Page 77 of Her Cadillac Cowboy
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Basking in the glow of last night’s conversation with her father, Sara plunged into work with renewed vigor. Then she glanced at the clock on her desk. Good lord.It was that late? She doused the desk lamp, grabbed her purse, and stood. She’d had enough for one night. It was time to go home. Before leaving, she turned and took one last look at the darkened streets of Luville from the vantage of her corner office.
The city council still believed that every citizen was home in bed by ten at night and decreed that the streetlights went out at precisely five minutes after. She’d had to fight the council for two weeks to get the variance for the extra lighting on her lot.
Carson’s was taking a risk with this promotion and the Mega Motors venture. The lights were badly needed, as were the new security system and extra guards. The sight of one of them walking the lot’s perimeter now reassured her. As he approached the corner on his way to the side of the building, she lost sight of him.
Everything was ready for the start of the contest. The Caddy was in place. Security was as tight as she and Gene could make it. The armored truck with the money to fill the Caddy had arrived earlier that night, and the cash was locked inside the classic car. The Luville sheriff’s office had stepped up patrols, but limited resources prevented them from offering any kind of armed escort. She waited for the guard to reappear at the other end of the building. Better to cross the lot to her car with the guard than to be stopped as an intruder by him.
Movement caught her peripheral vision at the spot where the guard should reappear. She glanced back at the clock. She’d been standing here for at least twenty minutes. What was going on? It didn’t take that long to walk around the dealership. Something wasn’t right.
When she saw a figure run across the far side of the lot, she reached for the phone on her desk. The figure emerged from the opening in the backlot fence and disappeared. Colors were lost in the sharp contrasts between light and dark at the edge of the lot, but the figure’s loping run sprang clear in Sara’s memory. Will. What was he doing here at this time of night? And if Will was here, where was Josh?
She looked across to the daycare, barely visible beyond the fence. Lights showed in the office area. Josh must still be at work.I’ll call him first. He won’t appreciate it if I call in security and Will gets into more trouble.She punched in four numbers before she realized there was no dial tone.
Sara shivered. She knew the lack of signal was no coincidence, not with the lot guard’s disappearance. She had one option, the newly installed fire alarm. She slung the purse over her shoulder. Then she closed one hand around the heavy stapler that had sat on her desk since her interview with Miss Beadle weeks ago and sprang into motion, running for the stairwell. If she could just reach the alarm before any major damage was done, maybe she could scare off Will and his cohorts.
She banged the red button with her fist. There should have been bells. Loud, clanging, wake-you-with-a-start bells. There was nothing. Tying the fire alarms in with the new security system had seemed an excellent idea at the time. Something, more likely someone, had disabled the system. Sara slumped against the wall, trying to catch her breath. Up here on the second floor, she was trapped and defenseless. She had to find a weapon and a way out.
What to do? Head for the machine shop. Most of the tools there would provide effective defense against anything but a gun. There was a side exit in the machine shop too. She’d get a crow bar and leave. Once in the lot, she’d keep to the cover of the cars, unless she heard pursuit. If anyone followed, she’d just have to run like hell. The hard part would be getting to the machine shop. Whoever cut the phone and security and invaded the dealership was almost certainly between her and the only available defense.
She eased the stairwell door open. No sound came to her from the stairs. She slipped through the opening. The door closed. Her breath came in short gasps, and her heart drummed a frantic beat. The darkness was suffocating. She hadn’t realized how completely dark the windowless stairway would be.Calm down. Just feel your way along. You could walk these stairs in your sleep.That’s just what she’d do, pretend she was asleep. Except she had very little chance of encountering dangerous thugs in her sleep. She was very much awake. Someone could be climbing these stairs now, and she’d never see him coming.
The stapler held high in one hand, the other hand on the wall, she inched forward, feeling with her foot for the stairs. She stood several steps from the door when a scream froze in her throat as her hand brushed over a large, masculine forearm.
She let fly with a volley of staples at what she hoped was the face of the intruder. Muffled grunts assaulted her ears at the same time that steely hands covered her mouth and wrenched the stapler from her grasp. Before she could react, the intruder’s body slammed hers against the wall and pinned her there.
Josh. Sara sagged with relief. She knew the feel of that body pressed against hers. The angry whisper in her ear only confirmed that somehow, he had known she was in danger and had come to help.
Josh’s lips replaced his hand, which moved to cup her cheek. “Jesus on a pogo stick, are you trying to get yourself killed? Why didn’t you stay put in your office until the sheriff came?” the whisper growled in her ear.
How dare he kiss her and yell at her in the same breath? “Unless you called him, the sheriff isn’t coming,” she whispered back. “Wi-Fi and internet are blocked, and the new security system isn’t working.”
“I suppose they drained your cell phone batteries, too.”
The hand she used to cover her gasp did no good. “I completely forgot I had it.”
“It figures.” Josh pushed away from her but held onto her hand. “You come on like gangbusters, ready to staple someone to death, but you forget you have a cell phone to call for help.”
“Look, I panicked, okay. It could happen to anyone.”
She heard him expel a breath. His next whisper wasn’t quite as harsh, and he lifted her hand to his cheek. “Yeah, Pipsqueak, you’re right. I’m sorry I yelled at you.” He reached out and pulled her into his arms. “Forgive me, I was worried about you.”
“It’s okay, but don’t you think we should call the sheriff and save the apologies for later?”
“Yeah, let’s go get your phone.”
“It’s right here. I never go anywhere without my purse.” She fumbled for the phone and ignored the exasperated breath that gusted past her ear. She dialed 911 and reported the break-in. She clicked the phone off and returned it to her purse. “Now what?”
“Now you go back and wait in your office. I’m going to do what I can to slow those creeps down.”
“Oh no you don’t. I’m not going to cower in my office while the man I love risks his life playing tag with a gang of cutthroats. We wait together, or we act together.”
She could imagine the calculating expressions that crossed his face as he tried to figure a way of convincing her to stay put.
“All right. But you do what I say, when I say it.”
“If it’s the right thing to do.”
