Part 27 (2/2)
A tinny, amplified voice said, ”We want Hoffman. You've got five minutes. Bring him out, and we'll let you go. If not, you'll all die. The girl first.”
”Lacey,” Scott whispered.
Dukane rushed to the window. As he reached for the shotgun, he looked out.
He saw Lacey. A hundred yards away. Sprawled across the hood of the Rolls Royce. Her arms and legs were outstretched and tied.
A dozen men and women stood near the car, watching as a woman lashed her once with a thin, golden chain.
The woman was naked. Glossy, blonde hair draped her back. Her gold arm bands glinted sunlight.
Laveda!
In spite of the heat, gooseflesh p.r.i.c.kled Dukane's skin.
Lacey's quiet gasp of pain came through the silence as the chain struck again.
Dukane grabbed the double-barreled shotgun. He broke it open. The chambers were empty. Turning from the window, he looked for other weapons. The pistols were nowhere in sight. He quietly closed the breach.
”Four minutes,” the distant voice announced.
Dukane hurried to Scott. He fished a key from his pocket and knelt to unlock the cuffs.
”Is it Lacey?”
”Yes.”
”Oh G.o.d.”
”Come on.” Dukane tiptoed into the hallway, Scott close behind him. The bathroom door stood open. The bedroom door was shut. Almost.
He stepped quietly toward it. Stopped.
From inside came m.u.f.fled grunting sounds, the creak of bedsprings.
Nancy lay on the bed, her sweatslick body pounding against the mattress, arms stretched overhead, b.r.e.a.s.t.s oddly mashed, legs wide open and twitching, the lips of her v.a.g.i.n.a spread far apart like an open, sucking mouth. Dukane heard the slap of flesh, and wet, smacking sounds.
”Three minutes,” announced the amplified voice.
Dukane shouldered open the door. He ran for the bed, reversing the shotgun, raising it high by its barrels.
Nancy's wet eyes looked up at him. She turned her head away as he swung the shotgun down.
It stopped before hitting her, stopped six inches above her face, stopped with a cras.h.i.+ng thud like a coconut hurled against concrete. The stock of the shotgun split on impact. Teethmarks appeared in Nancy's cheek-empty, ragged holes that quickly filled with blood.
Scott dived onto her. He groped above her left arm, grabbed, snapped a handcuff in place, closed the other bracelet around his own wrist.
”Got him!” Scott cried.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.
”You have two minutes,” said the man with the megaphone.
Even as he spoke, the thin chain twirled over the head of the woman beside Lacey, its gold links flas.h.i.+ng sunlight, and whistled down. She cried out as it cut fire across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A smile trembled on the woman's lips. Her nipples stood erect on her sweaty b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
She's getting off, Lacey thought.
It must've been at her command that the rifles hadn't opened up on Lacey, that instead the Rolls had come for her. She'd watched it approach, too frightened to move, thinking it's dead, Dukane got it with a Molotov c.o.c.ktail, how can it be coming? It bore down on her, its grill blinding in the sunlight. She thought it might crush her into the gravel, but it slipped sideways and its black front tire missed by inches. A door flew open. She was dragged inside the chilly, air-conditioned car.
Two men held her across their laps, pawing her as the car sped away.
The chain whipped down, las.h.i.+ng her belly.
The woman was breathing hard. But not from the exertion. She licked her lips, and struck again. Lacey jerked rigid as the chain cut her thighs.
It was the woman who ordered her tied to the car's hood. The sunbaked metal had scorched her, but the pain of the burned flesh faded when the whipping started.
The chain whished down, biting into her shoulder and breast.
A man suddenly threw himself onto her, licking the blood from her breast.
The woman lashed him. ”Not yet!” she snapped.
Others jerked him away.
”One minute,” said the man with the megaphone.
”They won't come,” said a stocky, red-faced man.
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