Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(2)
Although the G-men didn’t show their IDs long enough for her to get their names, they made sure June could see the guns on their hips. The pale one did the talking, while his eyes wandered up and down her body. The dark one didn’t say a word. They left her standing in the doorway with a warning that even this incident was classified, and if she even spoke of it she would face federal prosecution.
June watched them trundle the hand truck down the hall, thinking that her mother had always hated the government.
So why would she work for the Department of Defense?
Put another way, why would they show up at three a.m.?
And why would they take Tyg3r, the temperamental mini-super, but leave the big blazing-fast liquid-cooled Cray her mother had been so proud of?
So June had a lot on her mind. And when she finally dragged her ass out of bed the next day, she realized there was no coffee in the house. How the hell had that happened?
When she recognized the emergency conditions, she pulled on yesterday’s clothes, slung her messenger bag over her shoulder, got on her mother’s ancient but highly tuned single-speed Schwinn, and headed for Philz Coffee.
On Middlefield Road, a giant black SUV with tinted windows pulled up beside her, crowding her toward the parking lane. Red and blue lights flashed on the dash. When the passenger window hummed down, the same pale humorless G-man from the night before pretended to smile at her now.
He wasn’t looking at her face, of course. He was watching the way the cross-strap from her messenger bag defined her breasts. Definitely not cool, she thought. Some woman needs to rewrite the DoD training manual.
“Please pull over, Ms. Cassidy. We’d like to speak with you for a few moments.”
“Not right now,” June said crossly, still pedaling. She was dangerously undercaffeinated, with a headache that would kill a rhino, and hadn’t done shit for exercise in several days. The bike ride was just beginning to unknot her muscles when this moron showed up. “I need some coffee.”
The big SUV kept pace with her. “This will just take a moment,” he said. “We can drive through Starbucks if you’d like.”
The G-man clearly failed to comprehend. Plus she would never go to Starbucks unless she was taken hostage, and even then she would fight it. “Hey,” she said. “I’m busy. Send me an email. Call my cell. I’m sure you can figure out the number.”
The G-man looked at the driver, who was definitely less pale but appeared no less humorless. Why did they have such horrible suits? The driver nodded.
“Ma’am,” said the pale G-man, “I’m with the United States government. Are you refusing my lawful request?”
“Jesus Christ, no.” Although she was starting to wonder if it was a lawful request. This wasn’t her area, but she could make some calls and find out. “After lunch, okay? I have a meeting. Send me a text.”
The G-man raised his hand and the driver slanted the black SUV into her path, leaving June no option but to slam on the brakes or be forced into a parked car.
“Hey listen, motherfucker,” she began, but the G-man stepped out of the SUV, jammed a crackling electric stun gun into her side, and pulled the trigger.
It felt like being punched by a gorilla. June’s legs stopped working, and she collapsed over her mom’s bike.
The man captured her wrists in a pair of plastic riot handcuffs, disentangled her from the Schwinn, picked her up like a rag doll, and threw her into the back seat.
The driver scanned his mirrors. “What about the bike?”
“Leave it,” said the first man, picking up June’s fallen bag and getting in beside her. He took a phone from his pocket, touched a button. “We have her,” he said.
The SUV roared back into mid-morning traffic, red and blue lights still flashing, conveying the impression of importance and urgency, with only a faint crunching sound as the left rear wheel rolled over her mother’s beautiful old bicycle.
The next car slowed as he detoured around the twisted frame of the fallen Schwinn, but he was the only person to wonder what had happened.
By then, the black SUV was long gone.
? ? ?
JUNE’S SKIN FELT HOT under the T-shirt where the stun gun hit her. She didn’t feel damaged, thankfully, just sore, like a long day at the climbing gym. She was more banged up from falling across her mom’s bike. Mostly she was scared at finding herself thrown into a strange car with strange men. But that fear was rapidly converting to anger.
She was sure now that these men were not with the government, despite the badges and flashing lights. They wouldn’t have used a stun gun on her. They’d simply have had the local cops knock on her door and bring her in.
But why did they want her to begin with?
The only thing that made sense was that it had something to do with her mother’s lab.
She took careful inventory of her surroundings. The back doors were locked, and the driver watched his mirrors and the road ahead. The negligent way her seatmate kept an eye on her told her that he didn’t consider her a threat, just a girl like any other. Until he began to leer at her a little, checking her out in her handcuffs, like he might ask her out for dinner when the whole thing was over.
As if he didn’t quite get that he’d fucking zapped her with a stun gun and abducted her.
She recognized this particular look from the guy who got her staggering drunk on Everclear-laced “punch” early in her freshman year, so that he could rape her in the coatroom of a fraternity. The kind of guy who told himself that the girl came to the party to get drunk and laid and he was just helping her out, and that No really meant Yes because dude he was so damn handsome that a girl couldn’t really be turning him down on purpose.