“Gross!” I was going to need to scrub myself with bleach when this was over.
My phone was face down on the floor. If I could get to it, I could call someone. I yanked on the cuffs again, yelping when they bit into my skin.
“Got your email,” my sister said conversationally. “Figured between you and that kid of mine, we’d find what I’m lookin’ for real quick.”
“Find what?” I nudged my phone with the toe of my boot in an effort to flip it over. The angle wasn’t quite right, and instead of flipping it over, it slid further under the dash.
“Doesn’t surprise me that you don’t know. One thing that doesn’t suck about my kid is she sure knows how to keep her damn mouth shut. My man and I got our hands on some pretty important information that a lot of people would pay a lot of money to get. Kept it on a flash drive. Flash drive went missing.”
“What does this have to do with Waylay?” This time the nudge was just enough to flip the phone over…and unfortunately turn the screen on. The glow was not subtle.
“Oh-ho! Nice try, Goody.” My sister leaned down and reached for the phone. The car swerved off the road onto the berm, headlights shining on a long run of pasture fence.
“Watch out!” I ducked as we smashed right through the fence and came to a stop in the grassy horse pasture. My head smacked against the dashboard, and I saw stars.
“Whoops!” Tina said, sitting up holding my phone.
“Ouch! God, you haven’t gotten any better at driving, have you?”
“Orgasms and undies,” she mused, scrolling through my texts. “Huh. Maybe you got more interesting since high school.”
I leaned down so I could use a shackled hand to prod my aching forehead.
“You better not have hurt Waylay, you irresponsible ignoramus.”
“Vocabulary’s still workin’ just fine. What the hell do you take me for? I wouldn’t hurt my own daughter.”
She sounded insulted.
“Look,” I said wearily. “Just take me to Waylay.”
“That’s the plan, Goody.”
Goody was short for Goody Two Shoes, the nickname Tina had saddled me with when we were all of nine years old and she wanted to see how high we could shoot arrows into the air with our uncle’s crossbow that she found.
I wished I had that crossbow now.
“I cannot believe we’re related.”
“Makes two of us,” she said, tossing her cigarette followed by my phone out the window.
She cranked the radio and stomped on the accelerator. The car fishtailed wildly on the damp grass before careening through the gaping hole in the fence.
Thirty minutes later, Tina turned off the pothole-ridden road that cut through a rundown-looking industrial section of a D.C. suburb. She pulled up to a chain link fence and laid on the horn.
Subtlety was not my sister’s specialty.
I’d spent the entire drive thinking about Waylay. And Knox. About my parents. Liza. Nash. Sloane. The Honky Tonk girls. About how I’d finally somehow managed to make a home for myself only to have Tina show up and ruin it all. Again.
Two shadowy figures dressed in denim and leather appeared and wrestled the gate open with an ear-splitting screech.
I needed to stick to my strengths and play it smart. I’d get to Waylay and then find a way out. I could do this.
We pulled through the gate, and Tina brought the car to a stop in front of a loading dock. She lit another cigarette. Her fourth of the trip.
“You shouldn’t smoke so much.”
“What are you? The lung police?”
“It gives you wrinkles.”
“That’s what plastic surgeons are for,” Tina said, hefting her significantly larger fake breasts. “That’s the problem with you. Always too worried about the consequences to have any fun.”
“And you never gave the consequences a thought,” I pointed out. “Look at where that got you. You abandoned and then kidnapped Waylay. Abducted me. Not to mention stole from me on multiple occasions. Now you’re moving stolen products.”
“Yeah? And which one of us is having more fun?”
“Actually, I’ve been sleeping with Knox Morgan.”
She eyed me through the smoke. “You’re shitting me.”
I shook my head. “I am not shitting you.”
She thumped the steering wheel and cackled. “Well, well. Look at little Goody Two Shoes finally loosening up. Next thing you’ll be jumpin’ on the pole at amateur night and shoplifting scratch-offs.”