“Why, exactly?”
Rather than answer, Ava tried another avenue. Even though she was outnumbered and had not been able to arm herself before coming under gunpoint, she had to somehow assert herself. “You geniuses understand that you’re aiming guns at a member of the NYPD, right?”
“If you think we care, you’re dumber that I thought. Now, come along like a nice little broad, and we’ll be done with this soon enough.”
Both men had taken a few steps forward, not fully out of the hallway. There were perhaps fifteen or twenty feet between Ava and the two goons. And as they took yet another step forward, that distance continued to shrink.
“Come along where?”
This time, it was the scrawnier one that answered. “We know you’re trying to get your hands on Mr. Spurlock. So we’re just going to take you to him. I think he might even be happy to see you.”
“Maybe you just tell me where he is,” Ava said. “I’ll go see him myself. I don’t need escorts.”
“Let’s just go ahead and put a stop to this right now,” the suited man said. “Put it like this: you’re either going to come with us right now, or you’re not leaving this building.” With a devious smile, he added: “It’s not like we’ve never killed a copper before.”
Ava did her best to size up her options. There weren’t many—in fact, there were pretty muchzerofavorable ways out of this. So she was going to have to play it by ear…maybe let them feel as if they were in control (because really, that was the case here) and hope an opportunity presented itself.
She nodded and slowly moved her hand away from her holster. “Okay. Fine. But where are we headed?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” the scrawny one said.
“You’ll see soon enough,” the suited man said. “And man, oh man, will Mr. Spurlock be happy. He might even leave Ms. Zebra without question if he knows we have you.”
The name was peculiar enough that Ava took note of it, figuring it could come in handy later on.Ms. Zebra,she thought, committing it to memory.That’s going to be easy enough to remember.
“You came in the back door,” the suited man said. “So let’s head out that way. We’ve got a car in the back lot, and I want you to walk real slow to it. Open the door, get in the back. We’ll be behind you the entire time. You try to run, I’ll put bullets in your knees. You try to draw that gun of yours and try anything brave, you’ll get the same. I’m not going to shoot you in your prettyhead, though. No…Mr. Spurlock will want you alive. And I think as a reward, he’ll let us have some time alone with you.”
Both men snickered at this as the suited man pointed his gun briefly towards the door.
“Move your cute caboose,” he said, still laughing.
With her hands still held out to the side, she did as she was asked. If they wanted her going across a parking lot to a car, that meant she had at least twenty or thirty seconds to figure a way out of this. If it was just one of them, she’d likely try pulling her gun as she got to the doorway that led outside. But with two guns on her, that was a fool’s errand.
When she reached the door and passed through the doorway, the suited man went so far as to even nudge her in the lower back with the barrel of his gun. “See the car over there?” he said. “The Studebaker.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the one. Go.”
The Studebaker was parked in the farthest corner of the lot, which seemed odd as there were only two other automobiles in the lot that contained roughly twenty spaces for other cars. She figured this was to keep the car as hidden as possible, not wanting it out in the open. She wondered if they were truly taken aback by her appearance yesterday and were now taking extra precautions whenever they went out. It made her wonder what Spurlock and his deviant little crew were really up to and what sort of crimes they were involved in. But the walk to the car also gave her time to reflect on how absolutely foolish she’d been to come out here. Has she truly expected to slip from the Perkins case back into the secret case she’d been looking into concerning her husband? And if she’d found something…then what?
It really had been irresponsible. No one knew where she was if somethingdidhappen to her. Not even Frank. The thought made her a bit more scared and profoundly sad.
As they neared the car, she thought she had an idea. It was risky, but it was truly the only one she had. She faked a small stumble, just to ensure the suited man was still directly behind her. When he once again nudged her with the gun—this time right between the shoulder blades—she got the confirmation she needed.
When they arrived the car, the suited man reached out and took her by the shoulder. “Hold it.”
The second man hurried ahead of them and opened the door. This put something of a dent in Ava’s already tenuous plan, but she had to do something. Once she got into the car, she had a feeling things would be a lot more difficult.
The suited man gave her a little shove once the door was open. “Get in.”
She turned slightly to the side, as she would any other time she was about to get into a car. But, with the suited man’s hand still on her shoulder, she made her attack. She knew it was risky and she was expecting a gunshot to sound out at any moment. But until it came, she knew she had to fight.
When she lifted her leg to get into the car, she instead sent the lifted leg out hard to the right. It slammed into the suited man’s calf, causing him to stumble. The moment he was off balance, she grabbed him by the back of his head and pushed him forward as hard as she could. Her intent had been to have him strike the car door, but his resistance threw off her aim and made things much worse for him.
His face went slamming into the glass of the door. The glass shattered and the suited man screamed.
She had no time to see the results, though. The scrawny man was already dishing out a left-handed haymaker. As Ava’s luck would have it, though, the screaming suited man was in his way. So not only was Ava able to sidestep the blow, but she also pivoted around both men to get a better defensive position. Justas the scrawny man’s wildly off-target punch came to its end, Ava placed two rapid-fire right-handed jabs into his perfectly exposed left side.