Deborah Brown - Madison Westin 07 - Kidnapped in Paradise by Deborah Brown Page A

commercial kitchens, equipped with top-of-the-line appliances. The only thing missing was a private chef.
    “Open the double pantry doors in the corner,” she directed, still waving the gun. “Walk in face first, no turning around.”
    The pantry was much like a walk-in closet, but narrow, the shelves stocked with food and spices. Once the door closed, it would take some maneuvering to turn around with the two of us in the enclosed space.
    She slammed the door closed behind us. “Now be good girls. The first one who steps out gets the bullet.”
    We listened as she dragged a chair across the floor and blocked the door. I wasn’t particularly worried. It would take a while, but we ’ d get out.  If nothing else, we had enough bullets to blow the door off the hinges.
    “Bye, girls!” Mrs. Ricci called out.
    I smiled to myself. There were two things she had forgotten to ask for––our guns and phones. I leaned forward, head against the shelf, and texted Creole: SUV stolen, being held in the kitchen pantry, and then I input the address.
    We listened for any signs that the banging of the front door was a trick.
    Fab looked sideways.
    “Two choices––kick or shoot our way out?”
    “Since it ’s a shuttered door and not solid anywhere, I say we kick in the slats and crawl out.” Flip-flops weren’t ideal for bashing in the door, but at least I could put more power into my foot facing backward. I didn’t want to boast, but I had previous experience with kicking a door open. The lower slats cracked with the first impact and then snapped in half with the second one.
    “Lean into the wall,” Fab instructed.
    My movement gave her just enough room to turn so that she could use her tennis shoe, and she sent the rest of the slats flying across the floor. She got on her knees and pushed, sending the chair ricocheting off the stainless steel stove. She crawled out and opened the door; what was left hung on broken hinges.
    My phone rang.
    “What the hell is going on?” Creole yelled.
    “I send you a text for help and you call instead?” I yelled back.
    Fab laughed.
    “Your phone went to voicemail. You know I hate that,” Creole said.
    “ I guess I don’t get great phone service while being locked in a crazy woman ’ s pantry closet. Did you get the Hummer back?”
    “Already called in. I ’ m a block away.”
    “Don’t bother, we rescued ourselves.” I hung up.
    Fab, who was already halfway to the front door, motioned impatiently for me to follow.
    “Mrs. Ricci is a sly one.” Fab jammed the down button outside the elevator and nothing happened. The light above the door was dark. “She locked the elevator.”
    “We’ll use the stairs,” I said, and pointed down the hallway. “At least we’ll be going down and not up. And stay off the hand railing”––I shook my finger at her––“or you’ll end up black and blue if I have to drag you down the stairs.”
    “You first.” She shoved me into the stairwell. “Who ’ s going to tell Brick that another job went south?”
    “I say we show up at his office, sweet smiles in place. Actually, maybe not. He’ll get suspicious. We’ll gracefully accept cash and then scream obscenities in unison.” 
    “ Unison? ” Fab asked, looking skeptical that we could pull it off. “We ’ d need to practice.”
    “I ’ ve got a few choice words all ready for us. Then, after we lock him in a closet at gunpoint, we ’ ll see how long it takes him to get free. If we get bored, we ’ ll leave him for the cleaning team.”
    We exited the building on the far side, and even though I knew the Hummer was gone, I hoped it would be there as I peered around the corner. Creole paced the driveway.
    “Do you have a scarf I can use for a gag?” I asked Fab. “Creole ’ s going to be testy because I hung up on him.”
    “Another lecture before sex?” 
    “Our boyfriends are a lot alike in some ways,” I said.
    “They also talk.” Fab wiggled her nose.
    Creole