She looked over at Kaem. Deciding, He’s too close to a car that’s on fire, she ran to him and dragged him twenty feet farther. She cocked her head, wondering if she was hearing sirens or just ringing in her ears from firing all those shots in a small compartment. My phone, she thought, lifting it to her head. “911, you there?”
She heard the man’s voice, “Yes. Your GPS signal stopped moving. Did the car crash?”
“No,” she replied, “the engine failed and the car pulled itself off the road. It’s on fire, so I got everyone out of the vehicle. I hear sirens, is that your guys?”
“Yes.” Dryly he said, “I’ll send a firetruck.”
“Thanks.”
“The first team to arrive will be SWAT.”
“What?!”
“Surprisingly,” The 911 guy said patiently, “our paramedics don’t like entering a scene until someone’s secured all the hot weapons.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”
“How many people on the scene are armed?”
“Just me,” she responded.
“How many guns are there?”
“Two. Well, three, but one of them’s in the burning car.”
“Crap. Do you know if it’s got a round in the chamber that might cook off?”
“No. It’s empty. I fired all seven rounds into the engine compartment trying to stop the car.”
“How many people at the scene?”
“Three. Myself and two injured.”
“What?” the guy asked. “The way you were talking before, I thought there were more than that.”
“Yeah. Two of the kidnappers took off.”
“They left?”
“Yeah, down the embankment to the south.”
“But they’re not armed?”
“No. I’ve got their weapons.”
“If you had all the guns, why’d you let them go?”
“I was busy getting the injured guys out of the burning car.”
A big heavy vehicle came around the curve; flashers and siren on. Dez said, “Your people are here. Tell them I’m putting the weapons on the ground.”
As a big black truck with a SWAT emblem on it pulled up and halted, she dropped her phone in her jacket pocket, then pulled the guns out of her purse with two-fingered grips on the butts of their handles. She held them up for the cops to see, then laid them carefully on the ground and backed away.
A voice boomed out over a loudspeaker, “Down on the ground, face down, hands behind your head!”
She got down and assumed the position with her head near Kaem’s. “Kaem?” she asked.
He still didn’t respond. She thought despairingly about how she’d once been told that the longer someone was unconscious, the worse they’d been hurt.
Kaem moaned!
Relief shuddered over her.
“What happened?” he asked plaintively.
“We got kidnapped by the guys that stole the stazer. They wanted you to make it work.”
Dez suddenly sensed men standing over her. She could see heavy boots out of the corner of her eye. A man said, “You the lady that called 911?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You injured?”
“No, sir.”
“What’s wrong with these two guys?”
“Kaem Seba, near me here, was pistol-whipped. He was knocked out for a while but now seems to be waking up. The other guy’s been shot in the leg.”
“Who shot him?”
“I did, sir.”
“Why?”
“He had me by the neck and was trying to take my gun away from me.”
“Oh…” the SWAT officer snorted, “Now that’s a good reason to shoot someone. 911 says two people fled the scene on foot?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which way?”
“South. If you’ll let me up, I’ll be happy to point.”
“Okay, but I’m gonna pat you down first. Be aware two other officers have weapons trained on you.”
Dez wanted to be snarky, but this wasn’t the time. She settled for another, “Yes, sir.”
The guy efficiently patted down her back and sides. He found her phone in her jacket pocket and laid it aside, then went through her purse. “Okay, slowly roll up on your side.”
She did so.
“I’m going to pat down your front.”
“Yes, sir.”
A few seconds later he helped her to her feet but kept her phone. An ambulance was pulling up. Cop cars were everywhere. A couple of cops were spraying the burning car with fire extinguishers that didn’t seem to be making much headway.
The SWAT guy said, “Let’s move farther from that fire.”
Stubbornly, Dez shook her head, “Not without Kaem.”
“MEDIC!” the guy bellowed, waving someone to come.
~~~
Dez was up the rest of the night, answering questions from the police—as long as they didn’t try to get her to go very far from Kaem’s room. His head scans were okay, but the docs didn’t want to send him home alone. Everyone assumed she was his girlfriend and, for a while, she thought they’d let her take him home but they decided against it given what she’d been through herself.
She didn’t disabuse them of their girlfriend notion for fear she’d be sent away. Eventually, someone asked for next of kin and she gave them Emmanuel’s number.
Emmanuel arrived with Kaem’s mother Sophia. Dez had never met her, but she seemed very nice.
After visiting Kaem, Sophia asked Dez a few peripheral questions, obviously aimed at divining whether Dez was Kaem’s girlfriend.
Dez told Sophia she’d known Kaem since grade school but that this was their first date. At least I think it was a date, she thought.
Sophia stared at her, “Are you Dez Lanis?”
Dez nodded, wondering if Kaem had said something about her. Or if Ms. Seba remembered Dirty Dezzy Lanis, the grade school pariah whose mother was murdered.
“I was very sorry to hear about your mother,” Sophia said.
“That was long ago,” Dez said, thinking, I guess she remembers my sordid past.
“Emmanuel says you work for Staze now?”
Dez nodded, “Not for very long though.”
“The police tell me that Kaem’s very lucky to have a
