“One already did,” she said. “And that was actually a near miss. Those things could amputate a limb.”
“So can those guys right outside,” I said, “But right now, we’re stymied.”
“We’ve got help coming, hopefully with radios,” she said. “They can get word to the county cops in Marionburg that we have a confirmed hostage situation involving children. That should do it.”
“I’m thinking I should go back and keep watch on that cabin. See if she moves the kids, or if Nathan comes back. The brothers show up, signal me and I’ll come back here.”
“Signal you how?”
“Gunshot? That sound ought to carry over the ridge.”
“And what about those dogs?”
“I’ll stay in the canyon. I can hold off the whole pack from in there.”
“Unless they get behind you,” she said. “It might be Nathan who’s running the pack. Hell, he could be on this side by now. Get you on your way up to the canyon.”
I sighed. We were stuck. The situation was getting away from us with every passing moment. But she was right—what if Grinny had turned loose three or four more of those savages and they’d tracked us through the canyon? These Creighs were pretty damned good at deploying those animals, as Baby and I had discovered during our run down the mountain. I was used to surprising people with my two furry torpedoes. The Creighs had taken that notion to the next level. I heard a little sound next to me and looked over at Carrie, who was now fast asleep.
Well, so much for that plan, I thought. We tried. I made sure the shepherds were where I’d left them, one a tawny shadow in the grass to our left, and the other two amber eyes on the right. Then I poked my shotgun out the window and settled down to try to stay awake.
17
The Bigs showed up an hour later in a Carrigan County cruiser. They drove right past our position and didn’t stop until the shepherds ran up to their vehicle. My guys love cop cars. I saw that Carrie hadn’t heard them arrive, so I pulled the keys and slipped out of the Suburban. The Bigs got out and Luke, bless him, handed me a cup of takeout coffee.
“Y’all havin’ fun?” he asked.
“About as much as you,” I said. They were looking around for Carrie. I pointed to the Suburban and folded two hands to my cheek to tell them she was asleep. Then I told them what we’d learned.
“Mr. King’s gone into Rocky Falls with his people,” Luke said. “Old boy named Ken Llarper is acting Robbins County sheriff now.”
“He a Creigh ally?”
Luke shook his head. “Older guy. Longtime cop. May even be kin to Ms. Santángelo over there. Took Mr. King into Mingo’s office and was tryin’ to explain how things worked in Robbins County.”
“That’ll take some doing,” I said. “In the meantime, we need to get those kids safe.” I told them what we’d run into in our latest unsuccessful attempt to breach the Creigh compound. Big John spat into the grass and suggested we go get us some antifreeze. I knew what he was talking about. Farmers who had a problem with feral dogs would often put bowls of antifreeze out in their fields and keep their livestock up for the night. Animals simply couldn’t resist lapping it up, and then died horribly. The problem was that you got everything, not just the target pest.
“We also don’t know where Nathan is,” I said. “He might be there, he might be up in the hills, he might be watching us right now. This is going to take a crowd.”
“Got one’a them at the sheriff’s office right now,” Luke pointed out.
“Your radios work out here?” I asked.
It took two more hours to get said crowd to the Creighs’, and gaining entry turned out to be a cakewalk. The bad news was that there was no one there. No Grinny, no kids, no Nathan, not even any of the dreaded dogs. As I had suspected, there were also no drugs or other evidence of any criminal enterprise. Carrie and I got to sit out on the front field side while a host of heavily armed deputies from both counties tossed the place. They found the dead dogs we’d shot, which helped to corroborate our stories, but that was about it. The cabin itself was unremarkable, with furnishings and supplies typical of the people who lived up there. If there ever had been children there, the cops could find no sign of them.
They’d brought an EMS truck along, and one of the medics treated Carrie’s hand and gave her a tetanus shot just to make her arm feel as good as her hand. We both gave formal statements to one of King’s people, but the stark fact remained that the Creighs, the important ones, anyway, had vanished. Along with their flowers. We were nowhere. Again.
King himself wandered down into the field at about sunrise. He looked to be as tired as we were, and not at all pleased to see the two of us. I kept looking for Storm Trooper Gelber to complete my day.
“I told you to go home,” he said.
“Why, good morning to you, too,” I said. “You know more now than before I interfered?”
He started to answer that but then changed his mind. He asked Carrie how her hand was and she shrugged, which must have made the tetanus shot really happy. Her hand was bandaged and looked to be twice the size it should have been. Big, bad dog.
“There’s nothing in there of any use whatsoever,” he said, nodding toward the cabin. “Maybe in the daylight we’ll do better.”
“Any signs of children being there?” I asked.
“Not a thing,” he said. “Not a damned thing.”
“Well, we know there was at least one in there,” I said, “and she said there were five more. Did you find out what was behind the house? That mound leading out of the hill?”
“The guys are working on that. There’s no evident door or tunnels or anything like that, or at least not so far. I’m thinking of having them dig into it from the top.”
“Be careful,” I said. “The whole damn crew might be hiding in a tunnel or an old mine under there.”
“Don’t tell me my business, Mister Richter,” he said. Just then there came the double booming report of a shotgun from inside and a flurry of activity up in the house. King swore and trotted off to see what had happened.
“What do you think?” Carrie asked.
“Booby trap? A lurking mastiff? Why don’t you and I blow this pop stand, go get some breakfast and then some sleep.”
“He did tell us to go home,” she said.
There were two queen-sized beds in the motel room, and we each collapsed into one the moment we got to the room. It was daylight outside, so I forced myself to get up and put up the DO NOT DISTURB sign. Then I remembered I had to feed the muttskis, and then I had to take them for a walk. By the time I got back, Carrie was almost an hour ahead of me on the sleep marathon, and I was in that fugue state where I knew I needed sleep but wasn’t actually sleepy. I also knew that somewhere along the line I’d go sideways and crap out, big time. The shepherds, damn their eyes, had no such problems and crashed on the bathroom floor.
I made sure I had my room keycard and went down to get some coffee. I took my cell phone and then sat in the Suburban and called the Bigs. I asked what that shotgun discharge had been all about.
“Nasty little trap,” Luke said. “They found a false wall in the basement that led into that hump behind the house. Guy broke the lock, pushed opened the door. Felt something tugging when he opened it. He’d been to Iraq with the Guard, so he hit the deck about the time a twelve with a string trigger laid both barrels into the doorway.”
“He get hurt?”
“Mostly scared,” Luke said. “Another guy in the basement got one pellet in the back from a ricochet, but he had his vest on.”
“And what was behind the green door?”
“Possibly the nursery,” he said. “But completely empty. No furniture, toys, clothes—nothing. Empty. They found the remains of a recent fire behind one of the barns, but there’s still no evidence of children here yet.”
“Well, do we have Christian believers now?”
He paused before replying. “King keeps saying it’s possible, b
ut he’d be happier to find a toy chest or some other evidence that there were six kids kept here.”
“Evidence again.”
“Well, they’re kicking it around. They’ve got your various statements, and that thing about Grinny being a florist. We just don’t have any Creighs or any kids. Lots of discussion about that problem. Feds in the wind.”
“Good,” I said. “About goddamned time, too.”
“Where’s Santa Claws?”
“In her tree, fast asleep. One claw’s a lot bigger than the other.”
Luke was quiet for a moment. “You be nice to her, you hear?” he said. It wasn’t any kind of direct threat, but more an expression of proprietary concern, as in, you mess her up, we’ll mess you up. I’d also noticed that most of the homespun dialect had disappeared.
“It’s not like that,” I said.
“You lookin’ at still waters there, Lieutenant,” he said. “You might be the last to know.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And she’s the one keeps getting hurt.”
“You’re absolutely right.”
He didn’t say anything, but I was now sufficiently fascinated that I wanted to keep it going. “So: You think I ought to be on point a little more,” I said. “And Carrie in the rear with the gear?”
“Might not be a bad idea.”
“You want to be the one who tells her that, Big Luke?”
“Um.”
“Un-hunh. Because I don’t. I might start getting hurt, you know what I’m saying?”
He started laughing. It sounded like a bear with a digestive problem.
“Look,” I said. “I could have bailed, all the way back to beautiful downtown Triboro, where my terribly satisfying paper chase awaits. Instead, I stuck around.”
He laughed some more. Now I wanted to whack him, but it would be embarrassing to whack somebody in the thigh.
“They’re wrappin’ up here,” he said. “King says he has to ‘frame’ the sheriff shootout problem with the media. See if they can convince the feds to go chase Grinny and whatever troops she took with her just based on that incident.”
“Tell King to remember that Grinny has a plan to unload all the merchandise, and if she can’t do that, the merchandise is going to end up in someplace called the glass hole.”
“What in the hell is the glass hole?”
“Something bad, according to a little girl we met, and I’m NFI beyond that. But the truth is, Grinny’s capable of slitting all their throats if finding her with kids poses a threat, and of course it does.”
“Mr. King’s been up all night,” he said. “He’s a little testy right now. I might have to wait on suggestions from you for a bit.”
“Just so somebody reminds him. We’re in that same motel, but I plan to take Carrie out of here and back to civilization, assuming I can talk her into letting go for a day.”
“You know what they say about assumptions, Lieutenant.”
“You should hear me on that subject,” I said, and then I had an idea. “Any chance Carrie and I could get into Grinny’s cabin once the crowd subsides?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure they’ll seal it and put a deputy on it. Keep it pristine for our federal betters, assuming they’re coming in.”
“There you go assuming,” I said. “Any particular deputy?”
He caught on right away. “I’ll give y’all a ring if it works out that way,” he promised.
Carrie apparently heard me trying to sneak in and sat up in the bed. She used both hands to do it and instantly regretted doing that. I’d brought a second cup of coffee back with me and offered to share. She shook her head and flopped back down. Her bandaged hand made it look like she was wearing a white oven mitt, and her face made it evident that using it was still out of the question.
“Anything I can do for that?” I asked her.
“Always wanting to play doctor,” she said, closing her eyes.
I bent her head forward and examined the rifle wound, which looked scaly and horrible. That probably meant it was healing. “And some people call me a shit magnet,” I said.
“You’ve just learned to duck faster,” she said.
I took her other hand, and she opened her eyes again. “You found out what you wanted to know,” I said. “We’ve failed every time we’ve tried to get our hands around the Grinny Creigh problem. Both sheriffs involved are headed for the cold, cold ground. Is it maybe time to let the big boys do their thing?”
“They’ll cap it off,” she said. “There’s no way in hell they’re going to find Grinny and her crew in those mountains. And the Bureau will not want a reprise of their Rudolph debacle. They’ll ride in, take over the case, announce they broke up a ring of child peddlers and the two principals are dead. Victory.”
“But we’ve both told them there are six kids in her clutches.”
“We’ve told them lots of things,” she said. “And they’ve done squat.”
“I want to go back out there when all the cops are gone,” I said. “We’re missing something.”
She sighed and closed her eyes again. “My hand feels like a bus ran over it,” she said drowsily. “Let’s sleep on it instead.”
I hadn’t let go of her hand and she hadn’t let go of mine, so I lay down beside her. I gathered her in and she snuggled willingly, warm and sweet.
“You are beginning to affect my better judgment,” I said to the back of her neck.
“Like you have any choice in the matter,” she murmured.
I laughed. Even with all the coffee onboard, we both went out like that proverbial light.
18
We slept in until almost six o’clock, and both of us awoke feeling logy. The cell phones had been silent all afternoon, but neither one of us could quite wake up. I was suddenly conscious of this warm female in my arms.
“Hey, girl,” I said. “Wanna fool around?”
“I have to go potty,” she said.
I started laughing. So did I. Reality intruding.
“How’s the mitt?”
“Aches, but it’s better. Those medics were generous with their drugs.”
“I can almost get my eyes open,” I said.
“I think I saw a swimming pool,” she said, a few minutes later.
It being the end of the summer season, the motel wasn’t full, and, as the sun set, most of the guests were downtown going to dinner. We took turns changing in the bathroom. Carrie came out in a reasonably modest two-piece, while I wore my khaki running shorts, having failed to pack a real bathing suit. I wouldn’t have done that on a beach, but the pool was situated behind the motel and out of view of any windows or walkways. There was a six-seater hot tub in one corner of the pool enclosure with its own privacy fence to deter demon spawn from playing in it.
The pool’s water was downright cold, but we both started to wake up after a few minutes of pretending that the pool’s temperature was “refreshing.” I decided to see if that hot tub was working. It was, and the water was still warm from the last occupants. I fired up the jets and submerged my aching body in the swirling waters, trying not to breathe in too much chlorine.
Carrie came over and sat down on the side of the hot tub. She’d taken off the bandage. Her hand was swollen and reddish. Her black hair was wet and hung down in a sleek, sculptured mat, nicely framing her pretty face. She extended her legs out over the water and looked them over. So did I. She caught me looking and gave me a teasing smile.
“You a leg man, there, Mr. ex-lieutenant Richter?”
“Actually, I’m a whole-foods kind of guy,” I replied, wondering how far she might take this. Naturally, I was hoping for the best.
She raised one leg and then the other like a dancer, still appraising. Then she glanced down at her front. As slender as she was, she had a small if pleasing superstructure. She clicked her lips as if disappointed in what she was looking at.
“Don’t tell me,” I said.
“Tell you what?”
> “That you have small breasts.”
“Afraid so,” she said, putting on a sad face.
“Well, that does it,” I said. “I mean—small breasts? That’s a total disqualification. You can hardly be a woman in America if you have small breasts. Everyone knows that. My goodness, what a total disaster.”
She propped her feet close together on the edge of the tub and eyed me over her knees, which she began to bump gently together. Since I was directly in front of her in the water, the motion did interesting things to those slick wheels of hers.
“Everyone knows?” she said. “Really?” Bump. Bump.
“Totally,” I said, wanting to clear my throat.
“What a shame,” she said. “And just when I was thinking I needed—something.”
“Something?”
“Don’t squeak like that.”
“Um.”
“I had it a moment ago,” she said with a dramatic sigh.
Bump.
“I know I did. Right there on the tips of my toes.” Lift. Look. Down. “But that disqualification business—well, I didn’t know that. But I do appreciate your telling me.”
Bump. Bump.
“Um.”
“Um? That the best you can do?” She reached forward and scooped up some warm water, and then began wetting her legs and thighs. I couldn’t see her face anymore, probably because I wasn’t looking at her face. An achingly familiar physiological short circuit between my brain and my nether parts had been firmly established.
“Well, really,” she said. “How ‘bout it there, Mr. Um? Are you up for a little nonintrusive massage work or not? Girl with a problem here. Got a groove in my head and a paddle for a hand. And, I almost forgot, small breasts. But, well…”
Finally, clarification. I submerged and resurfaced with my head and shoulders between her knees. I rose to lean over her disqualifying breasts. Her thighs were tense, and I began rubbing my face on the front of her bathing suit, just below her breasts. When I felt her start to relax, I put my hands on her hips, eased her halter top aside with my chin, and then went to work on her qualification problems to see if anything could be done.
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