“Let him go!” I yanked violently on the driver’s side door handle. “I did what you asked.” I took a shaky breath and changed tactics. “What’s this all about, Frank?” I needed to convey genuine concern. If I could just get him talking, I could think of a way out. I might be able to appease an angry Tex-Mex customer, but this was life or death. “How can I help?”
“I tried replacing the fuses for the electric locks, but that dang near broke me.” He removed his hand from Lenny’s neck, answering my question as if he hadn’t dognapped my closest companion and trapped me inside his van. “Eventually I was replacing them every other day.”
“Don’t you have the key?” I smiled. “Let me out so I can tell the mayor and Mrs. Cogburn that the fireworks are about to start.” Probably not the smartest suggestion.
Lenny started wriggling in an attempt to get down. “Look,” I said. “So you don’t like dogs. Please let me hold him, and we’ll walk away without mentioning this to anyone. I’ll even talk to Mrs. Cogburn about increasing your fee.”
“That so?”
I shrugged. “My uncle Eddie is on the town council.”
Fillmore tightened his arm, and Lenny’s black eyes grew wide.
Everything in my mind slowed. I could still remember when Lenny came to me—a young and scrappy version of the intelligent, supportive friend and cowriter, not to mention sidekick, he had become. All tiny legs, minuscule steps, and fast-beating tail. So anxious to thank me for adopting him from his previous owner—who’d married into a cat family with no desire for an immature, affectionate, and long-haired dog. So anxious he’d lick my hand for hours on end.
“Hey, you don’t have to scare him to force me to leave. And if you don’t start the fireworks show, someone’s going to come over here and find out why.”
“Answer the question, Josie. What are you doing in my van?”
“Huh, what was that?” I asked, suddenly as deaf as my old Granny Callahan.
He yanked Lenny close and whispered in his ear.
My canine friend whined.
“Whoa now. That. Is. Enough. I haven’t done anything to you or your cat.”
With an odd smile, he kissed the top of Lenny’s head. “I don’t want to hurt him. In fact I’m very fond of animals.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out like a whimper.
“Oh, goodness. Don’t be scared.” He ran his right hand over Lenny’s head. “I won’t hurt you, but I have to make sure your owner didn’t steal anything from my van.” His gaze traveled briefly over the boxes and crates behind me. “What you see inside is all that I have to my name.”
Suddenly his eyes widened and he checked his watch. “Showtime.” He move Lenny carefully from one arm to the other, untangling his leash from my Chi’s back legs. Then Fillmore lowered him to the ground and led him none too gently by his leash toward the fireworks launching platform. He was in the dark with my Chi for a heart-stopping minute until I witnessed the first flicker of flame, followed by a loud, high-pitched whistle. The fireworks show had finally begun.
My hope sank. Soon the audience would all be looking up into the brilliant night sky ablaze with beautiful lights and explosive sounds, not down on the ground level where Lenny and I were in nasty trouble.
Time to think logically and not like a dimwit blonde out of a horror movie.
One. Frank could hurt me. Okay, that was nearly impossible. I had all the stun guns. In fact, as soon as he opened the freaking door, I was going to charge him and see how he liked being stunned up close and personal.
Two. Before I hit Frank with a stun gun, I had to make sure Lenny was safe. It would be too easy for Frank to incapacitate or kidnap all six pounds of long-haired Chihuahua. I swallowed hard. That scenario was too awful to imagine. But my canine sidekick was tough. He’d chased down two crazy murderers. If anyone could escape or do damage to a grown, healthy psycho, it was Lenny.
What I needed was leverage.
“Meow.” The orange tabby, Tabitha, rubbed against my legs, finally marking me as part of her territory.
Three. The cat. The fact that Frank was a cat owner definitely worked in my favor. I suspected that he was—as he claimed—honestly an animal lover as well. Otherwise, why not hurt Lenny from the get-go? As long as I had the cat, I could bargain for Lenny’s return. And once I had Lenny, we’d bust out of this van like the Incredible Hulk on steroids.
Four. The phone. Without a battery, it was useless. No one would be able to track it or me. My only hope was that my aborted call to Emergency Services had connected before I hung up. Living in Broken Boot often felt like living on the moon. Cell service was sketchy outside of town, and in town too. If the winds were howling, or we had a dust storm, or the governor decided to play bingo on Monday night, our cell service would suffer. Still, I knew roughly where the pieces had gone. Now to find them, hopefully in one piece, and put the device back together again.
Five. The tire iron. Every van had to have one along with a spare tire. I’d been itching to find his and bust out his precious van’s window with it since the moment he held Lenny’s tiny muzzle in his big brutal hand. I found it very suspicious that Frank hadn’t demanded that I pass a tire iron, the cat, and my phone through the window. Perhaps he’d remembered those stun guns after all. Or, and this rattled my nerves more than an angry rattler about to strike a hiker’s boot, he knew he had no tire iron inside the van to worry about.
I tried the door again for good measure. It had no lock mechanism that I could
