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Chapter Twenty-Four
NORA
Idrag my feet as much as possible, but it seems to take no time at all to reach the big, windowless van waiting outside the door at the end of the first-floor hallway. And thanks to the fire alarm, there’s no one around to see Bear and I being steered toward it at stun gun point.
“Clyde is in labor, and things aren’t going well,” I say, faking courage as Wimpy emerges from the van’s sliding door with a black eye he didn’t have yesterday, looking pissed. “She needs to go to the vet. Now.”
“Then you two had better give us what we wantnow,” Rex says, mocking my bossy tone. “As soon as we have what we came for, you two can go wherever you want to go.”
Wimpy shoves Bear toward the van with both hands, making him cry out and cling tighter to the kittening box.
“And how are we supposed to do that?” I say, digging my heels in as Rex flattens a palm between my shoulder blades and pushes me toward the entrance. “Bear’s warehouse is hundreds of miles away in Chicago, and it’s almost empty. He literally can’t give you those dolls. He already sold most of them way before you stole Clyde.”
“Actually, it isn’t that far,” Bear says from the seat by the opposite side of the van. “Just about an hour and a half, in Spring Valley, Wisconsin. It was a lot cheaper to store them there than in Chicago and it’s on a distributor route for easy shipping.” His eyes lock on Rex over my head. “Let Nora and Clyde go, and I’ll show you where the dolls are. There are still about five hundred left. I’ll sign them all over to you and never say a word about any of this to the police. Just help me make sure Clyde gets through this. If she dies in childbirth, I won’t have anything left to live for.”
Wimpy snorts. “Pathetic. What kind of guy loves a cat that much?”
“A wonderful man,” I pipe up. “A man with a big heart who’s willing to sacrifice his own safety for the safety of the people and animals he loves. I bet you’ve never sacrificed yourself for anything, you big coward.”
Wimpy grunts out a laugh, clearly not finding me threatening in any way. “Yeah, not for a cat. I don’t fall in love with cats. That’s fucking weird. Your boyfriend is a pervert.”
“He’s not her boyfriend, dumbass,” Rex says, shoving me more firmly toward the vehicle. “You’rethe one who said she was with McGuire and has probably been helping him plot this scheme to cut us out of the take. That’s how you got your cat back, right?” he asks Bear. “These two offered to return it if you gavethemcontrol of the toys, instead of us, didn’t they?”
Thinking fast, I pipe up, “No, we were going to give Clyde back to Bear free of charge. I made Matty do it. I made him steal Clyde and give him back to Bear to prove he wasn’t a bad guy and that it’s okay for us to get serious and for him to finally meet my grandmother. I can’t introduce Gram to a guy who aids and abets a catnapping. That would be deeply messed up.”
“Just shut up and get in the van.” Rex makes a frustrated sound and shoves me hard enough to make me stumble.
“Get your hands off her,” Bear booms, earning a box of his ears from Wimpy, who’s still crouched behind him.
“Don’t hit him,” I shout. “He’s just sitting there, completely helpless, holding a cat in labor in a kittening box. Where’s your humanity?”
“Then get in the fucking van, bitch,” Rex says, digging the prongs of his stun gun into the small of my back. “Or I’ll shock you and toss you in there myself. And trust me, a shock won’t kill a healthy young lady like yourself, but it’ll hurt like you swallowed lightning.”
I heave a sigh and cast a quick glance over my shoulder, praying to see Matty running through the door behind me. But the door is still closed and the alarm blaring. Even if I screamed for help, no one would hear me.
And I really don’t want to know what it feels like to swallow lightning.
I don’t even want to touch lightning, let alone swallow it.
So, with one final prayer that Matty will figure out how to find us, I surreptitiously toss one of the earrings I removed on the way down the stairs onto the ground as I spit into Rex’s face, “Fine, but don’t call me a bitch again. If you want to call me names, please call me an asshole or a jerk or some other non-gendered insult.”
Rex rolls his eyes. “Whatever, woman, just get in the van. The longer you talk back, the longer it’s going to take to get what we need and drop you and your friend here off at a vet.”
My brows lift. “You’d do that?”
“Why not?” he growls, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t want the cat to bite it, but I’ve got to get those toys orI’mdead meat. I’ve got a grandmother, too, and she doesn’t fuck around.” He shrugs. “But once I’ve got the goods, I can help you out. I like belching cat videos as much as the next guy with a sense of fucking humor.”
“Okay, thank you. That would be…nice.” Filing this small sign of humanity away for later, I step into the van, settling into the empty seat by the sliding door.
But I’m not going to fool myself into trusting Rex.
He’s a bad guy. He’s kidnapping me and Bear and Clyde. And so he uses a stun gun instead of real gun? So what? That’s still a weapon, and a dangerous one at that. If I have the chance to bash him over the head with something and get away, I should take advantage of it.
Though I doubt that’s going to happen in this van, speeding away from the hotel toward a warehouse far away. And Clyde will probably have finished giving birth by then—or be in such serious distress it might be too late to save her or her babies.
As the alarm suddenly cuts off, seconds before Rex slides the van door closed, I send out a silent prayer—Find that earring, Matty. Find it and check the hotel’s surveillance cameras and come find us.
Before it’s too late.
