Blue Steele - Box Set - Captures 1-6 (7 page)

I found the wipes and cleaned up, when I finished, I found Ramón staring at my legs.

“Eyes on the road, we can’t lose them.”

“Sorry Chica, but you are a little distracting, you know?”

“I only know that my best friend’s daughter is in that Hummer with two crazed gunman. Help me get her back and I’ll pose nude if you want.”

“I may hold you to that,”

We drove along, following behind the Hummer, while always keeping two or three cars between us. If they knew we were following, they didn’t show it. They just drove along in the middle lane while keeping with the flow of traffic.

I tapped my fingers on the door. “I can’t believe you don’t have a phone.”

“I hate the damn things, besides, there’s no one I want to talk to.”

“I need to call the cops.”

“So, where’s your phone?”

“Back in the beauty parlor, along with my pocketbook, and my boots,”

“There’s a pair of flip-flops behind your seat, they’re better than nothing.”

I twisted in my seat and reached back to grab a pair of bright red flip-flops. I put them on even though I didn’t like them, I hate the feeling of having anything between my toes, but as Ramón said, they were better than nothing.

“Why are you helping me?” I said.

“You said that these bastards took a kid; I hate anyone who messes with kids, plus, there’s the money they took.”

“That money belongs to the bank.”

“Finders keepers, Chica,”

Up ahead, the Hummer made a right, turned off the highway, and drove down a dirt road. Ramón pulled over to the shoulder and parked.

“What are you doing? We have to keep them in sight.”

“We will, but if we follow too closely they’ll hear us coming.”

He was right, but it was hard to sit by and do nothing, a moment later, he turned off the engine.

“Why did you do that?”

“Think about where we are. What’s on the other side of these trees?”

We had followed the thieves along highway 31, headed west.

“The Trinity, the Trinity River is back there.” I said.

“Correct, so this road must be the only way in or out, from here on in, it looks like we’re on foot. If we go driving in there, they’ll hear us for sure.”

I opened my door. “Let’s go.”

***

A
s we crept along, it occurred to me that I had only one bullet left in my gun. However, Ramón’s hand cannon, a .50 Desert Eagle, held eight rounds.

We walked down the narrow dirt road, side by side, as we listened for any sound.

We had only walked about a hundred yards when we heard the voices, two of them, arguing.

“She can identify us Toby; do you want to spend the rest of your life in Huntsville?”

“Derek, she’s just a kid,”

We crept closer; through a break in the trees, I could see the river calmly flowing by, a few steps more and I spotted the two men. The taller of the two had stringy, blond hair and a goatee; his gun was out; it was hanging by his side. The other one stood before him, and from where I stood, it looked as if Amy was trying to hide behind him.

“Move Toby, it’s gotta be done, so let me do it; we can’t stay here all day. That damn Hummer might have GPS tracking, and I ain’t goin’ to be here when the cops find it. Now, move!”

The one called Toby was shoved aside, leaving Amy exposed.

“Ramón?”

“I got it.” Ramón said, as he sighted down the barrel of his gun.

“Pull that trigger and you’re a dead man.” Said a deep voice from behind,

We both spun at the sound and, as he turned, Ramón was slammed on the side of the head with a shotgun and fell limply to the ground. I brought my gun up to fire and the man whipped the shotgun back around and knocked the gun out of my hand with the barrel.

Pain shot through my arm from my elbow to my fingertips and I wondered if he had just broken my hand.

The other two men came running over with Amy and stared down at us.

The one named Derek glared at me.

“It’s the bitch from the mall, the one that killed Bobby.”

Amy looked over at me with tears in her eyes.

“Aunt Blue?”

I smiled at her. “It’s okay baby, Aunt Blue’s come to take you home.”

A second later, the shotgun rushed toward my face, and then everything went black.

***

I
awoke to find my hands and feet bound with plastic restraints, and my head on fire with pain. Beside me, Ramón was still unconscious, and also restrained. Beyond him was Amy, huddled in a corner of the van, with her arms wrapped around her knees.

We were in a panel van with a plywood floor and blacked-out side and rear windows, from up front in the cab, I could hear murmured voices.

“Amy,” I whispered.

Her eyes grew wide and she crawled over to me.

“Aunt Blue,”

“Hey baby, how you doin’, those men didn’t hurt you any, did they?”

“No, but they’re scary.”

“I know baby, and I know things look bad right now, but I’ll get you back to your mommy as soon as I can, okay?”

She nodded, and then winced while staring at me.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

She pointed at my face. “Your left eye, it’s closed, and kinda purple.”

I forced a smile. “I’ll be fine in a few days.”

Just then, Ramón stirred,

“Oohhh, Chica, what happened?”

“We got outflanked,”

“Oh,” Ramón said, and then he smiled at Amy. “Hey there little one, what’s your name?”

“Amy,”

“I am Ramón, Amy; it is very nice to meet you. I would shake your hand, but I’m a little tied up right now.”

Amy actually smiled.

Ramón smiled back, a moment later the van made a sharp left, four minutes passed, and then we stopped.

After the passenger doors opened and shut, we heard brief footfalls and then the side door of the van slid open. I had thought that the windows were blacked-out, but was now shocked to see that it was actually night, the only light came from a crescent moon. Both Ramón and I must have been unconscious for hours, and if we had been on the road all that time, then God only knew where they had taken us. The one called Derek yanked first Ramón, and then myself out of the van and onto hard packed earth, afterward, he glared in at Amy.

“Toby, why is this little bitch not tied up like the other two?”

The one called Toby walked over. He was a slightly built man with a round, boyish face and a tiny mouth. He spoke to Derek while looking at the ground.

“I didn’t need to tie her up; she wasn’t going anywhere, Derek.”

Derek let out his breath in a huff and climbed in the van to restrain Amy, as the third man moved around to stare down at Ramón and me. He was about six feet tall, like Derek, but he carried an extra twenty pounds of muscle, and his hair was short and black.

I looked about and saw nothing but flat land in all directions, but then to the west, I made out a small rectangle of light that must have been close to a mile away. It might have been a lit window in a house, but in the darkness, any surrounding features were lost.

I looked back up, and the third man, the one who had wielded the shotgun, was staring at me in a way that made the lecherous glance Ramón had given me earlier seem like a proud smile from a favorite uncle.

Ramón had been admiring me, this man was inventorying me, and as his tongue crept out and wet his lower lip, I knew that he planned to do more than simply get rid of me.

The man stopped his staring and spoke.

“Derek, you and Toby take this dude and the kid and drop ‘em in the old well out there.”

The man then reached into a jacket pocket and took out a knife that looked like a switchblade; he held it up.

“Use your knife, you still got it?”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “But why don’t I just shoot ‘em?”

The man pointed to the light in the field, as the knife disappeared back into his pocket.

“The sound of the gun might carry, might not, but we don’t need any lookie loos coming over to butt in, know what I mean?”

Derek nodded, “Okay, but what about her?”

The man smiled down at me.

“She’ll find her way to the bottom of that well soon enough, but it would be a damn shame to let a piece of ass like this go to waste; she and me, we’re gonna spend a little quality time in the van first.”

Ramón spat at the man, while shifting his feet beneath him.

“You are a piece of shit. What kind of man rapes women and harms children?”

The man wiped the spit off his chin and then reared back a foot to kick Ramón. Ramón then launched himself at the man and the two of them slammed against the side of the van and into the dirt.

Derek pulled Ramón off the other man and began kicking him repeatedly. I screamed at him to stop, while Amy began crying. Finally, the beating ended and Ramón rolled over to me. He was bleeding from his mouth and his nose and I knew that the repeated kicks to his midsection must have caused damage, but when I looked into his eyes, he winked.

A second later, I felt something hard strike my thigh, when I looked down I saw the knife, and realized that he had taken it from the man’s pocket as they struggled in the dirt.

I shifted over and plucked it from the dirt; it took two tries though, because my hand was swollen from being swatted with the shotgun. I had just managed to palm it, when the third man pulled me up on my feet by yanking on my ponytail. The next thing I knew, I was landing atop the plywood floor of the van.

“Remember Derek, no guns, stick that pig with your knife until he begs you to stop and then cut his throat.”

“My pleasure,” Derek said, and then I heard the sounds of them moving away, toward the left.

I explored the knife with my thumb and found a button. I was right; it was switchblade.

The man climbed in the van and then turned to slide the door shut. As tempting as it was to attack him then, I knew it would end in defeat. If he cried out while his companions were still nearby, they would simply rush the van before I could even cut myself free. I had to bide my time, let them get out of hearing range, and then take-out this one and get to them before they could harm Amy or Ramón.

The man let out a low whistle. “Damn, you are one sweet piece.”

He reached out and ripped my top off. It was just a white, sleeveless cotton shirt and it tore away easily. Next, he tried to rip my bra in two, but the thick stitching of the middle part of the front stymied his efforts, and he finally just broke the thin straps and pulled on it, until the hooks at the back gave way. He then tossed the new rag aside and gazed down at my breasts.

I asked him a question.

“Do you like what you see?”

“Hell yes!”

“That’s good, because they’re the last things you’re ever going to see.”

I pressed the button on the knife and thrust it upward until the point of the blade pierced the flesh beneath his chin, and as he opened his mouth to scream, I could see the long thin blade poking out of his ruptured tongue and continue into the roof of his mouth.

He grabbed at me blindly, as I had his head tilted back and his eyes were closed tight in reaction to the agony of the blade. I then twisted the knife hard and a choked cry issued from him that sounded more like a wheeze than a scream, afterward, I withdrew the knife and shifted it around to cut the plastic restraints that bound my wrists and ankles. I nearly dropped it twice because my hands were wet from my attacker’s blood.

It took me only three seconds to realize that by the time I cut through my bonds, it would be too late for Amy and Ramón.

Meanwhile the man had fallen out of the van and was crawling around in the dirt without purpose, and I briefly wondered if the blade had somehow damaged his optic nerve. I shuffled out of the van and searched the cab. On the passenger seat, I spied the shotgun; it was a 10 gauge with double triggers, lying beside it, was the satchel full of money.

I grabbed the shotgun off the seat and used an end of it to blow the horn three times, praying that the unexpected sound would halt the planned violence taking shape out in the darkness. I then tossed the gun back onto the seat and began cutting away at my restraints. It took nearly a minute to free myself, and I had just enough time to grab the shotgun and scramble beneath the van, as the sound of tentative footfalls reached my ears.

“Mike?” A voice whispered. “Mike, why did you blow the horn?”

Mike must be the name of my would-be rapist, who wriggled near the van like a wounded worm, as a soft moan dripped from his shredded mouth.

A shape emerged from the deeper shadows and then three more, and I was so happy to see Amy and Ramón unharmed that I nearly cried out in joy.

The first shadow grew closer and I could see that it was Derek; he had his gun out and was jerking his head this way and that, when he suddenly stopped and cried out.

“Mike! Shit man, what happened?”

As he walked closer, I took aim with the shotgun and pulled hard on the right trigger. The shot caught Derek in the chest and knocked him off his feet, and the recoil nearly dislocated my shoulder while causing my ears to ring, and my already aching head to throb.

As I moved out from beneath the van, Ramón headbutted Toby and sent the little man sprawling on his ass. I passed Ramón the knife as I walked over and shoved the barrel of the shotgun against Toby’s stomach.

“Move and you’re dead.” I said. At least I think I did, with the ringing in my ears, the only word I was able to make out was “dead”.

After cutting himself and Amy free, Ramón checked on Derek. He then looked over at me and shook his head, afterward; he searched Toby for weapons and came up with my .38 and his Desert Eagle. He then took off his shirt and handed it to me. He was already a mass of bruises from the kicks he received.

“Not that I mind the view...” He said.

I snatched the shirt and wriggled into it; with all the chaos and adrenaline, I had forgotten I was topless.

Amy ran over and hugged me. “Are you alright Aunt Blue?”

“I’m fine baby, what about you?”

She nodded her head and pointed down at Toby.

“He wouldn’t let the other man hurt me.”