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“Have you been waiting for me all night?” Julie asked. Eric had considered it a very real possibility, but she thought he had been paranoid.
“You shouldn’t be surprised. You knew how incriminating the pictures are for me.” Mercedes held out her hand. “The cell phone.”
“What makes you think I didn’t post the pictures online?” she asked. Let them think that it was already too late. That they should run and hide than attack.
Mercedes took a step closer and grabbed her by the hair. “You better have not,” she growled in Julie’s ear. “For your sake.”
Okay, she made a bad call there. Julie winced as Mercedes pulled her hair. She should just give her the cell phone. She was outnumbered and out of options. The pictures weren’t worth getting her ass kicked.
“Fine,” she groaned. “I didn’t post them.”
Mercedes let go of Julie’s hair and pushed her head back. “Give me the cell phone.”
Julie really wanted to hit back. Pull and kick and bite. Next time, she promised herself as she opened her purse. She frowned when she didn’t see her cell phone.
“It’s not here.” She shuffled the items in her small bag before she patted down her dress. She had no idea why she’d done that since her dress had no pockets.
Mercedes looked at the two men. “Hold her down.”
“Wait!” Julie held up her hands to ward off the men. Where was her phone? She just had it. It was on the table in Eric’s room. “I remember where I put it.”
But was it wise to tell them the truth? Should she say it was in the room, or should she keep it far away from them? The most important picture of Mercedes returning the USB stick didn’t come out, but she still had one good picture. If she lost that, she had nothing.
“Where is it?” Mercedes voice was growing higher and more impatient.
“I left it in…my car.” She wanted to kick herself. The car? Bad, bad idea. Her self-defense course warned her to stay away from cars. If the bad guys tried to take her from one place to another, she was as good as dead.
Mercedes glared at her. “I don’t believe you.”
Great. She wasn’t thinking fast enough on her feet and now she had to lie convincingly. “It’s true,” she insisted. Julie flinched when the elevator bell chimed. “In fact, I’ll take you there right now.”
“Why are you being so cooperative all of a sudden?”
Yeah, that did seem suspicious. She was trying to lie and think several steps ahead while her mind was racing as fast as her pulse. “Do you want the phone or not?” she asked.
Mercedes motioned for her to exit the elevator. “Lead the way.”
She should have said it was in the hotel room, Julie decided as she walked down the ramp to her car with the two men flanking her. But she didn’t have a hotel key. She needed to figure a way to get into her car and create a barrier between her and the bad guys.
“What kind of car?” Mercedes asked.
“It’s the light blue MINI Cooper. Right there in the corner.” Eric had been right. It really was a bad idea parking there. There was no security camera coverage or emergency call button. If she got out of this unscathed, she would always find the safest parking spot from now on. Hell, she would splurge for valet parking.
Julie looked around the parking structure. It was deserted on a Saturday morning. Too early for the shops to be opened. If she screamed for help, would anyone hear? If she kicked off her shoes and ran, would she get far?
She reached inside her purse. Crew Cut grabbed her upper arm and wrenched it behind her back. Julie gasped in pain.
“No sudden moves,” Crew Cut warned her.
Her eyes watered from the sharp shooting pain. “I was just getting my keys. I swear.”
Crew Cut waited for Mercedes’s nod before he let her go.
“That’s going to leave a bruise.” Julie rubbed her arm. “My God, you guys are suspicious.” She pushed the button on her key. Her heart was beating wildly, the need to flee rushing through her bloodstream, as she placed her hand on the handle.
“Stop.” Mercedes pulled Julie away from the car. “Tyler will look.”
“Tyler?” Crew Cut’s name was Tyler? Oh, that was so disappointing. She expected a nickname like Spike or Bruiser.
She cringed as the man sat in the driver’s seat. He was too big to sit straight in her car. She watched with growing dread as he rifled through the discarded coffee cups and candy wrappers.
