California Schemin' - Kate George [63]
The length of the car slammed full into the other limo, bouncing my head off the window. Tears and flashes of light blocked my vision, but I heard yells from the other limo.
“Those bastards were expecting you to crash into them. Lock the doors.”
But I still couldn’t see. My fingers fumbled along the armrest feeling for the controls. Beau lurched across me and slammed the master lock. The doors clicked front and rear. They clicked unlocked and Beau hit the button again. The doors locked and unlocked. My vision cleared, and I saw Hammie climbing around the front of his limo, a black key-fob in his hand. Either both cars worked on the same frequency, or he had the spare.
There was movement in the rearview mirror. Moose was climbing around the back of the limo. Wendy and Paris were standing a ways down the road, holding Fiddle and Bow. The dogs were barking, adding to the general hullaballoo.
The locks clicked twice again. I pushed my hand under Beau’s.
“I’ve got it,” I said to Beau. “You think of a way to get us out of this.”
“You want me to think of a way out of this? Sweetheart, I think we’re screwed. Those guys have guns. What do we have? Nothing, as far as I can tell.”
“The car is bulletproof. We’ve got that. And maybe I can figure out how to jam the locks so they can’t keep opening them.”
I tried starting the car. The engine caught, and I put it in gear. This caught Hammie off guard, and he forgot to unlock the door. Unfortunately, I was anticipating him unlocking so I hit the button for him. My fingers scrambled at the button again and I managed to lock it again before Moose opened the back door. Hammie came and stood at my door.
“Bree! Crack your window so I can talk to you.” He was yelling but I could barely hear him. “I promise I won’t try anything while we’re talking. Okay? Truce.”
Beau put his hand on my arm.
“MacGowan, keep your finger on the lock, and watch out. I’ll keep an eye on his buddy. We’ll roll down my window so he can’t put the barrel of the gun through the crack.”
Beau rolled his window down a couple of inches.
“I can hear you now,” I said. “Talk.”
“Are either of you hurt?” he asked.
This threw me off. He kept making me think that he cared, the bastard. It was so annoying. I looked at Beau.
“You hurt?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“We’re fine, what do you want?”
“You don’t look fine. You’ve got a bruise on your face. You need to make sure that you didn’t fracture your skull.” He looked over at Moose, who was standing at the rear door. I searched the dash for the privacy window controller.
“Help me figure out how to roll up the privacy window,” I hissed at Beau. “Then it won’t matter if they get in the back.”
“I told you this wasn’t a good idea.” Hammie was talking to Moose. “She’s hurt.”
I saw Moose shrug in the wing mirror. “You didn’t come up with anything better,” he said.
Hammie turned his attention back to me. “Listen. You’re going to have to come out of there sooner or later. You don’t have any food or water. You can’t watch over the locks indefinitely. Why don’t you let me take you to the hospital?”
“Sooner or later,” I said, “someone is going to come down the road. They’ll call a tow truck and the cops, and I’ll be free of you. I can watch the locks for as long as that takes.” Stupid! I slapped my palm to my forehead and immediately regretted it as pain shot through my cheek. I turned to Beau. “Can you look around in the center console? I’m pretty sure there’s a phone in here or one of those buttons that calls emergency services. We can get the cops to come to us.”
Beau turned his attention to the electronic doodads in the control panels. I heard the locks click open and before I could react the back door was open, and Moose had a gun to my head.
“Moose! You’ve got a gun to my head.