Bliss felt something hard touch her back. She whirled around and saw a gun pointed at her midsection. Holy shit.
Reason dictated she should stay quiet and wait for the woman to tell her what she wanted. But when had Bliss ever been reasonable?
“Gun!” she yelled and grabbed the woman’s arm. She tried to press it over their heads and hold it that way until the nearest cop could reach them. She didn’t expect the woman to be so strong.
“Bitch,” the woman screamed. “You can’t have him.”
The weapon jabbed Bliss’s temple. The next thing she knew, she was being dragged across the street, away from the crowd.
“Halt!” Two cops already had their weapons drawn and trained on both of them.
“You don’t want to shoot,” the woman cried out over the noise and confusion. “You might hit an innocent woman.” Then she lowered her voice and growled in Bliss’s ear, “And by that I mean a not-so-innocent, boyfriend-stealing bitch.” Even though the woman had an accent, Bliss understood every word.
She still thinks she’s entitled to Drake. Bliss didn’t know what made psychotics tick, but right about now she wished she did. Maybe if I play along I’ll live long enough to get out of this. Not only didn’t she know if that was the right thing to do, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She saw one of the cops speaking into his radio. Hopefully he was calling for backup, but would they arrive in time? The nasty Rasta dragon had managed to spirit her around the corner and out of sight. A moment later, Bliss was able to answer her own question with a resounding “No.”
Something strange was happening. She felt as if claws were digging into her shoulders. Suddenly her feet left the pavement and she was soaring up into the night sky. For some damn reason, she pictured Dorothy being kidnapped by flying monkeys.
Do something, Bliss! The only thing that came to mind was to follow Dorothy’s example and let out a bloodcurdling scream—so she did.
An animalistic sound that might have been a laugh was the only response.
Drake and his buddies wrestled the fire under control in about half an hour. The bank suffered irreparable damage, not only by ravaging flames, but smoke and water destruction too. The overhead sprinklers helped save some areas, but not all.
His dragon warning tingles had begun during the fire, but he’d chalked them up to the possibility of his being in mortal danger—now that he was mortal. However, they hadn’t subsided.
Drake had been focused on the job, and it wasn’t until they pulled into the station that he wondered whether or not that was the bank in which Bliss had stored her CD. He’d call her as soon as he could. If nothing else, he’d be able to reassure her that the vault and safe deposit area weren’t affected.
She might experience a slight delay getting to her valuables, but she had until Monday to produce the designs she had been working so hard on. He was proud of himself for recalling a detail that was important to her but not so much to him. Too often he’d known men who only half listened to their wives or girlfriends and paid the price later.
He hung up his gear and trudged upstairs, looking forward to a shower. Bliss would still be at work, so he could wait to tell her about his day.
A little voice in his head argued, No. You need to call her now.
Not one to ignore so many portents, he grabbed his new cell phone and punched in the number for Bliss. When her voice mail offered to take a message and get back to him, he hung up and called the bar.
“Boston Uncommon, Angie speaking.”
“Hi, Angie. It’s Drake. Is Bliss there?”
“No. I was about to call you. She took off like a bat out of hell when the fire trucks drove by earlier and hasn’t come back yet. It’s busy and we need her.”
“She left you in the lurch? That doesn’t sound like the Bliss I know.”
“You don’t think something has happened to her, do you?”
Drake didn’t know what to say. Should he reassure Angie when he was almost positive something was drastically wrong? Hell.
“I’m going out to look for her. When I find her, I’ll call you and let you know what’s up.”
“Call Anthony. He’s worried about her too. Really worried.”
“Can you put Anthony on the phone?”
“Sure. Give me a minute.”
Drake paced as he listened to the sounds of a noisy bar. A few anxious moments passed before he heard Anthony’s voice.
“Drake. What’s going on?”
“Apparently Bliss is missing. Angie said she ran out during the fire, and I can’t get in touch with her.”
“That much I know. You didn’t see her at the scene, did you?”
“No, but she could have been there. I was focused on the job and didn’t pay much attention to the crowd.”
Anthony hesitated but eventually said, “I followed her scent as far as I could. The smoke may have thrown me off, but on Branch Street her scent just—disappeared. Do you think Zina may have something to do with it?”
Drake swore. “I didn’t want to even entertain the idea, but yeah. It’s quite possible. If she’s the one who set the fire, she may have been nearby.”
Anthony sighed. “I’m sorry, Drake. I said I’d be responsible for her and I feel terrible. I was in my office and didn’t know she was missing for quite a while. I think the staff was covering for her.”
“Don’t blame yourself. Neither of us would have expected she’d run off in the middle of her shift.”
“That’s not much comfort, is it?”
Drake dropped onto his cot. “No. It isn’t.” After a short silence, he said, “I’ve gotta go.”
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“I will, if I think of something. I don’t even know if there’s anything I can do.”
Suddenly Drake had an idea. It might backfire, but it was all he had.
“Talk to you later, Anthony.” He hung up and tucked his cell phone into his pocket. Then he ran downstairs to the street and yelled, “Taxi!”
Chapter 13
Bliss was tied up and gagged. If she weren’t so scared, she’d be amused that the woman seemed more intent on gagging her than tying her to a chair. Bliss’s mouth had always been her best weapon, and yet she hadn’t even taunted the bitch. I could have… Oh, I could have.
Thank goodness she’d thought better of it. All she’d done was try to reason with the woman. Apparently reason didn’t appeal to psychos. Now that Bliss was forced to sit and think, she should have been planning a way to get out of this. Instead she was furious and chiding herself for getting into this predicament at all.
Why did she care if the bank burned? She had her designs on her computer and could have simply created another CD. But for some damn reason, worrying about an arsonist—and knowing all her designs could be lost again if anything happened to her laptop—had her seeing things a little cockeyed.
If I get out of this alive, I swear I’ll make dozens of CDs and mail one to each person I know before Monday’s presentation.
The she-dragon had flown them all around the city before landing in a deserted park. That’s where she found a dirty, disgusting sock and shoved it into Bliss’s mouth. A nasty sweater lay nearby, and the dragon had used that to tie Bliss’s hands and blindfold her. Probably a couple of kids were canoodling in the park and something scared them off before they could grab all of their clothes. Maybe they saw a dragon swooping down on them.
And if they were drinking, they’ll probably never touch alcohol again.