Grabbing what she needed, she vaulted back onto the sidewalk and yanked open the passenger door of the truck. She upended her purse onto Jack’s front seat, pocketed her Swiss Army knife, and shoved her prize from the back of Jack’s truck into the now empty bag. She then slung it over her shoulder and turned for the Sugar Shack.
Jack caught her arm. “Where the hell are you going?”
She looked back at Garrick’s friend. “I’m going into the Sugar Shack. You’re calling in reinforcements. If you see either me or Garrick leaving that building by some means other than our own volition, call the cops and let the police scanners be damned, Jack.”
“You can’t go in there.”
“No, you can’t go in there. I don’t give a fuck if they recognize me.”
“And what are you going to do if they do see you?”
Savannah smiled grimly. “The public will protect me in the bar. And otherwise, I have everything I need.”
“Really?”
“You have no idea what I can do,” Savannah muttered.
Chapter Twenty Six
Pain exploded in Garrick’s head the moment he regained consciousness. It was all he knew, all he could process. It took him far longer than it should have to notice his hands and feet were tied to a chair and his mouth was stuffed with a foul-tasting rag that was further splitting his fat lips. The eye that had only just recovered from the locker room brawl was swollen to the point that the pressure on his eyeball felt equal to the punch that had started it.
Without a doubt, opening his eyes would be punished with additional excruciating pain, but he fought past his desire to slip back into the blessed darkness and forced his one working eye open.
More darkness. Where the fuck was he?
A couple slow, painful blinks brought shapes from the shadows, looming close and above him. Shelves. Boxes. The storage closet?
He turned his head to try to see more, and ruthlessly forced back his need to gag when his head spun like it was trying to detach from his shoulders. His concussion was causing plenty of nausea without the noxious fabric jammed between his teeth helping things along.
He needed to get out of here.
The dull thump of music vibrated through the wall. The bar must be open. He tried to yell, but the gag was effective, his voice a hollow shout that didn’t rise above the pounding bass even within the closet. He lost hope that someone might even hear him on their way to the bathroom.
Yeah, he was screwed.
He tipped his head down to examine the binding holding his arms to the chair and winced as his brain shifted inside his skull.
He’d had his bell rung a few times over the years and knew the symptoms. He needed to get his head scanned to make sure it wasn’t more serious. Either way, he’d be off the ice for a few days, maybe longer.
But first, he really needed to get out of here.
Praying he didn’t pass out, Garrick rocked his chair, using what little leverage he had with his feet taped to the legs to lift and bump his chair closer to the shelves. With each hard thump of impact, his vision waivered and his stomach roiled. He kept at it anyway.
Savannah went straight to the bar, her back to the room, and ordered a Diet Coke.
She scanned the crowd using the mirrors behind the rows of liquor bottles. She didn’t see anyone she recognized from the house. Though they’d all been wearing coats, and she’d mostly only seen their profiles. The more she thought about it, the more she worried it could be any of the bigger guys filtering into the bar.
She needed to act fast.
The door to the back hall caught her eye. She’d start there.
She’d taken no more than three steps, her purse on her shoulder and her beverage in hand, when a big guy stepped through the door and leaned against the wall beside it.
Bouncer. A big one. His platinum hair was unusual enough that she was certain she hadn’t seen him before. When he looked right through her to the bar, she was convinced he hadn’t seen her before either.
Now how the hell was she going to get past him?
Circling the room as if searching for a friend, she skirted the dance floor and made her way to the pool tables at the back. Not surprisingly, she found two men playing a game, both preening for the gaggle of young women sitting at nearby tables. The women were here to watch the show, as evidenced by the empty pool tables around them.
She watched the age-old mating ritual unfold, amused and depressed by the familiar scene. The women were made-up to the hilt, already on the prowl at five o’clock, make-up fresh, heels high, and skirts short. She knew the type. Had walked a mile in those very stilettos, a time or two, when her friends had convinced her to relax and enjoy the hunt for once.
Focusing on a particularly keen-eyed group of young women, she wandered over, standing near enough to hear the women’s gossip, their snark so catty it was shameless. Perhaps not so like her and her friends after all. These women were brutal.
She edged closer, leaning in until one of the women jostled her.
“Oh! I’m so sorry!”
Savannah smiled broadly and brandished her drink. “No worries, hon.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed on her but Savannah kept her boozy smile in place. When the woman went to turn away, Savannah clutched her arm and whispered conspiratorially. “Look out for that group of girls over there,” she said, waving vaguely with her glass.
“Pardon me?”
“The one there,” Savannah said, waving again, only this time more pointedly in the direction of the other large group of women in the room. “One of those bitches said your friend has a bad perm and that she gets her make-up tips from RuPaul.”
Savannah had no idea why the latter was an issue, but she’d once seen a girlfriend in college lose her mind over this alleged insult. Worried this alone wouldn’t do the trick, she went in for the kill. “She also said your extensions looked cheap.”
The woman gasped and Savannah released her arm, staggering back. By the time the woman practically fell on her girlfriends, Savannah was back in the main bar area, headed for clearer ground.
The screech that emanated from the pool room was spectacular. Everyone in the bar turned toward the source of the noise.
Savannah looked back in time to see the first pitcher of beer sailing over the heads of the two pool players to splash down on the table of women across the way. A hell of a first move, she thought, wincing as a beer tsunami spanned the width of the room.
From there, it was impossible to tell what happened as people rushed to watch the show and blocked her view within seconds. The bouncer with the platinum hair leaped forward, waded into the crowd, and disappeared into the bystanders and the riot beyond.
Savannah ran into the back hall, tossing her purse strap over her head so it lay across her chest and she had both hands free.
The dim corridor was lined with doors. Ladies’ Room. Men’s Room. Supplies. She was about to inspect the only door without a label when it swung open and a man stepped out. He looked so much like Bobby Kramer there was no mistaking who he was. Savannah dove into the women’s bathroom, her hand catching the door handle at the last second and holding it open a crack. She prayed she hadn’t been spotted, not sure if Bobby’s father would recognize her. She suspected he would.
“Pack it all up and get it the fuck out of here. Now.”
The fake British accent confirmed her suspicion. Robert Kramer.
“Yes, boss,” replied a voice from the room beyond.
“I’ll have the truck here in an hour or less. I expect this office to be up and running in the warehouse on Sylvio by midnight.”
At the bang of the back door closing, she sneaked a peek into the hallway and found it blessedly empty. She slipped out of the bathroom and heard the thunk of a deadbolt being locked. The mysterious door at the end of the hallway was once again closed tight. A plan began to take shape in her head, but she had to find Garrick first.
The racket from the ba
r was still loud, the screeches ear splitting. She forgot all about her pang of guilt, though, when she heard a muffled thump from beyond the door labeled Supplies.
She planted her shoulder against the door, only realizing as her head made contact with the hollow wood that it was locked.
Grateful no one had witnessed that slick maneuver, she backed up and studied the lock, listening as another series of bumps issued from within. She tried the handle, shaking the door as hard as she could, and the thumping noises stopped, replaced by a steady, faint moaning sound. The door was old and scratched. The door jamb was also wood and in serious need of updating.
She was going to be seriously embarrassed if she barged in on some couple getting it on, but she had to check. All those years of breaking into her brothers’ rooms were about to pay off.
Selecting the biggest of her Swiss Army knife blades, she jimmied it between the door and the jamb where she felt the resistance of the lock. She worked it back and forth as she shoved her shoulder and hip against the door as hard as she could.
With a soft click, the lock gave way and she stumbled into a tiny room. She caught herself just before she slammed into the shelving filled with cleaning supplies and toilet paper. A sharp grunt brought her head up.
Garrick! Gagged and tied to a chair at the back of the long, narrow space.
He looked like shit, but conscious and in one piece. One eye was almost swollen shut but the wide-eyed stare she got from the other said his mental faculties were in good working order. No question he was processing the sight before him just fine when he started yelling at her through the nasty-looking rag in his mouth.
The vise clamped around her chest eased for the first time in hours. He was okay.
She hesitated. She wanted to remove the gag but he was hollering like he’d like to bring the walls down around their ears. She couldn’t risk him giving her away. And she’d be back in a minute.
She pillaged the office supplies on the shelf above her, grabbed a broom, winked at Garrick, and stepped back out into the hallway, closing the door firmly behind her.
Garrick fought at his bindings like a man possessed. Never in his life had he seen anything more terrifying than Savannah standing in the door with nothing more than a pocket knife, winking at him like a crazy person before going back out into Robert Kramer’s lair. With a broom.
What the hell is she doing?
He howled around the wad of cloth in his mouth, sounding a little crazed to his own ears, and promptly shut up. Christ, he didn’t want to garner any more attention than they already had. How the hell had she gotten past Blondie? And Robert Kramer was in the building. Garrick had been addled, but he’d heard the cheeseball accent.
That dude was one scary motherfucker.
He fought harder against the ropes and winced as they sawed into his skin. Sweat broke out across his body, his shirt sticking to him beneath his heavy jacket. His respiration rate increased until he risked gagging again.
Before Savannah had appeared, he’d been listening to the commotion out in the bar. The muffled noises were still too distant and vague for him to determine what was happening, but now it was mostly drowned out by what sounded like someone pounding on a door nearby.
Was that Savannah? Had they caught her too?
He yanked his arm harder, on the verge of dislocating his shoulder. Blood trickled down his wrist from beneath the ropes. He kept going.
He’d made some headway when the door swung open again and Savannah rushed to him.
“Are you okay?”
He shouted his answer. She couldn’t understand him through the gag. It was probably for the best.
She plucked at the knot behind his head and he gasped as the fabric fell away from his mouth.
“What the fuck are you doing here!?” His voice was hoarse, the ridiculous sound compounded by his hugely swollen bottom lip.
Savannah eyed him then the rag in her hand, like she was seriously considering reinserting it in his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m glad you came. Now, please, let’s get the hell out of here.”
She nodded and fell to her knees, working at the rope holding his right hand with her little knife. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. No.”
She stopped and searched his face with her eyes.
“I’m going to be okay. Should see a doctor about the head, but otherwise fine.”
“Have you seen your face?”
“Bad?”
She grimaced.
He kept working at his left wrist, ignoring the burn of the rope cutting into his skin. She didn’t seem to be getting anywhere either. His right wrist was still pinned. He was about to suggest she work the knot instead when his hand popped free. He went to work on the knot holding his left hand and she started on his feet.
Within a minute, they had him free. He sprang from the chair and stopped, his hand clutching a shelf to steady himself.
Savannah slipped her arm around his waist. “You’re not okay.”
“No, I am. Everything hurts, but I’m going to be okay.”
“You better be.”
He wondered if his head injury was allowing him to hallucinate the tender look in her eyes. He wanted it to be true so badly, it was entirely possible he’d conjured the image from some combinations of sheer wishfulness and brain damage.
They staggered to the door. Savannah propped his shoulder against a box of napkins and peeked out into the hallway before ducking back in.
“You ready?”
“Yeah, from here we can go right out the back.”
“Not anymore.” She opened the door and helped him out into the hallway.
He gawked at the spectacle before him.
Blondie was trussed up on the floor. His hands were bound, his mouth forcibly shut, his feet and calves wrapped to the knee in shiny silver. He struggled against his bindings, but wasn’t getting anywhere, as he appeared to be attached to the door leading to the mysterious office like some kind of human crossbar. His bindings were attached to ropes of silver wrapped around the doorknob behind him and the emergency release bar of the back exit. The broom handle, secured in a silver web, was jammed in the release bar of the back door, holding it in the locked position.
Savannah smiled sheepishly and pulled a huge roll of duct tape from her purse.
“But, how…”
“I’ll tell you later. Right now we need to get out of here.”
He stared a moment longer. “Sweet Jesus, you are god’s gift to tape.”
Savannah grinned.
A fierce pounding shook the back office door.
“Why can’t they open it?”
“Aside from the bouncer acting as a wedge?” she asked, as if this were an everyday occurrence. She reached into her purse and fished out a stapler. “I found this in the supply closet.”
“I don’t get it.”
She punched out a cleat and carefully inserted it into the lock in the knob.
He smiled. Genius. “I did that to a friend’s locker in middle school.”
She shrugged. “Still works?”
He laughed then clutched his head. “Shit. I guess it does. Now let’s get the fuck out of here and call the cops.”
“Everybody freeze!”
As if forced to obey the command, Garrick and Savannah held still. When Jack Chevalier rushed into the hallway with a huge cop at his back, Garrick slumped against the wall, taking Savannah with him.
Jack and Savannah barely caught him as he slid to the floor, his head pounding, his body aching. None of that mattered. Savannah was safe. For the first time in hours, days, weeks, he felt like he could breathe. His legs no longer needed to hold him up.
“Are you okay, G?”
Garrick didn’t bother to answer.
“Jack, is there an ambulance here?” Savannah asked.
“Yeah, I’ll go get the EMTs.” He sprang back to his feet. “Grady, can you get G some help?”
“Yeah, come on,” Grady said as he led Jack back down the hallway and into the bar.
Garrick watched them go, wondering how the hell Jack was friends with a cop and why that cop seemed so protective of Jack.
He smiled at Savannah weakly. “I think we did it.”
“What?”
“Got the sonofabitch.”
She gently touched his mangled face. “I knew you were going to save the team.”
“Not bloody likely,” snapped an all-too-familiar British accent.
Garrick turned his head too quickly and sent his brain careening around inside his skull. He swallowed back the nausea and fought to remain conscious.
He held on to Savannah and she hauled him back onto his feet while Robert and Bobby Kramer walked down the hallway toward them.
Where the hell had they come from?
Chapter Twenty Seven
Heart pounding, Savannah kept one eye on the Kramers while she hauled Garrick back to his feet.
She almost stumbled when Garrick immediately began walking, hardly having gained his feet before he strode purposefully toward the Kramers and the bar beyond. The cops, Jack, and the public were just around the corner. Unfortunately, that public appeared to still be engaged in a bar brawl of her making, and everyone else was probably trying to break it up.
Jesus, those women really took shit personally.
“Not so fast, Mr. LeBlanc, Ms. Morrison.”
Garrick shoved her behind his back so fast her shoulder bounced off the wall. What the fuck? She tried to step back to his side but stopped when Robert Kramer pointed the gun in his hand at Garrick’s chest.
Her heart lurched and her brilliant rescue plan went straight to hell.
“What the fuck do you want? The place is crawling with cops,” Garrick said, his voice hoarse.
She hoped they’d think that was anger. He looked to be barely holding down his lunch. And was the place crawling with cops? So far she’d only seen one. Where the hell were Jack and Grady, anyway?
Fair Play (Hat Trick, Book 1) Page 23
