Shelby Tool and Machine Company
Lancaster, California
Five Hours Later
James Dorset leaned impatiently back behind the wheel of his pickup truck, trying to ignore the awful smell coming off his skin and hair. He hadn’t been able to shower since pulling Jessie Mercado out of the Los Angeles River the night before, and the smell was only getting worse.
He took another look around at his surroundings. This was a lousy place for him to have to cool his heels while he waited. He was parked behind the large main building of what was once the Shelby Machine and Tool Company, which obviously hadn’t seen any action in years, maybe decades. The buildings sat in the middle of a thousand-acre parking lot riddled with potholes and desert weeds protruding from every crack in the asphalt. Winds howled across the desolate landscape.
Dorset wasn’t even aware of the place’s existence until a few days before, when he and Paul Fantinelli had stowed a motorcycle there after their highway run-in with Jessie Mercado and Kendra Michaels. His hand instinctively went to his injured right leg, which still might require surgery.
Bitches.
No matter. In spite of everything that had gone wrong last night, he had made himself a very rich man. Now if only Fantinelli would get his ass back here so that he could—
Fantinelli’s van sped around the far end of the building. Finally. As the van approached, Dorset climbed out of his pickup.
Fantinelli parked, opened his door, and joined Dorset in the shadow of the building’s rusty awning. He was a tall man with a thick red beard. “How’s the leg?”
“Hurts like hell,” he said sourly. “I still think you should have let me punch Mercado’s face a few times on the way out of town.”
“Huh. I ask you, what kind of man wants to beat up an unconscious woman?”
“My kind. Especially if she’s why I may have to walk with a limp for the rest of my life.”
“I see your point.” Fantinelli smiled. “But Kendra Michaels is the one you should be mad at. She’s the one who sent you sailing over your handlebars.”
“Trust me, I haven’t forgotten about her.” Dorset gestured toward the dilapidated building. “I might pay her a visit one day soon. Are you sure no one’s around?”
“Nah, it’s been deserted since the ’nineties. Half my family used to work here. It went belly-up when the aerospace industry collapsed. Don’t get nervous. We’re safe out here.”
Dorset nodded. “Okay, if it’s so safe, maybe you can tell me why the boss wanted me to hang out here and not go with you and the other guys when you took Mercado and the money back with you?”
Fantinelli looked uneasy. “I need to talk to you about that.”
Dorset stiffened. “This doesn’t sound good.”
“It isn’t.”
Dorset’s face flushed with anger. “What the hell? Is he trying to screw me?”
“No. Calm down. It’s not that at all.”
“Then what is it?”
Fantinelli hesitated for a long moment. “It may just be smarter for you not to be seen. They may be onto you.”
“What?”
“The FBI’s been sniffing around. An agent even went to your old apartment building in Burbank.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Is there any other reason the Feds might be interested in you right now?”
Dorset shook his head. “No. How in the hell did this happen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they typed your DNA from blood off your wrecked motorcycle.”
“I told you, my DNA isn’t in any database.”
“It is now, Dorset, even if your name isn’t attached to it. And if they catch you, you’re one blood test away from being placed on that highway where we offed Adrian.”
“Shit.”
“And as long as you have this kind of heat on you, you can’t be anywhere near Delilah Winter. Or any of us. You’ll have to lay low.”
“Here in this rat trap of a factory?” Dorset tried to quell the panic and anger he heard in his own voice. “How long am I supposed to stay here? What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Fantinelli took a deep breath as he looked out at the barren landscape. Then he said soothingly, “Not long. I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch. Don’t worry, Dorset. We have a plan.”
* * *
“Listen, you have to open your eyes, Jessie. I can’t take this.”
Dee…It was Dee’s voice.
“Wake up!” Dee’s voice was fierce. “I know she lied. She just wanted to hurt me. You’re going to be fine. I won’t let her do that to us. But you have to open your eyes and prove it to her.” She sounded so upset that Jessie forced her lids to open. Dee was looking down at her, tears pouring down her cheeks. “See. I told you. It wasn’t poison; it was just more of that damn sedative she gave me.” She wiped the tears away with the back of her manacled hands and lifted her chin. “Now, don’t you dare go back to sleep.”
“I have no intention of doing that.” Jessie shook her head to clear it. “Are you okay?” She looked around and recognized the interior of an aircraft of some sort. Plane. They’d been right about what Dee had been trying to tell them…“This has to be where you’ve been kept since you were kidnapped?” Her gaze flew to Dee’s face. “What was that about poison?”
“Listen to you.” Dee’s voice was shaking. “You’re always worried about me. I’m fine. This isn’t about me. I’m not the one those nutcases tried to drown. They almost killed you. I told you to be careful.”
“This is still very much about you,” Jessie said. “And I don’t like it that they didn’t release you. They got the ransom?”
“So Charlotte told me.”
“Charlotte?”
“Dorset called her the dragon bitch.” She gestured around the plane. “She kind of runs things around here.”
“Where is everybody?” Her gaze was wandering over the plane’s interior. “We’re alone here?”
“For the time being. She’s outside talking to Fantinelli, one of the men who brought you here. There were three of them, Muntz, Blackman, and Fantinelli. I think Fantinelli was the one in charge of the others, but he left after they’d finished sedating and handcuffing you. He only just came back, and Charlotte said she had to talk to him.”
“You mentioned…Dorset. He was here with you?”
“For a little while. I think he was supposed to protect me from Charlotte. I appear to be her least favorite person.” Her eyes suddenly lit with eagerness. “What do you know about Dorset?”
“Not enough. But we were on our way to locating him before I took my spectacular dive tonight.” She sat up and reached out for Dee’s hand before she realized she was still wearing manacles. “And Kendra and Lynch and the others will keep on working to find you. They won’t give up. But we can’t give up, either.” She added grimly, “Because it appears we’re at ground zero.” She glanced at the door leading to the back of the plane. “And I’ve got to learn as much as I can as quick as I can before your dragon bitch comes back. So I’m going to fire questions at you. Okay?”
Dee nodded. “I don’t know what Charlotte’s real name is if that’s one of the questions. And I have no idea who is responsible for taking me. I’ve heard her on the phone talking to someone occasionally, but it was brief, and I didn’t get a hint of who it might be. I don’t know much about her except that she has enough power to argue about how I’m being treated with whoever is in charge.” She made a face. “And she believes it’s far too good. She disapproves not only of me, but of everyone and everything connected to the kidnapping.”
“Why?” Jessie asked. “And why would anyone who had staged such an elaborate crime pay any attention to her? Twenty-five million dollars is a lure that must be irresistible. How would she dare to argue with him?”
Dee shrugged. “All I know is that Dorset was nervous about crossing her and she was always super confident.”
“Why?” Jessie asked again. “Blackmail?”
Dee shook her head. “I’ve told you all I know.” She added, “Except that I believe she could be very dangerous. At first, I thought she was almost like a cartoon character, but the longer I was with her the more viciousness I noticed. She might not be the one in control, but I can see her striking out like a rattlesnake.”
“Which brings me back to that remark you made about poison. Did she try to poison you?”
“No. She told me she’d poisoned you.” Her lips tightened bitterly. “It was one of her sweet tricks to try to make me bleed a little more. You were delivered here by three guys who had been part of grabbing the money drop. She was pissed off that you’d been brought here for her to care for and she exploded. She was yelling that you were sopping wet and stinking like a drowned rat and ordered them to toss you in the shower and get the smell off you.” She swallowed. “You were still unconscious. I thought they were really going to drown you then. They wouldn’t let me help, Jessie.”
“Well, it appears I survived it.” She looked down and realized for the first time she was wearing jeans and a black cotton shirt. “Where did I get the dry clothes?”
Dee shook her head. “They brought them with them in a canvas bag.” She grimaced. “And they changed your clothes. Like I said, they wouldn’t let me help.”
“I’m sure I didn’t care at the time.” She was gazing down at the jeans. “They fit. They were prepared. Your Charlotte might have caused a fuss about my arrival, but I’d bet someone was expecting me.” She added slowly, “Which brings another layer to be explored. One more question. Are you ready to blow this joint?”
Dee smiled. “You bet I am. Willing and very ready.”
“I thought you would be.” She was looking around the aircraft, checking out the plaques beneath the windows.
“And we might just get lucky. This is an old Airbus A300 that Frontier Airlines evidently discarded. We had Airbus cargo planes when I was in Afghanistan, and there may be some similarities.”
“I assume you’re not going to try to fly us out of here?”
“Not practical. Instead, I believe we’ll have to see how much you remembered about what I taught you—”
“I see you’re awake,” Charlotte said as she opened the silver door and swept into the compartment. “Pity. I was hoping to put our Delilah through a little more stress before she realized that her old friend Jessie would be around a bit longer. Spoiled brats like her need every lesson we can give them.”
“I’ve never found her spoiled,” Jessie said coldly. “She’s incredibly disciplined considering what her lifestyle demands. And you didn’t fool her for long, Charlotte…if that’s really your name. She’s smart enough to realize what’s real and what’s just plain ugly.”
“You’re fooled by her like everyone else.” Charlotte’s lips curled. “That pretty face and her bouncing around on that stage singing and making her seem like she’s something special. She’s nothing but a troublemaker.”
“Then why didn’t you let her go after you got the money?” Jessie asked. “Then all your trouble would have been over.”
“No, it wouldn’t. I told you, she can fool anyone.”
“Second question. Why am I here? That doesn’t make sense, either. You didn’t need me once you had that ransom.”
“You’re here because we obey orders. And you have no right to question me. He thought he needed you, so you’re here.” She scowled. “It’s just more foolishness, but that’s the way it has to be. Now be quiet or I’ll have you gagged.”
“You broke the agreement with the FBI. You didn’t release the hostage. They’re going to assume you’ve killed her and go after you with guns blazing.” Jessie’s voice lowered to a hiss. “You may think Dee’s not important, but she’s enormously popular with her fans. The sheer public pressure to catch you will make certain they’ll have you in jail on death row within a few months. The only way to save yourself is to let her go.”
“You don’t know anything. No one is going to put me in jail. He’s smarter than all of you. He got what he wanted, and this will all be over soon.” Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “One way or the other.” She took a step closer to Jessie. “So you keep your mouth shut and you might live through this. Though I doubt it. I’ve told those three men outside on guard that they won’t receive any part of those millions if they let you escape. I’m going to have them handcuff both of you to those chairs over there and check you every hour.” She added with a sneer, “Those fools told me you were supposed to be so tough while they were scrubbing you down. But here you are handcuffed and helpless and so that must have been lies.” She turned away. “Just like all those lies about your bitch friend Delilah.”
“Where are you going?” Jessie’s eyes were suddenly narrowed on Charlotte’s face. “That sounds like you’re leaving us. I was told you ran things around here.”
“Of course I do. But that doesn’t mean I have to stay here and wipe your asses. I’m going for a drive. We’re coming down to the end and I have a few arrangements to make. I don’t want those goons listening to my calls. They brought a case of champagne with them and that might make them so stinko, they might not care what I’m saying. I have to be sure, though.” She shrugged. “Those idiots will do exactly what I tell them whether I’m here or not.” She added sarcastically as she headed for the silver door, “Do be good for them, Jessie. Otherwise I’ll tell them they have permission to rape Delilah. You might have been the one who was brought here to exert pressure, but I’d much rather see it happen to her. And it would be amusing to give those assholes their last chance at screwing the great Delilah.” She was smiling maliciously. “Oh, yes, definitely their last chance. I guarantee they’d be willing. They won’t see why they shouldn’t have their fun now that they already have the money. That’s even funnier.” She was laughing as the heavy door slammed behind her.
“I told you.” Dee drew a deep breath. “I’m her least favorite person.”
“Definitely,” Jessie said grimly. “There’s real antagonism. Another question mark.”
“She’s trying to use us against each other,” Dee said. “You can’t let her do that. You shouldn’t have even come after me. I’m not that kid who you thought you had to take care of. I can do that myself these days.” Her lips twisted. “Though I might have let you think that because it kept you close to me. Not very nice, right? So you let me take my share of the hard knocks from now on. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” she said gently. “We’ll discuss the distribution of the hard knocks later.” She frowned. “I was more interested that Charlotte got careless enough to perhaps let us know why I was brought here. I’ll have to think about it.” She shook her head impatiently. “But I don’t want to worry about it right now. That was a hollow threat she made. She’s not going to turn the beasts on you now. As she said, they’re too near their payday, but no matter what she boasts, she’s not the one in control.” The door was opening again, and she whispered quickly, “Don’t argue, don’t fight them. Just notice everything about them and what they do that might help us. All we want is to let them chain us up and then get the hell out of here so that we can get busy…”
* * *
Kendra glanced at the caller ID as she jumped on the phone to answer it. At last! “Metcalf, tell me you have some good news from checking those traffic cams.”
“Sorry, but there’s nothing so far. They probably switched vehicles and jumped onto the 10 Freeway. We’re checking every garage and storage unit in the area, but nothing’s turned up yet.”
“Damn.”
“But there is something else…we got a hit on our Be On the Look Out for James Dorset.”
Her hand clenched on the phone. “You found him?”
“Not exactly. But his pickup truck has turned up.”
“Where?”
“North L.A. County, up in Lancaster. It’s parked behind an old factory there. A sheriff’s department helicopter spotted it. It must have looked out of place to them, so they ran his plate and picked up the BOLO.”
“No sign of Dorset?”
“He’s not in the building or anywhere in the surrounding grounds. The truck is clean, so it was probably abandoned recently.”
“I want to see it.”
“I had no doubt. A tow truck is en route to bring it to the FBI garage in West L.A. You can examine it there tonight.”
“I want to see it right where it is. Lynch and I are heading up to Lancaster right now.”
Lynch wrinkled his brow and mouthed, We are?
“Kendra, our tow truck is already—”
“If they get there before we do, have them wait. Don’t let them touch anything. Do you understand?”
“Of course I understand,” Metcalf said. “But remember this operation is being run out of the L.A. regional office. They’re not used to taking orders from you here.”
“Come on, I never order. I politely request.”
“Ha. Keep telling yourself that, Kendra. Get yourself up there as quickly as you can. Don’t worry, I’ll buy you some time before they haul the car away.”
“You’re the best. Text me the address?”
“Already done.”
“Thanks, Metcalf.”
* * *
Kendra and Lynch were halfway to the factory when Lynch received a call from the Swiss AV lab. His conversation was in French, and Kendra could only understand a few words before he hung up. She watched as he took a few notes. “Good?”
“Probably better than good. They’ve identified the software used to alter the voice, and they reverse-engineered the recording to give us an accurate facsimile of the caller. Karl said he’s going to finish the last bit and transmit it to us within the hour.”
“You’re right: better than good.” She was nibbling nervously at her lower lip. “How accurate?”
“Every detail. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference if you were listening to the actual caller’s speaking voice and accents.”
“Shit. I want to hear it now.”
“I know you do.” He chuckled. “That was a given. But you’ll have to wait until he transmits it. Be patient. At least you have something to keep you busy until you can get your hands on it.” He glanced at his watch. “We should be at the factory very soon.”
Kendra and Lynch reached the abandoned factory in slightly less than twenty minutes. They pulled into the lot and circled around until they saw the large pickup truck and an L.A. County Sheriff’s police cruiser parked behind the main building. Kendra stopped, and she and Lynch climbed out of her car.
Two sheriff’s deputies were getting out of the cruiser to greet them. The larger of the two men spoke. “Kendra Michaels?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “I’m Deputy Locker, this is Merritt. We were told to extend every courtesy to you.”
Lynch smiled. “Anyone mention the name Adam Lynch to you?”
“Sorry.”
“No worries. It’s healthy to be occasionally put in my place.”
Kendra walked around the pickup truck, examining it with the intensity of a laser scanner. It was a white Dodge Ram 3500, jacked up to an almost ridiculous degree and equipped with a locked hard-plastic bed cover. “I’m surprised you guys found this out here.”
Merritt stepped toward her. “It was our helicopter patrol. I guess the pickup looked suspicious, like maybe there was a drug deal going down. Then they found out you were looking for it.”
“We’re really looking for its owner. James Dorset.”
“No sign of him, I’m afraid.” He pointed to the chained-and-padlocked main door of the factory. “The building is locked up tight as a drum. No one’s been in there for years.”
“Wrong. Someone’s been in there in the last week.” Kendra ignored the deputies’ surprised looks and crouched next to the right front quarter panel. “Well, maybe his car can help us find him.”
Lynch squatted beside her. “What’s it telling you?”’
“That this car has been in Santa Monica recently. Several times. It’s been parked near the coast pretty much every night since he left his apartment in Burbank.”
“That’s obvious,” Lynch said solemnly, though his eyes were twinkling. “Only to you, of course.”
Still in a crouched position, she moved back a few feet. “But he’s been driving up here almost every day.” She cocked her head. “Actually, no. Not here. Maybe thirty miles north of here.”
“It’s a long commute,” Lynch said. “He must have had a good reason to make that run every day.”
Locker stared at her as if she were from another planet. “What the hell’s going on here?”
Kendra stood. “Just doing what I came here to do.”
“Are you…psychic?”
“I don’t think I believe in psychics.” She crossed around to the other side of the car. “Do you?”
“Not until about thirty seconds ago.”
“I’m not seeing anything you guys didn’t see. I just don’t take things I see for granted.”
Lynch clicked his tongue. “Put them out of their misery, Kendra.”
“Only them?”
“Okay, me too.”
“Look at the tires on the driver’s side.”
Lynch and the deputies walked around and leaned over.
“See those obnoxious chalk marks?”
“Yes,” Lynch said, “Bright yellow, lime green, hot pink…”
“Meter maid marks,” Deputy Locker identified eagerly.
“Very good,” Kendra said. ”Although your law-enforcement brethren may object to the nomenclature. Santa Monica parking enforcement uses these at night for cars parked in busy areas like Third Street Promenade, so they can see if they’ve overstayed the posted limits.”
“Almost every place does that,” Deputy Merritt said. “We do it here.”
“But Santa Monica is the only place I know of that uses this bright, almost-fluorescent chalk. It makes it easier to see at night, but it doesn’t fade as quickly. It’s been annoying the hell out of people.” She glanced at Lynch. “I got one on my car when I visited Jessie’s office last month.”
“How do you know this car’s been driving up north of here?” Merritt said.
“Look at the grille. Lots of dead bugs, including yucca moths. They pollinate yucca flowers up in the Mojave Desert. And I see lots of dragonflies, which are also common up there. The bugs are in various states of decay, meaning this car has recently made repeated trips.”
Merritt nodded. “Huh.”
“But there’s something else here…” Kendra pointed to the right headlight. “There’s sand lodged here around the plastic headlight casing. It’s true on the other side, and in back. I know sand can blow across the roads up there, but this looks like this vehicle has been going off road.”
“They could be keeping Delilah somewhere up there,” Lynch said.
“And now maybe Jessie.” Kendra crossed around to the back of the vehicle. “We need to—” She froze. “Oh, God.”
Lynch rushed to her side. “What is it?”
She backed away and pointed to the covered compartment. “There’s a dead body here.”
“You can smell it?” Lynch said.
She nodded jerkily.
“Because I’ve been around more than my share of corpses,” Lynch said. “I know what death smells like, and I’m not picking anything up.”
Kendra backed farther away, trying to get away from that awful odor. “So do I. This is fresh, only hours old.”
“In my experience, it takes at least a day for a body to begin giving off—”
“Not true,” she said. “Ask any hospice nurse.”
Lynch turned to the deputies. “Open this compartment. Now.”
Merritt grabbed a pry bar from his squad car. He ran back and started working on the locked cover.
Kendra couldn’t take her eyes away. What—or who—was she going to see in there? Logically it was clear it wasn’t going to be a good outcome. A brutal kidnapping. A ransom delivered and yet the victims not returned.
The victims…Dee? Jessie? Please, no…
“Easy.” Lynch pulled her closer.
Merritt popped the trunk, and then stepped back. “Oh, God. You’re right. We gotta call this in.”
Kendra could see the figure curled in the trunk. She stepped nearer to get a better view.
It wasn’t Jessie.
It wasn’t Dee.
Oh, thank you, God.
It was a man.
She forced herself to examine his features, which she had seen before on the photo on his car license.
Dorset, she realized. “James Dorset.”
“They knew we were on to him,” Lynch said. “He was a loose end they needed to clip off.”
Kendra pulled a pair of evidence gloves from her pocket and slid them on. She checked the dead man’s pockets. Empty.
“His hair smells like that spot of the Los Angeles River we were on last night. But there’s nothing here,” she said. “No wallet, nothing.”
“You were expecting a hand-drawn map to the kidnappers’ secret prison?” Lynch pulled out his phone and snapped photos of the corpse.
“Would have been nice.” She thought for a minute. “We think Dee was trying to tell us something…having to do with an airplane. Are there any airports in the desert up there?”
“Edwards Air Force Base.”
She shook her head. “Military. Doesn’t seem too likely.”
“I agree…” Lynch suddenly whirled toward her. “But wait a minute…What if it isn’t an airport at all?”
“What are you talking about?”
His gaze was narrowed, his expression intense. “The Boneyard.”
“I still don’t follow.”
“It’s an outdoor storage site for civilian aircraft. It’s in the desert and it goes on for miles. Over a thousand commercial airliners are stored out there, almost in the middle of nowhere. What better place to hide Dee? You could lose an army in that—”
“Of course, you could.” Kendra was already running back toward her car. “Let’s go. I’ll call Kelland on the way.”
* * *
Kendra had already pulled onto State Route 14 by the time she’d called Kelland and explained what she and Lynch had seen and put together.
“Let’s check it out,” he said instantly. “I’ll put together a team and rendezvous with you and Lynch at the Mojave Air and Space Port. We can be there inside of two hours.”
“We’re not waiting around,” Kendra said. “We’re less than twenty-five minutes out.”
“Kendra, listen to me…”
“You listen. They have their money, and they still haven’t released Dee. And now they have Jessie. There’s no telling what they’ll do. They have to be on edge. They’ve just killed one of their own men in the last couple hours. We can’t waste time.”
“I’m in charge of this investigation. I’m ordering you to wait for us, Kendra.”
“Sorry, Kelland. Call me when you get there.” She cut the connection and glanced at Lynch. “We’re on the same page, right?”
“Of course. It was my idea, and I’m far too arrogant not to believe it’s a good one,” Lynch said. “But Kelland may have a point. Who knows what we may find out there?”
“We may find nothing.” Her hands clenched on the steering wheel. “But I can’t just sit around for hours when Dee and Jessie might need us.”
“And I agree. But we don’t know who and how many people we may find ourselves up against. I wasn’t exaggerating when I told you there might be over a thousand commercial planes to search through. We need to be careful.”
She gazed at him in disbelief. “Now I’ve heard everything. What is the world coming to when Adam Lynch wants to be cautious? It’s almost as if—” She broke off as Lynch’s phone rang.
“Do you suppose you can stop harassing me so that I can take this call from Karl?” Lynch said dryly.
“Karl? I almost forgot about that transmission.”
“You had something else to think about.” He pressed the button. “But I think that you have time to analyze it now, don’t you? Lean back and listen.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice. All of her attention was focused on that voice. It was incredibly clear in every detail. “Keep playing it.” She closed her eyes. “Over and over. There’s something…there.”
Lynch didn’t answer, he just put the message on repeat and remained silent. The voice was surrounding her, becoming part of her, the roughness, the sarcasm, the intonations…She inhaled sharply and then paused for a long moment. Her lids flew open. “Holy shit.”
“What is it? Is it a voice you recognize?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never heard it before in my life.”
“Then what—”
“Wait, don’t talk to me for a minute.” She rode in silence for a few moments, letting the thought percolate. It was possible and yet it was difficult to believe that it could be true. She didn’t want it to be true because it increased the deadliness that Dee and Jessie were facing. Yet could she be right?
Lynch leaned toward her. “Kendra?”
“Okay. Okay. But you’re probably not going to believe what I’m about to tell you.”
“What?”
She looked straight ahead and then just went for it. “I think I know who did this.”
* * *
“For God’s sake, I told you to play it cool,” Jessie said impatiently as she gazed at Dee’s bleeding lip. “What part of that didn’t you understand?”
“The part where that ape was groping you when he was supposedly checking your manacles.“ She scowled. “And I was pretty cool. I only bit his arm to distract him. It did the job. He left, didn’t he? You said Charlotte wouldn’t turn them loose on me. You didn’t mention that you might still be on their menu.” She met her eyes. “But you probably knew it might happen, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did,” she said curtly. “They probably guessed I was fair game or would be soon. Plus they were bored and eager to get their share of the money. Sexual dominance was bound to be the next move now that your dragon bitch was temporarily out of the picture. And it might not have gone any farther if I’d just let him feel me up and have a taste of fun.”
“And what if it had? Was I supposed to watch him rape you?” Dee emphatically shook her head. “No way. I got pretty tired of seeing them toss you around and half drown you after they got you here. I’m not going to let it go on. I’ll find a way to stop it.”
Jessie should have known that Dee would have that response, but it was too dangerous to ignore. She had to convince her that restraint was the way to handle this nightmare. No, that wasn’t all, she also had to give her a weapon to fight it if everything went to hell. “Look, bad things sometimes happen. It’s not only assholes like those guys. I’ve seen it in Afghanistan, in the slums of New Orleans…” She hesitated. “And it can seem terrible at the time. But no matter what they do, it doesn’t mean that they’ve beaten me. I just close out whatever bad has happened to me and go on. Because, in the end, that’s the only way to win.”
“That’s very inspiring. Are you finished?”
“Not unless you understand what I’m trying to tell you. I’ve often found situations don’t escalate if no overt action is taken. Will you trust me on this?”
“I always trust you.” Dee was smiling. “And I’m very touched that you’re trying to gently let me into the dark side of your world that you’ve struggled so hard to keep from me. But it’s not as if I didn’t know it was there. From the moment you came into my life, you were the most important person in it. You were the one who would always tell me the truth, the one who believed in me when I wasn’t sure I believed in myself. Did you think that I wouldn’t make sure I knew what was below the surface?”
Jessie stared at her for a long moment. Dee was smiling, but beneath it her expression held a kind of serenity. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“I’m trying to tell you that I hope you’ll be my friend forever, but I won’t keep you chained by pretending to be what I’m not.” She added quietly, “I don’t need you, Jessie. I can survive almost anything that comes my way these days and come out stronger. So don’t tell me not to help you when and if I choose.”
Jessie found her lips quirking. “I’ll try to keep my advice to myself.”
Dee frowned. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“You can’t shout out a declaration of emancipation like that and then apologize. It doesn’t work that way. It was a great declaration and you should keep it intact.”
“You’re being bossy. But you’re right, it was pretty awesome.”
“If I can offer a suggestion, would you wipe that blood on your lip on your shirtsleeve? It hurts me to see it.”
Dee immediately wiped away the blood. “You’re very manipulative.”
“Just to show you that need comes in many shapes and nuances.”
“I knew that.” Her voice was suddenly husky. “I just didn’t want you to feel that particular nuance was an obligation.”
“Exception noted.” She paused. “But if that situation occurs again, I want you to remember what I said.” She shrugged and then said slowly, “Though it might not occur. Perhaps the play is already in motion. I was just thinking of what Charlotte said before she left. It was half threat, but there was something…very ugly when she was talking about those assholes who delivered me here.”
“Ugly?” Dee was frowning as she mentally went over that conversation. “She said it would be amusing to give those assholes their last chance at screwing me.”
Jessie nodded. “And then she repeated something about it definitely would be their last chance. She thought it was funny.”
“I must have missed the humor.” Then Dee slowly nodded as she realized where Jessie was going. “It wasn’t entirely aimed at me. You believe there’s no way those bastards are going to get their share of the ransom.”
“They’re not needed any longer,” Jessie said simply. “It just depends what time and method is going to be chosen to get rid of them. I’d judge that Charlotte’s sudden exit and craving for privacy have something to do with that decision.”
She shuddered. “What did I say about a rattlesnake?”
“You always did have a way with imagery. That’s why your lyrics come out so well.” Her gaze shifted to the door. “The rattlesnake or the ape? Now all we have to do is wait and see which one comes through that door in the next hour. I’m betting on the reptile…”