An Opportunity Seized

by Donna Gallagher

  Jason broke from the kiss first. Covering her breasts with his hand he teased her nipple until it puckered into a hard bud. “Feels so good, luv, your breast in my hand, your nipple hard, responding to my touch.”

  Toni moaned in agreement. She stroked his back as Jason drew her nipple into his mouth and sucked gently on it, before moving to her other breast and repeating the tantalizing action.

  “Mmm. You, Toni, taste better than any breakfast could.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  At ten o’clock, Chris pulled the car up in front of a small weatherboard house. Toni immediately noticed the overgrown lawns and drawn blinds on the modest dwelling. Heather Cain was the name of the woman Toni was about to meet. Tom had given her a brief outline of Heather’s situation. Her husband was one of the men they had not been able to locate. Joshua Cain had only been new to the mining business, he and Heather having moved here from the city to try to get some money behind them for their young family. Joshua, a sparky by trade, had only been down the mineshaft laying cable for lighting. Something so innocent, just installing light for the miners, and yet enough to put him in the line of danger. It was heartbreaking.

  “Do you want me to come with you this time, luv? Give you some moral support?” Jason asked her as she stepped from the car.

  “No, I’m okay. I can do this. I want to do this,” Toni replied, as she closed the door on her smiling lover and turned toward the house. Her heart was heavy, though, as she knocked on the door and waited for Mrs. Cain to open it.

  As the door swung wide Toni couldn’t hide her shock at the state of the woman standing a few feet away in the shadows of the dimly lit entry. Heather Cain was very pregnant but she didn’t look well. Her hair, limp and unbrushed, fell to her shoulders, her dress crumpled and stained, stretched over her swollen belly. Her eyes were dull, lifeless. This woman was struggling. Toni made a mental note to speak to Tom about it as soon as her visit was over.

  “Heather Cain, I’m Toni Grimaldi. I was wondering if I could come in and have a chat with you. I thought Tom Church had organized this time with you, but if you’re not up to it at the moment, I’d be happy to come back—at your convenience, of course.”

  Heather’s hand shot out and grabbed her on the arm, her grip on Toni painfully tight. The woman moved so fast it took Toni by surprise “No, I’ve been expecting you, Miss Grimaldi—looking forward to it, in fact. Finally, getting my hands on the people responsible for keeping my Josh from coming home.”

  Heather was strong, despite her fragile appearance, and she pushed Toni farther into the house. As Toni’s eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room, she could see that the area was very tidy despite Heather’s own appearance, and that a single chair, one normally found at a dining table, was smack bang in the middle of the room. “You sit right there and don’t move while I get Tom Church on the phone. He keeps telling me they are doing their best to find Josh, but I want you to order him to send my husband home right now.” The already high-pitched sound of Heather’s voice becoming even more shrill made the hairs on Toni’s arms stand up. “I want my Josh to come back. He’s been away for weeks and the baby is due soon. I don’t want him to miss her birth.”

  This is not good. Just do what she says, try to keep her calm… She’s bloody hysterical already. How can I calm her down? Thoughts were ricocheting through Toni’s head as she tried to make sense of what was going on. Heather was obviously emotionally unstable and the fact that she now held a gun in her hands and was waving it about did not help the situation at all. Toni was in real danger. The whole situation had developed so quickly, so unexpectedly, that she hadn’t even had time to let fear set in until now. Seeing the gun made it very real. What should I say? How can I help her?

  Toni looked on helplessly as Heather dialed her phone with one hand, pointing the gun at Toni with the other. The line must have connected to someone, judging by the look on Heather’s face but Toni had seen Tom’s schedule for the day—he was in a meeting with the head of the rescue squad at eleven, so she knew it couldn’t be him.

  Heather started to speak into the phone, “I need to speak to Tom Church right now,” she said.

  Then there was a pause.

  “Well, you tell him to ring Heather Cain as soon as he gets back. There is someone here that needs to speak to him, urgently,” Heather shouted into the phone before slamming the handset back into its cradle. The noise was so loud it made Toni jump.

  Heather’s eyes clearly showed that the woman had passed the point of rational thinking. Now distraught to the point of madness and out of her mind with grief, she had not accepted the reality that her husband was dead. Toni didn’t know what to do. Do I tell her that her husband is not coming home, that he is dead, buried under a ton of rock? That Tom is busy meeting with the people trying to retrieve her husband’s body right now? Probably not going to work in my favor. Maybe I can try to get her to think about something else?

  Toni thought anything was worth a try. If I can just keep her calm until Tom rings back and then I can try to say something to alert him to the situation.

  “Your baby is a girl?”

  Heather remained silent, but Toni noticed Heather’s grip on the gun change—she moved the barrel of the rifle so it rested against her baby bump, and what was more of a relief. Heather’s finger was now away from the trigger.

  “Do you have any names picked out yet? Is this your first child?” Toni already knew the answer to her second question—she remembered reading that the couple had a little boy aged two. Toni hadn’t spotted him yet, wondered where he could be. A niggling, worrisome thought entered her head. Is the boy okay? Has Heather harmed him in her distressed state?

  After a few tense and silent moments, Heather finally opened her mouth to speak. Toni managed to breathe again.

  “Sally, after my mother, that’s what we were thinking.”

  Toni tensed at Heather’s ‘we’, hoping it didn’t bring Joshua back into the equation and was relieved when she kept talking. “Dylan is named after Joshua’s dad. He’s in his room sleeping. I put him down for his nap before you got here. I didn’t want any distractions. When will you let Josh come home?”

  Shit, back there again. I need to keep the conversation away from Joshua. She racked her brain for some other way to connect with the woman. “I don’t think it is good for the baby to get yourself worked up like this, Heather. You should be resting. Why don’t you sit down too?”

  “I am tired and my back aches all the time now…” Heather replied. The woman glanced toward the couch and back to her.

  It’s working.

  “I promise I won’t move from this chair, but I’m worried about you, Heather, please sit down,” Toni said trying to keep her tone soothing even though she was terrified of what Heather might be capable of. She’d also finally managed to get her thoughts under control and had remembered that Jason was sitting in the car, waiting for her to return.

  If Toni didn’t get out of the house soon, somehow, there was a real possibility of Jason storming in and taking matters into his own hands. Toni didn’t want to see Heather get hurt, didn’t want to put Jason in the position of hurting the pregnant woman because of her. It was such a mess but Toni was determined to talk Heather down. So she kept up a string of idle chat with topics that she hoped would not provoke her captor.

  The longer Toni engaged Heather in conversation, the clearer it became that Heather really didn’t want to harm her. The distressed, pregnant young woman was just overwhelmed, had convinced herself that Joshua was being kept at work and not allowed to come home for some reason. Heather had obviously had a mental breakdown of some sort, and who could blame her? Toni couldn’t.

  It was horrible the events that had pushed Heather over the edge—her husband’s grim death only the beginning of the struggles that lay ahead for her. Trying to manage a toddler and a newborn on her own would be hard for Heather. Toni hoped she had family or that Joshua’s would be around to help. The
Grimaldi Foundation and Toni herself would be making sure they did all they could, and not just in the short term—Toni had already made the decision that the Cain children would have all the financial support they needed. Heather was certainly going to need some professional care too. Toni was convinced of that.

  Now if she could just get Heather to put down the gun and let her help, life would be a lot less stressful.

  * * * *

  The tingle in Jason’s back had progressed steadily in the last few minutes to that of a knife stabbing him. There had to be a concrete reason for his ill ease.

  “How long has she been in there?” he asked Chris for the second time since he’d watch Toni walk up the path to the house. Even though he’d been watching her every move, Toni had disappeared inside so fast Jason hadn’t even got a glimpse of the poor widow. These visits were taking their toll on Toni, and Jason was looking forward to them coming to an end. Only one more to go. Only one more and it will all be over.

  Jason could see Chris’ eyes reflected in the car’s rear-view mirror. Chris had been watching him intently for a while now. “It’s been ten minutes, J-man. What’s got you so antsy today? Toni normally sits with them for over an hour. What’s up?”

  Jason heard the apprehension in Chris’ questions and wondered whether it was for him, his state of mind, or if Chris was sensing something too.

  “I wish I knew, mate, but I don’t feel good about any of this. The state of the house, the drawn curtains, the fact I didn’t see this Heather Cain woman before Toni disappeared inside. I’m probably just letting my imagination run away with me, but I just dunno.” Jason rubbed his hand over his chin and neck trying to soothe the tension in his jaw line.

  He heard the rustle as Chris shifted himself around to look him in the eye. Jason had seen that look on Chris’ face before, recognized it for what it was. “You feel it too?” Knowing that Chris was concerned didn’t make Jason feel better. Any sliver of hope that perhaps he was overreacting ripped away with the knowledge that Chris was sensing something too. They both couldn’t be wrong on this. Toni was in trouble.

  “Yeah I do. This whole thing smells bad. I think you should go check on her. Or do you want me to, so Toni doesn’t rip your balls off, if we’ve both got it wrong?” Chris offered.

  Tempting as it was to get Chris to do his dirty work, Jason needed to see Toni was okay with his own two eyes and needed it to happen in the next few seconds before he lost his mind completely.

  “Thanks for the offer and your concern for my well-being, but I think I can handle this one,” Jason replied but the comedic element he was trying for to lighten the mood didn’t work.

  He opened the car door and got out, before shutting it silently behind him. With a soft tread, Jason made his way toward the front door of the house. He took a moment to stop and listen through the door. Maybe if I can hear her voice, hear them chatting like woman do, I won’t have to announce my presence and I can slink back to the car and forget it ever happened. Chris will keep quiet about the whole paranoid episode…

  He couldn’t hear a thing, not a sound. The stabbing feeling between his shoulder blades got worse. Surely he’d be able to make out some kind of sound—the house wasn’t that well built? At least some noise from the kid. Jason had read all Tom’s reports and the Cain family had a two-year-old boy. Jason didn’t know much about kids but what he did know was that they were usually loud.

  Noiselessly Jason inched his way toward the front windows. The curtains were drawn but he hoped that he’d be able to set his sight on Toni or her host through a gap somewhere.

  He was in luck. There was an opening on one side of the window. It looked like someone had pulled the curtain closed too firmly. As he took a quick peep through the opening, Jason’s heart nearly stopped. Toni was sitting in the middle of the room on a wooden, straight-backed chair. Her head was turned away from him. Jason couldn’t see her face but he could see what was holding her attention. There was a woman sitting in a chair to her left holding a gun, positioned awkwardly across her lap.

  The fact that he had been right all along was not really any comfort to Jason at that moment, as he tried to digest all the information at hand. The soldier in him overrode the desperate and panicking man to take control of the situation. He had to get out of sight but taking his eyes off Toni at that moment was the hardest thing Jason had ever had to do. Forcing himself to crouch back down below the windowsill took an enormous amount of self-discipline. Jason did his best to breathe normally, his heart racing, as he tried to figure out a way to get Toni out of there.

  There has to be another way in. Strategies and plans to accomplish the objective started to form in Jason’s mind—where possible entry points in a house of this design would be found. If Chris can get in there from somewhere out back, distract the woman with the gun, it will give me time to come through the front and surely between the two of us, we can disarm her. No, Chris needs to disarm her first. Maybe I should distract her, give him an opportunity to get that gun. She won’t be expecting an attack from behind.

  Keeping his body low to the ground and out of sight, Jason crept back to the car to fill Chris in on the situation. The distance may have only been a few yards but it felt like he’d traveled miles before he reached his destination. Chris was already out of the vehicle waiting for him.

  “What do you need me to do?” Chris asked, his voice lowered, but it was clear he’d figured out that all was not right.

  “We need to get her out of there. Toni is sitting in the front room just a few feet from that window—” Jason pointed out the location to Chris. “There’s a woman sitting to her left, holding a rifle on her. You need to find a way into that house from the back and be ready to move when I go in the front door. That gun has to be taken out of the equation first, and quickly. I’m thinking if I cause a distraction, you can get your hands on it.”

  Jason was regretting his decision to leave his gun back at Haven Security headquarters. Australia’s gun laws were strict, carrying a weapon very unusual for the common Aussie. He’d had to go through some strict licensing requirements to even own a firearm. So there weren’t that many occasions Jason thought it necessary to be armed, let alone feel the need to draw his weapon.

  He more often than not carried a stun gun—not completely legal either but a better alternative to putting a bullet in someone. Jason had always believed, after seeing so much death with his time in the Army, that it was better to try to defuse a situation without the use of deadly force. But that all had changed now his woman was being threatened. If he’d had his Glock 22 strapped to his ankle, he’d have been tempted to put a bullet in Heather Cain then spend the next fifteen to twenty years behind bars. And he would have done that time happily, knowing Toni was out of reach of that damn rifle and the woman who wielded it.

  Jason and Chris synchronized watches, Chris believing a five minute time frame was all he needed to be in place and ready to roll. The seconds ticked by slowly as Jason waited.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Heather, I really think you should take the opportunity to lie down and rest while your little boy is sleeping. Maybe I could look after him for a bit if he wakes up? I’d enjoy spending some time with Dylan. Have I mentioned I’m a kindergarten teacher? So you can trust me with him. I love children. Precious little gifts, aren’t they?”

  It was a long shot thinking that Heather might leave Toni and lie down, but anything was worth a try. Toni knew time was running out. Jason would be coming to look for her soon—she wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting in this uncomfortable chair but it felt like forever. Her shoulders and back were stiff from the tension Toni was trying hard not to show.

  Heather made no reply.

  “It’s great that your little one is such a good sleeper. I’ve heard some of my students’ mothers complaining their toddlers stopped taking naps quite early on.” Toni kept prattling on, smiling and trying to connect with Heather on a more personal
note. She was sure she had seen this tactic used in movies, hoped it was the right thing to do. “I can’t remember if I was a napper or not…”

  “Dylan slept through the night from the moment we brought him home from hospital. He is such a good boy. Never gives me any trouble…” Heather’s eyes glazed over, as if she was remembering back to the time she spoke of.

  Toni heard a noise. It was coming from the front door. A small rattling sound, as if someone was trying to open the lock. Toni knew who it was trying to gain entry to the house so she kept her gaze fixed on Heather and the gun. It was clear that Heather had heard the noise too. The poor woman’s face lit up, a smile formed. She thinks it’s Josh coming home. The confusion and anger that had previously turned her features into those of a mad woman were gone, replaced by hope. It was heartbreaking for Toni to observe this change in Heather, knowing it would not last long. Joshua was not at the door.

  Heather struggled to get up from her seat, her pregnant tummy hindering her actions. Then, out of the corner of her eye, Toni noticed movement on the other side of the house. She hadn’t heard any sound from the toddler. Oh my God, please don’t let that be Dylan awake. Toni was in a panic over what could happen. Does he sleep in a cot or a bed? Is he about to come wandering into the middle of this just as Jason storms in?

  Jason picked the lock with ease. He slid inside the open door, quickly surveying the layout of the house, getting his bearings. He only had a few seconds to get in between Toni and the gun. He went straight for the living room, the room his woman was in, fully focused on his objective of spotting Heather Cain before she saw him and getting that gun away from her.

  Heather was on her feet and a big smile lit up her face—not the reaction he’d been expecting. And she was heavily pregnant. Then her smile faded. It was about this time that Jason got his first good look at the rifle, as she pointed it in his direction. It was an old Winchester double barrel, possibly dating back to the fifties and not in the best condition—which led to a whole new world of problems for Jason to take under consideration.