Page 82 of Mike

Joe sighed.

Mike had crossed swords with Wendel, putting the man on notice not to be a prick. Of course, the handsy bartender hadn’t seemed to be holding any kind of grudge during the night. Not with how nice he’d been acting toward her. Meaning Joe might hope for a rescue from Mike and company if things went her way.

But she couldn’t count on it. She had to figure an avenue out of this, herself.

Her restraints…

She opened her eyes just a slit to look down at what held her, and a slow grin spread across her face.

Idiots. Not only had they used zip ties, they’d bound her hands in front of her. Easy-peasy. But would the movements required to break them draw attention?

She focused once again on the crew across the vast room.

“So what are we going to do with her?” the whiny one asked, putting Joe’s plans on hold for the moment.

Yeah. What are you going to do with me? she wondered.

The mastermind answered without hesitation. “We’re supposed to make her death look like an accident. So here’s the plan. Once it gets light outside, we walk her into the woods behind the warehouse. There’s a small river back there that’s about three feet deep. We bash her head with a rock, knock her out, then throw her face down in the water. It’ll look like she hit her head and drowned.”

Great plan, Joe huffed to herself.

These guys were clowns. It figured that’s who fucking-Lester would surround himself with.

She opened her eyes a little wider and peeked toward the speaking men now that her vision had completely cleared.

There were three of them, well across the room, standing behind the table that held all the cooking apparatus. She wasn’t exactly in their line of sight, but not completely out of it, either. Joe was going to have to watch them carefully, timing her move for when they all had their backs to her.

If that happened.

Getting ready, in the smallest of increments, she rolled quietly to her back and bent her knees halfway to her chest, keeping a sharp eye on the argument that had now escalated as to whether the group wanted to continue using Benji, or not. The absent man had apparently been griping and moaning a lot lately, worrying that his wife would find out about his extracurricular activities.

Well, that answered one question for Joe.

Benji wasn’t in attendance. She only had to worry about the three men she could see; Anthony Galici, Chuck Banito, and the muscle-bound goon she’d bested in the parking lot before the trio had played dirty and drugged her.

Not the best odds, but not terrible.

Unless they had guns.

All she had was her tiny 9mm Ruger tucked into a hidden pocket in her bra, positioned directly under her left armpit. She could feel with her arm that it was still there, so either none of the idiots had searched her. Or they’d missed it, for which she was grateful.

But in order to use her weapon, she had to get free.

Galici was pontificating again. “We’re going to have to get our product back from Benji before we make plans for him,” he growled. “I don’t trust him anymore, and leaving all that expensive shit in his truck doesn’t sit well. Jason, you’ve made good headway with the shelving units.”

Jason, Joe assumed, had to be the large muscle-man.

“But I’ll want more, here, and here.” The three turned to look where Galici pointed; the wall at the far end of the building.

Joe took immediate advantage.

Keeping her wrists apart so the zip ties were taut, she raised them up, then brought them down sharply across one bent knee. The plastic snapped.

Nice.

With half her Houdini act having been accomplished, she was about to go for more, but the men were turning back to semi-face her again.

Fuck.

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