Girl Undercover 10 & 11: The Abduction & Dante's Inferno (12 page)

I glanced at Dante.
Well, that explains why there had been no more emails from Dante but that first chaotic one,
I thought. The trainer must have spotted what Dante was doing behind the front desk and taken the laptop from him, forcing him to send whatever he’d managed to get down right away. As I’d read Dante’s email, it had seemed not only haphazard, but I should have known he would never have mentioned being shot to his wife unless he could also explain that the wound wasn’t that serious.

The trainer glared at Dante, who stared back at him defiantly.

“Who else did you email?” the man wanted to know. “Did you notify more of your friends?”

“No, I only emailed my wife, who contacted Gabi,” Dante responded. “Check the computer and you can see for yourself.”

“Where’s the computer?” Blondie asked.

The other man pointed at a chair near the entrance. “There.”

Blondie walked over to the chair and opened the laptop. He asked Dante for his login info and was soon in. Dante told him what email account he had used and how to access it.

A minute later, Blondie looked up from the computer screen and at his friend. “The last email he sent was to Ricki Davila and it says to tell Gabi and call the cops.”

“Ricki is his wife,” Bandana man said. Turning back to Dante, he asked, sounding almost sad, “Why the hell did you tell her to call the cops? I
told
you you’d be okay as long as you cooperated. Don’t you trust me? Come on, how can you not? If I hadn’t meant those words, you’d be dead now, not just incapacitated. By disobeying, I might have to change my mind about letting you live.”

The man aimed at Dante, who didn’t say a word, just kept staring into the mouth of the gun, daring the other to pull the trigger. The air was so full of tension it was hard to breathe.
Please don’t shoot him,
I begged silently.
Please let him live.

As though the man had heard my pleas for mercy, he lowered his gun. “Nah. You don’t deserve to die. You’re a good boss. Besides, we’re gonna call the cops anyway. Your wife mustn’t have called them or they’d be here by now. Way before that sorry excuse for a cop.” He waved at me with his handgun, then guffawed as he turned back to Dante. “Your wife must not be all that worried about you being dead or alive, only notifying
her.”

“Okay, that’s enough, Javier.” Blondie said. “Let’s move things along now that I’m here finally. The sooner the mayor can give us the cash, the sooner we can let everyone go.”

I stared at him.
The mayor? Which mayor was he talking about?

“Where’s the landline?” the blond man asked Dante. “I need to use it. The cell-phone connection isn’t that good in this neck of the woods.”

“There’s a phone on the wall next to the front desk,” Dante muttered.

Blondie walked over to the desk by the entrance, got the phone from the wall and dialed a number. It didn’t take long before someone at the other end picked up.

“Good afternoon, my name is Tim Dalton. Can I please speak to the mayor?” He spoke in a tone so sweet and smooth, it seemed unreal this man was a criminal and a cold-blooded murderer. But he was clearly of the same ilk as his friend, having just put a bullet in the head of that poor small man that had ended up right beside me. My eyes went to the other two corpses on the floor that were only a few yards away from me on my other side, and I couldn’t help but wonder what they must have done to warrant being shot to death when apparently all these freaks wanted was money. Had it really been necessary to kill them?

“Yes, I know he’s in a meeting,” Blondie said in that same silky smooth tone. “Every second and fourth Monday of every month, the city council has a meeting and the mayor must attend and this Monday is no different. You and I spoke earlier today regarding this. You told me specifically that he’d be there tonight. Now, please let me speak to him. Tell him it’s extremely urgent.” His face darkened when he listened to what the person at the other end of the call replied.

“Listen, Miss...” he began. “What was your name again?” A pause. “Miss Tilton? Right. Please listen to me very carefully, Miss Tilton. I’m currently in Malibu, standing in a fitness studio together with a friend of mine. The two of us are holding twenty people hostage in this facility. Well, twenty-three, but three are already dead, so I’m not really counting those. If your boss can’t get us ten million dollars in exactly one hour, we will execute one person every minute after the deadline is reached. So, unless you want to be responsible for twenty additional dead people, I suggest you get your boss on the line now. I don’t care if he has explicitly instructed you not to disturb him when he’s in a council meeting.”

A pause, longer this time. “Yes, I’ll hold on while you go get him. In fact, if you don’t get him on the line in the next five minutes, I’ll execute one of the hostages right now. Got it? Good. Now off you go.”

His gray gaze found me again as he just held the phone to his ear, not saying anything. Slowly, he shook his head and then rolled his eyes like he couldn’t believe how stupid and ineffective of an assistant Miss Tilton was. Then, “Who do you think I should kill first?” he asked me.

“Me,” Dante wheezed from his corner. “You should kill me and let the others be.”

Tim snorted, looking like he thought Dante was kidding. “You? Let’s be serious here.” He turned back to me. “Who would you like to see dead here? Do you know any of these people? I can recognize at least two of them. That’s Morgan Stanley.” He motioned his handgun toward a bald black man in a yellow T-shirt and gray athletic shorts. Morgan didn’t move a muscle as he returned the blond man’s gaze. “You’re a good actor, man. No, you’re a
great
actor.”

Tim’s gaze and gun moved over to a small, shivering redhead in black tights sitting curled up in a ball. “And here we have Lindsey Dash, don’t we? Yes, I think we do…” He glanced at Dante. “No wonder you’re doing so well with all these famous people working out here. Javier told me all about your chichi clientele.” Tim returned his attention to the petite Lindsey. “I used to be a fan of yours until that last movie you did. It was so fucking bad I can’t believe it was ever made into a movie. For being part of that alone you deserve to die. Why did you agree to do it?”

Lindsey blinked a couple of times, her lower lip trembling she was so terrified when he pointed his gun at her. “I... I…”

Tim held up a hand. “Hold on. Let me guess. It was because of the money, wasn’t it? You got a big, juicy paycheck for it, didn’t you?”

“Um…” Lindsey looked like she didn’t know what to say and her wide eyes darted in every possible direction in search of help from someone. People didn’t meet her desperate glances and instead looked away.

“How much did you get paid for… what’s was the name again?” Tim narrowed his eyes as he searched for the name in his mind. He brightened.
“A Ripple in Time!
Yes, that was the name.
A Ripple in Time…
Stupid fucking title. I should’ve known it would be a fucking time suck. They should’ve named it
Time Suck
instead.” He threw his head back and let out a guffaw. Then he looked at Lindsey again, his expression grave. “How much did they have to pay you to act in that piece of shit?”

Lindsey opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything, Tim held up a hand, so she stayed quiet. He turned away from her and, gripping the phone more tightly and straightening, he said, “Mayor Bottini! What a pleasure finally getting to speak to you.”

Chapter 2

“My name’s Tim Dalton and I have a little request for you. Well, my buddy and I, to be fair. We’d like you to get us ten million bucks and in exchange for that we’ll be handing over the twenty hostages we have here at a fitness club in Malibu. If you don’t do as I say, my buddy and I will shoot them all. Got it?”

Tim listened to what the mayor was saying, then, “How can you be sure I’m telling you the truth?” He gave an amused chuckle. “I can assure you that I’m very much telling you the truth. But I suppose I can’t blame you for asking.”

He glanced out over all the hostages. “Guys, Mayor Bottini thinks I’m just a lowly prankster. Show him this is for real. Everyone, say ‘hello, Mayor’ to the mayor.” He held out the phone toward the row of people and waved his free hand like a director of an orchestra to encourage them to speak up.

“Hello, Mayor!” they all yelled in chorus.

Tim put the phone back to his ear. “You heard that?” As he listened to what the mayor was responding, a wrinkle appeared between his brows. “How can you be sure they’re not all my friends? I can kill one of them right now to prove that to you. Would you like me to do that?” A beat passed. “No? I didn’t think so. But, again, I’m a reasonable man, so I understand your concern, Mr. Mayor. Let me give you more proof that this is for real.”

Tim walked over to Lindsey Dash, who was visibly trembling, and squatted beside her. “I want you to tell the mayor who you are and tell him what’s going on here. Convince him I’m not lying. Can you do that for me?”

The delicately pretty redhead nodded, but it looked more like her head bobbed involuntarily.

“That’s my girl,” Tim said and patted her head like she was a child. “If you do a good job here, I might even forgive you for making that horrible movie.”

He handed her the phone and she took it. I thought she was going to drop it, her hand was trembling so much. Was she going to be able to talk as terrified as she so clearly was?

She put the phone to her ear. “This… this is Lin- Lindsey D- Dash…” She cleared her throat and took a deep breath before continuing. Tim put his gun to her head to further motivate her to speak. That did the trick because the words suddenly rushed out of her. “This is Lindsey Dash, the movie actress.
Please
help us, Mayor! They’ve already killed three people. I don’t want to die. Oh, God, I don’t want to
die!”
She burst out in tears, then the phone fell out of her hand and hit the floor.

“Not bad,” Tim said to Lindsey and removed the gun. He picked up the phone, putting it to his ear. “You did recognize that voice, didn’t you, Mr. Mayor? You believe me now?” A pause. “Well, I’m glad. But because I want you to be
absolutely
sure that was not just one of my friends faking it, I’m going to make it so that you can actually see Lindsey with your own eyes. My buddy and I are after all asking for a lot of money and we want it fast. I was gonna use my phone and take photos of her and the other victims and text them to you, but I have a better idea. See, I have a laptop here with Skype on it.” He glanced at Dante. “I saw a Skype icon on your laptop screen. You do have Skype on it, right?”

“Yeah,” Dante murmured. Sweat coated his pale face and he looked like he might pass out any second. I hoped that was because he was in such pain and not because of blood loss. My eyes went to his hurt thigh. He seemed to have the blood loss under control with the towels tied around it.

“Where are you, Mr. Mayor?” Tim asked. “In your office? So you have access to a computer then?” A beat. “I thought so. Do you have Skype on it?” Another beat. “No? Well, if you want to see what’s going on here, you better install it on your office computer. Don’t worry, it’s easy. I’ll walk you through the process. Go over to your computer.”

Covering the mouth piece, he turned to face Dante again. “Is there a way to put this phone on speaker?”

“Yeah, just push the top button on the body,” Dante replied weakly. “There’s a hands-free option, too.”

“Thanks, man.” Tim did as Dante said, putting the handset in the cradle. Soon, all of us could hear crackling and light breathing coming out of the phone’s loudspeaker. Tim spoke again. “Just a heads up, Mr. Mayor. You’re on speakerphone now. I want everyone in this room to know just how much you value each of their lives. Are you by your computer yet?”

“Yes, I’m by my computer and have switched it on,” a rich voice replied. I instantly recognized it as belonging to Malibu’s Mayor Michael Bottini, a billionaire businessman who had funded his own campaign and was well known in the L.A. area. He’d made no secret of wanting to become the president in the future.

“Great,” Tim said. “Is it a PC or a Mac?”

“PC.”

“Okay. All you need to do now is a Google search for the words Skype for PC.”

“Okay.”

“What Windows version do you have?”

“Seven.” There were some sounds in the background, suggesting that lots of stuff must be going on in the mayor’s office at the moment.

Tim spoke. “Okay, can you see an option that says something along the lines of Skype for PC Windows 7?”

“Yes. A free option.”

“Free’s always good. Download and install that. I hope I don’t have to walk you through that process or do I?”

“No, I can handle it,” Mayor Bottini replied with authority. “It’s downloading as we speak. What’s the name of the fitness studio where you’re keeping all these hostages?”

“Cuerpos.
It’s one of those chichi, overpriced fitness studios. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Lots of famous people work out here, not just Lindsey Dash. Morgan Stanley is also with us here today. Want me to ask him for his autograph? He’s one hell of an actor, don’t you agree? And
so
handsome!” Tim glanced at the black actor longingly, causing me to pause.

Is he gay? But how can he be gay and a hybrid?

I had been willing to bet my right hand that Stenger would never allow homosexuals to exist in his brave, new, “perfect” world. I must have been wrong. Or these two were just really good-looking gay men with a criminal streak, not super humans.

“He’s incredible,” the mayor responded curtly. “
Cuerpos,
you said?”

“That’s right.”

“My wife’s sister works out there. Her name’s Heather Spears. Is she there today?”

“Let me check for you.” Tim scanned the room. “Anyone named Heather Spears here?”

Everyone stared at him, but no one spoke up.

His gaze kept moving back and forth over the hostages like a strobe light. “No? I guess this is your wife’s lucky day, Mr. Mayor. Her sister doesn’t appear to be here today. How’s the download coming along?”