living color. But I didn’t have time. Whatever conclusions I decided upon would have to come to me fast and furious and be able to stop on a dime.

My thoughts were interrupted by Maria aiming the gun at me. “So where’s the cat?”

I held one hand up and slowly closed the car door. I might as well face the music. Chances are Maria was going to kill me as soon as I handed over Muffin, so maybe not having her would buy me and Lisa some time—and keep her from discovering Silas.

“You said you had her and now you don’t? Which is it?”

“I told you, I lied.” I glanced at Lisa, who was listening and watching in fear. “I told Lisa I had the cat to get her outside.”

“So where is the cat?”

“At the vet.” I looked at Lisa, hoping she wouldn’t see through my new lie. “I’m sorry, Lisa. But Muffin and our cat got into a pretty bad scuffle this morning. Muffin’s going to be okay, but she’ll be at the vet for another day or so. I was hoping you wouldn’t have to know just yet. That’s why I wanted to convince you to leave without her.”

If Lisa was concerned about Muffin’s safety, she hid it well. Whatever the reason she wanted the animal, it wasn’t to love and cuddle it.

Maria Santiago stepped a bit closer to me. “Guess you’ll just have to go pick her up and bring her here.”

I shifted from one foot to the other. The movement caused Maria to get a little nervous. She took one step closer to me and positioned the gun at my chest.

“Can’t—the vet closes every Friday at noon.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Check it out for yourself. Seaside Pet Hospital in Huntington Beach.”

While still holding the gun on me, Maria motioned with her free hand towards the SUV. It backed out of the space and cruised over to where we were.

As soon as the vehicle was next to us, the driver lowered the window. The driver was Harper’s thug, the one who had beat up Kirk in the Seventh Veil parking lot. His eyes darted from me to Lisa as he acknowledged Maria with a jerk of his chin.

“What’s the number for the pet hospital?” Maria asked me.

Shrugging, I said, “I don’t know, but it’s on my cell phone. The phone’s in my bag.” I indicated my tote bag. It was on the ground next to the car, where I’d placed it before opening the car door.
“I can call them if you let me dig out the phone.”

Maria stepped back but kept the gun trained on my midsection. “Get the phone, but that’s it. Anything else and you’re dead.”

Slowly, I bent to retrieve the cell phone from the side pocket of my bag. “So, Maria,” I said loudly, hoping Silas was keeping his ears open, “why does Gordon Harper want the cat anyway? You going to start using cat fur at Seventh Veil?”

“That’s none of your concern.” She waved the gun at me. “Use just one hand. Keep the other in the air.”

I did what she said and pulled out the phone using only my right hand. “I’ll call the hospital for you.”

“No.” Maria shook her head. “Just read off the number.”

She turned to the driver of the van. “You call the number she gives us.”

The driver pulled out his phone and readied himself to dial. I scrolled through my speed dial numbers until I found the one for the pet hospital. Generally, the vet was closed on Friday afternoons. On Friday and Saturday they were only open from eight to noon. I prayed that today was no different. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if they answered and said Muffin wasn’t there.

I read off the number, and the driver pushed the corresponding buttons on his phone. Once done, he listened. After several seconds, he turned his attention to Maria.

“It’s a recording. The place is closed until eight tomorrow morning.”

“Why not just break into the place and take Muffin?” The question had come from Lisa, still slightly bent over, with her hands flat on the trunk of my car.

Maria Santiago and Harper’s muscle exchanged quick glances, weighing the plan amongst themselves as a possibility. As for me, I wanted to back the car over Lisa’s foot. She obviously didn’t understand that all they wanted was Muffin, and that once they had the cat, she and I would be as expendable as used tissues. Call me cranky, but as much as I love animals, I wasn’t about to trade my life for a cat I’ve known for only a few days. Once I put my life in danger for Seamus, but he and I go back a few years.

Thinking about Seamus made me wonder yet again about the value of Muffin. Seamus had once been catnapped, but that had been to use him as leverage to get something of value. He hadn’t been the prize but the bartering chip. Was Muffin being used in the same fashion? It seemed unlikely. Seamus had been valuable because of the love I felt for him. The catnapper knew I would turn over the item in exchange for his safety. That wasn’t the case here. Lisa hadn’t displayed any affection for Muffin, so it was unlikely that she would trade her for anything of value.

Once again, I needed time to think about the connection between Muffin, Kirk, Harper, and Lisa, and possibly even Laurie Luke’s death. But time to sit and think wasn’t a luxury I had right now. I was too busy surviving. If keeping Muffin out of the paws of these creeps kept me and Silas alive, there was no way I was giving her up.

While I pondered killers and cats, the goon made another call. Attempts to hear what he was saying were fruitless. Finally, he snapped the phone shut and turned his attention back to us.

“The chief said to bring them back to the shop.”

“What about the cat?” Maria asked.

“He said no break-in, just bring these two to him. He’ll find out a way to use them to get the animal.”

The goon got out
of the SUV and opened the back hatch. The back seats had been removed to provide maximum cargo space. Maria motioned with the gun for Lisa and me to climb in. Obviously, wherever we were heading, we were going steerage. Lisa had other ideas. Just as I was about to climb into the cargo area of the vehicle, she made a break for it, running like hell in the direction of the public street. And she might have made it, had the street not been so far away and the henchman so fit. Quickly, the big man covered the distance she’d traveled and brought her down like a lion bringing down a slow-moving wildebeest. When Lisa started to fuss, he slammed a meaty fist into her head to quiet her and dragged her back.

Lisa was half unconscious when the two of them returned to the vehicle. He threw her hard against the bed of the back of the SUV, where she lay sprawled and moaning while he retrieved something from the front seat.

During all the commotion, Maria Santiago never let the gun drift from my gut. And during the commotion, I never let loose of my phone. With as little movement as possible, I let a finger slide over the buttons, hoping it would find redial. Greg’s cell phone had been the last number called. I gently pushed down with my finger, praying it was the redial button and not the off button, which would give off a telltale chime.

When the goon returned to the back of the vehicle, he was holding a large roll of duct tape. With a deftness that came from experience, he taped Lisa’s mouth and bound her wrists. Next, he turned to me, indicating for me to hold out my wrists.

“There’s no need,” I told him. “I won’t do anything stupid.”

“Damn right you won’t,” he growled. “The chief said to be particularly careful of you. He wants you delivered safe and sound.”

As much as I liked the sound of
safe
, I wasn’t so sure about the concept of being delivered. When I hesitated, the creep grabbed my cell phone from me and flung it to the ground, then he proceeded to tape my wrists. Right before he slapped the tape across my mouth, I managed to suck my lips inward, determined that when, or if, the tape was ever removed, my lips wouldn’t be ripped off with it.

“Aren’t you going to wrap their ankles, too?” The question came from Maria, who still held watch with the gun.

The henchman shook his head. “If their ankles are taped, they can’t walk. You want to carry these heifers once we get to the shop?” Maria laughed and relaxed the gun a bit.

The guy roughly helped me climb into the back of the vehicle.

“Lay down,” he ordered. “And keep your head down until we say so, got it?”

I nodded in understanding.

As soon as I was settled on my back with my head facing the front of the vehicle and my legs straight out towards the rear, Lisa started whimpering. She was alert now, and her eyes were wide as saucers and wet with tears. With my own eyes, I tried to relay comfort. I nodded, hoping to convey a confidence I didn’t feel. We were in deep shit, no doubt about it, but I sure didn’t need a hysterical partner should any hope of escape present itself.

Soon, we were on our way. I wasn’t sure, but my guess was that we were heading to rendezvous with Harper at Seventh Veil. As much as I didn’t relish being transported like a side of meat to the market, I was thankful we were moving away from my car and Silas. Dev or the police should be here soon and would find the boy. Silas, if he was paying attention, might be able to give them some information.

I had wanted time to think through what was going on, and now I had it. From Lisa’s place, it was a forty-five minute to an hour drive to Seventh Veil Costuming, providing traffic moved at a reasonable rate. Although my brain would have worked better sitting at my kitchen table unfettered by duct tape, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

What was it about that damn cat? In my brain, I methodically ran down what I knew, or thought I knew. Kirk was smuggling diamonds for Harper. Laurie had been killed by Harper, held by him in order to strong-arm Kirk into fulfilling his commitment. Kirk had given the cat to Laurie as a gift, and now Harper and his minions wanted the animal. The first thing I’d done as soon as Muffin had come into our home was check her over for fleas using a special comb. I’d found nothing unusual about her. She was healthy, her limbs sound, her fur sleek and flea free. Until Laurie died, she’d been very well cared for, loved and regularly groomed.

Riding like a sack of potatoes in the back of the SUV, I went over every possibility, from the obvious to the ridiculous. A groan tried to escape my taped lips as I realized an oversight on my part. Maybe it wasn’t the cat everyone was hunting for, but the cat’s collar—the heavy, handmade leather collar. The collar that seemed unusual for a young cat and that bothered the animal so much we finally took it off of her. The collar that now resided in the nightstand drawer next to our bed. I wasn’t sure about my theory that the collar held the missing diamonds, but I was fresh out of other ideas and it seemed plausible, though pretty stupid. If Muffin had gotten outside and disappeared, so would the diamonds. Would someone really be so lame as to hide diamonds on something attached to four swift feet?

I mentally put a star next to the collar idea and moved on to other thoughts. If I could stumble upon some other solid connections, maybe I could use them to bargain for our lives. Knowledge is power, and right now all I had were a lot of semi-connected dots.

Supposing Kirk had hidden diamonds in the cat’s collar, my next question was whether or not he had acted alone. Did Laurie know about it? Lisa didn’t seem to think so. Then again, maybe Lisa was in on it and had been from the start. Maybe she had a reason to feel guilty about her sister’s death other than flashing her photo around the Internet. The next suspect to float across my brain as it bounced along on the floor of the vehicle was Jane Sharp. Jane had been having an affair with Kirk Thomas, and Jane also knew Gordon Harper. Had Jane been the link between Kirk and Harper? Had she been the one to link up the two men in the first place? That was a distinct possibility. And, if so, and she was on the run, she might be running from Gordon Harper and not the Blond Bomber. Maybe even both.

It was likely that the Blond Bomber was being used as a convenient pawn in this whole matter. Laurie’s death had mimicked the style of the Blond Bomber’s except for some details. And the Blond Bomber had let the world know specifically that her body was not his handiwork when he scrawled his message across Amber’s corpse. Call me crazy, but it didn’t seem smart to piss off a serial killer.

I glanced over at Lisa. Her eyes were closed, and she was very still. I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or unconscious. She had received a nasty blow to her head and might have a concussion. I gently nudged her. When I received no response, I kicked her again a little harder. The second kick reaped a muffled groan from behind her taped mouth, and her eyes began to flutter. I nudged her leg again with one of my feet, and her eyes came open and stayed open. After a few seconds, they focused on my eyes. Eye to eye, I willed her to stay awake.

I strained to hear any conversation from the front seat, but there was none that I could make out. Maria Santiago and Harper’s hired gun had little, if anything, to say to each other. Eventually, I felt the SUV slow down, followed by the vehicle taking a wide curve to the right. We must be taking an off-ramp. As much as I wanted to try to lift myself up and flag down help, I knew it would be fruitless. The windows of the SUV were tinted so that no one could see inside. From my position, I could see sky dotted with power lines and trees passing by through the side and hatch windows.

Turning and twisting my wrists, I tried to loosen the tape. It gave a little, but not much. I needed something sharp to rub the tape against, but saw nothing convenient. It crossed my mind to scrunch down close to the hatch opening and kick out as soon as the door was opened. But I doubted I could kick hard enough to do any damage and was pretty sure Maria would still be holding a gun on us when we exited. Instead, I just continued to twist and turn my wrists, hoping to loosen the tape even further.

It wasn’t long before I felt the vehicle turn again, then stop. A moment later, it continued on its way. There were a few successive stops and starts, which I was pretty sure indicated intersections with stop signs or signals. Eventually, the vehicle made a slow right turn, then traveled very slowly past a building. From my vantage point, the building looked a lot like the one that housed Seventh Veil.

I felt the SUV turn slightly, then stop before backing up. As it backed up, more of the building came into view. We were in the belly of the U-shaped parking area of the building, the area where deliveries were made and where I saw Kirk Thomas being shoved around. With some effort, I raised myself enough to look out the window and confirm that we were in the parking area at the costume factory. Before dropping back down to my back, I glimpsed Harper’s Mercedes.

Lisa had drifted off again. I kicked her softly, and her eyes opened. She’d been crying, and her eyes and nose were runny. She closed her eyes again, and I knew that she’d given up hope of coming out of this alive. But I hadn’t, not until a bullet pierced my brain or my neck was snapped in two.

When the hatch opened, the goon grabbed my ankles and pulled me out of the vehicle halfway, then he grabbed my taped wrists and yanked me to my feet. Immediately, I collapsed to my knees on the pavement, supported like a tripod by my taped hands. Lisa was hauled out next in the same fashion. She also fell to the ground but landed prone, facedown on the asphalt.

I was pulled to a standing position first and ordered to stay standing. Lisa was grabbed by the collar of her sweatshirt and pulled up next to me. Her nose was bloody from her fall, her cheek scraped by gravel. As soon as she was on her feet, she slid to the ground again, her eyes closed.

While Maria Santiago stood guard over us with the gun, the henchman disappeared through a side door positioned next to the roll-type delivery door on the loading dock. He returned almost immediately with a cart, a long platform on four wheels generally used for hauling several boxes at a time. He dumped the half-conscious Lisa onto the cart and started pushing it through the door. Maria told me to follow. She and the gun brought up the rear.

Inside, we were greeted with an eerie silence. We were in the factory part of Seventh Veil, but the hum of industry I’d heard during my earlier visit was absent. The lights were on but the place was empty of workers. Colorful costumes in various stages of completion hung in clusters here and there at various stations throughout the large, cluttered area. To my right, I saw a couple of commercial pressing machines. Over to my left, a row of sewing machines, each one with a rack of garments next to it. Feathers and rolls of cloth and boxes containing other materials were in another corner of the large area near worktables. More rolls of fabric were against the back wall. Scraps of fabric littered the floor.

Our little parade made its way through various aisles. Along the way, I kept my eyes peeled for possible escape routes. Except for a few very distinct aisles, the place was as confusing as a rabbit warren. We halted in front of a large elevator. Next to it was a staircase going up. The muscle hit a button, and the doors opened. He indicated for me to enter. As soon as I was inside, he pushed Lisa and the cart in, trapping me against the back wall. Maria Santiago was the last to enter. There were only two buttons on the panel, one for the first floor and a button for the second. Maria put a key into a lock on the panel and pushed the button for the second floor. The doors closed, and the lift started to rise.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, a different scene presented itself. Instead of a cluttered work area, the four of us faced a large apartment. It was decorated simply and fashionably, using soothing colors and fabrics and elegant, comfortable-looking furniture. The elevator opened up onto a great room, with a living room to the left and a large open kitchen to the right. The living room had two very large windows that looked out over the back parking lot. Directly across from the elevator, on the other side of the room, was an open door leading to a hallway, and no doubt the sleeping quarters. This had to be Crystal Lee’s personal apartment that Effie had mentioned.

“Welcome, ladies.”