Fair Play (Hat Trick, Book 1) (25 page)

“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?

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?

“I know what I want,” Bobby said and she snapped her attention
back to him.

His still-blackened, beady eyes slid over her body. She
wanted to retch.

Payback was going to be a big bad bitch.

She edged away while Garrick tried to block Bobby’s approach.
Robert pressed the gun to Garrick’s ribs and he froze.

Bobby’s meaty hand clamped around her upper arm.

Fear unlike any she’d felt before clutched at her chest. She
couldn’t breathe. Bobby’s rage boiled in his eyes, his intent a blatant mixture
of sex and violence written across his face. She wrenched her arm free, only to
have it captured the moment Garrick grunted and she turned to see the nose of
the pistol drilled into his ribs.

This time Bobby didn’t let go, no matter how hard she fought
him. He got his other arm clamped around her waist and dragged her down the
hallway and through the ladies’ room door.

Her only consolation was she still had her purse. She’d
staple his goddamn eyeball if given half a chance.

As the door shut behind them, she heard Garrick shout her
name and she braced, terrified she’d hear a gun shot. Bobby slammed her against
the wall, his arm to the back of her neck, her face smashed to the tile. His
crotch and growing erection ground against her ass and jammed her hip bones
painfully against the unforgiving ceramic.

Her face hurt. Hell, everything hurt, but it didn’t matter a
damn when his hand worked its way into her waistband. She thrust herself forward,
using his weight against him as she plastered herself to the wall. Bobby
grunted. His hand was trapped against her stomach. He jerked his arm from the
back of her neck, grabbed the back of her pants, and yanked her back.

“Nice try, bitch,” he spat into her ear, his breath close,
his hand wrenching the button of her jeans open.

She waited, desperate to scream, to vomit, to beg him to
leave her alone as the zipper slid down. She held her breath until he pulled
his hand from her waistband, and as she’d hoped and feared, lowered himself,
eager to press his now rigid erection against her ass.

With a mighty heave, she threw her head back. Pain burst
across the back of her skull and she felt the satisfying crunch of cartilage
collapsing. Bobby’s grip loosened, and she spun around. Howling in pain, Bobby slammed
her against the wall with all his weight behind him.

Her breath left her body in a great whoosh, her already sore
head striking the tile with enough force to make her see stars.

He pressed his face against her cheek, smearing her with his
blood. “I’m going to make you pay for that, too.”

God help her, she believed him.

The door opened and noise from the hallway and the bar
beyond poured into the room. She prayed it was help coming. Bobby apparently knew
better. He held her up against the wall with a straight arm and a tight hand
around her neck as his father and Garrick came into the room.

“What the fuck?” Bobby snarled.

“No time for that now, son,” Robert Kramer said mildly,
locking the door behind him. “We have more company arriving out front. You can
finish that once we’re away from here.”

Savannah locked eyes with Garrick. He stood holding his
hands out with Robert Kramer behind him, doubtless with his gun at Garrick’s
back.

Garrick seemed calm, but then his gaze searched her body, eye
lids twitching at the blood on her face, the grip on her neck. When he focused
on her mid-section and her open jeans, his eyes narrowed. Bobby was either
stupid or not paying attention, because Garrick telegraphed his next move as
clear as day.

 She punched down on Bobby’s bad elbow. He roared as already
painful tendons strained. She held on for dear life, forcing his grip from her
neck and pulling him off balance as she fell to the floor. Bobby yanked his arm
free just as Garrick crashed into him.

She shoved her way out from beneath their grappling limbs
and crawled under the sinks. She looked up to search for a clear path to the
door and found a gun in her face.

Robert Kramer smiled grimly. “I suggest you ask Mr. LeBlanc
to stop, or I’ll shoot you both. I haven’t a thing to lose.”

She swallowed the lump lodged in her throat and croaked, “Garrick.”

The grunting tangle of arms and legs across the room paid no
attention amidst the thump of flesh hitting flesh. Carefully, her hands where
Robert Kramer could see them, she crawled from under the sinks, stood, and
cleared her throat.

“Garrick!”

He heard her. With a shove, he threw himself off Bobby and onto
his feet, stumbling back into her. He was in no condition to walk, let alone
brawl. She hoped like hell he hadn’t just made his head worse.

Not that it would matter if they didn’t find some way to get
the hell away from the Kramers.

She wrapped her arm around his waist and made a show of
clinging to him, giving him a chance to get his head cleared and his legs under
him. He curled an arm around her shoulders, holding tight, and tucked her face
against his chest. She took the opportunity to refasten her pants.

She was terrified, her hands shaking as she fumbled with the
button, but it was somehow better with her clothes on properly.

They were in the women’s bathroom in a bar loaded with cops
and the backdoor blocked. If they stalled for time, someone would come find
them. Jack and Grady should already be looking, shouldn’t they?

“What the fuck are you going to do with us?” Garrick asked.

Robert Kramer watched his son drag himself up off the floor.
Bobby hadn’t looked so hot before she’d smashed his face and elbow. Now he looked
like a prize fighter who’d gone ten rounds and lost.

Her gaze darted to the door when someone jiggled the handle.

Hurry up!

Bobby snapped out of his staggering confusion at the noise. With
a grunt, he stumbled into the handicapped stall. Only then did she notice the
heavy wood door beyond the cubicle wall.

Oh shit. They have a way out.

Garrick’s death grip on her arm told her he saw it too. Should
they run for the door? Maybe Robert was a lousy shot and wouldn’t hit anything
vital before they could escape into the relative safety of the hallway.

The muzzle of the gun drilling into her kidney sent her
heart rate higher and answered the question for her. Frantic, she scanned the room,
the doors, the cubicles, anything, trying to come up with a way to escape. She
wiped her sweating palms down her shirt and found her purse still hung across
her chest.

They needed a way out and all she had was fucking tape and a
stapler.

The door handle jiggled again. Why the hell weren’t they
breaking the thing down?

If they couldn’t get out to the cops, then they needed the
cops in here. Now.

Garrick froze when Bobby threw open the door in the stall
and revealed a dark hallway. This was bad. There was no way in hell he could
let Savannah go through that door. He curled his hands into fists and shifted
on his feet. It was hard to find his balance when his head felt like he was on
a fucking tilt-a-whirl, but how well he fought didn’t matter as much as getting
the gun off Savannah and onto him.

It would be a real pleasure to bury his fist into Robert
Kramer’s face, even if it meant getting shot.

Savannah’s fingernails drilled into his arm and he looked
down at her. She grabbed hold of him with both hands and let loose a blood
curdling scream.

Garrick staggered back, his ears ringing as the sound
ricocheted around the tile room, his eyes glued to the gun still pressed to her
back. Robert Kramer looked as stunned as Garrick felt, and—
thank Christ
—didn’t
seem to have an itchy trigger finger.

What the fuck was Savannah thinking?

She stared up at Garrick. “Whatever happens, we are not going
through that door. I’d rather be fucking shot.”

Who was he to argue?

With what strength he had left, he yanked Savannah to the
side, throwing her in the direction of the door to the bar, and lurched toward
Robert Kramer.

“Do it again!” Garrick shouted.

She let rip another screech that would make any teenage
horror film victim proud. Someone outside this goddamn bathroom had to hear it.
The sound brought Garrick to the edge of consciousness, but now he had a gun
trained on him and that was working to keep him pretty alert. Bobby barreled through
the stall door and charged at Savannah.

She was ready for him. With a quick jerk, she unfurled a
foot of duct tape and wrapped it around Bobby’s wrist as he reached for her. Bobby
jerked back and Savannah followed until his hand slammed into the cubicle wall.
It took Savannah less than three seconds to duct tape Bobby’s arm to the stall frame
securely bolted into the ceiling and floor.

Robert Kramer’s mouth dropped open as his son was disabled
by nothing more than a pissed-off woman and some home improvement supplies. He
swung his gun back toward her as she trussed Bobby’s other arm to the other
side of the door.

“Get behind Bobby!” Garrick yelled.

Savannah dove under Bobby’s arm and into the stall, then
plastered herself to Bobby’s back. He tried to kick her away and got his ankles
taped together for his troubles. Then another piercing wail rent the air. The
last note still bounced off the tiles, echoing in the room and his head, when something
heavy hit the bathroom door with a loud crack of wood splitting.

Finally!

Robert Kramer didn’t seem to know where to point his gun any
longer. He looked at the door to their escape route almost longingly, and then
at his hog-tied son blocking the way.

The door to the bathroom flew open with a crash, pieces of
particle board and the brass lock sailing through the air.

“Freeze!  Don’t even think about it!” Grady shouted as he
barreled through the door, his gun raised. “Robert Kramer, you’re under
arrest!”

Savannah ran towards Garrick as he jumped out of the way of
the good guys, but his foot swung through air instead of finding tile floor. His
tenuous grasp on his relative orientation to the earth finally failed entirely.
He closed his eyes, knowing the moment his head hit the sinks, or the floor, or
whatever stopped his fall first, was going to be bad. Really bad. But he didn’t
have the will, or perhaps sense, to put out an arm to catch himself.

He grunted when he landed on his ass one second before his
head struck the relative softness of someone’s legs. The sudden stop jarred his
head, shaking his already loose brain. He smiled up at Savannah, then went
under.