Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (30 page)

As she talked her eyes took
on a particular glint that I didn’t find
all that comforting. She was back to waving t
he pistol around, again. She seemed to be
getting more agi
tated
,
breathing heavily
,
her
face rising in color. S
he wiped
some
spittle from her lips with the sleeve of the rain coat
.

“Just go, I give you my word, I won’t call anyone.
Honest.
”

“Your word, bloody hell,
your fecking word. Oh, that’s rich,
” she laughed.

I wasn’t finding anything funny.

“
Climb up on that
bed, next to Miss
Perfect B
um
,
there
” she waved the pistol, a lit
tle more forcefully than before, “fucking move, you plonker,” she screamed.

I climbed up onto the bed
alongside Heidi.

“Wrap one of those cords around your legs, come on move, do it,” she yelled.

Heidi, smacked her lips,
turned her head a
nd gave a
little
sigh
.

I quickly began to wrap the cord around my ankles.

“You better make
it
tight, so help me, you don’t
and
the bird gets it.
I’m not fooling you,” she said, then ran her pist
ol over the curve of Heidi’s rear
,
never taking her eyes off me.

Heidi moved
,
swayed
slightly from side to side,
then
moaned softly.

I concentrated on wrapping the cord tightly around my ankles, glanced for half a second at Emma
,
then began to
pull the ends tight and tie a knot.

“For God’s sake, she even likes it,
”
Emma said
,
as Heidi gave another moan. She
stepped back, pointed the pistol at me
then slapped Heidi hard
, very hard
,
across her exposed rear. The unmistakabl
e sound of skin slapping skin cracked through the air.

Heidi exploded, screamed, spun round on the bed and in one fluid motion smashed a
crashing
fist into Emm
a, catching her just beneath the
chin.

Emma’s lower jaw sn
apped closed with an audible cla
ck of her teeth, her eyes rolled up into her head and she dropped
like a lead weight
to the floor.

Heidi sat still for a moment, not really seeing anything as
she
lurched
from side to side, then she lay
back
down, curled into a fetal position and began to snore.

I
quickly
rolled over her and drop
ped to the floor. Emma was
o
ut cold, a trickle of blood was
just beginning to seep
out
from the corner of her mouth. I
pick
ed h
er gun off the floor and hopped
on top of her
. I sat
on her
, pinning her down
while I
untie
d
the drapery cord.

She moved a leg,
half raised her knee. H
er head lolled slightly from side to side and her right arm sort of fluttered. I pulled the cord off my ankles and
quickly wrapped it around Emma’s
, tying it secu
rely. I took
a second cord, grabb
ed her by the collar of her rain coat
and d
ragged her across the carpet
over to a bed
post
. I pulled her wrists behind
her back
,
tigh
tly wrapped the cord round and
secured them
to the carved
bedpost
. She was still
groggy
, but coming
to.

I checked Heidi.
S
he was breathing deeply, sound
asleep
, just
on the verge of snoring, again. There was
a
bright
scarlet
hand mark on her
otherwise perfect
right butt cheek. I pulled her s
kirt to cover her, but it
didn’t
really
work.

“Heidi, Heidi,” I shook her gently.

She gave a disagreeable groan,
rolled further away, “C
atch you
in the morning,” she slurred
.

Emma was
re
gaining
conscious
ness
,
she shook her head
and
began to strain
, grunting
with her arms tied behind her back
.

I
took two
of the drapery cords
, quickly
tied th
em together, making
one long cord
and then wrapped it around Emma
,
under her arms, sec
uring her to the b
edpost
. I pulled the thing tight and knotted it
behind her.

“Piss off and g
et away from me you bast
ard. L
e
t me go, let me fucking go
,
you wanker.”

“Lady, the only place you’re going
is to jail,” I said,
and
then speed dialed
Aaron LaZelle from my cell
.

He picked up just after the thi
rd ring,
it was clear he’d been sound asleep.

“Lo,” he groaned out,
and
then cleared his throat, “hell, hello.”

“Aaron.”

“Yeah
?
” more clearing of his throat.

“
Dev.”

“W
ho
?”

“It’s Dev, Jesus who
else would call you at this hour?”

“Did you get hauled in again?” he groaned.

“No, I didn’t get hauled in, again. Look do you have Manning’s number? I have something here he might like.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

I went on to briefly explain to Aaron wha
t had happened. While we talked
I looked down at Emma, she was straini
ng against the cords
, but not getting very far. I walked over, ki
cked the bottom of her foot, none
too gently.

She glared up at me.

I smiled
,
shook my head no,
and then pressed
t
he barrel of the pistol firmly against her forehead
, pushing her head back against the bedpost
.

She glared, but didn’t do much beyond that.

“Let me call Manning,” Aaron said. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate bringing her in, I’ll come down
there
, too. I
’d like
to
see this.”

“Soone
r you guys get
here the better,” I said.

“I’ll g
e
t
a squad dispatched right away, they’ll be there in about ten minutes,” Aaron said.

The Squad arrived in
s
ix minutes. Two uniforms barged through
the door of the penthouse s
uite,
followed by two guys in dark green sport coats,
hotel security.

“You’re Haskell?” the smaller of the two
uniforms
asked.

He was dark haired
,
brown
eyes
, lean
.
The name stitched on his shirt, just above the pocket
,
read Andretta, L. I pegged him for maybe twenty-five years old. His partner was ginger haired, with freckles
and blue eyes, I couldn’t see his name. He looked to be not
much more then
fifteen
.

“Yeah,
I’m Devlin Haskell,
call me Dev, please. Here, careful it’s loaded,
”
I nodded, clicked the safety
on the pistol and handed it to Officer Andretta
.
He quickly walked over and set the pistol on the table.

“
I took it away from her,” I turned and indicated Emma glaring up at us from the floor where
I’d tied her to the
bed
post
.
Her
raincoat had gradually hiked up as she’d squirmed
bac
k and forth and the two cops plus
the hotel security guys were studying her thighs
, looking for weapons, no doubt
.

“I’m a citizen of the
United Kingdom
and I demand to speak to a representative from the British Embassy,
now,
” she growled
.

“Shhh-hhh,
please,
you’ll wake my date
.” I said
,
indicating Heidi in the bed. I’d gotten her situated under the covers although she was still dressed. I’m not sure the two officers or the security guys noticed her until I said something.

“Jesus, busy night,” one of the
hotel guys said under his breath
.

“I called Detective Aaron LaZelle
, he had you guys dispatched. I think
he’s on his way down here, along
with Detective Manning,” I was speaking to Officer Andretta.

At the mention of Manning’s name the two officers exchanged
a quick glance. They
didn’t say anything
although it was clear they’d passed information back and forth
.

“How about I call room service, have some c
offee sent up, you guys hungry?” I asked.

“I think they’re closed by now,”
one of the hotel guys said, absently
glancing at his watch
.
He was a bit paunchy, maybe an e
x-jock a couple of decades back, grey around the temples
,
with a couple of chins hiding the better part of the knot on his tie.

“We’ll maybe make an exception,” the other
hotel guy
said, “under the circumstances.” He was a black guy, maybe mid-forties.
Not muscled in that ripped sort of way, but solid looking
, like he’d been a farm kid or done heavy construction
.
His nose had that
particular
‘S’ curve suggesting he’d been
involved
in an
imated discussions a couple of times
.
He seemed to have the assurance of an ex-cop or
maybe a
military type. Someone used to calling the shots
and not having a lot of people present
alternatives.

The guy who said room service might be
closed was
already on the phone, gett
ing coffee sent up. “How many you think?” he asked, like we were planning a party instead of arresting Emma Babe for kidnapping, waving a gun around town and probably the murder of Fiona Simmons.

“Couple of pots, sounds like we’ve more coming,” he
said into the phone, then
looked over at me.

I nodded in agreement.

“Got some doughnuts, coffeecake, sweet rolls, something like that?” Then
he nodded some more
i
n response to whatever he heard. “T
hat’ll do, sooner the better,” and hung up.

“I want to speak to someone from the British Embassy,” Emma half shouted
again
from the floor
,
still tied up.

“Ma’am, we’ll get to you in
a
moment. Probably the best
advice
I could give
you for right now
woul
d be to just sit there, quietly,
”
Andretta said.

She huffed
, wiggled back and forth a couple of times
,
but didn’t say anything else.
I noticed there was a puffy swelling along her jaw line and the beginnings of some d
iscoloration where Heidi had clocked
her.