Unplugged (32 page)

I know my final clients of the morning almost made me look sane.

“We did it in the theater.”

My thoughts screeched to a shuddering halt. I jerked my attention to the Hunts. They had opted to come in twice a week. Tuesdays and Fridays. They both sat on the couch, squashed together like overripe bananas.

Mrs. Hunt was blushing. And if half of what she said was true, she damned well should be. In fact, even if it wasn’t true . . .

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The AMC near our house, just after the trailers.”

She was clutching her husband’s arm as she lowered her voice to a giggling whisper. “I think the usher might have spotted us.”

“I see.” I blinked and found that I
could
almost see them—humping away like wild dingoes while Tristan and Isolde went at it on the big screen. And now I was going to have to poke out my eyes.

“It was so exciting. Like we were teenagers again.”

Or felons.

“We appreciate your help, Doc,” said Mr. Hunt seriously. I couldn’t help but notice that he was blushing, too. That made three of us.

“Yes. You’re the best,” said Mrs. Hunt, putting her hand on her husband’s chest and leaning toward me conspiratorially. “We’re thinking of doing it in the lunchroom at his work.”

B
y the time they left I felt like I’d been flagellated with a thousand rubber bands. I dropped my head on my desk and refused to believe I was responsible for the Hunts’ temporary insanity. I hadn’t told them to mate like hamsters on speed. I had simply suggested that they take each other’s desires into consideration, that they step back from the pressures of the world and . . .

Oh, what the hell,
I thought. They were adults, they were married, if they wanted to screw like power tools, who was I to object? I had enough problems of my own.

Who had called me? And why? What did they want? The embezzled money? It was the only conclusion I could come up with. But then what? Did that mean that Solberg really was involved? Did that mean he’d absconded with the cash?

The phone rang. I jumped, then sat in a silent haze. It rang again. It took me a minute to realize Elaine was still out to lunch. Longer still to answer the phone. I picked up the receiver, held it to my ear, turned it around so the cord pointed down, and spouted the appropriate salutation.

But the caller spoke before I had finished. “We got your friend.” The voice was low and guttural.

The hair on my arms fluttered upright. “What?”

“Your secretary. We got her.”

My skin went cold, my chest tight. “I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We don’t wanna hurt her.”

I was gripping the receiver hard against my ear. “Elaine? You’ve got Elaine?”

“We’ll exchange her for your geek friend.”

“For Solberg?”

“He gives us back what he took and we’ll let her go.”

“I don’t know where he is. I don’t even know—”

He laughed. The sound quivered down my spine. “Thought you two girls was pals.”

“Don’t hurt her.” My voice sounded odd. Stripped bare. “Please.”

“Get the Geek to San Cobina by two o’clock today and everything’ll be all right.”

“San Cobina?” I shook my head. As if he could see. As if I could think. “I don’t know—”

“Take the Two north toward the mountains. There’s a side road runs west just after—”

“Wait! Wait.” I scrambled for scrap paper and began to write. My hand wobbled erratically. I began again, carefully, like a first-grader with a crayon.

He laid out the route, then, “Be there at two.”

“But it’s already . . .” I glanced at the clock on the wall beside the door. “It’s almost one. I can’t—”

“If he don’t show, you’d better find yourself a new friend. If you tell the cops, you better find yourself a coffin.”

The phone went dead.

I sat listening to the dull drone. My hand hurt from gripping the receiver. I removed it from my ear and stared at it, as if it were a foreign object, as if everything would be all right if I could just identify it. Thoughts tumbled disjointedly in my head. I had not only failed, I had exacerbated the problem. I had jeopardized Elaine.

Laney.

Her name was an agonized wail in my mind. I felt suddenly sick to my stomach. I teetered to the bathroom and threw up, then leaned back against the toilet and stared numbly at the single lightbulb overhead.

And suddenly I knew. I knew who and I knew why.

Standing shakily, I tottered back to my desk. My hand was oddly steady when I picked up the receiver and dialed.

“Electronic Universe. Rex speaking.”

I was completely calm now, as if everything was as it should be. “Rex,” I said, “this is Christina McMullen.”

“Oh. I—”

“I need you to get a message to J. D. Solberg.”

“I don’t know if—”

“I do. He’s been there in the past few days. He’ll be there again. I need to get a message to him immediately. Tell him Emery Black has Elaine.” I gave him the address her abductor had given me. “Tell him if anything happens to her, he’d be better off dead.”

I hung up, then called Solberg’s cell phone and his home phone and left the same message.

I was in my car within minutes. The midday traffic seemed terminal. It began to rain, spitting in from the southwest. I drove like one in a trance, slowly, methodically.

Black had Elaine. I was certain of it. But he wouldn’t hurt her. He was too smart for that. He needed her.

I should have known when I saw the golden pear in his office that he was to blame for Solberg’s disappearance. I should have known, because it wasn’t a pear. It was the Lightbulb Award. Which meant he had been with J.D. the night of the banquet. They hadn’t gone out with Vegas bimbos to celebrate, because Solberg had Elaine, and Black had Solberg, or at least he thought he did. Companionable, drunk, and giddy with their mutual success, they’d headed for the lounge, where Black had spilled his secrets, and set this whole chain of events in motion.

I took the 210, then turned north onto the 2, reading my directions I as drove.

The highway wriggled like a rattlesnake into the mountains. The road I turned onto was graveled and steep. The Saturn’s tires crunched against the unstable surface as I climbed.

A green Pontiac was parked in a bald circle surrounded by ragged mountains.

A big guy got out of the vehicle. It was Jed. My courage sloughed away like water down a drain, leaving me rigid and nauseous. Opening the car door was all I could manage.

Rain spattered down on me, blurring my eyesight.

There were two people in the backseat of the Pontiac, but I couldn’t see them well enough to identify them.

Solberg was nowhere to be seen. I was on my own.

I left my door open. The Saturn
ding
ed behind me, sounding pathetic and alone in the hard patter of the rain.

“Where’s Elaine?” I asked, but my voice was no more than a feeble croak. Jed kept walking toward me. There was another man standing on a rock at the edge of the parking lot, looking down.

I tried again. “I want to see Elaine.”

The lookout turned toward me, but no one answered. Panic swelled like bile in my system. I held up a shaky hand and was somewhat surprised to see that it was clutched around my cell phone. “Stop where you are or I’ll call the police. I swear I will.”

Jed took another step toward me.

“I’ve already got it dialed,” I said. I didn’t. Or at least I don’t think I did. But then, I’d actually forgotten about the phone completely, so it’s hard to say for sure.

The lookout stepped down from his rock. Both men wore jeans and T-shirts.

“I want to see Laney.” My voice warbled, but didn’t fail me completely.

“Where’s the geek?” Jed asked.

“Get your boss on the phone. I’ll tell him.”

Jed laughed. The noise rumbled evilly through me. “You got balls, bitch. Too bad that ain’t enough to keep your friend alive,” he said, and turned toward the car.

“I can get the money!” I rasped.

He turned back, a hungry smirk quirking his lips. “What money?”

“Just tell your boss.”

“Listen—”

“Tell him!” I snapped.

He pulled a phone from his pocket and pushed a button, his gaze never leaving mine.

I could only hear slivers of the conversation.

“He wants to talk to you,” Jed said.

And I wanted to hurl. “Put the phone down and back away.”

He grinned.

“Do it,” I ordered, lifting my cell, “or the FBI will be down your throat before you can scratch your ass.”

He backed away. I crept forward, knees knocking, and lifted the phone to my ear.

“I know everything, Black,” I said.

Silence echoed at the other end, then, “You’re lying.”

Emery Black sounded as if he hadn’t slept for a while. But he had good reason for his insomnia, because Solberg had gone to Electronic Universe, and with the help of their mind-boggling technology, had zipped the embezzled money out of Black’s account and into safekeeping, until he could, eventually, explain everything to the cops.

Or so I believed. In fact, I was betting my life on it.

“It’s the truth,” I said. “I know you embezzled from NeoTech, I know Solberg knows. I know he stole the money from you, and I know how to get it back.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Solberg trusts me. I’m the one he called when he realized he was in trouble. But you know that, don’t you? That’s why you had your goons follow me to the Four Oaks.”

The world spun dizzily on its course. I was holding my breath, feeling faint.

“I need to speak to J.D.,” Black said.

“Speak to him?” I forced a laugh. The sound echoed crazily in the spitting rain. “You need to get
rid
of him. But I don’t give a shit about that. Let Laney go. She doesn’t know anything about this. I can get the money. I’m assuming you can plant it in one of Solberg’s accounts and convince the cops he’s to blame.”

“What makes you think I’m willing to do that?”

“Don’t be stupid. The money’s not going to do you a hell of a lot of good in jail. And you’ll be more than compensated when the Combot deal comes through.”

“How—”

I chuckled. “Give me fifty percent and I’ll tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“How I know . . . and where to find Solberg.”

“Where?” His voice was low and gritty suddenly, raising the hair on the back of my neck.

“Let Laney go and we’ll talk.”

“You’re a hell of a friend.”

“Yes, I am. To Elaine.”

“And J.D.?”

“Not everyone finds him as appealing as you do, Black. She’ll be better off with him out of her life.”

The desperate honesty in my tone must have convinced him.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll let the girl go, you take her place. If you deliver, we’ll—”

“Fifty-fifty on the Combot deal,” I said.

There was a huff of disbelief, then, “Sure. Why not? Put Jed back on.”

I laid the phone on the ground and backed away, stomach cramped and every joint stiff.

Their conversation was short. Jed shoved the phone in his pocket, then turned toward the car and waved.

A bald guy in black pants got out of the Pontiac. He reached inside. Elaine stepped out after him.

I felt my knees shudder with relief.

Her face was pale and her eyes wide, but she looked well. She looked whole.

“Laney,” I breathed.

Her captor led her toward me.

She stumbled a little. But when she looked up, our gazes met and stuck.

“I missed your mug, doll,” I said. “How you doin’, Sugar?”

Her lips parted, and her eyes widened marginally, but she caught my meaning with lightning-quick speed, and spoke the words I knew she would. “I’ve been better. Why’d you come, Hawke?” she asked. “You shouldn’t have come.”

We were twenty yards apart. Terror made me stiff. Hope made me speak. “I . . . I couldn’t hardly stay away, could I?” I intoned.

“You can do anything you want,” she murmured. “Always could.”

“Just so happened—” I began.

“What’s this shit?” asked Jed. “Put her in the bitch’s car.”

Baldy pulled Elaine toward the Saturn. She turned toward me as they passed.

“I missed you,” she said.

Our eyes met across the spattered dirt. “I missed you, too.”

She stumbled. Baldy yanked her to her feet, pushing her on. I turned my attention to the men ahead of me. Jed was close now, standing just a few feet from the Pontiac. The lookout was ten yards to my right.

The car’s doors were still open.

Laney, I was sure, was almost to the Saturn. I took one more step.

“We had a good run while it lasted,” she said suddenly. I turned toward her. She jerked her arm from her abductor’s and fell to the ground with the force of her release. My stomach pitched. Baldy reached for her. She rolled over. Her blouse had been ripped open and her boobs, big as cantaloupes, spilled out.

I saw the guy stiffen, but I didn’t see her strike. Because at that same second I swung my elbow with all my might. I felt it crash against Jed’s nose. And then I was praying and diving. I hit the front seat of the Pontiac like a rocket, fumbled forward, and twisted the key.

Laney’s abductor was flat on the ground. She was scrambling to her hands and feet and dove for the Saturn. But Baldy grabbed her ankle. She screamed and kicked him in the face. His head jerked back.

A shot rang out. Someone screamed.

“Stop it! Just stop it!”

I jerked my head to the left, and there was Solberg, gun wobbling in his hands.

The world seemed to grind to a halt. Every eye turned toward him.

And then life exploded. Everything happened in an instant. One minute we were almost free, and the next Solberg was sprawled on the ground with a gun to the back of his neck.

“All right!” The lookout was breathing hard, but his hands were steady on the weapon, his legs spread wide as he stood over Solberg. “Out of the car, lady, or the geek here gets it.”

I might have chanced it, but even from that distance I heard Elaine breathe Solberg’s name.