“Where are the police who are listening to us?”
“The last time I saw them, they were at police headquarters,” she said, her voice less steady than she would have liked.
He said in a very loud voice, “She is wired.”
The door to the grocery store opened.
“Margo, I thought you were smarter than this,” Paul Dreier said as he entered.
Chapter 21
Dreier ripped the wire from Margo’s chest. She yelled, “Jesus, Paul … ” before Orlov muffled her mouth with his arm.
When he’d destroyed the listening device, he rummaged in her purse for her cell phone, which met the same fate. Then he said to his partner, “We don’t have much time. They know something’s gone wrong and will be here in minutes. Take the hard drives to the airport. Our contact will meet you there. I’ll take care of her.”
He raised the weapon he was carrying.
• • •
Margo woke in a dark and dusty place to the sound of a smoothly purring engine and the feeling of something hard pressed against her stomach. From the pain in the back of her head, she didn’t have to guess what Paul had done with the raised weapon. After that, he’d apparently bound her hands and feet with something and gagged her.
A little late, she realized she should have recognized the Lexus parked out front of the grocery store as Paul’s. Apparently she was riding in it, lying face down in the foot well of the back seat and covered with some kind of itchy, dusty blanket.
When she tried to move, the hump in the center of the car prevented her from shifting her body. Unless whoever had been listening figured it out, she was on the way to some place she was sure she didn’t want to go.
The sound of sirens wailing behind them gave her hope that someone had figured it out. But Paul sped up and Margo’s elation passed as they cut from one lane to another and the sirens faded. As her head bounced from side to side with the swaying car, she figured Paul might be saved the trouble of killing her. The consequences of the high-speed chase would take care of it quite nicely.
Her hopes and the sirens rose and fell for what seemed like an eternity. Then suddenly she was thrown violently against the backseat as Paul swerved to the right and made a dizzying turn around a sharp curve. Cars screeched to a stop. There were explosive sounds. The Lexus came to an abrupt halt. Two other cars banged into them. There was an unfamiliar sound inside the car. Then silence.
In a few moments, there was a cacophony of voices. “Police! Put your hands where we can see them.” “What the hell is going on here?” “Move. This is a crime scene.” “My car’s wrecked.” “Open the door.”
And the most welcome, a familiar voice saying, “Where’s Margo?”
The back door opened and the blanket was pulled away. “Jesus, sugar,” Tony said as he extricated her from the foot well. He carried her to a nearby patrol car and sat on the passenger side, holding her so hard and so close she had trouble breathing. After a few seconds, he loosened his grip and began to unbind her wrists and ankles.
When she was freed, he sat with her on his lap, holding her tightly while Sam negotiated who would be doing what and with whom among the law enforcement agencies of the state, two cities, two counties and the federal government. The security of his embrace, the smell of his cologne, the strength of his arms were exactly what she needed. She didn’t fight him.