“I don’t want your money,” she said, insulted. “Start driving.”
I knew this was a bad idea. Driving to an undisclosed location where she could shoot me and it would take people days to find my body seemed worse than being shot in a parking lot where Kate could at least find me easily.
She must have seen my hesitation because she picked up the gun and put it too close to my temple for my peace of mind. I swallowed hard, and I felt a part of my brain tuck itself away like a turtle in a shell—a protective measure to keep me from screaming my head off and getting shot in the face. I’d been held at gunpoint before. I wished I could say it got easier every time, but it didn’t.
“I’m going to put down the binoculars nice and slow. And then I’ll drive wherever you want to go. Okay?”
“Just do it,” she said, waving the gun impatiently.
I felt a little bit of relief that her finger wasn’t on the trigger. At least she knew what she was doing with a weapon. As ridiculous as it sounded, I would much rather have someone with experience holding a gun on me than some moron with a happy trigger finger.
I put the binoculars down and then grasped the wheel. I was having déjà vu. If I got through this alive, I vowed to make this a learning experience just like when I’d been held at gunpoint in my van on my wedding day. I’d learned to always check the back seat for psychopaths, and now I’d learned to always lock the car doors when sitting alone in a parking lot.
This is what happened when you grew up in a small town with a nonexistent crime rate. You always thought the best of people, and then BAM, you got hijacked out of the blue.
“Hello?” the lady asked, waving the gun again. “I’m threatening you. Are you a crazy woman or something?”
I almost started laughing hysterically. I couldn’t figure out how to put the car in drive, and when I didn’t look at her face she sounded exactly like Rosie Perez.
“I don’t know how to drive this car,” I said, my voice pitching higher as I accidentally turned on the wipers. My face flushed hot and I could feel the tears threatening to fall. I was a powder keg of hormones and irrational thoughts. One of us was probably going to die, and I was really hoping it would be her.
“Good grief,” she said, putting the gun down enough to reach over and click what looked like the blinker. “You never drove a Mercedes before?” Then she pursed her lips together and said, “Trash.”
I was too relieved to be moving forward to be offended by her calling me trash. I snuck a quick look at the woman, and felt myself relax a little. It was hard to get too worked up when Rosie Perez was your kidnapper. She was the epitome of Miami. She had a small curvy body wrapped in turquoise spandex, big chunky jewelry, and earrings that touched her shoulders. She was the kind of woman who oozed sex appeal and for whom age was just a number. I envied that confidence.
I looked frantically for Kate as I crept slowly through the neighborhood, and I still hadn’t seen a sign that humans existed in this part of town. What kind of ridiculously private place was this that no one was watching me be abducted from their kitchen window? This would’ve never happened in Whiskey Bayou.
I could only assume that Kate was on her way around the block, so I went the opposite direction in the hopes we’d collide as she circled back.
When we passed the corner house the woman rolled down her window and went off into a tirade of hand motions and Spanish, none of which my high school Spanish had prepared me for. She ended it by giving the sign of the cross and spitting toward her neighbor’s house.
“Diablo!” she shouted.
That I understood. “Who are you?” I asked.
“I gotta better question for you,” she said, pointing a scarlet nail in my direction. “What are you and that tiny girl doing in my neighborhood? You think I can’t spot a surveillance team? I’m Puerto Rican. I can spot cops and con men a mile away. Which one are you?”
“Wait a second,” I said. “You’re Angelica. Angelica Vega?”
“Who wants to know?” she asked.
“The picture in your file looks nothing like you.”
“I should hope not,” she said. “Now, I’m only going to ask one more time. Why are you here? Who sent you?”
It seemed like a bad time to point out that was two questions, and I was about to reach the point where I could no longer drive six miles an hour while I waited for Kate to show up.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” I said. “I’m just looking for Vince Walker. Is he here?”
“You know Vinny?” she asked, black eyes bright with curiosity.
“I’m his stepdaughter,” I explained. “He went missing and my mother is freaking out.”
Angelica started laughing, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. Only crazy people laughed when they were kidnapping someone.
“He’s missing and your mother thought he ran away with me,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I am flattered.”
“I’ll make sure to tell her,” I said. “Maybe you could stop waving the gun. I’m pregnant and my hormones aren’t as stable as they used to be. I might start crying or I might become a screaming banshee. There’s really no in-between right now.”
“Ah, yes. I remember,” she said, waving her hands some more. She was a very animated woman. She put the gun back in her lap. “There, is that better? Don’t try anything funny because I’m fast and I’ll shoot.”
“I’m pregnant!”
“Pssh,” she said. “So you say. Oldest trick in the book. Now please stop talking and let me think. You’re giving me a headache. This is the reason I
