by Marja McGraw
I glanced at my watch – ten minutes until they’d be calling back.
Pete returned, putting his phone in his pocket. “I called Phil, and Gloria never came home. He’s on his way over. I also called Joe. He’ll alert Redding and be over in a few minutes. I suggested he park off road and watch the house.”
“Joe’s still on duty?”
“He pulled a double shift tonight,” Pete said.
“Good thinking about parking off road,” I said.
“Did you ever send the photo of the passenger in the SUV to Redding?” Pete asked.
“I forgot, but I’ll do it right now.” And I did. “It’s not very clear, though. I was kind of taking the picture almost on the run.”
“Gloria has been kidnapped and it’s all my fault,” Mother said, tearing up. “She didn’t do anything to deserve this.”
“Neither did you,” Aunt Martha assured her.
Right on time, the phone rang again.
I said a silent prayer and answered it.
Chapter Nineteen
“Are you ready to deal?” a male voice asked. “Your mother for the witness’s wife.”
How could I get through to this man? Why couldn’t he understand that he had the wrong woman? “Listen to me. There’s no deal to make. You have the wrong woman, and I know that because my mother is right here – with me. You’re in big trouble, buddy.”
He laughed. “She’s sitting in front of me. You’re not getting off the hook so easy, lady.”
I was desperate. “Ask her for her name. I think you took the owner of a local bed and breakfast by mistake. Her name is Gloria. She can’t hear me, so see what she says without the benefit of hearing what I said.”
Bubba seemed to recognize something in my voice. He sat down in front of me, looking alert.
The man turned his head away from the phone. “What’s your name, lady?”
I could hear her when she spoke.
“Gloria! I’ve been trying to tell you who I am but you won’t listen. I’m the Ghost Lady, not Sandi’s mother. Now let me out of here. Please!”
Speaking to me, he said, “I’ll get back to you.” He hung up.
Bubba nudged my knee. I patted his head. “It’s okay, sweetie. Go lie down.” He walked toward the front door and dropped to the floor.
Clem licked my ankle and shook. “Go see Bubba,” I said.
Phil, Gloria’s husband, arrived and I explained that she was okay, that I’d heard her over the phone. Needless to say, he didn’t look relieved.
“What kind of idiots would take my wife? She doesn’t even look like your mother. What do we do now?” he asked.
“We wait,” I said. “He said he’d call back. In the meantime, there’s a cop parked nearby who’s watching the house. They’ll return Gloria when they realize they’ve got the wrong woman and Joe can catch them.” I sounded confident, but I wasn’t. Gloria was now a witness to her own kidnapping. “I’m pretty sure Detective Redding, out of Vancouver, is working on this, too.”
They didn’t call back and we were worried – more than worried – frantic. Although Phil looked nervous, he seemed to be maintaining his cool. He excused himself and walked outside to make a phone call. He had to beg off on a poker game.
Pete started pacing in front of the living room window. “Now we’ve got more trouble,” he said. “Joe just left. He must have had a call.”
“You’d think someone else could have handled his calls for him under the circumstances,” Aunt Martha said.
“You’d think,” Mother echoed.
“What’s this all about?” Phil asked.
“The less you know, the better.” My mother shook her head while she uttered her words of wisdom.
He glanced at Zasu and the baby. “Who are these people? Do they have anything to do with this?”
“These are my houseguests,” I replied. I didn’t elaborate.
Zasu stood and took Sophie out of the highchair. “I’m going to put the baby down for the night.”
“Good idea,” I said. As she walked past me, I quietly added, “It might be a good idea if you stay in the bedroom with her, out of sight.”
She nodded and headed up the stairs.
“Call Bubba,” I called to her. “I’d rather have him upstairs with you and the baby.”
She called to him and both dogs followed her.
Pete turned from the window. “I’m going to go for a walk. I want to keep an eye on things with Joe gone.”
“Take a windbreaker,” I said. “It’s starting to rain again.”
He nodded and climbed the stairs to our bedroom.
I heard a car door slam outside and hurried to the window. The beige van was pulling away and Gloria was hurrying up the driveway.
I had the front door open before she reached the porch.
“Pete,” I yelled. “Gloria’s back.”
Phil came running and we helped Gloria up the steps. Her hair was a mess and her face was puffy from crying. We got her inside and I took a better look. Her face was puffy from crying, yes, but she’d also been hit. Her left cheek was swollen and red, already beginning to turn black and blue.
Her husband touched her face and she jerked away, obviously in pain. “What did they do to you?” His tone was angry, which was no surprise.
“The man told me to shut up and I was so nervous that I couldn’t stop talking, so he slapped me – hard.”
“I’ll kill the bastard. He has to be an idiot to hurt my wife.” Phil’s voice was quiet, which was kind of scary.
Many people, including me, are the angriest when they speak softly. That’s when it’s best to stay away from them.
“Take her home,” I said. “Put some ice on her face. Let us figure this out, Phil.”
“In your dreams,” he said. His anger was almost palpable. “I’ll find him and – “
“Don’t leave yet,” Pete said. “I need to ask Gloria a few questions.”
He turned to her.
“Gloria, was there a second man involved?”
“Yes, but he stayed in another room.”
“What did the guy who hit you look like?” I asked.
“Honestly? It was hard to tell. He had on a sweatshirt with a hood pulled way forward, and it looked like he’d rubbed some dirt or something on the part of his face that showed. The room was dark, too.”
“What about his height, his build and anything else you can think of?” Pete asked.
She glanced around the room and then back at Pete. “He was about your height, maybe six feet, and – “
There was a knock at the front door and Joe walked in without waiting.
“What’s going on?” He glanced at Gloria. “What happened to her?”
Everyone started to talk at once.
Before Joe could react, Pete whistled for attention. “Quiet!”
I glanced at my mother and Aunt Martha, and they seemed to be momentarily frozen, with their mouths wide open and nothing coming out.
Good ol’ Pete.
“They took Gloria by mistake,” Pete explained. “Let’s just say they weren’t kind to her.” He pointed at her face. “Why did you leave?”
Joe looked angry. There seemed to be a lot of that going around.
“A call came in about a possible bomb and it was all
hands on deck. It was a hoax, so I came back here as soon as possible.”
Without hesitation, I said, “And I can guess who called in the hoax. You can bet it was the kidnappers. They wanted to make sure there weren’t any cops around when they brought Gloria back.”
“Thank the good Lord they returned her,” my mother said.
“Unharmed, or almost unharmed,” Aunt Martha added.
Joe and Pete took Gloria to the dining room after ordering the rest of us to stay in the living room.
“I’d like to be a fly on the wall in the dining room,” Aunt Martha said.
“Be glad you’re not, because I’d swat you.” Moth
er, for some reason, didn’t look happy with her sister. Nothing new there. With them, there didn’t have to be a reason.
I started to laugh, but tried to keep the volume down. “The Ghost Lady?”
“What?” Mother glanced at me in surprise.
“Gloria told the kidnappers that she wasn’t you, that she was the Ghost Lady,” I whispered.
Thankfully, Phil was sitting in the dining room with his wife. Although, he might have laughed with me. He loved his wife, but I was pretty sure he thought she was a little whacky, too.
Aunt Martha grinned and my mother chuckled.
“You watch,” my aunt said. “Before we leave…”
“…she’ll have a ghost visit us,” Mother finished.
“Maybe that will distract her from what she’s been through,” I said. “Some good might come out of her obsession with ghosts.”
“I hope they finish up in there soon,” my mother said. “I’m really tired, but I don’t want to leave until they’re done.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” my aunt said. “What
makes you think they need you here?”
Before they could escalate into an argument, everyone in the dining room stood and walked out to the living room.
Joe turned to Phil. “I think you should have her checked out at the hospital,” he suggested.
“Maybe we’ll go to the Urgent Care Clinic,” Gloria said. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
She turned to my mother.
“I don’t like asking, but just in case it takes a while, would you keep an eye on things at the B&B?” She held a key out to my mother.
“Of course,” Aunt Martha replied, taking the key out of her hand.
“We’d love to,” my mother said. She snatched the key out of Aunt Martha’s hand.
“Time for you two to go home,” I said, “or back to the B&B, I mean.” Freudian slip?
Phil took Gloria’s arm and headed for the door.
“Is anyone going to be watching out for my mother?” I asked.
Pete smiled at me. “Don’t worry. Joe is off duty in fifteen minutes, so both he and I are going to spend the night there. We won’t let anything happen to your mother or your aunt.”
Both women beamed at him.
“Nothing could possibly happen to us with them by our sides,” Aunt Martha said.
“Exactly right,” Mother said. “My son-in-law will be protecting us.”
I hoped she was right, that nothing would happen. Of course, I trusted these two men.
What could happen? The kidnappers could come back, or maybe there’d be a visit from the friendly local ghost. No, I don’t believe in ghosts and the kidnappers were probably miles away by now.
However, this meant that Zasu and I were on our own.
Thank goodness we had Bubba, my faithful protector. Oh, and of course we had Clementine.
Chapter Twenty
Everyone left, Zasu and the baby were safely tucked away upstairs, and the dogs had settled in for the night. I glanced at the clock and it was close to midnight.
I plopped myself onto the couch and wanted to relax for a few minutes before I went to bed.
Crack! Boom! Would the storms ever move through and go away?
Clementine came flying across the room, jumped up on my lap, climbed up my chest and onto my shoulder before practically wrapping herself around my neck. So much for relaxing.
The sound of laughter came from the direction of the stairs.
“Zasu? I hope that’s you.”
I heard footsteps on the stairs. “It’s me. I’ve been sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to everything that’s been going on. That little dog of yours is hysterical.”
“I’ll let her use you as a ladder next time.”
She sat down on the couch with me after I pulled the curtains together.
“It’s my fault that lady got hit.”
“No, it’s not. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“No, but – “
“No buts. You and Mateo are innocent. You didn’t do anything to deserve having to hide out. And it sure isn’t your fault that those thugs tried to use my mother to get to you.”
“Your mom is so tiny. If they’d kidnapped her, she could have been hurt pretty bad.”
“Trust me when I tell you that those guys are no match for my mother.” That wasn’t necessarily true, and yet… Mother had taken care of herself in the past. You never knew what would happen with her around.
“Do you think they’ll come back?” Zasu asked.
“I have no idea, but at this point we’re ready for them. They can’t take us by surprise now.”
“Are you sure we’re safe here? By ourselves?”
I smiled. “Take a good look at Bubba. Would you want to come up against that bear-sized dog? He’s the friendliest dog on the face of the earth, and yet he frightens people. Now why don’t you go upstairs and get some rest?”
“I am pretty tired, and Sophie gets up early.”
She stood and looked at me for a moment.
“Thank you, Sandi. I can’t imagine anyone else helping me the way you and your friends have.”
“You’re welcome.”
She turned and climbed the stairs while I sat and thought. I couldn’t turn off my thought processes even though I was exhausted. Would those men come back? Who were they? Poor Mateo was only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wondered if the police had been able to question him yet. Zasu and I were safe. In addition to Bubba, I knew my way around dangerous situations. This wasn’t my first rodeo.
I leaned back and closed my eyes for a moment, trying to clear my head.
The next thing I knew, thunder was driving Clem up
my chest, the phone was ringing, and I realized I’d fallen asleep on the couch. It took a moment for all of it to sink in.
The clock said it was three-fifteen in the morning. Who’d be calling me at this hour?
My cell phone sat on the coffee table and I picked it up.
“Hello?”
Figures. It was my mother.
“I just wanted to let you know that Gloria is home and she’s fine. She’s resting now.”
“Thanks for the update, Mom. Are you aware of the time?”
“Time is irrelevant when someone’s health is at stake,” she replied.
“Uh huh. Well, get some sleep now and I’ll talk to you later.”
“Don’t you want to hear the latest?”
“The latest?” I asked.
“Yes. It seems that Gloria remembered the man who held her had a tattoo on his hand.”
She stopped speaking. She wanted me to worm the information out of her.
“And?”
“He had ‘L.O.V.E.’ tattooed on his knuckles.”
“That’s nothing new,” I said. “I’ve seen plenty of people with the same tattoo.”
“Oh. Well, I also overheard Joe telling Pete that – “
“You were eavesdropping?” I interrupted.
She sighed. “I was coming down the stairs for a drink and I couldn’t help but hear them talking. Okay?” Frustration dripped from that last word.
“What did you hear?”
“Joe spoke to Detective Redding. That Kennedy guy, the dead man, was a CPA being used by a gang. I don’t mean the mob, but a gang-type gang. He realized who they were and must have threatened to turn them in for illegal activities, and that’s probably who took him down.”
Took him down? What was the world coming to when my mother used terms like that? It was my turn to sigh.
“So you needed to tell me this at three-fifteen in the morning? It could have waited until tomorrow, you know.”
“Sandra, these things are important. If it’s a gang, they probably have contacts all over the place. Why, they probably wouldn’t have any trouble figuring out where Zasu is hiding out.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” They’d already linked our li
ttle group to Zasu. I hated to admit it, but Mom had a point.
“There’s more,” she said. “Joe said Redding was shocked to learn they’d taken Gloria and returned her in one piece. He’s of a mind that normally they would have killed her.”
My mother actually sounded kind of blasé about the whole thing. I didn’t like that.
“You realize we’re talking about people’s lives, right? This isn’t one of your mystery books. These are dangerous people and they tried to kidnap you. Do you understand that?”
She hesitated. “Oh. I guess I do. I hadn’t thought about what might have happened if they’d taken me instead of Gloria. Oh, dear.”
She hesitated again and then sounded angry.
“Thanks a lot, Sandi. Now I won’t be able to go back to sleep.”
I heard my aunt’s voice in the background. Were they sharing a room now?
“Go back to sleep,” Mom said. “This doesn’t concern you, Martha.”
I could hear my aunt snap at my mother. “If you’re on the phone at this time in the morning, it concerns me.”
And they were off and at it again.
“Gotta go, Mom. I’ll see you later.”
I hung up before they could pull me into the middle of their latest fuss.
Thanks to my mother, now I was wound up. She was right. A gang might have people in all the right places, looking for Zasu. They’d already tried to get to Mateo at the hospital.
I heard a board creak on the front porch. This was an Uh Oh moment. I pulled the curtains apart a little and peeked out.
Stanley sat on the front porch, off to the side, keeping an eye on things. He’d done this once before when trouble was brewing. I’d forgotten to turn on the porch light, so he couldn’t be seen. It looked like he might have his laptop with him and I could see the light from the screen. Didn’t he ever stop working?
I smiled to myself. “God bless you, Stanley Hawks,” I whispered.
Feeling better, I turned off the table lamp and settled in on the couch to sleep.
