In Her Way (16 page)

22

A Room with a Terrible View

I feel like we're starring in every-cop-drama-ever as we poke our heads out of the elevator when it lets us out on the top floor. The only thing we're missing is a pistol cocked in each hand as we look right then left and then exit.

There's a "do not disturb" sign hanging on the door and I gulp. Without looking too much like we aren't supposed to be there (you know, in case the front-desk-kid is watching the hallway cameras), we take a moment and press our ears up against the door.

I don't know anything about how mobsters travel (is it in twos or fours or even fives?), but I really don't want to walk in on a whole hive of them. All I want to do is find Andrew and get the hell out of here.

Hearing nothing that we can discern as murderers we all take a deep breath and I nod. Em slides the key through the door lock and it clicks as a small light turns from red to green. We swing it open and walk inside, closing it quickly so we're out of camera range.

We're standing inside what looks like a common area with couches and a television. An empty common area. Mobster-less and therefore great, but Andrew-less and therefore horrible. In front of us are two bedrooms.

"Andrew?" I whisper.

We wait for a moment, listening. When we hear nothing we walk forward slowly and as quietly as possible, just in case, gravitating to the left bedroom first.

There are two queen beds, both messy. Both slept in. But beyond that, the room is empty. My stomach drops. Is he not here? Where did they take him?

To our right is a shared bathroom, so we walk through it to the second bedroom. I can see Kaylee's fingers cross and she holds them in front of her as we walk into a second empty, no-Andrew bedroom. Besides not holding our friend, this room brings even more bad news. These two beds look slept in as well. There are four of them.

"So, they travel in fours," I say more for myself than the others.

"Shit." The word reverberates through the room. I can't tell you who said it because I'm not even sure, but it doesn't matter because we're all thinking it.

"If there are more, they could be coming back at any moment." My eyebrows shove down toward my nose and I look to Em.

"Right. One of us needs to be a lookout while the rest of us search for clues." She taps her lips with her fingertips. "I'll do it since you and Kaylee know Andrew the best and know what you're looking for."

We nod and break, Em moving to the window, me searching this front area, and Kaylee moving back into the bedrooms. After only a minute, though, Em lets out a yip and says, "Uh oh."

Kaylee and I run to the window to see what she’s yipping about.

She points a shaky finger at the front of the building by the lobby where the rental car we drove up in sits. My heart stops. Two men are walking up to it. We suck in air and pat our pockets. Feeling nothing we look down at the car just as the men open the doors, get in, and start it up. We must've left the keys in the ignition in all of our excitement.

"Hey! They're stealing our car -- er -- the car we... stole." Kaylee's anger fizzles into confusion as she squints her eyes.

"How are we supposed to get back now?" Em asks, letting her shoulders slump forward and leaning against the wall.

I don't respond to any of their comments or questions because I'm still watching the car. The men backed it out of the spot we'd parked it in, but they didn't drive out the exit and onto the street like they should've if they were really stealing it. Instead they drive deeper into the parking lot, toward us, and seemed to be coming around the building to the back lot. I run over to the other window and catch them just as they park.

"Oh no." I gulp.

"What?" Em and Kaylee run over to me and look where I point.

"They're just parking closer to their room because that's
their
car and this is
their
room." My words are jumbled and rushed and I think my lungs are going to explode. I back away from the window and look around the room in a panic. "We need to get out of here, they're coming up. They're --"

A sound interrupts me. A horrifying sound. Like a someone stubbing their toe mashed together with a tired athlete giving up in a collapsing-moaning-heap. I turn to see Kaylee making the sound as she points to something out the window.

"No freaking way," Em says, shaking her head.

I run back over to see that the two men have opened up the trunk and are in the process of pulling out a tied up and gagged Andrew. They look around to make sure they aren't seen as they shuffle him to the back entrance of the building.

"He was...." I close my eyes and let my head sink forward. "He was in the trunk the whole damn time?" I yell the question and shake my fist in the air. Then I look around for a pillow that I can go scream into, something Mama taught me to do when I felt frustrated.

Em grabs my arm before I can get anywhere, though. She focuses her gaze on mine.

"Jules, they're coming up here. Now." I notice that her eyes are wide and white with fear.

Kaylee's running around in small circles, her bracelets jangling as she chants, "Ohno, ohno, ohno, ohno, ohno, ohnoooooooo."

We grab her arm and pull her into one of the bedrooms.

"They're in the building already, so we can't leave." Em's eyes search the room. "We'll have to hide." She stares into the bathroom and points. "In there."

We climb into the shower, pulling the white curtain shut behind us. Em tugs it one last inch closed as we hear the door lock click open and the men enter the room.

"Hey guys?" one of the men yells out.

I hear the springs of a chair groan as I assume they sit Andrew down.

"Guys?" the same man asks, his footsteps clomping throughout the bedrooms. "They aren't here."

"Greg was freaking about his tooth. I'm sure they went to get it taken care of." I sigh and feel as if I can picture him waving his hand in the air to dismiss his colleague's worries.

"Without the car?"

I cringe. That guy has a point. I feel tugged back and forth between this argument even though I'm for-sure rooting for the side where they don't question where their compatriots are because that means less danger for us. I keep listening.

"Of course they wouldn't take the car with the Marshal in it. They left him for us, like we talked about. I'm sure they walked or took a cab."

I almost want to wipe the sweat off my brow in relief as the guy who is all for ignoring the signs seems to win the argument, but I'm too scared of making noise, so I hold still. Em and Kaylee look at me and make that-was-close wide eyes before Kaylee points to the tub and we silently slip down into a cramped sitting arrangement of legs and arms.

The men talk in Russian for a bit, but when they turn on the television we start to let our heads rest on each other's shoulders. Just when I think I might drift off into sleep, I hear Andrew clear his throat and say, "I need to use the bathroom. That okay with you fellows?"

The grunt one of them lets out is clear even in here. "Tough luck. Hold it."

My heart aches for Andrew (my bladder, too).

"Yeah, I have been, for a few hours in the trunk of that damn car. I really have to go and unless you two want to continue watching your show with the lovely aroma of piss hanging in the air because I've gone ahead and let loose on this chair, I suggest you let me go."

More grunting, but this time it has a tone to it that suggests giving in. "Fine. Suit yourself. But don't get any funny ideas in there."

Andrew doesn't say anything about his ideas or what kind of comedic value they might hold. As for me, I'm hoping he has a bucket-full of funny ideas. Hilarious ones, at that. Ones that will help us laugh our way right out of this damn situation. Because from where the girls and I sit now, we're looking at a long, crooked-necked, foot-asleep night followed closely by a morning surprise when one of these two henchmen decide to take a shower.

I hear footsteps shuffle up to the bathroom. When they pulled Andrew out of the trunk, it seemed like they had his ankles tied pretty close together. The girls and I stand up as quietly as the process will allow (I only take three elbows to the gut) and we're poised in position as he closes both doors to the suite toilet.

Before we hear the telltale unzipping noise, we stick our heads out of the sides of the shower curtain and whisper a quick, "Pssst" to make Andrew turn around.

He doesn't.

"Don't pee!" Em does her famous whisper yell.
That
Andrew hears.

He whips around and looks like he would pull out a gun and tell us to freeze if his hands weren't tied in front of him and his feet weren't in a similar situation. The facial expressions that cross his face in the next five seconds are enough to make you laugh and then run for your life.

First, his eyebrows lift in surprise. A smile even plays at the corner of his lips. Then his forehead wrinkles, deeper and deeper. And once that's good and wrinkled enough, his eyes dart back and forth to all our faces. This brings on the scowl. Oh and what a scowl it is. Shaming-anger wrapped up in a big piece of you-shouldn't-have sprinkled with what-are-you-thinking.

"What are you doing?" He mouths the words at us angrily. For a moment I feel lucky he can't actually say anything. I'm sure there were more, are more, colorful choices he could've gone with instead.

The three of us bare our teeth, not in smiles, but more of a primal please-don't-hurt-us look-we're-nice kind of defensive way.

"We're here to rescue you," Kaylee whispers with a little hand flourish at the end, which I really think adds to the statement, but Andrew does not seem to agree.

He focuses his now-fully-narrowed eyes at Em and me. "You brought her? Here? Do you have any...?" His head drops, shakes, his tied-together hands raise up to rest tiredly at the bridge of his nose.

Em and I cringe.

"To rescue you." Em repeats Kaylee's statement as if he just might not have heard it the first time.

Andrew's eyes stay closed and he takes in a few deep breaths. It isn't until now that I notice his face. His left cheek is beginning to swell and he's got a few good-sized cuts on his lips and chin. I step out of the tub quietly and bring my hand up gently to touch a few of the more tender-seeming spots. He opens his eyes and watches me. All I want to do is hug him tight to me (and maybe do a few other things involving lips and tongues), but I settle for whisper-asking if he's okay.

"It looks worse than it is." His answer is an of-course-lie because he doesn't want to worry us. He ushers me back into the tub.

"We'll figure something out. I promise," I whisper, my statement feels big and sure, something I don't feel, but I'm happy if it came across like that to Andrew.

He smiles at me, one eye squintier (or it could be that one eye was swelling because of being punched). "I still have to pee." He shrugs his shoulders and looks around the small bathroom.

Kaylee motions to the sink and mimes turning the water on. Then she plugs her ears and nods at him. Finally understanding what she's going for, we all wink at him, then disappear behind the curtain. He turns on the water and that's the last thing I hear as I plug my ears and close my eyes. The sound of a flush bounces off the walls of the shower stall we stand in and the sink runs as Andrew washes his hands.

I'm just taking my fingers out of my ears, when I feel a hand grab onto my chin. My body tenses, worried because of the situation we're in, but the feel of the hand, the softness behind it, the kindness guiding it, stops those worries and opens my eyes to Andrew. He holds my face with both his hands, tied together, smelling of hotel soap.

"To hell with it," he whispers before leaning in, planting his soft all-American lips onto mine, and pulling me as close as he can in his condition.

When he pulls away, there's a smile behind his eyes and I want to grab him close and hold on. Instead, I say, "Good luck” and shoot him a wink before he leaves.

23

Identity Crisis

I slump down, sliding along the white walls like a piece of shower gunk, a booger sliming its way down toward the drain.

"Good luck?" I repeat the words (whispered of course) over and over.

The man of my last-few-week's-dreams kisses me, shows me that he cares about me in the same way I care about him and I tell him good luck? What the hell was I thinking?

Em and Kaylee pat me on the shoulders in a knowing, we're sorry way, because they're friends and girls who also do things like that. But I remember Mama's saying about feeling sorry for yourself, so I sit up straight (well, as straight as I can cramped in this tub) and think about how we're going to get the hell out of here, all four of us.

I look up to see Kaylee sitting back, letting her eyes close and Em taking out her phone and holding it up like she's searching for service. Though, she
is
messing with her hair a lot, too, so she very well could be using the camera to obsess about her bald spot.

Maybe I'm alone in the idea generating area.

More Russian conversation streams in from the front room and I'm starting to really think that we might just be able to wait these guys out. By the sound of them and having seen their two buddies, they don't really seem like people who take showers every day. Maybe we could stay in here all --

"One hour down, Marshal," one of them says, interrupting my thoughts and cutting down my plan.

Oh, yeah. That's why we can't.

I gulp at the reminder of why we have to figure something out, and soon.  That’s when I hear footsteps coming our way. Into the bathroom. My eyes widen. I place a hand quietly on Em's arm and she lowers her phone down into her lap, then places her hand on Kaylee's arm.

I can hear the faint sounds of the girls sucking in their breath as the doors shut and a shadow falls on the curtain in front of us. I follow suit, glad my holding-my-breath-across-every-bridge-when-I-was-younger skills are finally becoming useful.

We don't move a muscle, not even to plug our ears as this large-shadowed man lets out so much pee I'm a little worried for his health.

After he leaves, we all relax, that is, until we hear them making more, this time extra-colorful, threats to Andrew if he doesn’t tell them where “the girl” is. And then they start talking about their friends again, about wondering what's taking them so long.

Our bodies all tense up and I see Kaylee's lips mouthing something out of the corner of my eye. She seems to be repeating it. I watch her forehead wrinkle in thought, in some sort of decisive thought, actually.

My stomach drops as I realize what she's mouthing.

"Trade-sies."

Holy bad ideas, Batman! She's going to try to turn herself in. My heart hammers against my chest and my face feels hot. I watch her body rock forward as if she's about to sit up.

I suppose all of my other important organs were working on overdrive -- my heart, my lungs, my muscles poised -- and that they must’ve used up all of my body's bandwidth, leaving nothing to fuel my brain. That really has to be the only explanation for what I do next.

I jump up, grab onto Kaylee's wrist, yank off her bracelets, shove them onto my arm, and jump out of the shower. Then I run out into the other room.

"It's me you want! Not him. Let him go!" I point to Andrew, but keep my eyes from looking at him, not wanting the sure-to-be-there anger in his eyes to be the last thing I see.

The mobsters jump up and shout in surprise. My whole body sways backward as it seems to realize the scary-high terrible-factor of this plan and I almost fall over, but I don't. I plant myself, look these guys in the eyes and say, "It's me. I'm Kaylee." I wait for this to play out how -- wait, I didn't plan anything in my head. I don't know how this plays out. At all.

My freaking out is cut short by the weird thing happening in front of me. Even though I didn't think this through, I definitely expected more than the silence and blank stares that follow my announcement.

The men look at each other, look at me, look back at each other.

"I'm Kaylee. Kaylee Taylor." I crane my neck forward, waiting for them to get it. I circle my hand in front of me. "You know, the girl from the trial." But the mobsters don't seem to be listening -- to me, that is. They're too focused on my hand circling, on my wrist to be more precise. They're watching Kaylee's ridiculous bracelets clink and shine.

I see them reach for their guns, I see them think twice about shooting a girl in a hotel and start racing toward me instead. And I must be so focused on them that I don't notice the blur coming from the left until it smashes into the bigger of the two men.

Screams barrel out of the bathroom along with Em and Kaylee, Em holding the stun gun out in front of herself and Kaylee holding onto a dripping toilet brush. I jump out of the way just in time for Em to press the stun gun onto the guy coming at me. He falls to the floor as Em stands over him while Kaylee runs toward Andrew and the other guy, who are now starting to untangle themselves from the kitchen chairs they fell into.

She tackles the mobster and smacks him with the toilet brush, flinging toilet water around her in the process. I race over to Andrew and help him up. Then I use a kitchen knife to undo the zip-ties (ooh, zip-ties are a good if-you-don’t-have-floss option) they've got tightened around his wrists and ankles.

After he's free, Andrew becomes like some sort of Tasmanian Devil character, whirling around the room, picking up guns, pinning guys down, yelling threats at them, and I'm feeling like clapping because here's the part where everything goes our way... when someone knocks at the door of the hotel room.

We all stop. Our necks crane so we can see the door. We look at each other, then back to the mess we've created.

"Hey guys, we don't have a key. Will you let us in?"

A chill runs down my spine. Curly and Buzz Cut must've gotten out of their floss entrapment. Damn. (Okay, maybe zip-ties are a lot better.) But the chill of fear stops midway down my back and I smile. They can't get in because we took their key. They're asking their friends to let them in. Their friends who, right now, have Em and Andrew sitting on them, Andrew showing Em how to press her knee into the man's upper back to keep him quiet. Haha! We're safe! I almost jump up and down in relief.

Until they smash in the door.