Her head hit the top of the trunk as the car’s shocks took a beating on the road surface. Now she could think. She could think about how much it hurt her forehead to hit the trunk.
Were they driving on cobblestones, on a rutted dirt road? Was it too late to try to keep track of where the abductors had taken her after plucking her off the sidewalk? She had no idea how many left and right turns they’d taken. She didn’t even know how many minutes she’d been in the trunk. She couldn’t recall any distinctive sounds.
It all seemed so easy in the movies. The heroine could recount valuable clues to help the police locate the kidnapper’s hideout. Of course, Giselle would have to get away from her kidnappers for her amazing cognitive memory prowess to be important. Yeah, the getting away part was crucial.
Giselle rummaged in the purse again. Her hand came upon a heavy object in the bottom. Swiss army knife. That could be helpful. It had a small flashlight feature. Would it still work? She snapped it on. Light. Yes.
She directed the small pinpoint beam away from her chin where it couldn’t do any good, to the trunk latch area. Maybe she’d get lucky and find she was in a late-model vehicle with a childproof trunk latch that would allow her to open the trunk with ease. She located the latch with the light’s beam. Dammit. Not likely. No easy-to-operate escape latch. She was no doubt in some hunk of junk land boat.
Fumbling with the Swiss army knife, Giselle found a file-type tool. She began jabbing at the latch mechanism. Why hadn’t she paid more attention to her juvenile delinquent friends in high school? When she’d been learning something useless like typing, she could have been adding life-saving information like lock picking to her knowledge base.
She heard a click in the mechanism. Dumb luck. Thank you, Dumb Luck, and your brother Dumber Luck.
The trunk lid began to rise. The land boat veered to the right and the lid flew up. Giselle saw a two-lane highway in the rural countryside stretching out behind the land boat but no cars. Multicolored copy paper fluttered around her and then began flying helter-skelter out of the trunk. The pieces of paper came to rest along the highway like some peculiar tail growing out of the car, longer and longer.
Surely the thugs in the land boat would notice that they had acquired a dorsal fin and a multi-colored tail at any moment. Giselle wanted to get out of the trunk before that happened. If they pulled over, she’d have to confront them. She was pissed, but she didn’t think that would allow her to overcome their obvious superior physical strength.
Edging one leg over the rim of the trunk, Giselle clutched her purse to her chest. Could she afford to wait until they slowed? Just when it seemed like fifty mph. was about as slow as they would go, the car braked and its horn sounded. Giselle did a sort of combination jump and fall from the trunk, hitting the asphalt hard and then rolling. Asphalt gave way to grass and then to taller, rougher vegetation. Suddenly she found herself rolling downhill into a storm ditch. As she came to rest at the lowest point of the ditch, Giselle thanked heaven that it hadn’t rained for at least twenty-four hours and the ditch was almost dry. As a result she was only slightly muddier than she had started out.
Sheets of copy paper—neon blue, lime green, and hot pink—rained down around her. Giselle plucked one out of the air. On sunny yellow background, large black lettering blared, Do you know a VICTIM? Call 1-800-4VICTIM to help. As more paper came to rest beside her, she saw that they all had the same message.
The first chance she got she would call to help. Giselle knew a victim. She was a victim. The real question was, what did this flyer have to do with her abductors?
* * * * *
After climbing the embankment, Giselle found herself at the side of a very empty highway. Her purse had landed near the centerline a few yards away. She found her cell phone in a side pocket but, as usual, it was out of service range. Dammit. She’d have to hitchhike back to Savannah.
She stood at the side of the road and several cars passed before a nice old man with one front tooth offered her a lift in his pickup. Giselle gratefully accepted. She wasn’t so grateful when she found that a Rottweiler and a pot-bellied pig would be her fellow occupants.
“I’m real sorry, ma’am, but the front seat is occupied by Herbie,” the old man said.
“Herbie?” Giselle climbed into the back of the truck bed and plopped down into something slick that she thankfully couldn’t identify.
“Yes, ma’am. Herbie’s my pet possum. He always rides in front. He ain’t too fond of Elmer and Snot Rag,” the old man called from the cab of the truck.
Giselle guessed he meant the pig and the Rottweiler. The Rottweiler was probably Snot Rag since there was a runny substance oozing from his nose, before a big tongue came out of it and lapped it away. Snot Rage came closer and gave her a sniff.
“Nice boy—or girl,” she said, edging back against the side of the truck bed. The dog retreated and lay down next to the pig.
The truck engine roared and a cloud of black smoke erupted from the tail pipe. The wind direction swept the cloud into her face. Giselle hacked as the truck jerked forward and began to bounce along the road.
On closer inspection, the bed of the pickup was coated with a brown substance topped by bits of hay. Giselle’s hand encountered something sticky when she gripped the side to keep from rolling as the truck took a turn. The truck bed had no doubt seen too many hours of pig and Rottweiler use. But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
She’d almost gotten used to the rank smell, the slick stickiness and the wind whipping through her hair when the old man pulled the truck to a stop near the front door of her hotel.
As Giselle limped into the lobby, she tried to shrink herself to a fraction of her height― as if that would make her unnoticeable. If she could just make it to the elevator without being spotted, she could be in her room in no time. She wanted to avoid the humiliation of anyone seeing…or smelling her in this state. She almost made it.
“Giselle! Arretez-vous. Stop. You are there!” Vector, the skunk, shouted at her from the revolving hotel entrance door.
The desk clerk looked toward her and frowned. A young couple checking in did a double take. A man in a business suit seated near the elevators stopped reading his newspaper and stared. So much for trying to be inconspicuous.
Giselle saw to her horror that Vector ran toward her. She turned and pressed the call button. There were two elevators, but one set of doors bore a handwritten sign taped to its façade, Out of Service.
Pushing the button again brought no result. She pressed, pressed and pressed again. The more a button was pushed the faster the elevator would come. Wasn’t that the rule?
A middle-aged Southern belle, who also waited for the elevator, said, “You’ll break the button. Pushing it like that won’t make it come any faster.”
Apparently there wasn’t a rule.
The belle wrinkled her nose and pulled her collar up over the lower half of her face.
Just fabulous.
A ping sounded from the elevator, and Giselle noticed that the belle was gone. She’d missed her ride. Vector kept coming. She jabbed the call button again, but she could see by the floor indicator above the elevator doors that it was headed upward. It stopped on the third floor. No movement. Dammit and double dammit.
“Giselle!” Vector had reached her side. He had a bouquet of daisies with baby’s breath in one hand and a box of chocolates in the other. “Giselle, still you do not call me. I wait for you long time. And you do not come. You do not call. You do not come. So finally I call your magazine and they tell me you are here. Why you avoid Vector?”
Giselle would have answered but the skunk was on a roll.
“I say to myself, I say, ‘Vector, why she not call you?’ And then I say, ‘Vector, it is because she does not know you have the interest très romantique.’ So I wait for you on the street with the flowers and the candy. I woo you.”
After what she’d been through, Giselle had no patience for wooing.
> “Vector, I am never going to call you. We didn’t hit it off on our date. You said yourself that you didn’t find me attractive. Just let it go. No woo. Just go.”
The skunk seemed to consider this. “Is true you are not beautiful.” He appraised her, as if he’d just seen her for the first time since she entered the lobby. “Like now you have the crazy hair, the dirt and the something else, which is not smelling so nice.” His nose crinkled.
Great.
“But you must talks with me.”
“Why”
“Pourquois pas?”
“What?”
“Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why not?”
“Why not, what? Stop it!” Giselle demanded. “You’re confusing me. Why must I talk to you?”
“I not know, but the more you do not talk to me the more I must talk to you. Why we not go upstairs to the hotel room and have the sex? You would take shower first, but then the sex would be okay,” he said, panting like an eager puppy.
“No.”
“No shower? That okay. We ’ave the sex even if no shower.”
“No sex. No talk. No nothing. Just go.”
The eager puppy dog look fell from Vector’s face and his sad eyes slid downward. He turned and began to trudge away.
“Wait,” Giselle called.
He looked back with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.
Giselle took the box of chocolates from his hand. “Thanks. Now go,” she said.
It wasn’t nice, but a girl had to have a chocolate at a time like this.
Giselle had just pressed the elevator button again when the desk clerk called to her. “Ms. Hunter.” He motioned her toward him.
She rolled her eyes. Apparently she was going to have to limp her stinky self over to the desk. As she approached, the clerk eyed her and backed away a bit with a crinkle in his nose.
“You’ve had two deliveries while you were out.” He produced a cellophane-wrapped bundle of at least a dozen burgundy red roses from under the desk. He handed them to her with a look that said, “Who in their right mind would send you flowers?”
Ry! It must have been Ry who’d sent them. Like Vector he’d probably called the magazine. He obviously felt guilty about his lying jerkiness. Maybe gorgeous loverness did outweigh after all. Not that she’d accept his apology.
She snatched the card out of the arrangement, and read. Come to me. So far so good. And be my love. Better and better. Yours for eternity. Wow, that was a commitment. Lester.
It took a few moments to register. Lester? She read the card again. It had to be a mistake. The flowers had to be from Ry. He was the one who owed her red roses. Besides, why would Lester send her flowers, pledging eternal love? That was a long time, particularly for a vampire and they didn’t have that kind of relationship. It just didn’t make sense.
A glance out the nearby window revealed a blue—not red—sky. Good. At least she hadn’t somehow slipped into an alternate universe.
She looked up at the clerk. “You said two deliveries?”
He nodded and produced a business-size envelope. Uh-oh. She recognized this plain office stock. Giselle tore it open and extracted the paper from inside. In large block letters it read, You’ve been warned. Leave or die!
The box of chocolates beckoned. She opened it and took one out. No, make that two. What the heck, three would fit in her mouth at one time.
The clock over the desk clerk’s head told her it was 11:40 a.m. Almost half of Sunday was gone. She still had no ghost. There’d been no apology from Ry. What she did have was another death threat. On the upside she had two admirers—a skunk and a vampire.
Chapter Nine
Hobbling toward the elevators, Giselle jammed the bundle of flowers under her armpit, squashing a few of the half-open buds. She took another chocolate from the box, popped it into her mouth and bit down. Chocolate relief melted in her mouth. Perhaps if she ate the entire box she could induce a sugar coma. A sugar coma might be welcome at a time like this. Once she woke up, this nightmare would all be over. And she might be able to elicit some sympathy if she were in a coma.
“Ms. Hunter?” The voice of the clerk stopped her midway to her destination.
She turned with a weary sigh. Cocking her head to one side, she placed one hand on her hip.
“Whaaagt,” she demanded. Her garbled question came through the chocolate filling her mouth.
The desk clerk’s lip curled.
Oh who cared what he thought? Chewing with her mouth open was the least of her worries at this point.
“I hope there will be no more disruptions of the hotel’s peaceful atmosphere,” the clerk said with a disapproving sniff.
Yeah, whatever. She nodded and gave a little buzz-off wave with her non-chocolate holding hand before turning to limp forward again.
Just a few more steps to the elevator. She could make it. And if she could make it to the elevator, she could make it to her room. If she could make it to her room, she could make it to the bed. If she could make it to the bed, she could finally collapse. After a shower. A hot shower was an absolute must before she collapsed.
Her right hand came up. She pointed the index finger and it hovered just inches from the Up button when she heard it.
“Destroyer! Defiler!” A baritone bellow sent reverberations through the hotel lobby.
That baritone couldn’t be referring to her. Just ignore it. Giselle hunched down and stabbed at the elevator call button.
“Arsonist!” The bellow echoed again.
That could be her. Although, to be fair, she hadn’t actually started the fire at the wizard’s house. Na. The bellow wasn’t talking to her. Giselle stabbed the call button again.
“Thief!” The booming voice accused.
That could very well be her. But she hadn’t taken anything she hadn’t returned. Probably wasn’t referring to her.
“Giselle Hunter!”
Crap. No question at all now.
Giselle swallowed the last of the chocolate she’d been chewing and glanced over her shoulder with a grimace. Kopeleski, with his white electrified hair, stood in the entrance to the hotel lobby. She had a few seconds to note that he wore a black floor-length duster jacket adorned with heavy silver-tone buckles over a bare chest. That chest. The wizard had man boobs—wrinkled and droopy man boobs—covered with age spots. She had to admit that he did sport six-pack abs. Abs like six packs of soggy cigarettes. The bottom portion of the ensemble consisted of black silk pajama bottoms, covering the rest of his equipment, thankfully. The outfit was completed by black flip-flops.
The wizard stormed across the lobby, his flip-flops slapping loudly against the tile of the floor. He pushed past two shocked onlookers, past the desk clerk, and continued toward her.
The desk clerk pinned her with a condemning glare.
Just ignore him.
Giselle stabled the elevator call button again. Where was the freaking thing? The only car in working order was still on the tenth floor according to the indicator above the door. With no escape in sight, Giselle faced her accuser.
Kopeleski skid to a halt in front of her.
“How did you know I was staying here?” she asked.
“I am psychic.”
“Yeah. Right. You called the magazine.”
“I demand satisfaction,” he said.
A tiny bit of saliva flew from his mouth and hit Giselle on the cheek as he said the word “satisfaction” and Giselle winced.
“Are you challenging me to a duel?” Even in her weakened condition, she was pretty certain she could take the old codger. However, a fight would be annoying.
“You know what I want,” he said with derision. “I want my medal. If you don’t give it to me immediately you will suffer the consequences.”
She glanced up. The elevator was still on the tenth floor. Blast.
“I don’t have your medal. What makes you think I do?”
“Come now, Ms. Hunter. I
know that you touched the medal prior to the séance. Madam Divinity read your poisonous influence on the object. You were obviously trying to steal it and you tried to get at it again when you set fire to my house.”
“I didn’t try to steal your crummy medal.” Well, that was true. She didn’t try. She had stolen it—briefly. “And I didn’t set fire to your house.”
“Liar!” he shouted, thrusting an accusing finger into her face. It practically touched her nose.
“Get that finger out of my face before I bite it off.” Giselle made a chomping lunge toward the finger with her mouth, her teeth snapped shut.
Kopeleski jerked his hand away and nursed the finger protectively against his chest.
“You little barbarian. I should turn you into a warthog.”
“Isn’t a toad more traditional?” she asked sarcastically.
“You will regret your flippancy. Your antics last night destroyed months of careful work. Last night was the perfect opportunity to contact the ghost of―”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Giselle mocked. “I’m not in the mood to deal with your petty complaints.”
He looked ready to erupt with more angry protests and she cut him off. “Listen, I don’t have your medal. I saw it fall out the window last night. It’s probably on the ground somewhere under your balcony.”
The wizard ran a hand through his wild mane as he considered her reasoning.
The desk clerk approached. His steps clipped officiously on the tile floor.
“Miss Hunter, I must insist that you take your argument with this—” his eyes cut to the wizard, “gentleman to some place more private. You are disrupting the entire hotel.”
“We aren’t arguing. The gentleman is merely visiting me. This hotel does permit its guests to have visitors, doesn’t it?”
“Slut!” The shout of a female voice echoed in the lobby. Uh-oh. She recognized that voice. “Harlot. Tramp.”
Damn. She was going to have to talk to the magazine about giving her location to every Tom, Dick and Madam.
“It appears you have another visitor,” the desk clerk said, his lip curled in smirky distaste.
A Girl, a Guy, and a Ghost Page 12
