James used the pause well. He got right to the point.
“What’s the bad news?”
Five feet, give or take, Rose decided of the distance. She moved to the spot she thought was directly between the two points of interest and bent her knees slightly. Then she went through an imagined motion of pulling something from one side to the other.
It might work.
“The bad news is we don’t have to wait for the experts to show up before we move you,” she answered.
James said something but Rose’s attention split again. At the far side of the room the door she had blocked shook violently. The men had realized she had locked the bay doors. Now they were trying to come in through the office.
Rose kept her voice as still as the surface of a lake but even she could tell there were definitely about to be ripples in it.
“How deep is the pit beneath this car?” she asked.
“The service pit? This one is around five feet five inches with the wooden floor in.”
“And the one next to us?”
James was quick.
“Six feet. There’s no floor in it.”
The opening didn’t seem as wide and there were metal tracks for the vehicles in the way of those four feet. The closest track to them might be a problem.
But it wasn’t like they had many other options.
The door across from the garage started to take more damage. The men were ramming it with something.
Rose realized it was time to get very specific with her new mechanic friend.
“I don’t have my gun and there’s at least two menwith their own trying to come in. They’re going to make it in before backup gets here. I can’t defend you and I can’t leave you, so I’m going to move you instead.”
Rose was actually thankful that James couldn’t turn to look directly at her. She guessed his expression wouldn’t be kind. Instead, he parroted her intentions with notable grievance.
“You’re going to move me?” he asked. “Doesn’t that mean that if I’m on a bomb, that bomb goes off? No offense, I’d rather you leave me than blow me up.”
Rose got close to him, no need to bend over too much given her short height.
“We’re not going to blow you up. We’re goingto hopethat there’s a small delay between you leaving the seat and the explosive going off.”
“So what if there is? We’ll still get the blast right after.”
He couldn’t see it, but Rose thumbed over her shoulder.
“Not if we jump into the service pit. The concrete should—” Rose was cut off by a noise she had been hoping not to hear.
A gunshot.
In this context, an impatient one.
It looked like their mystery combatants were getting frustrated. Though she had no idea why.
Either way, Rose had to wrap this up.
Now.
“We’re going to jump into the service pit behind me and hope that covers us,” she said.
