And his lungs burning.
And his butt sore.
“Maybe you should wait here,” I said as I jumped off the handlebars.
“Will you be okay?”
“It’s Uncle Marvin, I think I can handle him.”
Frankie nodded. “Call me if you need me and I’ll come running inside. Just say the word.”
I couldn’t resist the urge to give him a quick hug before I hurried inside. He was so huggable that it was impossible to avoid or ignore those urges when they occurred.
It felt like I was going into a battlefield when I walked through the front door. Uncle Marvin was in front of the television, slumped in his favorite chair and holding a beer in one hand, the remote control in the other. I hoped the beer was the first of the evening and not the fifth–otherwise the entire plan was shot to pieces before it got a chance to begin.
“You didn’t make dinner,” Uncle Marvin greeted me. He often used such delightful words that I was taken aback by how lucky I was to have such wonderful family members.
“I was busy, I’m sorry.”
“What was more important than making my dinner?”
“I think I know where Dad is. I need you to drive me there, the buses don’t go out on that route.”
I could have been mistaken but it appeared to me that Uncle Marvin sat up a little straighter, maybe a little more interested in what I had to say. Maybe his dinner was a little less more important now. “What makes you all knowledgeable all of a sudden?”
“I found out some information about him,” I replied. We didn’t have time to go through the whole story. Every nerve in my body wanted to get to the cabin in the woods before it was too late. Surely there was an expiry date on my father’s life and it had to be getting close to reaching that time soon. “You’re going to have to trust me on this, Uncle Marvin.”
“Girl, I haven’t trusted you a moment since your mama pushed you out sixteen years ago.”
“I know. But… please?”
“Why should I?”
“Because this time I think I’m right.” Admittedly, it was a shaky argument and I didn’t have a leg to stand on but surely if there was a moment in my life when I needed his blind trust, it was now.
We waited in silence while I willed Uncle Marvin to believe in miracles. I was a liar, I had lied my entire life and never much cared if people trusted me. If they believed me or if they didn’t, it wasn’t my problem.
Now, I really needed Uncle Marvin to believe me.
We stood in the middle of the living room, waiting for one of us to make the next move in our silent game of chess. I could feel my heart beating out the moments as it counted down the seconds.
Thump thump.
Thump thump.
If I was a bomb I would have already exploded. Sweat beaded on my brow, trickled down my temples before I could wipe it away with the back of my hand.
The ground started shaking.
From the reverberations from Uncle Marvin’s foot as he placed it on the ground and stood up. He heaved his bulky frame from the comfortable armchair and stood.
“Let’s go then.”
I didn’t question whether he was serious or not. I didn’t dare say a word or give him the opportunity to change his mind. All I did was watch as Uncle Marvin collected his car keys from the bowl by the door and walked the few steps outside.
“Are you coming or not?” he asked brusquely as he paused with one hand on the screen door.
“Of course I am,” I replied as I hurried to catch up. “Frankie’s coming too.” I took his grumbling as a sign of acquiescence rather than disapproval.
The three of us were in the car a few minutes later. We were on the road and heading down highway eleven while my mind was in a panicked haze. If I was wrong we were embarking on a complete wild goose chase that Uncle Marvin would never let me live down.
If I was right then we could be heading straight into a viper’s nest. If Derrick Bowden was dangerous enough to kidnap his best friend, there was no telling how far he would go to protect the secret of his illegal operations. I was certain he wouldn’t have any scruples about doing away with a few teenagers and an obnoxious middle aged man.
Hell, even I’d had thoughts about getting rid of Uncle Marvin before.
Just a little arsenic in his morning coffee would have done it.
But that would have been wrong. Even I had my limits. I was a liar, not a murderer.
There was a difference.
My stomach churned with a gazillion butterflies and not in a good way. All I could think about were the drugs and cash in the storage locker back in Lakeside. To make that kind of cash there must have been some serious business involved and to think my father was somehow involved in it all was horrible.
Whatever was waiting for us out at the cabin was not going to be pretty.
I just hoped we weren’t too late.
Chapter 27
The winding roads leading to the cabin were making me nauseous. Street lights were a foreign concept out there, moonbeams and the car’s headlights the only thing leading our way.
Uncle Marvin wasn’t the best driver in good conditions. Out here it was like he had transformed into a rally car driver and didn’t place any value on his life. He was living each moment like it was his last and I was expecting each moment to be the last one for us all.
My knuckles were as ghostly pale as my face.
At least it was dark so nobody noticed.
I swallowed down the urge to ask ‘are we there yet?’ because nobody would have the answer to that question. Uncle Marvin would only tell me we would be there when we got there. He was good at being obvious like that. Plus, I didn’t want to take away any of his concentration from the road.
A glance into the backseat told me Frankie was having similar thoughts as he held on looking sufficiently concerned. Perhaps my father’s life wasn’t the only one in danger tonight.
The cabin finally loomed in the distance as we rounded a bend and skidded to a stop. The brakes locked as the wheels screeched and kicked up stones behind us.
There was chaos at the scene in front of us and not the kind I had been expecting. We climbed out of the car quietly, kind of a little redundant with the kind of noise the car had made with our grand arrival.
Still, the men we could see inside the cabin hadn’t seemed to notice. They were engaged in a loud argument, too busy with their own drama to notice ours.
We crept to the window and crouched down, listening through the open screens with a clear view of what was happening.
There were three of them, including Derrick Bowden. He had beaten us to the cabin, he must have left as soon as he had checked on his storage locker. Without having to beg Uncle Marvin for a ride first, he would have easily made it with plenty of time to spare.
I recognized one of the other men from the shop. His nametag had identified him as Malcolm and he was Ready to Assist. That was probably a bigger lie than anything I had ever said.
“The police are declaring him dead. I’m telling you, they are calling off the search,” Malcom said. I exchanged a look with Frankie.
They were talking about my dad.
Derrick shook his head. “It’s not that simple, Mal. There is a process, they need a body. Just because some simple cops say someone is dead, doesn’t mean they close the case. We can’t dump the body and consider the whole mess over and done with. It’s not that easy.”
The body?
That didn’t sound good.
Everything inside me froze.
“Why can’t we make it that easy? I’ll make a fire out back and we’ll burn him. Nobody will ever find a thing.”
The way they were talking so blasé about the death of my father was sickening. I couldn’t process the fact he was gone yet or the fact we were too late. The option to walk away wasn’t there, not when we’d come this way.
If I couldn’t walk away with him alive then I would walk away with his body. At least he would
have a proper burial. At least I would be able to have a proper goodbye and April would have a grave to visit when she wanted somewhere to grieve when she grew up.
That was something I could do.
It was something I had to do.
I could cry later. While there was still work to be done I would hold myself together and do it.
That was what I’d been doing my entire life.
“Smoke will get everywhere,” Derrick complained.
“I’ll close the windows first.”
He still wasn’t convinced. There was no telling what the third guy was thinking. He stood as still as a statue with his arms crossed. He was blonde-headed and built like a brick wall. I got the feeling in a showdown with a tornado, it would be the tornado that would go around him.
“Fine,” Derrick said. “If you want to kill him so badly, then you go do it. I’m going to have a beer.”
Wait.
He wasn’t dead yet.
That meant he still had a chance.
It meant I still a chance. There was something I still could do. I wasn’t sure what it was yet but that had never stopped me before.
I stood up.
And waved my hands in front of the window.
“Em!” Frankie angry-whispered at me.
I ignored him and walked to the door, hoping the boy and my uncle would catch onto my plan soon enough. If I could distract the men for just a few moments, hopefully it would give them enough time to look for my dad. He had to be in the house somewhere if they were going to kill him.
The door to the cabin was unlocked. I walked straight on in. “You know, for criminals, you aren’t very smart on security measures,” I said. The trio stared at me like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It would have been funny if they weren’t within reaching distance of guns.
The tornado killer was holding one in his right hand already.
Talk about quick as lightning.
He was the one to watch.
“Who are you?” Malcolm asked. Clearly he wasn’t as eagle-eyed as me.
“I’m Marshall Gabrielle’s daughter. You can call me Em.”
They exchanged a glance. They were hardly panicked about my presence. Considering they were all much larger than I was and there were three of them, I wouldn’t have been worried either if the tables were turned. If anyone should have been terrified, it was me.
And I was, seriously.
I just prayed Uncle Marvin and Frankie had my back somewhere close by.
And for once in my life the lucky stars were shining favorably on me.
“What are you doing here?” Derrick asked. He seemed perplexed more than anything. I could run with that emotion, it seemed better than the option of violence.
“I’m here to rescue my father. I heard he was in a bit of a sticky situation and I was hoping you could find it in your hearts to let him go,” I said. “But I’m guessing that’s probably not going to happen, right?”
“Uh, yeah, you guessed right.”
“So you’re planning on killing me too? At least you’ll have a bigger fire in the backyard now, right?”
Malcolm grinned like a fool but it quickly turned into a scowl when he looked at his boss for confirmation. “You shouldn’t have come here, girlie. You’ve made everything that much messier. Your father would not be pleased to see you.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think he’d be proud of his firstborn, coming to the rescue, riding in to save the day. There’s got to be something good in that story, one would think,” I said. Behind him, Frankie came into view. He was carrying a stick above his head, poising it ready to hit Derrick with. It didn’t look heavy enough to do enough damage to his thick skull. I tried not to look and give away his presence. “Wouldn’t you be proud of your children if the situation were reversed?”
“My kids know better than to get into situations that are well over their heads.”
“Maybe you need to feed them concrete, make them tougher.”
Malcolm chuckled, I thought he was warming to me. I stole a glance his way and regretted it. Uncle Marvin’s large form loomed behind him with nothing more than a potted plant to use as a weapon against him. We were mice taking on elephants–clumsy, ill-equipped mice.
Derrick almost looked around and my heart practically stopped. “I called the police, did I mention that?” I said quickly. “Yeah, on my way here. I called them and told them everything I know, which is actually a lot. I told them about the drugs and the fact you kidnapped my father, who is alive in this cabin. They are on the way here. I had to fill in some blanks, though. I’m assuming you took my father because he uncovered some things about your illegal activities that he shouldn’t have. But you needed someone to do your computer work so you brought Marshall into the fold. When he found out too much you had no choice except to threaten his life. When he didn’t comply you were going to kill him. Am I close?”
“This isn’t Scooby Doo, I’m not going to confess everything to you,” Derrick replied.
“But I’m right, aren’t I?”
The look on Malcolm’s face all but confirmed it.
So I just kept on lying while I was on a roll. “The police believed everything, we’ll be hearing their sirens any second now. You’ll all be arrested and your entire world will come down all around you. That’s what you get for messing with a Gabrielle.”
All of a sudden Frankie took a swing and the stick collided with the back of Derrick’s head. It made a sickening crack at the same time Uncle Marvin threw his potted plant at Malcolm’s head. I lunged for the tornado killer, taking him by surprise and managing to sidestep him at the last minute to grab his gun. I used the butt of it to slam into his ribcage. While he was clutching it I took the opportunity to slap the gun across his face which caused blood to instantly gush from his forehead.
Frankie ended the job with the stick, bringing it over the back of his head and bringing him down to the floor. The three of the men sprawled on the carpet, unconscious–for now.
We didn’t have much time before they regained their senses.
I quickly scoped out the cabin, running from room to room. There were only a few and my father was in none of them. The last room was a set of stairs that led down a set of stairs.
“Downstairs!” I shouted, already taking two steps at a time. It was dark and I couldn’t see what I was running into. It was so quiet all I could hear was my own ragged breaths.
The steps seemed to go on forever as it grew colder and colder. At least I knew I was going into the depths of hell. My foot suddenly hit concrete, the jolt shuddering through my body sharply. I felt around the walls for a light switch, wishing for even a flickering of light in the absolute darkness.
Finally, I found one and flicked it.
I closed my eyes and turned around slowly, terrified about what I was going to see when I opened them again.
It took every inch of my resolve to open them again. Once I saw what I was about to see there was no going back again. I couldn’t un-see what I was about to view.
I opened one eye first.
Then the other.
And then I saw what I would never be able to un-see.
My father.
Chapter 28
He was sitting only four feet from me.
Marshall Gabrielle.
The man I had not seen since I was six years old.
My father.
The man whom I had had many imaginary conversations with over my lifetime. The one I missed, blamed, loved, hated, and a plethora more of emotions I couldn’t even begin to describe in the few seconds I stood there staring at him.
He was tied up, bound with rope with a rag tied around his mouth. He couldn’t move, all he could do was stare at me with the same surprised expression as the one I wore across my face. Considering we were related we probably looked like mirror images of one another.
I wasn’t entirely sure who was more shocked to see each other.
&nb
sp; Him or me.
A fleeting thought wondered if he even recognized me.
It had been a long time since my father saw me and I had grown up a lot since he left me standing in the middle of Uncle Marvin’s house with a tear in my eye and confusion written across my face.
But we didn’t have time to go into that right now.
Not for the first time in my life, I shoved all those emotions into a teeny tiny little box in the back of my head and suppressed it into the depths of my mind. Maybe I would save it for another day, maybe I would leave it there forever.
Just getting through the remainder of the night would be good.
The rest would have to wait and see.
“Em, you got him?” Frankie yelled down from the top of the staircase.
“Yeah,” I called back. “Should be up soon.”
“You might want to hurry. Need a hand?”
“All good.”
“Okay.”
Like a spell had been broken, the lid was placed on the box and I came to my senses. I got to work with my father’s ropes. I untied them with shaking hands. I almost forgot the gag around his mouth, he pulled that one loose himself.
“Emmeline?” he asked with wonderment lacing the word.
“It’s Em.” He would have known that if he hadn’t lost me all those years ago.
Those that loved me knew it.
Even those that tolerated me knew it.
“How did you find me? What are you doing here?”
“You can ask questions later. Right now we have to get out of here,” I said. Besides, if anyone had a right to answers it was me. He had no business in asking questions here. Not when there were years’ worth festering inside of me.
Dad opened his mouth to protest but a loud crash from above closed it again. He pulled the remains of his ropes from around his body and threw them to the ground. Standing, he didn’t tower so far above me anymore like he used to. We were almost eye level now. In the years that had passed I had grown. Somehow it was a change I hadn’t been expecting.
“You’re so big now,” Dad muttered.
Apparently the surprise wasn’t owned entirely by me.
The Keeper of Lost Things Page 21
