24 Hours

Karen unwrapped the scarf. The dash lights shone like a coastal city viewed from the sea. Glancing up, she saw that the digital compass between the visors read “E” for east. That was information she could use. They were on a two-lane road, and she knew by the speed and sound of the outgoing trip that they had driven on an interstate for at least half an hour after leaving Jackson. That left two options: they were still on I-55, which ran north and south, or they had turned onto I-20, which ran east and west. That meant Abby was being held somewhere south of Jackson and west of I-55, if Hickey had taken that interstate. If he’d taken I-20, it was harder to make assumptions. But if he left the blindfold off, she might soon know for sure. She decided to make an effort to keep him in a good mood.

“Thank you for letting me give Abby the shot.”

Hickey rolled down his window a crack and blew cigarette smoke outside. “That’s what I like to hear. Gratitude. You don’t see much of it these days. It’s a forgotten courtesy. But you’re an old-fashioned girl. I can tell. You know how to show appreciation for a good deed.”

Karen waited a moment, then looked left. Hickey’s profile was like a wind-eroded boulder. Heavy brows, the nose a bit flat, the chin like an unspoken challenge. It looked like a face that could take a lot of punishment, and probably had.

“We’ve got a whole night to kill,” he said, glancing away from the road long enough to find her eyes in the dark. “Why make it like breaking rocks, you know? Let’s be friends.”

Her internal radar went to alert status.

“You’re a beautiful woman. You got that red hair, but not the coarse kind, you know? Strawberry blond, I guess they call it. And I’m not a bad-looking guy, am I?”

“Look, I don’t know what you’ve done in the past, but-”

“I want to see that bush, girl.” Hickey’s eyes glinted in the dash lights. “I know you got a good one.”

The words shocked and frightened Karen more than she would have believed possible. She didn’t want to show fear, but she had already pressed herself against the door.

“You got some good tan lines, too, I bet. With that pool out back.”

She stared straight ahead, her cheeks burning.

“I’ve got something for you, too, Karen. A lot more than you’re used to, I bet.”

With every remark she left unanswered, she felt Hickey’s confidence growing. “I wouldn’t count on that,” she said. “My husband got lucky with those genes.”

Hickey gave a self-assured laugh, “That right? Somehow I don’t picture old Will having the goods. Seems like the tennis player type to me. Mr. Average in the showers. See, that’s why I never back off. On that elemental level, I got what it takes.” He threw his cigarette butt out of the window and pressed the dashboard cigarette lighter. “I heard this story about LBJ once. During the Vietnam thing, MacNamara was giving him some shit about how Ho Chi Minh has this, Ho Chi Minh has that. LBJ unzips his fly, whips out his Johnson and says, ‘Has old Ho got anything like this?’”

He broke up laughing.

“Right there in the freakin’ Oval Office. Hey, I wonder if that’s why they call it a Johnson?”

“LBJ lost that war, didn’t he?”

Hickey stopped laughing. “Get those jeans off. You’re gonna be walking bowlegged for a week.”

A ball of ice formed in Karen’s chest.

“You think I’m kidding? We’ve done this gig five times, and every time the wives and me had a little party. A little bonus for the executive in the operation, and nobody the wiser.”

“No party tonight, Joe.”

“No?” He laughed again. “In thirty minutes I’m gonna be banging on your tonsils, lady. Get those jeans off.”

“Here?”

“Like you never done it in a car before?”

She sat rigidly in the seat, refusing to acknowledge the remark.

Hickey shook his head and tapped a finger on the cell phone. “Lose the jeans. Or I reach out and touch your precious princess.”

Karen held out for another few seconds. Then she unsnapped her jeans, arched in the seat, and pulled them off.

“Happy now?”

“Getting there. Keep going.”

A cold trickle of sweat ran down her rib cage. “Not in the car.”

He looked down and punched a number into the Expedition’s cell phone.

“Don’t!”

He cut his eyes at her. “Still dressed?”

She folded her jeans and laid them in her lap, then slid the panties off and put them on top of the jeans.

Hickey laughed and hit END on the phone, then picked up the cotton panties and knocked her jeans to the floor. “Not exactly Victoria’s Secret. You trying to discourage interest with these things?”