California Schemin' - Kate George [29]
I waited until I heard the flight attendants chatting and cracked open the door.
“Hey,” I said quietly.
They turned toward me, and the blond looked from my face to the collar in my hand and back.
“Are you supposed to take that off?” She asked.
“I need your help.”
She turned as if to get the guy I was with.
“No!” I cried.
She startled and turned back to me, her face grave.
“You can’t tell him,” I said. “Do you have a pen and paper?”
The second flight attendant, a petite brunette who looked to be in her mid-twenties, handed me a pencil and the pad she wrote her drink orders on. Both the women looked worried, and the brunette kept looking furtively at the door to the cockpit. I wrote Fogel’s name and number on the paper along with my own.
“Can you contact this man? He’s a sheriff in California. Tell him I’m on this plane and where and when we’re landing. OK?”
The blond looked at me with pity in her eyes.
“You do know that causing panic on an airplane is a federal offense, don’t you? This isn’t a game.”
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t know what that guy I’m with told you, but I was abducted from my home. I need you to call Sheriff Fogel. If it’s a hoax, you can have me arrested at the airport.”
“Lucky for you,” the brunette said, “we have to take this seriously, but boy, will you be in trouble when we land.”
The blond looked disgusted. I could tell if it were up to her they’d be tearing the paper into little shreds and putting me back in my seat.
“I can’t go into the cockpit with you in the bathroom. You’ll have to go back to your seat.” The brunette was trying to push me back into the main cabin.
“Wait. Help me get this thing back on.”
The blond strapped me into the neck brace so tightly I thought my head would pop off. I slid past the thug and dropped into my seat. He didn’t give me two seconds before he whipped an injection pen out of his pocket and got me in the arm with it. As I blanked out I heard the blond’s voice. “Can I talk to your friend for a moment, sir?” And then I was gone.
The next time I woke up I was upside down, my stomach over the thug’s shoulder in bright sunlight. I immediately threw up all over his backside.
“Shit. You could have warned me,” he said, but he kept running, puke flying off the back of his pants.
“I’m going to puke again if you don’t put me down.” I wasn’t really, but I thought it was worth a try.
He grunted but kept running. The combination of the drugs, the motion, and lack of food was making me woozy. I really just wanted to lie down somewhere until the world stopped spinning. I tried to look around at the upside down view, but nothing was making much sense and looking just made my head spin worse. I felt more than saw the light change as we ran into the open door of what must have been a hangar.
We slowed, I heard the click of a car door, and he dumped me on a leather-covered rear seat and slammed the door. He was outside the car, swearing about the vomit.
“Get in, Richard. We don’t have time for this.” An unfamiliar male voice occupied the driver’s seat. We can get the car cleaned later.”
The front door slammed shut, and Richard turned to me.
“Sit still, and don’t do anything stupid. I’m not interested in going to jail over this.”
“If you’re not interested in going to jail, then you probably shouldn’t have forcibly abducted me from my home, to say nothing of the damage you’re inflicting on my neck. I’m supposed to be at PT.” I knew I sounded like a whiner, but I couldn’t help it.
I didn’t have a clue how long I’d been out of commission. Richard could have put me out any number of times before I’d gained consciousness. I didn’t have a clue where the heck I was, although I assumed it was probably California. After all, that was where Lily Wallace had died.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“OK. How about who are you?”
“I’m Richard Hambecker, this is Moose.”
That surprised me. He must be pretty confident about what he was doing if he was willing to give me his