Read Online Just Needs Killin by Jinx Schwartz - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jinx Schwartz
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take Se Vende ashore on a dog hunt, when I heard the phone ringing inside the cabin. Doubling back, I snatched it up. "Hello?"
A gravelly voice rumbled into my pounding ear drum. "We have your aunt and your dog. Tell no one. We will know if you do. We will contact you concerning our terms."
"Hey, you, I—" I realized he'd hung up.
First fury, then terror, turned my kneecaps to jelly. I wobbled to the settee and crumpled onto the cool leather, suddenly overcome with helplessness and self-recrimination. I knew this was all my fault, no matter who was responsible for the dog-and-aunt snatch. I had something they wanted, and whatever their "terms," they could sure as hell have it their way.
I had become quite fond of that dog.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After a half-baked attempt to straighten the trashed main saloon, I experienced an anxiety attack. Throwing cushions back onto the settee, I joined them, and curled into a fetal position. Paranoia jangled my nerve ends. Was someone watching the boat? Most likely. The caller said, "Tell no one," and "We will know if you do," so how else would they know what I'm doing unless they were spying on me?
A chill lifted the hair on the back of my neck, and made me want to pull a blankie over my head, but it was quickly dispelled by a wave of white hot anger. I think. At barely forty, surely it wasn't a hot flash? Geez, don't you get a grace period?
Whatever got my blood boiling, it sent me off the couch, and into a frenzy of action. I closed all window shades and began locking hatches and sliders, each one with a little more hostility than the last, as though slamming a door in their lousy faces. Whoever they were. Lame, maybe, but it made me feel more in charge.
Once the boat was secured, I kissed my bank account a fond farewell, fired my 8KW generator for some serious power, and set what Jan calls the fancy-schmancy onboard security system Jenks installed on Raymond Johnson before I left the States. Feeling empowered, I then activated my bajillion peso-a-minute satellite communications system, which I'd used sparingly except when I had a client who wanted to keep in touch with me enough to pay for it through the wazoo. Ironically that client had been the now-beheaded Ishikawa, and I was certain this was all somehow tied to him.
Back when Jenks—a security expert—and I first met in the San Francisco Bay area, I was being stalked by some nut job, so Jenks installed an Internet-based security system on my then new-to-me boat. It saved my life once back then, but now I was in Mexico without high-speed Internet, and stuck with a 3G system which was, as a Mexican friend of mine once joked, "Slower than a local funeral procession with only one set of jumper cables." For my own sense of security, I needed every tool I had available. Screw the expense.
Cocooned in my little floating fortress, protected by alarmed hatches and motion-activated cameras, I stared forlornly at my empty gun safe. Dammit, the one place where I could use a trusty semi-automatic, and Mexico made me leave them in Arizona, even though their constitution does give one the right to keep arms. It's one of those tricky things with the law south of the border; I might be able to keep a gun in a stationary domicile if I jumped through enough legal hoops, but since my domicile moves, the weapon would be deemed as "concealed," and that is a no-no. Anyhow, the penalties for possession are too severe to mess with. Five years in a Mexican jail holds zero appeal, but in this instance even five minutes of helplessness didn't leave me all warm and fuzzy. As my Daddy likes to say, "When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away."
With a deep sigh, I assessed the chaos.
My laptop remained on the desk, which was at least one good thing, and signified, even had I not received the call, that no common thief was responsible for the break-in. It was, however, sitting in a jumble of papers and folders that formerly lived in my IN
A gravelly voice rumbled into my pounding ear drum. "We have your aunt and your dog. Tell no one. We will know if you do. We will contact you concerning our terms."
"Hey, you, I—" I realized he'd hung up.
First fury, then terror, turned my kneecaps to jelly. I wobbled to the settee and crumpled onto the cool leather, suddenly overcome with helplessness and self-recrimination. I knew this was all my fault, no matter who was responsible for the dog-and-aunt snatch. I had something they wanted, and whatever their "terms," they could sure as hell have it their way.
I had become quite fond of that dog.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After a half-baked attempt to straighten the trashed main saloon, I experienced an anxiety attack. Throwing cushions back onto the settee, I joined them, and curled into a fetal position. Paranoia jangled my nerve ends. Was someone watching the boat? Most likely. The caller said, "Tell no one," and "We will know if you do," so how else would they know what I'm doing unless they were spying on me?
A chill lifted the hair on the back of my neck, and made me want to pull a blankie over my head, but it was quickly dispelled by a wave of white hot anger. I think. At barely forty, surely it wasn't a hot flash? Geez, don't you get a grace period?
Whatever got my blood boiling, it sent me off the couch, and into a frenzy of action. I closed all window shades and began locking hatches and sliders, each one with a little more hostility than the last, as though slamming a door in their lousy faces. Whoever they were. Lame, maybe, but it made me feel more in charge.
Once the boat was secured, I kissed my bank account a fond farewell, fired my 8KW generator for some serious power, and set what Jan calls the fancy-schmancy onboard security system Jenks installed on Raymond Johnson before I left the States. Feeling empowered, I then activated my bajillion peso-a-minute satellite communications system, which I'd used sparingly except when I had a client who wanted to keep in touch with me enough to pay for it through the wazoo. Ironically that client had been the now-beheaded Ishikawa, and I was certain this was all somehow tied to him.
Back when Jenks—a security expert—and I first met in the San Francisco Bay area, I was being stalked by some nut job, so Jenks installed an Internet-based security system on my then new-to-me boat. It saved my life once back then, but now I was in Mexico without high-speed Internet, and stuck with a 3G system which was, as a Mexican friend of mine once joked, "Slower than a local funeral procession with only one set of jumper cables." For my own sense of security, I needed every tool I had available. Screw the expense.
Cocooned in my little floating fortress, protected by alarmed hatches and motion-activated cameras, I stared forlornly at my empty gun safe. Dammit, the one place where I could use a trusty semi-automatic, and Mexico made me leave them in Arizona, even though their constitution does give one the right to keep arms. It's one of those tricky things with the law south of the border; I might be able to keep a gun in a stationary domicile if I jumped through enough legal hoops, but since my domicile moves, the weapon would be deemed as "concealed," and that is a no-no. Anyhow, the penalties for possession are too severe to mess with. Five years in a Mexican jail holds zero appeal, but in this instance even five minutes of helplessness didn't leave me all warm and fuzzy. As my Daddy likes to say, "When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away."
With a deep sigh, I assessed the chaos.
My laptop remained on the desk, which was at least one good thing, and signified, even had I not received the call, that no common thief was responsible for the break-in. It was, however, sitting in a jumble of papers and folders that formerly lived in my IN
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