I Hear Voices (8 page)

“Something like that.”

“Gosh, I think I’ll have to pass.”

“Get ready to meet Phoenix’s finest.”

“Whoopdee-do,

I’m

all

atwitter

in

anticipation.”

“You might be able to outrun the cops but I can find you no matter where you go.”

“Gee, I’m surprised I don’t have my own satellite by now.”

“You do.”

I laughed. “Right. Like the U.S. government would just let you borrow one, when you needed it.”

“You have sixty seconds to get to the emergency lane before I disable the engine.”

“Good luck with that. I overrode your security system.”

There was a long pause then he snarled, “One of your uncle’s gadgets?”

“Yep.” I glanced in the rear view mirror and frowned. Was that a gang of bikers on my ass?

“Granny, does that look like the Dirty Dozen or the Pirates?”

“Dear God, that’s One-Eyed Jack.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I sucked in a calming breath.

It’d be okay, there was no way they knew I was in this Hummer. Unless… I groaned. “Please tell me you didn’t broadcast my name across the police scanners?”

“It’s standard procedure,” Derek growled.

“Well your standard procedure is going to get me killed.”

“Nice try.”

Eight motley bikers encircled the Hummer like a pack of hungry wolves.

A cry of alarm tore from me as they started bashing out windows with crowbars and heavy chains.

“Pull over,” One-Eyed Jack shouted.

I floored it, darting across three lanes in a desperate attempt to lose them in the heavy traffic. “Sic’em Granny.”

She vanished. In the rear view mirror, I saw her materialize on the handlebars of Renegade’s Harley.

Renegade’s eyes bugged out, his bike wobbled dangerously before he slammed on the brakes and was rear ended by a Volkswagen.

Sloan demanded, “What’s going on?”

“My imaginary pack of bikers broke out your windows and are chasing me,” I answered, veering around an old lady in a Cadillac who was crawling along at a sedate twenty-five miles an hour.

“Give them a bad reading?”

“Har. Har. Their girlfriends wanted to know their futures and I told them.”

“Let me guess, unmarked graves in the desert?”

“You get a gold star.”

“The girlfriends turned the assholes in?”

“Yep, they handed Sheriff Joe a flash drive loaded with enough evidence to put the entire gang behind bars for the next four hundred years.”

“How did they find out about you, Angel?”

“One-Eyed Jack’s bitch had a change of heart,”

I answered, zigzagging around two slow moving semi-trucks.

“She’s dead?”

“Oh yeah, they’re still finding pieces of her.”

“You wouldn’t be in this mess if you stayed where I put you.”

“News flash, I’m not your trained hunting dog and I’m not letting you walk away with all the treasure.”

“I’ll give you ten percent of the gold.”

“Why that is mighty generous of you but I have to pass.”

One-Eyed Jack roared up to the shattered driver’s window and waved a . Magnum, Dirty Harry special at me. “Pull over, bitch.”

I shouted back, “You need a big gun to make up for your little dick, asshole?”

He cranked off a round.

I shrieked and flinched. To my utter amazement, the bullet hit the door frame, ricocheted off the metal and struck One-Eyed Jack in the shoulder.

His Hog careened wildly and crashed into the freeway wall. One-Eyed tumbled head over heels and was hit by the old lady in the Cadillac.

“Ouch! That had to hurt.”

Derek bellowed, “Do you have a death wish?”

“Stop yelling at me. I’ve got the headache from hell, every inch of my body hurts and I really need some chocolate,” I ended on a wail.

“I’ll buy you a fucking box of chocolate every fucking day; just don’t get dead on me.”

“Okay, but it’s gotta be Godiva.” Veering around a freaked out teenager in a Camaro, I heard a loud bang and the Hummer fishtailed wildly. “Oh God! Oh God!”

A big bear of a man with a bushy beard filled my side view mirror. I broke out in a cold sweat as Pirate John raised his shotgun and shot out my left rear tire.

The Hummer swerved violently from lane to lane. White knuckling the steering wheel, I fought desperately for control.

Horns blared, tires squealed and a series of loud crashes sounded behind me. I shot a quick glance at the rearview mirror. Freaked out motorists were crashing right and left as they tried to evade the gun wielding bikers.

Sparks flew like fireworks on the Fourth of July as the Hummer’s back tires shredded and the rims ground against the asphalt.

“Hold on. The police are three minutes out,”

Sloan growled.

“I’ll be dead by then.” The Hummer skidded left, struck the guardrail, bounced back and went into a spin.

“Turn into the skid,” Derek commanded.

I instinctively obeyed, hit guardrail again and flipped the Hummer. Metal shrieked like fingernails down a blackboard as the Hummer slid sideways

down the emergency lane and came to a stop next to a yield sign.

“Turn into the skid, he says. Great advice, if you wanna crash,” I grumbled and released the seatbelt. I fell against passenger’s side door and lay there for a moment as my head spun dizzily. God, I’d kill for some Advil.

The driver’s airbag deployed with a loud bang.

My eyes popped open in horror and I quickly threw my arms up in front of my face. Bam! The passenger side airbag deployed and white powder filled the air. “Sonvabitch, that stings!” I rubbed my burning arms and hacked up a lung. That stuff was awful.

The roar of Hogs had me scrambling for my bag. “Granny?”

She popped in wearing a police uniform. “I’ve taken out three of the perps.”

“Four down, four to go.” I pulled out a stun gun and a smoke bomb out of my backup bag.

Pirate John called, “I know you’re in there, pumpkin.” His hairy paw reached through the shattered window.

I nailed him with the stun gun.

His loud shrieks were music to my ears. “How’d you like that, pumpkin?”

“Smoke bomb now,” Granny Annabel cried.

Lobbing the smoke bomb out the driver’s window, I quickly crawled out of the rear window and ran like hell. Okay, it was more of a totter.

Those blasted black dots were back and I was still hacking.

Bullets raked the asphalt around me. “Freeze or the next one is in your head,” a gravelly voice shouted.

I staggered to a halt and raised my hands.

“Drop the stun gun”

I did.

“Turn around.”

Cautiously, I turned and groaned as Peg Leg Pete limped towards me. He was the worst of the bunch, a little rat-faced man with an explosive temper and a really big gun.

Looking around for any sign of Pirate John, my eyes bugged in disbelief. Holy cow! It looked like a scene from an apocalyptic disaster movie. Dozens of smashed vehicles littered the smoke filled freeway. Panicked people abandoned their cars and fled down the exit ramps.

Knowing Derek, he’d probably blame me for this mess. Okay, it kinda was my fault.

“You fucking bitch!” Peg Leg Pete backhanded me, rocking my head back. The freeway danced around me, my vision misted over and I hit the hot asphalt.

“You’re one dead bitch. I’m gonna gut shoot you. When you’re screamin’ real pretty, and beggin’ me to kill ya, then I’m gonna fuck ya.”

His pecker was history. Pushing myself into a sitting position, I motioned at the traffic cameras and the multitude of helicopters hovering

overhead. “You might want to rethink that decision. Cuz it’s not a real smart thing to do in front of all these cameras.”

Peg Leg looked up and jaw dropped. “Fuck.”

“Don’t you get it? We’re breaking news and the entire world is watching. And don’t forget all the people with cell phones who are downloading this to YouTube. Hey, it might even go viral.”

“I ain’t goin’ back to jail,” Peg Leg screamed and immediately shot the crap out of the traffic cameras. He reloaded and emptied an entire clip at the news helicopters.

Okay, he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the pack.

Not only were the helicopters way out of range, they had telephoto lenses. Wiping at the blood dripping down my chin, I snarled, “Granny, freeze his nuts off.”

“With great pleasure.” Granny Annabel grabbed his

balls

and

the

temperature

dropped

dramatically. Ice began to form on the roadway.

Peg Leg Pete screamed and did this funky chicken dance, while frantically trying to reload.

“I’m gonna kill ya! I’m gonna fucking kill ya!”

“Drop the gun or I’ll do the world a favor and have Granny neuter you.”

A Black Hawk helicopter suddenly swooped down and skimmed just above the wrecked vehicles. Derek’s commanding voice rang out, “Drop the gun!”

I glared up at the helicopter. “I’ve got it under control.”

Pirate John popped up from behind a black Escalade and unleashed a barrage of lead at the helicopter.

Okay, maybe not.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! The Black Hawk’s machine gun turned the Escalade into scrap metal.

I hit the deck and covered my aching head.

What kind of idiot shoots at a fully armed military helicopter?

The gunfire stopped.

I popped my head up for a quick look. A dead idiot. I didn’t have to worry about Pirate John anymore. Nope. He was saying howdy to the devil about now.

Derek, heavily armed and dressed in a black tactical uniform, rappelled from Black Hawk and landed lightly on the roof of a smoldering semi-truck. Every inch of him screamed predator.

His merciless gaze locked on Peg Leg Pete’s bow-legged run for the exit ramp. Sloan pulled his pistol and fired one shot.

Peg Leg screamed and crumpled to the asphalt.

Damn, he had shot him in the good leg. Me? I’d turned his wooden leg into scrap lumber.

“Drop the gun,” Derek shouted.

“Fuck you,” the moron shrieked, firing wildly.

Bullets zinged over my head. The way this day was going, I’d be dead by midnight.

Unfazed by the barrage of lead, Sloan ducked behind a Buick and waited until Peg Leg ran out of

ammo. He yelled, “Last chance. Drop the fucking gun or you’re a dead man.”

“Save your breath,” I mumbled. “Numb Nuts isn’t gonna listen.”

Numb Nuts rammed another clip in.

Derek stood and fired.

Peg Leg’s head snapped back and he toppled over with a nice bullet hole between his eyes.

“I told you, your man would protect you,”

Granny crowed.

“You did.” Derek was downright lethal and determined to get that gold. He needed me to find it, and he would protect me until we found the mother lode. After that, I wasn’t quite sure what he would do. Probably dump me in the middle of the road and drive off.

The roar of a motorcycle engine brought my head around. A red Harley shot of the smoke and skidded to a stop next to me.

One look at the rider had me on my feet and backing away.

The guy was huge with bulging biceps and a shitload of tattoos covering his massive chest. His black vest had Hells Angels’ death head patches on it.

I had seen those tattoos before but where? My brain had done gone on holiday and damned if I could remember. I didn’t think he was one of Pirate John’s men but I couldn’t see Mister Muscles’ face through the tinted faceplate on his motorcycle helmet.

“Get on,” he growled.

Did he think I was stupid? “Look, if you don’t want to get shot by that big guy over there, you’ll leave. Right now. Shoo, go away.”

“Shoo? Give me a fucking break.”

The next thing I knew he had grabbed a fistful of my shirt and yanked me across his lap. “Hey! Let go of me.” I wriggled frantically against his iron grip.

“Hang on,” he said and gunned it, expertly weaving his Harley around the abandoned vehicles.

“Zelda,” Derek shouted.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him running towards me.

“Help me,” I shrieked as my head missed the bumper of a Mercedes by a scant inch. “He’s gonna kill me!”

The Black Hawk fired off a warning.

The burst of bullets chewed up the pavement in front of us.

Cursing, my kidnapper did a , shot behind a gasoline tanker and used the roiling smoke for cover as he sped away.

Faster and faster cars whizzed by inches from my face. I clung to the bastard’s leg and screamed bloody murder.

Granny appeared on the back of the motorcycle. “Don’t you know who he is?”

“Haven’t a clue.” I cried and bit his leg. Hard.

“Goddamnit Zelda, stop biting me,” Mister Muscles roared, zooming down the exit ramp.

“It’s Dixon Deeter.”

Oh shit! I had just bitten the leader of the Dirty Dozen. One of the most feared biker gangs in the known universe.

My stomach roiled and my head felt like it was going to explode. I pinched Dixon’s leg and yelled over the roaring motor, “If you don’t want me hurling all over your boot, Dixon, you’ll let me up.

Now!”

Dixon skidded to a stop by a city park and jerked me upright.

Too late. I hurled all over him and his motorcycle.

He pulled off his helmet and threw it on the ground. “I don’t fucking believe it.”

“I’ve got a head injury,” I wailed and promptly puked on his boots and the helmet.

Deeter inquired in an extremely polite tone, “Done yet?”

“Think so.”

He grabbed me and yanked my t-shirt right off.

“Hey! Give it back.”

“When I’m finished.”

I gaped in horror as he used my shirt to clean off his bike, his crotch and his boots.

“Here ya go,” Dixon said, holding out my puke encrusted shirt.

I backed away. “Ewww. You can keep it. All I want to know is why you’re doing this?”

He rubbed a hand over his shaved head and shrugged. “You’re my property. I protect what’s mine.”

I rolled my eyes. God, he kinda sounded like Derek. “About that… I know you made me an honorary member of the Dirty Dozen when I saved your daughter from that murderous pedophile but this is nuts. I’m not your property. You don’t owe me anything. Just leave me here. You have no idea what’s going on or what kind of trouble I’m in.”