Kiss the Girl (13 page)

The kid balled his free hand into a fist. 
Nixie
squeezed her eyes shut,
sucked in a breath,
and
released a scream of such
startling
volume
that the kid released her wrist and dropped
back against the vinyl
seat
, his eyes crossed. 
Nixie
snatched back her wrist, satisfied.  She’d
been the victim of more haphazard kidnappings than she could count, and
in her experience
, a good, healthy scream
derailed a would-be kidnapper far more effectively than pepper spray or some fancy martial arts
. 

“Jesus!” 
The d
river turned around and grabbed Nixie by the hair.  She doubled her volume and poked stiffened fingers toward
his
windpipe. 

“
Aaaack
,” he said.  A surge of victory had her flipping her hair out of his lax fingers and
scuttling out of the car like
a
demented crab.  The gun man
recovered enough to
thr
o
w himself after her,
and
since she was already on her butt on the sidewalk,
Nixie
pistoned
out with both feet to slam the door
. 
He took it square in the face, the window a perfect frame for his stunned, squished expression before he
sank out of view
onto the floor boards. 
Nixie wondered for one
hysterical moment what the back door of a ’79 Ford LTD must weigh to ring a kid’s bell like that. 

The driver cursed--Nixie read his lips; it was an easy one--and opened his own door.  Nixie
scrambled up
to sprint for the building, only to find Mary Jane a
t her shoulder, an emergency kit in her hand and fury in her face.

“What the hell is this?” she said.

“I’ll explain later,” Nixie said, grabbing for her elbow.  “
For now, let’s run
.”  She dragged at the smaller woman’s arm, but it was like trying to haul cinder blocks.

The driver looked back and forth between Nixie and Mary Jane, a hint of uncertainty under the bravado and scorn
.  “What the hell?  There
ain’t
supposed to be two of them.”

“Two of what?”
Mary Jane
asked
.

Nixie hauled desperately at her arm
.
 
“They have a
gun
, Mary Jane.  This is not a good time for conversation.”

“Two lady doctors
,” the driver said.
 
“
Ty said there was only one.”

Mary Jane’s face went stony.  “Ty sent you?”

Nixie frowned.  “Who’s Ty?”

The d
river
gave Nixie
a sullen stare and
rubbed at his throat
while the gun man emerged from the back seat
, a little shaky but upright.  H
is gun
waver
ed
between Nixie’s liver and Mary Jane’s.
 

The driver
said,
“He
wants
the lady doctor
.
  Now.
”
 

“Fine.”  Mary Jane walked to the passenger door, opened it and slid onto the giant bench seat.  She drew her seatbelt down, buckled it.  “Let’s go.”

“Um, Mary Jane?”  Nixie tapped the window
as the kids scrambled back into the car
.  Mary Jane rolled it down.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.  “
Some poor kid probably needs stitching up. 
At least they didn’t
toss
him out on
the sidewalk this time.  Tell Erik to cover for me.  I’ll be back later.”

The d
river stomped the accelerator and the car bucked to life.  It jumped the curb and laid a perfect
S
of rubber on the street as it peeled away.  Nixie stumbled back and watched it roar off into the night, taking Mary Jane with it. 

“So she got into the car voluntarily?” the cop asked, his uniform starched, a sharpened pencil poised over his flip pad.  The four of them were crowded into Mary Jane’s tiny office, Erik, Nixie, and the two cops who’d answered his 911 call.  Erik gulped at the Styrofoam cup of coffee he’d brewed.  It went down like boiling hot rocket fuel, but what the hell.  He doubted he had any stomach lining left anyway.  Nixie was killing him.

“They didn’t drag her into the car, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said.

“It’s not,” Erik told her.  “They’re trying to make it sound like Mary Jane went off with her boyfriend so they don’t have to investigate.”

A second cop turned toward Erik.  This one was older, had the bulbous nose of a heavy drinker and the spare tire to match.  The comb-over was gratis.  “Did you witness the event?”

Erik pinched the bridge of his nose.  “No,” he said, weariness and nerves burning in his gut.  “Only Nixie did.  And she just told you these guys pulled a gun on her and Mary Jane.” 

“That’s true,” Nixie
put it
.  “They definitely pointed
a gun
at us.”

“Did they threaten to shoot you or Ms. Riley?”

“Dr. Riley,” Erik said, his eyes closed.

“Did they threaten to shoot you or
Dr.
Riley?” the first cop asked, his voice mechanical.

“
They never actually
said
they were going to use the gun
, no,
”
Nixie said
. 

“
And
Dr. Riley
got into the car of
her own free will
?” the second cop asked.
 

Nixie gave Erik an apologetic look that put another cramp in his stomach before turning back to the cop.  “
Well, yeah
,” Nixie said.
  “She did.”
 

Pressed Cop looked at Paunchy Cop.  “This doesn’t sound like
an abduction to me,” he said.  Erik could almost see him slam
the lid shut o
n the case and mentally wander
into a doughnut shop

“The hell it doesn’t.”  Erik was on his feet, his hands fisted by his sides.  Both cops touched their firearms in warning. 

“You’ll want to take it easy, sir,” said Pressed Cop. 

“How the hell am I s
upposed to take it easy when
the
woman I
--”
 
He broke off when the
cops exchanged a smug look.  “A
woman I work with
gets snatched off the street in front of her own clinic by a couple of gang bangers and the cops refuse to classify it as an
abduction?”

Paunchy Cop smoothed a hand over his scalp.  “Dr. Riley got into the car without coercion
after she was told that somebody named Ty had sent for her.  She then told Ms. Leighton-Brace that she would be back.  I frankly don’t see how we can justify using departmental resources to track down a woman who seems to have simply accepted an invitation from an...um, acquaintance.”

“Accepted an invitation?”  Erik shoved his hands into his hair.  “I don’t believe this.”

“It sounds to me like you’re having trouble accepting the nature of your relationship with Dr. Riley.”

Erik stared at him.  “What?”

Paunchy Cop gave him a greasy smile.  “It’s not a crime to choose the gang banger over the doctor
, sir
.  Call us if something illegal happens or if she’s not back within twenty-four hours.”

Erik had never in his life been more tempted to play the do-you-know-who-my-mother-is card.  But he’d never played it yet and he wasn’t going to tonight. 
On the slim possibility that Mary Jane
had taken off of
her
own accord, she would never forgive him for bringing his mother into the situation
. 

The cops filed out the door, and Erik watched them, his hands clenched into impotent fists.  Anger and frustration boiled up inside him and he rounded on the only person left to yell at.

“What the hell, Nixie?”  He didn’t bother to disguise his rage.  He wanted her to feel it, wanted her as afraid as he was.  “What the hell was that?  Are you trying to get Mary Jane killed?”

He caught her mid-yawn.  She tried to bite it off, but was apparently too far into it.  She finished up with a jaw-cracking
yah!
and pushed one of those long, elegant hands into her hair. 

“Oh, sorry, am I keeping you awake?” he asked.  “Is Mary Jane’s abduction interfering with your beauty rest?”

“Sorry.  It’s a stress thing.  The body trying to get extra oxygen to boost performance.”  She tried a smile.  “Like dogs do?”

“Dogs.  Right.”  He shook his head.  “What’s the matter with you, Nixie?  You deliberately let the police assume Mary Jane went with those kids voluntarily.”

Nixie frowned at him.  “She did.”

He shoved his fists into his pockets.  It was either that or strangle her.  “She’s a doctor.  Of course she went.  She thought there was an injured kid somewhere.  But that doesn’t mean she didn’t go at gunpoint.  That doesn’t mean she isn’t in danger.”

“It sounded to me like she knew this Ty person.”  Nixie hiked herself up onto the reception desk, let those ugly clogs dangle from her toes. 

Erik rolled his head side to side, trying work out the headache.  “Everybody knows Ty.  Of him, at least.
”

“Why?  Does he run the.
.
.what is it?  The Dog crew?”

“No.  That would be Marcus P.  Ty is the money man
.
”  He smiled at this, though he wasn’t amused.  “
Legend has it
he’s
a homeboy made good
.  Had an MBA and a closet full of two thousand dollar suits until
he took a
knuckle-rapping courtesy of a little
po
st-
Enron
crackdown.
Got lucky, you ask me.  Martha
Stewart went to jail
.
”

“Martha Stewart went to Camp Cupcake,” Nixie said.