The Hard Bounce - [53]

Cassandra stirred with a grunt, and we quickly stifled ourselves.

“Twenty-five grand!” Junior sang to himself as we drove. Despite the throbbing bite on my hand and great big swollen balls, I felt like belting out a tune myself.

Junior pulled up in front of my apartment and killed the engine. The rain had driven Phil the Hippie off the porch for the day. It looked like, apart from one happy dog up my ass, the kidnapping (The abduction? A forced rescue?) would be brought off hitch-less.

Junior turned to me. “What the hell do we do now? Do we just give Kelly a ring and dump her in daddy’s limo when it comes by?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. We’re playing this by ear right now.” I jerked my thumb at the backseat. “Finding the kid changes things a bit.”

“Well, finding her alive sure as shit does.” Junior started singing his twenty-five grand song again, and I wanted to stop him before he started dancing. The day had been disturbing enough already. “Well, let’s get her inside. Then we’ll formulate. I don’t want her waking up and-”

Cassandra’s shriek just about made the two of us shit ourselves. She’d woken up all volume, swinging fists, and fury.

“Jesus Christ!” Junior yelped as he spun around, catching a flailing elbow to the ear. He fell backward, ass-first under the steering wheel.

“Fuck!” Startled, I jumped high in the seat, whacking my head into the roof hard enough to give myself a sharp pain at the base of my neck. I rolled to the right reflexively, caught the doorknob with my elbow, and tumbled backward out the door.

Abruptly, Cassie cut the screaming and flailing and sat stone still, panting in fright. I held up my hands in a calming gesture from my tactical position, halfway jammed in the rain-soaked gutter. “It’s okay! It’s all right!” I said. “You’re safe. We’re not going to hurt you.” Well, at least not more than we already had, between crushing her onto Snake’s floor and electrocuting her.

She remained still, but the air was thick as freshly poured asphalt. Her short breaths started to hitch. Then she was crying. “My head hurts,” she said.

“Uh, Boo?” Junior said softly. “Little help here?” Junior was good and wedged backward under the steering wheel, his upper body bent in a position that seemed unnatural for a guy of Junior’s build. I grabbed the seatbelt and pried myself up. Then I went over to Junior’s side, opened his door, and pulled him out.

I leaned back into the car. “Cassandra?” I said in a gentle voice.

Cassandra pulled a lock of ebony hair from her eyes and looked at me, her breath coming in short gasps. If I didn’t calm her down soon, the kid was going to hyperventilate. Her fear and confusion dug at my heart. The poor kid was doing her best to hold it together, but the trembles in each breath showed the bluff. Her eyes locked into mine with a dim light of recognition.

“Do you recognize me?” I asked.

“Y-you,” she said tentatively. “I know you. You work at The Cellar.”

I smiled with as much radiant calm as I could muster. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“You’re the guy. You stood up to those jerks for Kevin.” Her last words emerged in a choke, and she cleared her throat.

“I’m Boo,” I said, cautiously extending my bandaged hand. I was ready to snatch it back in case she decided to bite again rather than shake. “That’s Junior.” Junior wiggled his fingers at her and smiled.

She looked around, trying to get a bearing on her surroundings. “Where… where am I?”

“You’re at my place. Your father hired us to find you.”

“My dad?” Guilt edged her voice, and she gnawed at her lower lip. “He’s gotta be so pissed at me.”

I wasn’t sure pissed was the word, but I didn’t want to blow a load of smoke up the kid’s ass. “Probably. But I know he’s been worried, too.”

“Is he coming here?”

“He doesn’t know you’re with me yet. I don’t see any reason to rush things, but we should let him know that you’re safe as soon as we can.” Cassandra just sat there, still frozen by the sudden and violent turn of events. “Listen, do you want to come in? We can talk about all this inside.”

She thought it over, giving us both a suspicious eye.

“You know, inside? Where it’s not raining down the crack of my ass?”

Her mouth trembled, fighting a smile. “Um… okay.” I offered her my unbandaged hand to help her out of the car. She looked at the blood-soaked silk wrapped around the other hand. “Was that me?”

“Sure was.”

“Sorry ’bout that.”

“No problem. Happens all the time.” And it actually did, in my line of work.

“Boo?”

“Yeah?”

“Why is my hair sticking up?”

Chapter Sixteen

We all needed a change of clothes. The three of us were soaking wet, blood-streaked, and beat the hell up. The cuff of Junior’s pant leg also had a hole charred through it.

I switched out of my own ruined clothes and gave Junior one of my T-shirts. It was a size and a half too small for his bulk and made him look like an overstuffed sausage. The pants were the right waist size, but he had to roll up the legs. Cassie changed into an old Bosstones T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. I figured the drawstring could make up for the massive difference in size. Junior and I waited for her in the kitchen while she changed in the bathroom.