Free Sandra Hill by Love Me Tender

it.”
    “I hope you’re going to be cooperative, Ms. Sullivan.” The coolly menacing words came from the lady in the workman’s duds.
    “Huh? How do you know my name? And what do you mean by cooperative? Are you referring to my picketing earlier…” Her words trailed off as “Martha” reached into her tool belt and pulled out a small handgun.
    In the meantime, a pinging sound indicated that the elevator was slowing down at the tenth floor to pick up a passenger. Quick as his rock ’n’ roll legs could carry him, Elmer opened the emergency panel and hit the bypass button. Immediately, the pinging stopped. The elevator didn’t stop at the tenth floor.
    It all happened so fast that for a moment Cynthia was stunned.
    “Is this a robbery?” she asked, staring thewhole time at the pistol, which was aimed at the ceiling…for now, anyway.
    “Of course not,” the Ann-Margret lookalike twittered. “It’s a kidnapping.”
    “Oh, that’s better.”
    “Don’t you be worryin’ none, darlin’,” the Elvis wannabe added, patting her arm. “Consider this a little vacation.”
    “How little?”
    “Three weeks,” the blue-collar Barbie piped in.
    “Three weeks! I can’t go away for three weeks. I’ve got work to do.”
    “We know what kind of work you have to do. Picketing. Lawsuits. Bad publicity. All intended to bring down Ferrama, Inc. Well, we’re about to put a speed bump on your highway of destruction, Ms. Sullivan.” The words coming from the woman in denim were shaky with anger, but the hand that held the upraised weapon remained steady.
    Suddenly a bizarre thought occurred to Cynthia. “Did Prince Ferrama hire you? Are you people hit men?” Stranger things had happened, she supposed.
    “Hit men? Hit men? What is it with you women and hit men?” Elvis asked with disgust. “This is simple TCB…taking care of business. An old motto of Elvis’s, and a good one, too.”
    “No, P.T. didn’t hire us,” the overall-clad female spat out. “P.T. is our stepbrother, but he has nothing to do with this. In fact, we should’vekidnapped him a long time ago. Then we might still have our family company…Friedman’s Wholesale Shoes.”
    “Daddy made the best beach clogs in the world,” the other woman informed her.
    Cynthia put a hand to her forehead, totally confused.
    “I’m Naomi Friedman, and this is my sister, Ruth Friedman,” the coverall babe said testily.
    Ruth, the bimbo sister, smiled at her and gave a little wave in acknowledgment of the introduction.
    “You’re going to be our guest for the next twenty-one days,” Naomi continued. “So I’d suggest you cooperate, and no one will get hurt.”
    A bubble of hysteria threatened to erupt inside Cynthia’s head. Twenty-one days? That’s how long it will be till the Ferrama stock offering. I don’t care what they say, this is a setup orchestrated by the scuzzball prince. Boy oh boy, am I gonna make mincemeat of him. I really am .
    “And I’m Elmer Presley,” the little guy chirped brightly.
    “Don’t you mean Elvis?”
    “Naw. I’m Elmer Presley…Elvis’s reincarnation.”
    “Oh, God!” Cynthia groaned. Then she decided she’d had enough of these silly games.
    She lunged for the emergency button.
    Elmer grabbed her arm.
    Ruth squealed with distress.
    And then the gun went off, shattering the mirrored wall to her right.
    Everything happened so swiftly—like fast-forward on a VCR machine—that for a moment there was a stunned silence in the elevator as everyone, including the Clint Eastwood in coveralls, stared aghast at the broken glass surrounding them.
    “Na-o-mi!” Ruth shrieked. “You didn’t tell us you had real bullets in that gun.”
    “Now, now, sweetcakes,” Elmer comforted her. “There’s no real harm done.”
    “Is this ‘Candid Camera’?” Cynthia inquired hopefully.
    “Hardly,” Naomi sniped, her composure reinstated. She blew on the end of the gun barrel in a manner that would have been laughable