Disclaimer: I do not own Stephanie Plum or any of the characters or plots in it. That honor goes to Janet Evanovich. Haley and the St. Louis crew are mine, but I'm willing to sell if you really want them…

Note: Hey all! Thanks for sticking with me through the whole story name-change and the rewrites and all that jazz. It's very much appreciated! And thank you to all my wonderful readers who send me lovely wonderful feedback!

BGLI: Sorry you don't like the new plotline. The old one is still going to happen, it's now entitled Caribbean Blue and will be posted here in a couple weeks. I just didn't like how the story switched into something totally different in the middle of everything.

Chapter 11

I woke up to the intense misery that can only be summed up in two dreadful, gut-wrenching words: wet jeans.

Blech. My jeans were soaked. So was the rest of me, of course, but the jeans were what broke the camel's yuck factor. There was also something warm and sticky running down my face but I didn't want to think about that one too much. My body ached, and I was pretty sure I was going to be one solid bruise tomorrow. I could feel where I'd hit the seatbelt. I think it tried to cut off my right boob. But my toes worked, and my legs. Yep, the arms were still attached too. I opened my eyes reluctantly.

Bad idea. I found myself looking through a shattered windshield, sitting amid a glittering mass of broken glass, some of it stained red. I turned my head slowly to check on Lula.

She was slumped over the driver's side airbag as it slowly deflated. Her eyes were closed and there were some nasty gashes on her arms, but she was breathing.

"Lula!" I croaked out, surprised at how much my throat hurt. I guess I had screamed after all.

She moaned in response. Okay, she was probably coming around, which left Haley. I tried to remember if she had been sitting behind me or Lula, but I just wasn't sure. The car had hit us right behind where I sat, and the entire side was crushed in, a tortured ruin of its former sporty glory.

"Haley?" I tried, fumbling with my seat belt and trying to turn around. There was no response.

"Haley!" I yelled louder, finally freeing myself from the bloodthirsty strip of material. I knelt in the seat to see into the back. Haley was leaning against the side of the car, eyes closed, skin pale, with her arms splayed out like a discarded doll. There was blood pooling slowly, dripping down her neck, down her injured arm, down her legs. She was a mess of scratches and bruises already forming.

"Whassamatta?" Lula groaned, blinking rapidly as she started to come around.

"Lula, wake up! We had a wreck. Are you okay? Can you move?"

She was waking up rapidly now. "I can move fine," she said. "But I don't feel like I want to… what the fuck hit us?"

"An Oldsmobile. From a side road or something."

"Shi-it. Probably some crazy ass old fart…"

"I can't tell if Haley's breathing! We have to get out of the car…"

The faint smell of gas was beginning to filter through my haze of disjointed panic. Lula's too, apparently. She sat up and started shoving at the airbag.

"Fuck fuck FUCK! Steph, you able to get out of your door?"

I looked at what had formerly been my door. It didn't look promising.

"Ok, fine, you gonna have to crawl over the console and get out over here… We can get Mini-Me out this way too." She was already working on her door, kicking the uncooperative fiberglass into submission until it gave up and popped open.

Lula half crawled, half fell out onto the ground, and looked back at me.

I followed her lead, crawling over the console and letting myself topple out of the blessed opening. "Should we move her at all?" I wondered suddenly. "What if she broke her neck or…"

"White girl, you smell that gas? It might not ignite, but you're here, which means I ain't takin' no chances. You want her roasted or broke?"

Put like that I didn't have an argument. I hated it that my presence seemed to make everyone assume something would explode, but it was true I had had more than my share of explosions in recent years.

We pushed the seat forward and set about pulling Haley out of the car. I finally had to crawl back in to unfasten her seatbelt. It sounded so easy, unfastening something. It wasn't. My hands were shaking, everything was wet from the rain, and the belt was stubborn. Cursing it the entire time I finally got it to let loose.

Lula took Haley's legs and I supported her top half while we sort of backed her out. It wasn't the most graceful rescue ever, but it was pretty well timed.

I had barely cleared the car when we heard that unnerving pop and hiss of something igniting. Lula and I shared a glance of unmitigated terror.

Hauling Haley between us we set off as fast as we could for the opposite side of the road and the safety provided by the embankment.

The explosion itself knocked us the last few feet to safety.

"My baby," Lula sniffled softly when we were getting our breath back. "Some old geezer just killed my baby!"

"Shoot me. Just kill me," Haley moaned beside us.

I leaned over her and shook her shoulder carefully. "Hey, sleeping beauty. Rise and shine."

"I don't think that's a good idea." He eyes opened slowly. "See? I told you so. You look like hell, Stephie."

I laughed at that. "So do you."

"Lula?"

"I'm here," Lula said, her voice subdued. "I guess we lucky we woke up."

"The car what went boom?"

"Yeah," I lifted my head up to check out the smoking remains. The air was thick with the smell of burnt rubber, hot metal, and gas.

"Ambulance?" Haley asked hopefully.

"My cell phone ain't got service," Lula said, producing her new flip phone to glare at it reproachfully. "Can you hear me now… fuckers…"

My cell was in my purse. In the car. Which was now in car heaven.

"Someone had to have seen the huge ball of fire," I said. "Probably they're on their way now."

"Probably they just called," Lula added.

"Yeah. I'm sure someone will drive by soon," Haley sighed.

So we huddled there, on the side of the road, shivering in the rain even though it was a surprisingly warm day. It felt like hours before we heard the rumble of a distant engine, but it might have been minutes. We all turned hopefully toward the approaching noise, praying for a squad car, an ambulance, a Little Debbie delivery truck.

What we got was a white Lincoln Town Car. It pulled over, the driver's window powering down to reveal a little old lady with blue hair and a sweet smile.

"Is everyone all right?" Her voice was as sweet as her smile, and held the traces of a Southern Belle accent.

"We think so, ma'am," Haley tried her winning smile but it wasn't very convincing. "Need a little patching up, drying off, and a ride… you have a phone we could use?"

The lady nodded. "Well I'll take you to the hospital. You just hop on in and we'll go get you situated."

"We're bleeding… We can't get in!" Great, leave it to a moment like this to bring out my damned Burg training. The good Southern lady laughed at me.

"Honey, I got leather interior. Get on in, before you catch your death."

We crowded into the back seat, keeping Haley sandwiched between us, the better to keep her awake. The lady waited for us to get settled, then pulled out onto the road. There was another lady, this one considerably more angular, but with a similarly pleasant face.

"I'm Mrs. Townsend," the driver told us with another smile, "And this is Mrs. McPherson."

"Nice to meet you," I told them.

"Did you girls use your cell phones out there?" Mrs. McPherson asked. "My grandson always has his cell phone on."

"No service," Lula grumbled. "Never is when you need it."

"That's the way of things, dearie," Mrs. Townsend sighed. "Always has been."

"I feel sick," Haley whimpered.

"Probably from the blood loss," Mrs. McPherson said calmly and handed back a package of Saltine crackers. "We'll be there in a few minutes more."

Haley looked at the Saltines and if possible actually turned a shade grayer. She passed them to Lula who opened them and began munching.

"Thank you, ma'am," Haley said politely.

That was it for conversation for a few more minutes, until Mrs. Townsend let out a surprisingly colorful string of curses.

"Damn it all, girls, the car's overheating. We need to pull off for a couple minutes."

What happened next was disturbing. We had barely pulled off when the two ladies turned around in their seats and reached back toward us. For old ladies, these two sure moved fast. Mrs. McPherson wrapped her talons around my arm and I had only a second to recognize the stun gun in her other hand before I felt the old familiar jolt and passed out.

My last thought was one of annoyance at the amount of my life that seemed doomed to be wasted on unconsciousness.