Death by Denim (17 page)

Together we dragged Labruzzo across the floor. Seth snapped a cuff around one hairy wrist and then fed the chain behind the pipe before twisting Labruzzo’s other hand back and cuffing that one, too.

“Get his . . . keys,” Ryan said. “And cell phone . . . if he’s got one.”

I reached forward to check Labruzzo’s front pocket, but Seth stopped me. “I’ll do it,” he said.

By the time he had been relieved of his personal property, Labruzzo was starting to come to. He opened his eyes slowly, painfully. When the understanding of his predicament registered on his face, he rattled his handcuffs against the pipe.
“Porca miseria!”
he cursed.

“Yeah, that’s right,” I assured him. “You are a miserable pig.”

Seth pulled my arm. “Come on, let’s go. We’ll have to help your friend over there.”

I didn’t miss Seth’s sour expression at the mention of Ryan, even though it lasted for only a fraction of a second. “Wait.” I turned back to Labruzzo. “Where are they?”

He didn’t say anything, but his black eyes fixed me with a stare so cold I felt like I needed a jacket.

I shook off a shiver and bent so that I was eye level with him. “This place is wired, right? So where are the explosives?”

He raised his chin and made a big show of clamping his mouth shut.

“Fine.” I stood. “Your decision. Hope you can live with it when we’re gone and it’s just you and the explosives.”

He stared straight ahead and pretended not to hear me. Idiot. I turned to Seth. “Let’s get out of here.”

S
eth and I each took one of Ryan’s arms and slung them around our shoulders and practically carried him from the room. He barely had the strength to stand, let alone walk. I noticed with a sick twist in my stomach that the rough bandage around his head was completely soaked through. No wonder he was so weak; he was still losing a lot of blood.

“What now?” Seth asked.

“We have Labruzzo’s keys,” I said. “I think we should get out of here. But should we call someone first? Tell them what’s going on?”

“With . . . Labruzzo’s phone? No.” Ryan said it with such incredulity that I felt really stupid. I had already considered the possibility that his phone was tapped or traceable or whatever you call it, but it’s not like I was talking about carrying on a personal conversation. Just a simple “hi, don’t come to the textile mill because it’s going to blow up” sounded good. But I had to defer to Ryan’s judgment. He was the operative, not me.

We had made it as far as the loading dock before Seth drew to a halt. “Wait. What about your shoes?’

“My what?”

“Your shoes. You know, the tracking things. You leave here with them on, The Mole can see wherever we’re going.”

I pulled them off like they were on fire, but then I realized that if I left a locating device at the factory, my mom would follow the signal to find me, which is exactly what The Mole wanted her to do. Seth was right, though; I couldn’t take them with us, either. I stared down at my shoes. All that time I’d been running around in them and I had never even guessed that I was being tracked by the CIA, let alone by The Mole and his minions. “Can we just . . . turn it off?” I said to Ryan. “The GPS thing, I mean.”

“There is . . . no off.”

“Then we’ll smash it or something. Which shoe’s it in?”

“Both.”

“Where are they? Can I pull them out and—”

Ryan winced. “They’re . . . built into the . . . sole.”

Of course. Leave it to the CIA to make things complicated. I took a deep breath and let it out my nose before I spoke. “Fine.” I chucked one shoe across the loading dock. “We’ll split them up at least. We can dump the other one somewhere down the road. Maybe the confusion will be enough to keep Mom from bringing the rescue squad here until we can warn them. Let’s go.”

I helped Seth half guide, half carry Ryan down the concrete steps to Labruzzo’s car. Ryan leaned heavily against me as Seth jangled the keys, trying and rejecting them one by one in the car door. “It’s not here.”

I peered over his shoulder. “What’s not?”

“The key to his car.”

“But . . . he used his keys to drive us here.”

“Maybe he has another set.”

Ryan was getting heavier. I don’t know if he was starting to sag more or if I was just getting tired, but whatever the case, he needed to get help quickly. We needed Labruzzo’s car.

“Can you hot-wire it?” I asked Seth.

“What makes you think I can hot-wire cars?”

“I don’t know. Because you lived in Detroit?” I said, repeating the explanation he had given me in Seattle when I questioned how he knew how to break into a car.

“Sorry, I flunked Auto Heist 101.”

I almost didn’t want to ask, but I did, anyway. “So what do we do now?”

Seth sighed and looked back toward the loading dock. “I’ll go see if he has another set of keys.”

“What? No. Not alone.” I turned to Ryan to ask if he’d be all right if I ran back inside with Seth, but Ryan’s face had gone slack. His eyes were closed. “Oh, crap. Seth, help me!”

Seth climbed up onto the loading dock and wrestled one of the bales of cotton free from a pallet and heaved it so that it landed just feet from the car. It burst open on impact, sending tangles of stale cotton in all directions. He jumped down after it and piled enough of it together that we could lay Ryan down in relative comfort.

He took my hand but after only a few steps he stopped and looked deeply into my eyes. “I need you to know,” he said, “no matter what happens, I’m glad you found me again.”

I squeezed his hand. “So am I,” I whispered.

He nodded, like that made everything all right. “Let’s do this.”

We crept back up the stairs to the dock and through the swinging doors. I clung to Seth’s hand, dreading the necessity of looking into Labruzzo’s black eyes again, worrying with every step that the place was going to go up like a Roman candle. Since I had abandoned my shoes, I had to be extra careful to watch for stray pins, for which I was almost grateful. It was a good distraction from the growing fear rising like a tidal wave above me.

When we reached the refuse room door, Seth glanced at me once more. His reassuring smile warmed me completely through. He pushed the door open and in an instant the warmth evaporated.

The wave came crashing down. An empty pair of cuffs lay on the floor near the pipes. Labruzzo was gone.

 

The seriousness of our situation came to me in stages. My first reaction was completely visceral. My mouth went dry and my heart raced. A cold sweat prickled from the back of my skull down the length of my spine. Labruzzo was loose and he was angry. I thought of Ryan lying alone and defenseless outside. Next came the terrible realization that my GPS Pumas were on the loading dock, beckoning my mom and Seth’s parents and anyone else foolish enough to come help us. And the building was a ticking time bomb.

“What do we do now?” I whispered.

“We get out of here,” Seth whispered back. We retraced our steps. Desperation clawed its way up my back. Where would we get out
to
? The factory was out in the proverbial boonies. We had no transportation. And, since I hadn’t been paying attention as we made the drive from the city, I wasn’t even sure where we
were
.

But all those worries came to an end as we turned the corner toward the loading dock. Because they were eclipsed with a much greater concern.

“I’m very disappointed in you,” The Mole said, aiming a much nastier-looking pistol at us than the smaller version Labruzzo had carried.

Labruzzo himself stood just behind The Mole, sneering at us like a playground snitch. One of his eyes had completely swollen shut, which made him look even more menacing, if that was possible.

“Perhaps you didn’t understand your role in my soiree this afternoon,” The Mole drawled. “Your presence is required to make it a truly memorable occasion.”

I just stared at him, mind racing. If he was able to appear so quickly after we had escaped the refuse room, he must have been close. Close enough to see us on the loading dock—unless Labruzzo had a way to summon him without the cell phone. And if he was standing there trying to impress us with his genteel speaking manner, then he must not be too concerned about the explosives going off. Which meant that either we had plenty of time before the factory was set to blow or perhaps that the explosion would be set off remotely.

The second thing that struck me was that The Mole was the one physically standing there in front of us, holding the gun. In the past, he was simply the one pulling the strings, leaving the dirty work to his minions. But now they appeared to be gone and he was the one with his finger on the trigger. Aside from Labruzzo, The Mole was confronting us alone. Marlboro Man wasn’t even there to back him up. Maybe Ryan and Caraday were right; The Mole was psychotic. Everything else he might pawn off to his minions, but killing us—
that
he wanted to do himself.

Finally, it hit me that The Mole hadn’t said anything about Ryan. Cold fear washed over me as I thought how we had left Ryan passed out and helpless. I slid a quick peek at Labruzzo’s car and though I could see tufts of cotton stirring in the breeze, there was no sign of Ryan.

I opened my mouth to ask about him, but then swallowed my questions with my fear. I would wait. Watch. If the Mole had done something to Ryan, he wouldn’t be able to help boasting about it. If not, the last thing I wanted to do was alert The Mole to the fact that Ryan was no longer where we had left him.

Just then, The Mole’s pocket beeped. He drew out a BlackBerry and glanced down at it. “Ah. Our guests are arriving.”

I couldn’t help myself. “Guests?” My mom. Seth’s parents. I felt sick inside.

The Mole ignored me. “Signore Labruzzo, if you would.”

Labruzzo stepped forward, my Pumas dangling from his fingers. He had tied the shoelaces together and he draped them over my shoulders like a derby winner’s roses.

“Come with me,” he said.

Seth’s grip on my hand tightened. “She’s not going anywhere.”

The Mole’s lips split into a sickening smile. “And what do you suppose you are going to do about it?”

Wrong question to ask. In one fluid movement, Seth yanked my hand, pulling me behind him, and swung a kick to catch The Mole in the gut. “Run!” he yelled.

I hesitated. Because in that instant, two things happened—The Mole dropped both his gun and his BlackBerry and reached for Seth with his bare hands, growling like a rabid wolf, and Labruzzo jumped forward to help his boss. What Labruzzo did not do was draw a gun, which told me that he was unarmed. The gun we had taken from him must have been his only weapon.

I whipped the shoes from around my neck and swung them with everything I had at Labruzzo’s head. One shoe caught Labruzzo just above the ear. He turned and snarled at me, but I had already followed through with the first swing and brought the shoes around a second time. Before he could lunge at me, the shoe hit him smack in the face. This time he was quick enough to reach up and grab the shoes before I had a chance to swing them around again, but while his attention was on yanking the shoes from my hands, I kicked my knee up and caught him in the soft center of his solar plexus. He folded like a snuffed cigarette, bending forward just enough for me to smash both hands down on the back of his head.

Labruzzo dropped to one knee, but he wasn’t done fighting. He grabbed my leg and tackled me as he went down. I fell hard on my behind, and Labruzzo grunted his satisfaction. Unlucky for him, I didn’t have time to waste with him. Next to us, The Mole had grabbed Seth by the throat. Seth was swinging and landing what looked like some pretty good blows, but The Mole’s grip only grew stronger. I didn’t even think about it; I coiled my free leg up and let loose, kicking Labruzzo square in the temple. He dropped like a rock, body draping over my leg. I kicked him again to get loose and then scrambled on all fours away from him.

By then, The Mole had Seth in a headlock. I lunged for the gun, but The Mole must have seen me going for it because he kicked the gun and it flew off the loading dock in a black metallic arc. I could hear it clatter on the driveway below. I would have gone after it, but Seth’s face was beginning to turn purple. He clawed at The Mole’s arm, horrible gagging sounds escaping his lips.

“Stop where you are or I break his neck!” The Mole screamed at me.

I froze.

“Now stand up. Slowly.”

I did as I was told.

“Very good,” The Mole said. “Please place your hands on your head.”

Seth locked eyes with me. “Run,” he mouthed. “Now.”

I didn’t know what to do. Would The Mole hurt Seth if I bolted? Would he
not
hurt Seth if I stayed where I was and did everything he told me to? The answer to the second question was no. The Mole was all about hurting Seth and me as much as possible. Which meant that I didn’t have much incentive to stand there taking orders. But I didn’t want to leave Seth at The Mole’s mercy, either. I had to give The Mole a good reason to abandon Seth and come after me.