In a panic, she lifted a foot and both hands to ward him off.
But rather than grabbing her and dragging her from the vehicle, the man thrust a large cup filled with some kind of green liquid at her.
“Thank you, Wilhelm,” Sesame said.
“Do not spill this on the upholstery or the carpet,” he said in a vaguely German accent. The look he gave Riley suggested that he expected her to do just that.
“We’ll be extra super careful,” Sesame promised earnestly.
When Riley didn’t accept the frowny man’s offering, Wilhelm shoved the concoction into a cup holder, pointed his fingers at his eyeballs and then at her, and disappeared.
“Wilhelm isveryparticular about his upholstery,” Sesame explained.
Riley looked down at the liquid. “You can’t poison me again,” she told Sesame. She wanted a drink so badly. Her mouth felt like the damn desert.
“It’s not poison, you goof. It’s an energy smoothie from Fresh Pressed. I thought it might perk you up when you came out of your faint. By the way, it’ssonice to see Harrisburg finally embracing the health-conscious consumer.”
“Fresh Pressed? Harrisburg?” Riley repeated. “We’re still in Harrisburg?”
Hope was a rabid chipmunk in her stomach.
“Of course we are. You didn’t hit your head when you fainted, did you? Or maybe you did earlier today? You were talking about merry-go-rounds a lot. Is that what happens when you have a psychic vision? I’ve never met a real psychic before, but I did a lot of reading up on you and your grandmother.”
Riley’s head was spinning, only now it was less about the vertigo and more about confusion. But her mouth remained a dusty, cracked canyon floor. The smoothie was looking better and better.
“How do you know I’m psychic?” she rasped, willing her mouth to produce the tiniest bit of saliva.
Sesame looked bemused. “Do I look like the kind of businesswoman who makes a pitch to my target audience without doing any research?”
Having no idea if her kidnapper looked like a researcher or not, Riley assumed the question was rhetorical and grabbed the smoothie. Throwing caution to the wind, she took a big gulp. It wasn’t terrible. In fact, she couldn’t even taste whatever made it green.
She kept on slurping until a blinding pain hit her behind the eyes. “Ergh! Brain freeze! Or poison! I’m not sure which!”
“It’s definitely not poison. I mean, I guess itcouldbe. But I promise you if it’s poisoned, Wilhelm and I didn’t do it. Maybe the smoothie barista was having a bad day. Or the kale farmer could have used some kind of illegal insecticide,” Sesame said, considering all the possibilities.
The pain lessened, then finally disappeared, and Riley slumped back in her seat in relief. “Thank God. Just brain freeze,” she said.
But brain freeze made her think of Gabe. And thinking about Gabe made her think about how worried he must be.
“Oh, good!” Sesame cheered. “Now that you’re feeling better, I can tell you my story.”
“And then I can go?” Riley pressed.
“I’m hoping you won’t want to go, but if you absolutely want to leave after you hear what I have to say, I won’t stop you,” her kidnapper said with an amicable shrug.
There was nothing this woman could say that would make her choose to stay.
“Great, then let’s get started,” Riley said. The faster Leopard Boobs Sesame spilled her story, the sooner she could escape.
Sesame put her own smoothie back in the cup holder and smoothed her hands over her dress like a speaker preparing to address a crowd. Riley sensed a vague wave of excitement, but after her last psychic spelunking experience, she chose not to focus on it.
“Like I said, my name is Sesame,” she said.
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Got that. Let’s skip ahead to the part where you decided to follow me and my friends this morning.”
“Oh, I don’t like skipping to the end like that. That’s like reading the last chapter of a book before you even start it. No spoilers here,” Sesame said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Fine.” Riley sighed. “Start at the beginning.” She picked up her smoothie and took a careful sip. Pleased when her head didn’t explode, she took another one.
