Express Male

“What more could you possibly want?” Marnie asked.

“You, Lila,” the man said without hesitation. “I want you.”

CHAPTER THREE

AT HEARING THE ROUGHLY uttered declaration, every one of those emotions went zinging right through Marnie again. Even lust, briefly, which said a lot about her so-called standards. But instead of going back to square one this time—fear—she put on the brakes at calmness. In spite of the gravity of her situation, she sensed something about this man that prevented her from feeling true fear.

She had no idea why, but her instincts told her he wasn’t going to hurt her unless she badly provoked him, and she’d always been a strong believer in instincts. The way she saw it, human instinct had survived from caveman times, even when the overhanging forehead and unibrow had evolved into much nicer lines. Well, for people other than Bob Troutman, she meant. There had to be a reason for that. Other than that Bob Troutman was a Neanderthal, she meant. So she’d learned long ago to trust her instincts, and her instincts had never let her down.

The man released the safety on his weapon with a deft flick of his thumb and sharpened his aim.

Of course, there was a first time for everything.

“Please,” she said, spreading her fingers in entreaty. “There’s got to be some way to get this all straightened out without anyone getting hurt. Please,” she said again, even more solicitously this time.

“Give me the manuscript,” the man said. “Hold it out with one hand, very slowly. And don’t try anything funny, Lila. Because I will shoot you if I have to.”

Marnie did as he asked, keeping one hand airborne as she gripped the envelope with the other and very carefully extended it toward him. Cautiously, he accepted it from her, his gaze never leaving hers, as if it was more important for him to watch her eyes than it was to watch her hands.

“Which car is the one you’ve been driving?” he asked as he tucked the envelope under one arm, still holding the gun steady. Still not removing his eyes from hers.

She found the phrasing of the question peculiar. He hadn’t asked which car was hers, but which one she’d been driving. As if he assumed she didn’t own the car but was only using it. Still, if he was saying anything at all about her car, it was only because he intended to use it. And that couldn’t be a good thing. Unless he used it by himself. Which was probably asking too much.

Marnie closed her eyes, surrendering to the inevitable. “The one behind me is mine,” she said. “The yellow Volkswagen Beetle.”

“Turn around, and walk slowly toward it,” the man told her, “keeping your hands where I can see them at all times.”

“Oh, please,” Marnie said, unable to help herself. “You can’t possibly think I’m any threat to you.”

He laughed out loud at that. “Oh, sure. You’re harmless, Lila. Everyone knows that. Like that guy in Zagreb. The one you put in a coma a few years ago? The one who’s still in a coma? He’d definitely agree that you’re as gentle as a lamb.”

Yeah, Marnie thought, this Lila for sure needed to hang out with some different people. Not to mention find some new hobbies.

“Turn around,” he said again, his voice steely now.

“And walk to your car. And don’t try anything funny.”

Oh, gosh, no. She wouldn’t try anything funny. That would be so inappropriate in a situation like this.

She did as he asked, making her way carefully to her car with both arms awkwardly extended, constantly aware of his eyes—and his gun—on her back. When she arrived at the driver’s-side door, however, she remembered she’d dropped her keys when the second man grabbed her. She started to say something about that when she heard the merry chirp-chirp of the key fob unlocking the doors. Braving a look over her shoulder, she saw faux Randy standing a few feet away, her keys in his hand. Evidently he’d seen them on the ground and scooped them up, but she sure couldn’t have said when. He had to have moved awfully silently and awfully quickly to do that.

Gee, color her suspicious, but if he kept this up, she was going to start thinking he wasn’t a mall security guard at all.

“Get in,” he said. “Put your hands on the steering wheel and keep them there.”

She did as he instructed, then watched as he rounded the front of her car, his eyes never leaving hers. He honestly seemed to be afraid that she might overpower him. Either this Lila really was a very dangerous woman, or faux Randy was the lamest excuse for a man in the world. As much as Marnie wanted to cling to that second theory, she figured the first one was more accurate. Which meant three men tonight had mistaken her for a very dangerous woman. Her. Marnie Lundy. Who shrieked at the sight of an unexpected dust bunny.

The tiny car shrank to microscopic when faux Randy folded his big frame into the passenger seat, accomplishing the feat with a swiftness and economy of movement that belied his size, his gun never straying from Marnie’s midsection. Once inside, he slammed the door shut and thumbed the locks into place, then dangled her keys from his fingers. When she reached for them, he snatched them back. Her gaze flew to his in silent question.

“I’m going to tell you where to drive,” he said. “And you’re going to follow my directions. You will not exceed the speed limit. You will not swerve off the road. You will not try to attract the attention of another driver. If you do, you’ll be sorry.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

Fear was creeping back in again, now that she realized just how little chance there was for escape. She was well and truly alone with him, helpless against him. She might be able to run once they reached their destination, but unless she could outwit him, there was no way she could get away. He was bigger, stronger, faster than she. He had clearly been trained for things she would never be able to master. He could easily overpower her. If he wanted to.

“How much gas do you have?” he asked.

“I filled up on the way to work,” she told him reluctantly. And damn her for not being one of those people who could drive a car until it was down to fumes. She couldn’t let the tank get below half before she started worrying.

“We shouldn’t have any problems then.”

Oh, yeah, speak for yourself, why don’t you? Aloud, she only asked, “Where are you taking me?”

He studied her in silence for a moment, as if he were trying to decide how much to tell her. “It’s one of the few places we have that you don’t know about,” he finally said. “And it’s not far from where we are right now.”

He extended the keys toward her again, and Marnie reached for them gingerly. Although he allowed her to wrap her fingers around them this time, he still didn’t release them.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Buckle your seat belt,” he told her. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?”

She managed to refrain from rolling her eyes but did as he said, reassuring herself that she wasn’t following his instructions this time because she would have buckled up anyway. Nyah, nyah, nyah. Only then did he relinquish her keys. He lowered the gun so it couldn’t be seen by other drivers, but pressed it against her thigh. She guessed that that was because, if she tried anything, he could shoot her in the leg, disabling her without killing her. That would prevent her from crashing the car, and make it possible for him to escape with his own life—if not hers.

As she went to insert the key into the ignition, she realized her purse, a whimsical little Mary Frances number decorated with buttons and ribbons and lace in varying shades of blue—she’d spent way too much on it, even with her store discount, but she hadn’t been able to resist—was still swinging from her elbow. She turned and straightened her arm to let it slide down over her wrist, only to have her wrist seized by her companion, who gripped it with firm fingers.

“Problem, Lila?” he asked as he jerked her hand back up between both their bodies.

“I just wanted to put my purse in the backseat,” she said.

He smiled grimly. “I’ll do it for you.”

“Thank you,” she bit out.

“But not before seeing what you have inside.”

Of course.

Still pressing the gun against her thigh, he released her wrist, and Marnie held her arm still as he guided the purse carefully over her hand. She winced as she watched him manhandle it, turning it over and over in his big brawny fist, having not a care for any of the intricate detailing. Watching him treat the ultrafeminine accessory so carelessly hammered home how little trouble he would have mistreating her, too.

“How the hell do you open this thing?” he demanded.

“That beaded flower on the side facing away from you has a snap beneath it,” she told him.

He found the part she was talking about and unfastened it, but his big hand barely fit inside the little purse, so he turned it upside down and emptied the contents into his lap. One by one, he inspected each item before replacing it, starting with the tube of lipstick, then the tin of mints, then her hanky and so on. He was methodical and dispassionate in his task, even handled her emergency tampon with complete indifference. He saved her leather card case for last, flipping it open to extract one-handed her Visa card, her AAA card, her health insurance card and her driver’s license, studying each in turn.

“These are excellent forgeries,” he told her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they were the real thing.” He glanced up to look at her. “But we weren’t the ones who made them. Who did?”

Marnie inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. “Well, that first came from the bank when I opened my Visa account. The second came from triple-A. That third was from my insurer and the fourth is from the Ohio DMV.”