Too Darn Hot (20 page)

Stupidly she nodded.

“Good.” He slapped the tape over her mouth and spun her toward the other two, who held her still while he taped her wrists together behind her back.

The instant they released her, Lucy sprinted toward the multipaned French doors. She was thinking of the inky expanse of woods that lay beyond her manicured back lawn. If she could just make it past the pool and gardens to the tree line . . .

She threw her weight at the locked doors. Shards of pain lanced her shoulder.

Blossom cackled in appreciation. He tilted his mask and drained the glass of bourbon.

Bubbles muttered, “Jesus, the bitch never gives up.”

Buttercup bent to retrieve the baby picture. He studied the pair of dark-haired one-year-olds through the cracked glass.

Lucy balanced herself on one bare foot and took aim at a windowpane with the other.

“Whoa!” Buttercup dropped the picture and launched himself at her, yanking her back an instant before her foot would have made contact. He wrapped his arms around her from behind. “All right, that’s enough,” he said when she continued to struggle. “We’re all very impressed.”

Bubbles swaggered up to them. “I think the lady needs a lesson in who’s in charge.” He sounded younger than the other two. “I think I’m looking forward to teaching that lesson.”

Using Buttercup’s bear hug for leverage, Lucy torqued her hips up and punched the heel of her foot into Bubbles’ thin plastic mask.

He screamed like a steam whistle and ripped off the mask.
“Fug!”
He held his nose. Blood seeped between his fingers. He gaped at Lucy. “Whud the fug didja do thad for?”

Lucy had guessed right. Bubbles was young, early to mid twenties. Not much older than John.

Blossom laughed and handed him a couple of tissues. “I had a feelin’ about this job.” His baritone voice was flavored by the Emerald Isle. He wagged a finger at Buttercup. “You didn’t want to listen.”

“Yeah, you’re perceptive as hell. Help me get her into the car.”

“I’b
bleedeeg.
” Bubbles pressed the tissues to his crooked snout. “By
doze
is broken.”

“Payback for that offside tackle,” Buttercup said. “Quit bitching.” He and Blossom clamped their fingers around Lucy’s arms and marched her out of the library. Bubbles trailed behind, bleating like a lost lamb.

Her assailants didn’t seem to care that she’d gotten a good look at one of them and presumably could pick him out of a lineup. This did not bode well for her longevity.

The little group proceeded through the greatroom into the kitchen, where Lucy heard, for the second time that night, the side door unlock.

John.
Who else could it be?

Buttercup said, “Shit.”

Lucy pleaded with her eyes. She shook her head and mewled shamelessly under the tape.
Don’t hurt him. Oh God, don’t hurt my boy.

Blossom murmured, “This is where it gets messy, lads,” as the door swung open.

Two men crossed the threshold. Neither was Lucy’s son. She felt confident of that even though both wore black ski masks that exposed only their eyes. The masks were a piquant accompaniment to their all-black ensembles: silk turtleneck, wool slacks, and lambskin bomber jacket for the portly, dark-eyed man; jeans and a windbreaker for the compact fellow with the aqua-by-Acuvue eyes.

“Who the fug are you?” Bubbles demanded.

The newcomers appeared just as bewildered. The big guy looked at the little guy. Buttercup looked at Blossom. All five of them looked at Lucy.

Don’t look at
me
!

“Okay, there’s been some kinda misunderstanding here.” The big guy spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. He sounded more than a little New Yawk. “My associate and I have been retained for this particular undertaking.”

Lucy was an
undertaking
?

“You know anything about this?” Blossom asked Buttercup, who leveled a threatening look at Lucy, right through his mask’s perky, round-eyed grin.

She glowered back.

“This bij is
bad dews.
” Bubbles was busy cramming strips of paper towel in his nostrils. His hands and face were smeared with blood. “Led these dickwads hab her. Good fugeeg riddance.”

“Shut up.” Buttercup turned to the pair in black. “Get lost.”

The second man tugged on his friend’s sleeve. “Come on, Wesley, let’s go. We didn’t bargain on this.”

Wesley took a step toward Buttercup. “This is our show, my friend. We have a deposit.”

“Debosid
dis,
lard-ass.” Bubbles went for Wesley, but the big Irishman was quicker. He shoved the young hothead against Lucy’s Viking range, with a command to “get a fekkin’ grip.”

“We were here first.” Buttercup tightened his grip on Lucy’s arm. “End of story.”

Wesley dipped into his breast pocket and produced a knife which Lucy instantly identified as a six-inch Wüsthof boning knife. Seventy-two bucks at Zabar’s. She herself was a Henckel gal. She gazed longingly at her beloved eight-piece set in its countertop knife block right there in full view—and within arm’s reach of Lucy herself, if only she had use of those arms. She’d put a fresh edge on those blades just yesterday.

Buttercup displayed the pistol. “Go away.”

“Oh my God.” The smaller guy’s eyes widened. “Wesley, he’s got a gun.”

“Ha!” Bubbles crowed. “Broughd a dife to a gudfight, ya fugeeg abateurs.”

“This is bullshit,” Wesley said. “We have an
agreement
.”

“He’s got a
gun,
Wesley. It’s not worth it.”

His partner wheeled on him. “Why don’t you say my name
again
?
That’s
incredibly helpful.”

“You can stay and get yourself killed. I’m leaving.” Wesley’s pal slammed out of the house.

The strange assemblage stood staring at one another. Blossom turned to Buttercup. “Well, lad, what are we goin’ to do with this pesky fella?”

Buttercup shrugged. He raised the gun. “Shoot him.”

Lucy squeezed her eyes shut. Instead of a gunshot, she heard the door slam. Bubbles hooted in delight. He trilled, “Rud, Wesley, rud!” The squeal of car tires, then silence.

“That was interesting.” Blossom scratched his chin under the mask. “Let’s get her out of here before someone else shows up.”

Buttercup glanced around, looking for something. He turned to Lucy. “Where’s your purse?”

That was more like it. As a motivating factor for this freak show, filthy lucre beat out all other choices hands down. Lucy might walk away from this thing alive after all. She nodded toward the menu desk in the breakfast nook. Bubbles located her Coach shoulder bag and strolled back, pawing through it. Buttercup grabbed it from him, spilled the contents on the floor, and kicked the mess around with the toe of his running shoe. Her lipstick rolled across the antique French granite floor tiles and came to rest against Frank’s new under-counter wine cellar.

He faced her again, with an impatient sigh. “Where are they?”

Her frown asked,
Where are what?

“Your birth control pills, Mrs. Narby?”

Astonishment popped  her eyes.

Buttercup yanked the tape off Lucy’s mouth in one swift tear. She screamed.

“Don’t make me ask again,” he warned.

“Master bathroom. Top vanity drawer. That
hurt
.”

Buttercup slapped the tape back over her mouth. A minute later Bubbles had returned with her monthly pill compact, which Buttercup pocketed.

Her birth control pills. Lucy couldn’t begin to figure that one out. Granted, these creeps seemed less than enthusiastic about plundering, which left that raping thing kind of front and center, but
birth control pills
?

Buttercup propelled her toward the door.

It was a chilly outside—mid to high forties. Downright arctic by Lucy’s admittedly wimpy standards, especially since the only thing between her pampered hide and the elements was a pair or mismatched flannel jammies.

A nearly full moon provided the only illumination. Her five-acre property was isolated from her nearest neighbors by dense woods and a quarter-mile cobblestone driveway. She’d always appreciated the solitude. Until tonight.

The tender soles of her feet found every sharp pebble as Buttercup and Blossom half dragged her toward a dark sedan parked out of sight of the house. Bubbles jogged ahead to pop the trunk.

She screamed beneath her gag as the men hoisted her and dumped her on top of a tire iron and a set of jumper cables. The trunk also held a coil of rope. Buttercup hogtied her with practiced efficiency, lashing her ankles and tethering them to her wrists by a short length of rope behind her bowed back.

Bubbles leaned into the trunk to taunt her, now that those lethal feet were safely restrained. His nose was a pomegranate. The moonlight turned all that blood to black warpaint. “I’b gudda hab sub fud wid you, bij. Just you wait.”

The other two exchanged a look. Buttercup elbowed Bubbles aside to blindfold Lucy with an oily rag.

The trunk lid slammed shut. She heard car doors open and close. The vehicle rocked and settled. The engine rumbled to life, turning the trunk into a vibration chamber.

Trussed as she was, Lucy couldn’t keep herself from pitching to and fro as the car started rolling. Her stomach lurched.
Oh yeah,
she thought,
that’s just what I need right now
. A geyser of ice cream, popcorn, and bourbon, with only her nostrils for an exit.

She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths, forced her mind to function. Why would anyone want to kidnap her? Correction: Why would
two
anyones want to kidnap her, these trick-or-treat maniacs and whoever hired those two whiny chuckleheads who came late to the party?

When had it become open season on Lucy Narby?

She had to keep her head, no matter what happened. It was her only chance.

Don’t panic,
Lucy commanded herself, right before something small and furry crawled up her pajama leg.

About the Author

Pamela Burford is the award-winning author of fourteen romantic suspense and contemporary romance novels. She has received four RITA and
Romantic Times
Reviewers Choice Award nominations and is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences and workshops. Her books have received outstanding reviews and been translated into more than a dozen languages. She is the founder and past president of Long Island Romance Writers, a chapter of Romance Writers of America. Her sister Patricia Ryan, a.k.a. the Good Twin, is also a published novelist. Pamela invites you to visit her web site at http//:www.pamelaburford.com.