“Someone who looks like you.”
“What do my looks have to do with anything?” she asked, honestly bewildered, as Kevin shifted his weight behind her.
Charmer flapped a hand at her. “Oh, stop it. You know. Gorgeous little blonde, big blue eyes, flawless skin, rosy cheeks—I could vomit just looking at you.”
“I think gorgeous is a little extreme,” Jenny said, thinking, this is worse than the drug interrogation. She could feel the hot blood rushing to her cheeks; she hated when people pretended she was prettier than she was. “And aren’t we getting off topic?”
“Ugh,” Charmer said, almost snarled. “You’re one of those.”
“Those what?”
“Those gorgeous women who pretend they’re not gorgeous. They can look in a mirror and see plain while men are slobbering all over them.”
“I have yet to encounter a slobbering man. Well, except for the good doctor downstairs. But we both know what motivates him. Your man here showed up just in time.”
“Mmm. I’m just saying, if you’re going to work for me, I hate your type. I think you’re right—honesty is the best policy for this sort of thing.”
“Well, who says I’m going to work for you?”
“You can’t go back,” Charmer pointed out. “Not after, how does Loman put it? Singing like a canary?”
“That does appear to be the phrase of the day,” Jenny commented. “And it’s not like I had a choice. He—” jerking a thumb in Kevin’s direction, “—kidnapped me, and your pet psycho doped me before trying to feel me up. I’m definitely thinking victim, here.”
“I doubt The Boss will see it that way.” Charmer said it with a perfectly straight face, but couldn’t keep the venom out of her tone. “He’s not very trusting. Or forgiving.”
What was this about? “Well, I—I don’t have many dealings with him in my job. As you’ll probably hear yourself on the audiotape, he’s just somebody who works upstairs, to me. You think everybody who works at Microsoft meets Bill Gates?”
“Mmm.”
“So, uh, what do we do now? I mean, can I go? I guess that’s a silly question.”
A frosty smile. “I guess.”
“But if I don’t stay here and work…”
Charmer made a pistol out of her thumb and forefinger, and pointed it at Jenny.
“Oh.” Jenny fought the rising nausea; this, she hadn’t foreseen. “So it’s not even a choice, right?”
The chilly smile widened. “Not really, dear.”
“And that wasn’t exactly a job offer, was it? You just brought me up here to fuck with me.”
“Essentially. In fact, there might be further interrogations in your near future. Think of them as employee orientations.”
“Yeah, I’m not, uh, I’m not sure I see them quite the way you do…”
Charmer stood—it was exactly like watching a snake uncoil—and approached Jenny, breathing closely in her ear. “If Dr. Loman is as incapacitated as most people Sidewinder roughs up, I may need to administer them myself.”
“Hate to put you to all that trouble,” she said weakly.
“I have to admit, I’d love a look inside that pretty little head of yours. Girls like you with low self-esteem…you’re simply delicious.”
“You’re not going to—” Suddenly she was jerked to her feet.
“Done, ma’am?” Kevin rumbled.
Charmer waved them away. “Take her to holding six. See to her restraints yourself, please—I don’t think the doctor is able to tuck her in just right now. We’ll start again tomorrow. Oh, and if you haven’t already, call someone to fix up Loman.”
“If you insist, ma’am.”
Chapter 25
“That went well,” Jenny began. “But I have to say, I’m not looking forward to my follow-up with Dr. Loman. I mean, I thought the HMO doctors were bad. Is it possible that he’s a grudge holder?”
“I’m sure he’s forgotten all about it,” Kevin replied. The elevator doors opened to a near-empty floor, which didn’t surprise her. As far as she had seen, the Snakepit had very few employees, which was about right, if Charmer was half the paranoid bitch Jenny assumed she was.
Kevin nodded at a single guard and led Jenny down a hallway with the impersonal politeness of a good maitre d’. The walls on either side were clear—glass or plastic or whatever—and all the holding cells were empty.
She counted down six, and as they reached the small, bare room the glass door slid smoothly back.
“Home sweet home,” Kevin said with a sarcastic smile.
“Uh-huh.” She stepped inside. It was right out of Silence of the Lambs—bare walls, a stainless steel toilet, a bare cot. Two army blankets neatly folded on the cot. A spotless sink. No windows. “Well, I’ll see you later, then.”
He glanced down the hallway, then stepped closer to her. “I’m really sorry,” he said in a low voice.
“For what? Sticking to the plan?” She shoved him away—that ought to look good for the cameras. He backed up a step but, annoyingly, didn’t leave. “Come on, get out of here.”
He started to speak again, then seemed to see the sense of her words, because he turned to leave—only to almost walk into the now-closed door.
Charmer was standing on the other side of the glass.
“Aggghh!” they said in unison.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Charmer said, “but once the trust is gone, it’s very hard to rebuild the relationship.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Kevin barked.
“Oh, filling the hours, you know how it goes.”
“It’s right nicer if you wait ’til after your man gets out of the cell,” he said.
“Are you? My man? I’m not sure, Kevin—I have to say, I’m really not sure.” Charmer tsk’ed and shook her head. “I’m interested in finding out, though. I’m simply dying to speak to the good doctor, but he hasn’t come around yet. In the meantime, you can keep our guest company.” She grinned. “I’d do it myself—I’d love to do it myself—but you know how it goes. All paperwork, all the time. Maybe I’ll make it back down here later. Bring a bottle of white.”
“Mwah-hah-hah,” Jenny volunteered from the cot.
“It’s almost insulting,” she sniffed at him, “how dumb you think I must be.”
“Dr. Loman will only be able to tell you how the lady got the drop on him.”
“Oh so? Then my apologies in advance. That’s the nice thing about these cells. I can open them as easily as I can close them. Don’t fret, Kevin. If I’ve made a mistake, I’ll tender a full written apology, and buy the beer. Not that I drink beer. But you understand. For now, there are other things to work on.” She waggled bitten nails at them in a sarcastic wave. “You two have a nice evening.”
“We have to share a toilet?” Jenny shouted after her. If Charmer replied, they couldn’t hear it.
And then, suddenly, they were alone.
“I sense we need a new plan,” she said.
“Well, fuck,” Kevin snarled, obviously resisting the urge to kick the wall.
“You’ve had to deal with that woman for how many years?”
“Fuckfuckfuck.”
“Well, they didn’t take any of your guns away. Can you shoot your way out?”
“Not without the ricochets wounding or killing us. That bitch.”
“That’s the trouble with paranoid, evil overlord bitches,” Jenny said cheerfully. “You can’t trust them.”
He slunk over to the cot. She was almost amused; it was obvious he had not planned to be on this side of the bars. Not that there were bars.
“How long until she comes back with the hot pokers?”
“Dunno. Depends on what Loman will tell her.”
“I don’t think he’s going to be able to talk anytime soon.” She almost giggled, remembering Kevin kicking the bad doctor around the room like a kid with a hackey sack.
“Yup, there’s that.” He seemed to cheer up a little. He looked at her a
nd she marveled again at his wonderful eyes, so dark and deep, with that cute tip at the ends, making them almond-shaped and mysterious. “And there’s this: I’d rather be here with you than in some fancy hotel suite without you.”
She grinned. “Wait until we both have to use the toilet at the same time.”
“Hush,” he said, and bent to her, and kissed her.
She returned the kiss with more than polite enthusiasm, and they fell back on the cot, and she had time to mumble, “Security cameras,” before he said, “Taken care of.”
Then she forgot about the cameras, Charmer, Dr. Loman, The Boss, the whole mess. The only thing in this small, clean cell was Kevin, all big shoulders and long legs and their combined weight making the cot creak.
His mouth was on her mouth, her temple, her hair. He was murmuring something over and over and after a minute she was able to figure out what it was: “It’s all right. Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.”
“I’m not worried,” she lied. “Not a bit.” No, the cell didn’t worry her, Charmer didn’t worry her, the possibility of never seeing her home again didn’t worry her, Caitlyn worrying about her didn’t worry her, Mag being run by a series of temps didn’t worry her, nope, nothing, nada.
And now it was almost true.
His hands were under her shirt and, unlike Dr. Loman’s crawly touch, Kevin’s was firm and welcome. She arched into him and breathed in his clean, cottony scent. He sucked her tongue into his mouth and bit lightly, and she shivered all over as if a stiff breeze was blowing through the cell.
And speaking of stiff, her fingers found his belt, delved lower; he was like cloth-covered stone, and they writhed together on the cot for a moment, trying to give each other access without tearing anything.
She reached, groped, steadied a hand on the wall as he unzipped her jeans, pushed clothing aside, undid his own pants, shoved inside her. She groaned on the downstroke and he shuddered over her like a man with a fever, and for a moment neither of them moved.
Then he shifted and she arched, and they met each other again and again under the harsh fluorescent lights, making the cot creak, forcing gasps from each other.
Will I be dead in an hour? she thought. Is that why I’m doing this crazy thing? He could be knocking me up right now. He could be giving me V.D. He could—
—be making her come, be making things around the edges go dark, be whispering in her hair and touching her face, be forcing her legs wider to accommodate him, all of him, be shuddering and whispering her name.
Be still.
He was resting his forehead on her shoulder, breathing hard. She reached, found the back of his neck, stroked it.
“That’ll teach Charmer to lock us up,” she said, and he started laughing so hard he almost fell off the cot.
Chapter 26
“So now what?” she whispered.
He got off her, pulled her shirt down, helped her up. Looked away politely as she zipped and tucked. Arranged his own clothes.
“Now we get the fu—the heck out of Dodge.” He took out his wallet, took out a stiff card and some small metal things, stepped up on the cot, fiddled around for a moment with his arms over his head, and pulled a square off the ceiling.
She gaped; did all the cells come with handy hidden fuse boxes? Or whatever was up in the ceiling? Not a fuse box, something else, something only a Snakepit employee would be able to find quickly and—
She didn’t hear it, but sensed it, and turned; the door was sliding open.
“I’m not mad or anything,” she said, “but why didn’t you do that ten minutes ago?”
He gave her a look. “I had other things on my mind.”
“Mmmm.” She couldn’t decide if she was annoyed or flattered.
“Come on.” He took her by the hand, led her out, led her down the dark hall—among other things, he’d done something to the lights—and seemed unsurprised to see the guard was not at his desk. “Let’s blow.”
“Blow as in leave? Or are we going to participate in the secret sexual Olympics again?”
“Hush.”
“Sorry, I’m a little nervous, and I babble when I’m nervous.”
“You’ve never babbled in your life.” He opened the door to the stairwell. “Time to get those little legs of yours moving.”
“Had enough fun in the Pit for one day, huh?”
“I decided that,” he said, leading the way down the stairwell, “when I saw Loman on the floor.”
“We’re just going to leave? Just like that?”
“Yup.”
“Now?”
“Yup.”
“But won’t somebody see us?”
“Prob’ly.”
She stopped in midstep. “There’s got to be a better way to do this.”
He turned around. “Come on, Jenn.”
She fought the urge to stamp her foot. Oh, for nanobytes in her bloodstream right about now! She’d boot him down the stairwell, go back, and break Charmer’s neck.
“Kevin. Come on. I’m a receptionist and I know this won’t work. We don’t even have a contingency plan for this!” Cripes, why didn’t we have a contingency plan for this?
“I’m not leaving you in a fu—in a cage.”
“Well, we can’t just leave right this second without a plan. Leave me in a cage for a while, find Charmer and plead your case, make her believe you’re still one of them. Just don’t forget to come get me.” She realized what she had said and, stricken, added, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that how it sounded. I know you’d never leave anyone behind.”
He smiled at her, a real smile, not like Charmer’s grimaces. “Don’t fret, sweetie. Besides, I wouldn’t say there ain’t a plan.”
Chapter 27
They emerged from the building and Jenny was struck silent, stopped still, and stared.
“No time for sight-seeing.” Kevin was busy doing something with the door—he had produced what looked like a dull-gray credit card and ran it through the small metal ID box, the kind that looked like credit-card machines. Instead of “Entrance granted” or “$35.16” or whatever, “XXXXXXXX” flashed in green letters on the tiny screen. She heard a clank as the door locked itself.
“This—we’re—the Snakepit’s—”
“In the Iowa State Fairgrounds,” he confirmed. “Sure. Who’d look for us here? Fifty weeks a year this place is deader than sh—than heck.”
Still she goggled: she could see the giant, two-story yellow slide, various shut-up booths
(Cheese Curds! Sno-Kones! Foot-Longs!) and the Got Milk? booth.
Got Spies? she thought wildly.
“Come on,” he said, and took her hand. “We need to stay off the midway. Stick to the little side streets. This time of night, there’s hardly anybody around. Most of ’em are in the main building, but we gotta watch out for booby traps.”
“She set up the Snakepit at the state fair? And then booby-trapped the midway?” What a perversion of all that was good! Jenny could hardly believe it. Oooh, that Charmer was a brass bitch, and that was for sure. A brass bitch who needed highlights and a manicure in the worst way. And Jenny didn’t even want to think about what that woman’s feet must need. “But that’s so wrong!”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“I can’t believe we got out. Was that too easy?”
“Easy? She calls that easy?” He smiled at her. “But to your point: I’m not surprised we got out. I am a professional, after all. And I have a pretty charmer by my side.”
“A pretty tired charmer,” she replied. “Wait. Don’t call me that.”
“Come on.” He caught her hand and they moved off, deeper into the fairgrounds.
Before she could lend a hand, or duck, he’d shoved her behind the cow-and-sheep barn and taken out the small border patrol. She heard the dull thuds and cracks and winced, hoping he wasn’t killing anyone. She peeked just in time to see the third man drop.
Carrying them fireman-style, he dumped
the men back in the Jeep. She crept over and saw all their communications equipment was dark; nothing was in the red, nothing was lit.
“Excellent,” he grunted.
“What?”
“I took some time to leave a few surprises in the basement.”
“So the bad guys are losing power?” she guessed.
“Among other things. I suppose Charmer was right not to trust me, eh?”
“When did you do that?”
“Before my chess game with Charmer, she had me running a few errands around the complex. Enough time to, well, shift about the ordnance inventory, so to speak. I had to do something to pass the time during your date with Dr. Loman, after all.”
“So you always meant for us to leave sooner rather than later?”
He shrugged. “I move a bit faster than your boss probably imagines. The time in the cell was the only delay I didn’t expect. Hop in.”
“Finally! I thought we were going to walk all over these fairgrounds.”
“We can ride for a bit. I gotta get this Jeep outta sight.”
She gingerly climbed over one of the men (who was bleeding unattractively from one ear) and settled in the passenger seat. “I have to say, I’m having the weirdest couple of days.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter 28
“Why didn’t we keep the Jeep?” she asked.
“Shhhh.” They were crouched behind the Seed and Nursery building and, as the sun went down, Jenny was finding it harder and harder to see in the deepening gloom. At least it was off-season. Or maybe that was a bad thing. If it had been fair season, after all, they could have disappeared into a crowd of a hundred thousand people. But as it was, the two of them had to be sticking out.
Worse, on foot, they didn’t feel comfortable using flashlights, or even the glow of his cell phone screen.
“You should have brought some night-vision goggles in that utility belt of yours,” she mumbled.
“Shhhh.”
“Why didn’t we keep the Jeep?” she whispered. “We’ll need a car when we get to the gates.”