J Jance - Queen of the Night

“Did you hear me?” the man barked. “Do it now. Move.”

Ginny looked at Pepe, who, still screaming in full meltdown mode, had yet to notice the stranger’s presence. With her whole body quaking, Ginny backed away from the Honda and pulled open the passenger-side door of the minivan.

The car was filthy inside and out. The passenger-side floorboard was full of trash-empty fast food and drink containers. But the roll-aboard bag was there on the seat, just as the man had said it would be. It was heavier than Ginny expected, but she hefted it out and lugged it over to the back door of her Honda. As she shoved it inside, she looked around desperately, hoping someone was aware of what was happening, but she saw no one-no one at all. The minivan was tall enough that it obscured her movements from the view of anyone coming and going through the store’s front entrance.

She started to reach down to retrieve her fallen purse and the ice cream. Then she stopped. If she left those items there, maybe whoever found them would be smart enough to figure out that something bad had happened. Then again, maybe whoever saw her purse sitting there on the ground might just steal it for themselves.

Trying to control her trembling body, Ginny got back into the car. The man sitting beside her was middle-aged, pudgy, and balding. There was a long scabby cut that ran from his eyebrow to his cheek, as though he had been in a fight of some kind. That was also when she noticed, for the first time, that the hand that held the gun was actually in a sling. One of his arms, the right one, was hurt and bandaged. Maybe that was why he had wanted help in moving that suitcase. Or maybe he thought that dragging luggage around a grocery-store parking lot might attract too much unwanted attention.

Ginny groped around on the floorboard and finally managed to find the keys she had dropped earlier. With her hand still trembling, she picked them up. It took several tries before she was able to insert the key in the ignition. When the Accord’s engine turned over, the AC fans came on full-blast, spewing hot air into the vehicle. Without putting the car in gear, she looked back at Pepe.

“It’s okay,” she said to her hysterical son as soothingly as she could manage, but her voice felt brittle, as if it might shatter into a million pieces. “We’ll be okay. Hush now.”

But Pepe didn’t listen and he didn’t hush. He kept right on howling. He had no idea that they were in danger. All he wanted was his cake.

Ginny turned to the man. “Why are you doing this?” she asked. “What do you want?”

“Don’t talk, drive,” he ordered. “Get us out of here.”

Ginny was an ordinary young woman-a young mother. This seemed impossible. Surely she and Pepe couldn’t be kidnapped by an armed assailant in broad daylight right in the middle of Tucson! But clearly the unthinkable-the impossible-had happened, was happening. Ginny also knew that if called upon to do so, she would fight for Pepe’s life with her last dying breath. That very real possibility forced her to try to calm herself. She held the burning steering wheel with both hands and used the pain on her palms to help bring her mind into focus. Her life depended on it; so did Pepe’s.

She strapped her own seat belt in place. As she did so she remembered that weeks earlier someone had sent her an e-mail about this very thing. Usually, she discarded those Internet chain letters without even looking at them. For some reason, she had read that one all the way through, and the advice had stayed with her.

The message had said that if you were ever carjacked, you should smash your vehicle into something stationary and then get out and run like hell. The idea was that the deploying air bags would probably knock the weapon out of the assailant’s hands, temporarily disarming him. Even if he ended up firing at you as you ran away, not that many people could shoot weapons well enough to hit a moving target.

But if I jump out and run away, she thought, what about Pepe in the backseat? He was strapped into his booster. That was something Ginny insisted on. In her vehicle, not wearing seat belts wasn’t an option. And what if Pepe’s belt didn’t hold when she deliberately wrecked the car? What if it malfunctioned? What if he came loose and went smashing through the windshield? Or what if he was left alone in the car with an armed and dangerous criminal? All those ideas raced through her mind at once like waves of heat rising off the pavement.

Ginny took a deep breath and turned toward the man with the gun. “Where do you want to go?” she asked, straining to be heard over the noise of Pepe’s overwrought protestations.

“Mexico,” he said.

“Where in Mexico?” she asked. “Nogales? Agua Prieta?”

“I don’t care. Just get me across the border.”

The car parked directly in front of Ginny’s Honda, an SUV, pulled out of its spot. Relieved, Ginny followed it out. That way she didn’t have to back up and show the killer that she had left her bag of ice cream and her purse sitting there on the ground in plain sight.

If the guy wanted to go to Mexico, Ginny knew she had another problem. Her driver’s license was in the purse along with her cell phone. So was her passport, and Pepe’s, too. She and Felix had gotten Pepe a passport when Grandpa and Grandma Torres had taken everyone-kids and grandkids included-with them on a Mexican cruise in honor of their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Since then, Ginny had discovered that racial profiling did happen. In southern Arizona, if you looked Hispanic, it was always a good idea to have plenty of government-issue ID available, especially if you happened to get stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint.

But this time, when she reached the checkpoints, she wouldn’t have ID of any kind. What would this man do then?

Suddenly she made the connection. It had been all over the news when she turned on her TV earlier that morning. Someone had killed four people out on the reservation last night. Was this the same man? If it was, this guy wasn’t just desperate. He was a stone-cold killer who probably wouldn’t think twice about taking another life-or two.

Ginny took a deep breath and glanced in the rearview mirror.

Behind her she saw a woman hustle up to one of the carryout boys. She was waving her arms and gesturing, pointing first in the direction of Ginny’s Accord and then back to the place where Ginny’s purse and her bag of melting ice cream sat abandoned on the burning pavement.

For one giddy moment, Ginny allowed herself to hope that help was on the way, but that moment of respite was short-lived. She knew it would take time for help to get there. She needed to stall long enough for that to happen.

“I need gas,” she said.

That was true. She had less than half a tank, and there was a gas station right there in the corner of the parking lot. She also had no money and no credit card, but maybe she could get inside long enough to ask for help.

“We’ll get gas later,” the man said, waggling the gun in her direction. “Get us out of here now. Go that way.” He pointed southbound on Campbell.

Ginny drove as far as the exit onto Campbell and signaled to turn left. Within a couple of blocks, Pepe finally finished crying himself out and fell quiet. It was his usual nap time. Tired from shopping and from crying, and still blissfully unaware of the danger they were in, he seemed to be falling asleep. Mentally Ginny uttered a prayer of thanksgiving. The sudden silence gave her a chance to concentrate on what she was doing and to get herself under control.

She tried desperately to remember everything she had ever heard or seen about hostage situations on television and in the movies. Wasn’t she supposed to get the guy talking? Isn’t that what hostage negotiators always did-try to establish a line of communication?