The Hostage Bargain (3 page)

“Right. Fine,” Thor said. “Nothing personal,” he whispered to me. This was the second time Thor had been reprimanded. Like he was the misbehaving ward of the two more surly robbers.

“Is this about that scene in the safe room? Because, I was just performing for the microphone. I don’t do that in real life. You know, different personalities talking to each other and so forth.”

“Put a sock in it.” Odin sounded tense. “Trouble.”

The van seemed to slow.

“Get down.” Before I could comply, Thor pushed me down on the seat. I felt a scratchy blanket thrown over me, and the metal of the door vibrated against the top of my head. Something was wrong. Shit.

The blanket and music muffled things, so that I could hear the guys arguing, but only make out random words. I imagined Thor leaning forward between the front seats. In my mind, they all looked like quite god-like. Angry and windblown and impossibly muscular.

Please let us get away
, I thought. Yeah, I was thinking us even at that point.

Somebody mentioned the bridge. Which one? I felt us turn and speed up. Had they hit traffic? Had there been a change of plans?

I stayed down—I wanted to show they could trust me, and also not distract them. We drove in tense silence, motor gunning, my pulse racing.

After a while, there was more arguing up front. I felt us slow again. Thor swore. Odin barked to shut up. Zeus barked at both of them to shut up. It was then I knew what had happened.

I spoke up through the blanket. “You hit tractor pull traffic, didn’t you?”

“Crap!” Thor said. “Tractor pull?”

“And you decided to take the bridge and it’s worse,” I added.

I felt the blanket get yanked off of me. The cool air was nice. I wished I could see.

“It was supposed to be yesterday,” Zeus said accusingly.

“It got rescheduled for today,” I informed the men. “Because of rain.” Helicopter chops sounded above us. Sirens.

Odin’s voice: “There was no notice of that. There is no fucking official policy of that. Nothing written.”

Of course, when Odin said it, it came out as
no fucking go-fficial policy of that.

“It’s just assumed,” I said. “Everyone in town just knows.”

“We’re stuck with a hostage in a traffic jam?” Thor said.

“We should’ve dumped her at the train,” Odin said.

“No, we should’ve known about this reschedule,” Zeus retorted.

“Fucking-g small town American,” Odin said. “So we smash out. That is what God made hostages for.”

“No, we sit tight,” Zeus said. “They don’t know our truck.”

“They’ll figure it out.” Odin said. “They’ll come down the line and fucking look in, and do you think a tied-up, blindfolded girl is gonna give us away? ‘Cause I’m gonna go with a
Yes
on that.” He mumbled something about bailing.

“Shut up and let me think,” Zeus grumbled, power radiating through his words. The men shut up.

“I’m guessing we’re on the Ganuck Bridge,” I said. “FYI, boys, that river’s shallow right now. In case you’re really thinking about bailing. You’ll crack your heads.”

Mumbling from the front.

“We’re on the bridge in a traffic jam, right?” I asked, wishing they’d just take off the blindfold. “With a cops and a checkpoint up ahead?”

“Yup,” Thor said softly.

“It could be a drunk check.” I said.

“Nah,” Thor said. “They’re looking for us.”

“And it’s too late for me to leave the van now? I could stumble around and play dumb.”

“Too many witnesses to see you leave,” Zeus grumbled.

“We’re fish in a barrel,” Thor said. “Basically.”

“Wait, they’re looking for three guys with a girl hostage, right?” My pulse raced. “What if I weren’t a hostage? Take my blindfold off. I’ll sit in front and be like,
Hey boys! We’re late to the tractor pull!”

Zeus snorted. But I heard nothing from Odin and Thor. “No go,” Zeus said. “What’s to stop you from giving us away?”

“The fact that I’m on your side!”

Silence.

My hopes soared. They were thinking about it. Yes, these were bank robbers. But they were named after gods, and helping them get away fit my life’s mission of destroying Hank Vernon. Which gave me another idea…

“Here’s the deal,” I said, “If the next bank we rob is a First City National and we split it four ways, I’ll put everything I have on the line to get us out of this. I mean it.” My voice sounded strange to my ears. “You’re either shooting your way out of a traffic jam with a hostage, or you can let me be in.”

“Even if you mean it…” Odin’s voice. “You can’t bluff us out. They’ll have your picture. They’re looking for you.”

“I’m a woman. I can change my whole look. I can change my hair in two seconds if we have scissors. How much time do we have? They’ll never know. Anyway, they’re looking for me the hostage. They’ll have my bank photo and it already barely looks like me. I’ll talk us out of it—I know I can.”

“Let’s go for it,” Thor said beside me.

“She thinks it’s a game,” Zeus growled.

Thor said, “You like our odds better in a hot exit with choppers above us? And she showed us the diamonds. Hell, she tags along for a week. It’s better than a hot exit.”

Hot exit
. I liked the outlaw lingo edge of that.

Odin said, “I’m going with Thor on this.”

Zeus groaned. Grudgingly.

“That’s two.” Thor was already untying the blindfold.

“Really?” I said. “I’m in?”

“Yup.”

These robbers seemed to work by a majority vote. Whatever two wanted, they did. I liked that, too. I felt it showed a healthy sense of fair play.

“You’ll be sorry if we start seeing police sketches of our faces after we let you go, Melinda,” Zeus grumbled.

I was surprised they knew my name, but of course, it was right there on my badge. “I totally get it,” I joked. “Police sketches are so unflattering!”

Thor snickered and whipped off the blindfold.

It took a while for my eyes to get used to the brightness. And the amazing hotness of Thor, with his creamy skin and wavy blond hair and velvety blue eyes. He wore a dove gray business suit, but even so, he looked more like a soccer player from Scandinavia than a cubicle jockey. It was fitting he was named for a Norse god. I was guessing the big scowly guy with the short brown hair in the driver’s seat was Zeus.

The equally scowly, dark skinned, mop-headed guy in the passenger seat would be Odin. He wore squarish, scholarly-looking brown glasses, much to my surprise. I hadn’t gotten “spectacles” from his badass mode of speech. And, let me say, the glasses looked awesome on him. The glasses and his long girl eyelashes and dark mop of hair pushed his roughly handsome, unshaven face into the gorgeous model zone. I imagine it would be a great detriment in the robber line of work to be so gorgeous. His strategy for counteracting his runway model appearance seemed to be to swear profusely, seethe with bad-boy heat, and act totally disagreeable.

Focus
, I told myself, sucking in a breath.

I looked all around. Cars jammed the bridge in front and behind us; some of the people had gotten out of their vehicles. In the next lane, a Frisbee flew through the air. Sirens and lights up ahead meant accident or police blockade.

“Cops are going car to car—I see a pair a dozen cars up,” Zeus said. “We have maybe five minutes. They may interview you. Can you handle it?”

“So I’m in?”

“Perhaps we should alert her to the rules,” Odin said.

Zeus shot Odin a hard look. There was something hunted and haunted about Zeus.

I was already taking off my stuffy gray bank teller jacket, wondering about these mysterious rules, and pleased I’d worn a skimpy, strappy white tank underneath, perfect for a tractor pull. I undid my bra and pulled it out from under my shirt. My first order of business was to
not
look like my teller photo.

“We’re all going to the tractor pull,” I informed them. “We want Big Bessie to kick ass. The three of you—suit coats off. Down to your T-shirts. Are there other pants in here you guys can wear? Nobody wears slacks to a tractor pull.”

Apparently there weren’t. They’d planned to switch vehicles before everything went south.

“Unless they get suspicious, they’ll probably only pull me out,” Zeus said. “And you. They’ll want to talk to you.”

“Shit, this business skirt is so not right.”

“I don’t have a T-shirt,” Odin said.

“No shirt is better than that one,” I said. “Take it off.”

Everybody began to pull off their jackets and shirts. Muscles rippled. Sweaty skin gleamed. I tried to keep my expression at least a little bit neutral, as if it was horrible, yes,
so horrible
to have to change our appearances like this, but deep down I was like a letchy little fish swimming joyously in a cocktail of testosterone-laced hunkiness.

Thor stuffed our discarded suit jackets under the seat.

“Here.” Zeus handed back a hunting knife.

“No scissors?”

“We’re bank robbers, not seamstresses.”

Thor took it from Zeus. “I’ll help you,” Thor said. “This blade is sharp.”

I pulled my long red hair out of my bun and shook my head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I want you guys to remember how long and awesome my hair is, and how far I’m going to stick it to First City. You better be good for your word.” I took a deep breath, gathered my red hair into a ponytail at the back of my head, and showed Thor where to cut, then cringed. I could feel the hair weight disappear as the knife sliced through. He stuffed the hair into the pocket on the door. I said a silent goodbye.

“Avert your gazes,” I said as I started wriggling out of my business-like black pencil skirt, down to my lacy underwear. When I looked up, Thor and Odin were watching me hungrily. Heat spread through me. Commanding the total the attention of these insanely hunky bad boys was an off-the-charts turn-on.

I snorted. “Maybe the god Zeus is the only one who knows what
avert
means.”

Thor smiled wickedly. “We know what it means.” He settled back in his seat all cool. “We’re bank robbers, baby. We’ve got no use for other people’s rules.”

Ooh
.

I put a flattened piece of box across my lap and laid my skirt over it, running the knife along the grain of the fabric, creating a quick mini-skirt, trying not to smile like a crazy woman. Zeus was right; I did feel like this was a game.

The best damn game ever.

“Thor, see if you can find any cooks’ pants or anything,” Zeus said.

Thor twisted around to root in the back. No use for other people’s rules—it was so deliciously roguish. In spite of this—maybe it was their professionalism and sense of fairness, what with the voting—but I instinctively trusted them to follow their own rules, to be good for their word.

I held the skirt up. The hem was ragged in spots, but it would do as a mini skirt. I slid it back on. “Now I’m the only one who looks proper for a tractor pull.”

Zeus turned in his seat to face me. He held a little metal box in his hands. “Bare your teeth at me,” he said.

I bared my teeth and he opened the box and took out a small brown thing the size of a fingernail and held it up. Then he picked out a different small thing. “Hold still.” He pressed it to one of my front side teeth.

“Smile.”

I smiled. Odin laughed. Then I looked in the mirror. The little thing made it look like one of my teeth was dead.

“You have got to be kidding.” But it was smart. My bank ID photo showed me smiling; this changed my entire look. Zeus shoved some mirrored sunglasses at me. “Put these on your head. The best thing is for you to hide in plain sight. Step out of the van, stretch your legs. Look down the line and see what kind of time we have.”

I shoved the sunglasses on top of my head and pushed my now short hair behind my ears, then I climbed out into the bright sun. The door slid closed behind me. I stood outside the van, heat rising from the pavement, hitting my bare legs. We were in the very right lane behind a small gray car, and in front of that, more cars—four lanes of cars lined the bridge—two lanes heading north, two heading south, and none were moving. I looked over the railing into the water, then walked around the front of the van to the other side. In the lane to the left of us was another group going to the tractor pull—a bunch of teens in the back of a truck. They were drinking sodas and throwing fluorescent orange cheese curls at each other.

Up ahead, people had gotten out of their cars and a few looked my way, but I was pretty sure it was the outfit. It was quite the racy outfit, what with the paper-thin spaghetti strap top that you could totally see my nipples through, and the ragged Wilma Flintstone mini skirt, and my high heels.

It was like a different me stepped out of that van. Like a slutty butterfly emerging from a bandit cocoon.

I felt good. Free. The best I’d felt in years.

I took a five dollar bill from my still-intact skirt pocket and walked over and offered it to the cheese curl kids in the back of the truck in exchange for two of their sodas. “Any flavor, I don’t care,” I said.

I came away with two Mountain Dews and some pitying looks from the girls for my dead tooth.

My blood raced when I caught sight of the cops, five cars ahead, talking to people and looking in cars. I rested my forearm on the open window and smiled in at Zeus, who was pulling on a pair of cutoffs.

“They coming?”

“Sure are,” I said. The jeans shorts were just a little tight for Zeus. Un-Midwestern, but they were cops, not fashion police. “Four on foot, two with motorcycles.”

“Move,” he said.

I moved out of the way and he got out of the van, shut the door. I handed him a soda. He opened it and flopped an arm around me. “Don’t fuck this up.”

“Not planning to,” I said.

He felt warm and hard against me, and smelled strongly of sweat. Of course he’d just robbed a bank. It thrilled me to think about that, and now here we were pretending to be a couple.

Zeus seemed even larger and more solid out of the van. He had wide shoulders, a wide neck, and lush, handsome features, with a faintly tough-guy edge. A scar on his cheekbone, small and jagged, did nothing to detract from the tough effect.