by Karen Harper
“Yo, Jonas. What? She thinks he might be coming here? Now? Okay, we’re outta here! Hey,” the man shouted to everyone as he went back into the kitchen, “leave it cookin’, grab what you can, ’cause we gotta go. Tip from Jonas that the law might be comin’. Chop, chop! Maybe this stuff will blow up in his face. I’m sick of him always being on our tails.”
The light source went off. Tess heard them run like rats off a ship as she huddled in the darkness on the stairs. At least Gabe was on his way. Terrified the stuff would explode, she counted to ten and tore out behind them right into the rough embrace of a big man.
“You want in on the action, honey?” he goaded, grabbing her arm and swinging her around toward him hard. He was the one who had taken the call. “You thinkin’ to turn us in?”
“Hank, come now!” the woman shouted, running back toward them. Someone was driving a car out of the old barn. The headlights slashed across them. He held Tess in such a crushing grip her feet dangled off the ground.
“Let’s take her with us,” he yelled, starting to drag her toward the car. “Who knows what she heard or saw? I saw her shadow on the stairs and figured she’d bail out right behind us. This has been so clean before, and I don’t want witnesses.”
“No, you’re not taking her!” the girl insisted, tugging at his arm.
“She can ID us!”
“Wait! I think I know who she is. That first one got taken by the Cold Creek kidnapper. Remember, Jonas told us about her.”
The man swore a string of oaths, then put Tess down and yanked one arm up behind her back. “Yeah, we don’t need in on that. Turn off them headlights, and I’ll be just a sec. Gimme that flashlight,” he shouted, grabbing a large one from the girl and turning it on. He checked Tess’s pockets, then ripped her backpack from her and flung it into the darkness. He half shoved, half carried her toward the house. “The place goes up, good riddance to her and the sheriff if he’s coming too,” he yelled back at the girl.
Tess struggled as the man named Hank forced her back inside. He shoved her to the floor and tied her with rope and netting they must have used to carry their gear in. Her hands were behind her back secured to a table leg with the cooker hissing over her head.
“Hard way to learn a lesson, honey,” he said. “Better say your prayers.”
He patted her head, got to his feet and ran. Tess heard the car roar past the house, the squeal of brakes as it turned onto the road. Then there was only the sound of the gurgling, steaming stuff on the table over her head, which blended with the muted rush of the distant waterfall.
23
Tess soon gave up struggling to get free. The rope and netting were so tight they cut into her wrists. She was scared to try to kneel under the table, then try to lift it with her shoulder or back to maneuver her ties off the table leg. She might tip it over, make it explode even faster than it would on its own. At least Gabe was coming, but if he did, she couldn’t let him be blown to bits too.
She could not believe her life could end with all her dreams and hopes up in flames. She would never know who had abducted her and ruined her life. Still, except for her father, she’d had a good family. No romantic love of her own, at least before Gabe gave her hope. And children—how she wanted children of her own.
Say your prayers, that horrible man had told her when he left. Would she be reunited with her mother in heaven? She wished she had called her father. She thought about Kate and Char. She loved them. She missed and needed them.
She tried sawing her wrist ties up and down against the edge of the table leg, but it would take hours to get free. She kept at it, however exhausted her shoulders and arms were, all the while picturing herself reading to her most recent class of preschoolers at the Sunshine and Smiles Center while they sat cross-legged on the floor and she used a low stool, so she could show them the pictures. Wouldn’t Miss Etta have been proud of her for that? Little Cristelle wasn’t paying attention, but her twin, Nanette, was. Those girls were as different as Tess, Kate and Char. Jacob and Ashley were really into the story of the pioneer boy’s life.
She was about to lose her life. Her mind almost went blank with fear, but she forced herself to remember happier times. Her little redheaded student Jacob’s name reminded her of hearing Jonas’s name in this room. Ann’s brother? Was he the one tipping off drug-cooking criminals that Gabe was coming? If so, was Ann his source of information? Would Gabe ever know what had happened to her? She should have told him that she cared deeply for him.
Tess was angry with herself for getting caught. The cooker over her head was rattling so fast and hard that it might explode at any time and her life too, just another girl gone.
* * *
Since it was dark, Gabe decided he could park fairly close to Marva’s old place. He drove slowly looking for a spot to pull in. If Sandy Kenton was being held there—though he’d checked it before—he intended to surveil it from the outside before checking the interior.
Tomorrow was going to be a busy day, including questioning Marva again. Dane had lawyered up fast both when Gabe’s father suspected him and again recently. Marva might too, but not, he hoped, before he saw her again. Even if she and Dane had nothing to do with the Cold Creek kidnappings, Marva, who had been poor so long, was sitting pretty for the rest of her life if she was Dane’s heir. So Gabe knew he had to look into the possibility that she’d left the farmers’ market, hidden in the cornfield to kill her brother, then come home later, faked surprise and shock—and tried to blame Tess.
He was also planning to catch Reese Owens when he came out of church around noon. At least the mayor wanted to talk to him too. Then Gabe planned to be at the evening church service, the candlelight vigil and procession to the gift shop, where Sandy Kenton had been abducted. As for today, Tess sure as heck better be home or at his place when he got back, because all he needed was to have to go check on her with her cousins at that weird Hear Ye compound after dark. He trusted Bright Star Monson about as much as he did a Taliban terrorist.
He parked on the near side of a woodlot not far from the driveway. The old Green house and outbuildings looked dark and deserted. Though he’d check them out now, he’d come back with Vic and Mike with a search warrant later—if he could pry another one from the judge. Before he got out of his vehicle, he muted the volume on his portable radio and drew his semiautomatic pistol. He pulled his flashlight from his duty belt but didn’t turn it on.
He hiked across the driveway at a good pace until he heard the other equipment in his duty belt bounce. No need to make noise, even if the hushed sound of the waterfall covered some of it. He slowed to a walk.
The front windows were still boarded up with cheap plywood. No wonder this place hadn’t sold. He’d buy Tess’s house over this any day. The Green property did have more acreage than hers, though.
At the side of the house, he bent down and played his light through a broken basement window. Nothing much, except some chemical smell. Cleaning fluid? Maybe Marva had scrubbed the basement before she left. Mixing some toxic cleaning fluids gave off an acrid smell and could even cause a minor explosion. He knew Mrs. Taylor in town had gotten badly burned that way. But this reminded him of the stink of a deserted meth lab, like the ones he’d always come across too late to catch the cookers. At that thought, he walked even more quietly and carefully.
Around the back of the house, he slowed his steps. Would he ever get over the fear he’d felt before going into a small shop in a market or an Iraqi house, searching for a bomb?
He stepped up onto the small porch. The back door stood ajar. The smell grew stronger. He knew it was chemicals. He heard a strange sound, then a grunt or sob. Could someone still be inside?
He jumped away from the door to take cover, and his foot went through a board with a sharp crack. He sat down hard. His flashlight went spinning away, landing somewhere off the porch.
Still holding his gun in one hand aimed toward the open door, he swore under his breath and tried to pull his foot back out. The broken boards scraped his shin. He pulled his leg free, scraping it more. When he stood, pain shot through his ankle. Throwing himself flat against the outside wall next to the door, he shouted, “Police! Don’t move!”
“Gabe?” came a shaky female voice within. “It’s Tess.”
“Tess? What the h—”
“Get away! Don’t come in. I’m alone. There’s a meth lab here. The stuff is bubbling pretty hard, and I think it’s going to explode!”
“Get out here!”
“They tied me up when they ran!”
In the dark, he stumbled through the door, into a small room, down a hall, feeling his way, following her voice.
“I lost my flashlight!” he said. “Where are you?”
“Gabe, go!”
“Not without you!”
But as he careened into the darkness, through an acrid stench that burned his eyes, he had a flashback. He thought he’d gotten over those long ago. Having to search a dark place at night, disrupt the bomb, feel the heat of the desert, feel the hate of whoever left the IED. He could see the detonation cord and the electrical wires within, the foam casing, the steel frags of ball bearings, nuts, bolts and nails all around it, meant to puncture body armor. Where were his armored gloves? He had bare hands, holding his pistol that would do him no good now, so he shoved it back in its holster.
“Gabe!” Tess cried, cutting through his waking nightmare. “This cooker they use—it could explode. They’ve been gone awhile. I’m tied here. You should go. I...I really care for you—love you. Please go.”
He fell to his knees beside her, wanting to hold her but not having time.
“Gabe, please—”
“Shut up, Tess. Damn, you’re trouble, but not more than you’re worth! Where are you tied? Help me, tell me.”
“Hands behind my back. Tied to a table leg with rope and some kind of netting. But there’s a cooker on the table above my head, and one on the counter too.”
He ran his hands down her shoulders to her wrists. His gut instinct was to tip the table away to free her and run, but disturbing the stuff could make it blow. He fought not to recall the earsplitting BANG! and fireball that had once tossed him like a toy soldier. And the one that had blown his team to bits.
He groped for his utility knife in his duty belt, slid it by feel between her wrist and the cords. “Pull your wrists toward me to give me room,” he told her. He shoved the knife, sawed. She gasped once.
“Your legs tied?”
“No, just there—ah!”
He wasn’t sure if he’d cut her, but she was free. He yanked her to her feet and dragged her down the little hall toward the door. His shin and ankle felt as if they were on fire. He lunged over the porch and pulled her with him. They hit the ground, rolled on the grass. He pulled her to her feet and, staggering like drunks, they ran into the darkness.
* * *
Tess knew her left wrist was cut, but she didn’t care. As they limped along past a small, ramshackle back building, she gasped, “That’s where they hid their car—one woman and three men.”
“Can you ID them?”
“Two of them—a young woman and the guy who tied me up. His name is Hank. But they said someone named Jonas tipped them off that ‘the law’ was coming, and that’s why they took off. I ran too, and Hank caught me—threw my backpack with my phone and car keys over there somewhere.”
He swore under his breath. They finally stopped at the edge of the open field and sucked in breaths of damp air while the light rain seemed to wash them. They sank to the ground, holding tight, her sitting with her back to his chest between his spread legs. His trouser leg was torn. He tore her scarf in half. She wrapped his bloody ankle, then he tied the rest around her wrist.
“The walking wounded,” he said, giving her a hug. “Tess, some good news in all this. Marian Bell’s daughter’s been found living with her father in South America.”
“Oh, that’s great! You were right about her! I’m sure Marian’s ecstatic, even if she doesn’t exactly have her child back.”
“And that might be another battle,” he admitted as he took out his cell phone.
Still shaking, Tess caught her breath while he called his deputy and told him to stop entry traffic on both ends of Blackberry Road, except for the fire trucks, and to tell people there could be a gas explosion in the deserted Green house.
“No,” she heard Gabe tell Jace. “We’re both all right and can walk out to our cars when the fire guys get here.” He put his phone away. “If the meth lab doesn’t blow, I’ll need a BCI tox crew in the morning to clean it up, get evidence, so I’ll call Vic,” he said. “And that’s bad news about the call from Jonas, if it’s Ann’s brother, because she’d be his source. As for you, coming here like this...”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m going to start, because it could have finished you. But maybe it was worth it to hear your confession of how you feel about me. It was probably only the fact that I have the same feelings that made me crazy enough to try to save you.”
“You do? I thought maybe it was just that you need me.”
“I do need you, and not just the way you’re thinking.”
“For getting me out of there—I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
“When this mess is over, we’ll find a way,” he said.
“Maybe my so-called confession of love was just in the heat of the moment.”
“Maybe there’s heat in every moment we’re together,” he muttered, and turned her in his arms to hold her sideways across his lap. He tipped her head back and kissed her hard.
She threw her good wrist up around his neck and held his lips to hers. His mouth opened, moved against hers. His beard stubble rasped her chin and cheeks, but it felt so good. Her back balanced against his good leg, she held to him, breathing to match his ragged breaths, kissing him back. His hand gripped her waist, slid up her rib cage to cup and finger a breast, then dropped to squeeze her thigh through her jeans. She leaned into him, her wrapped hand grasping his back. It was the most beautiful, stunning thing that had ever happened to her, as if the entire world was on fire...golden lights...the noise in her head and heart pounding...
It took Tess a moment to realize the meth lab had blown.
They sat up, clinging to each other as orange-red flames belched into the air and heated their faces. They blinked and ducked in the sudden brightness, before Gabe pulled her down, flat in the cold soil of the field, and covered her with his body. But they were far enough away. The ground shuddered with a second blast.
Finally, when the explosions stopped, they watched the old house burn. He spoke loudly to make sure she could hear. “I’m cursed when it comes to preserving evidence. I came looking for a kidnap site and got this.”
“There’s no way this can tie to the kidnappings. Those people weren’t smart enough to pull those off, I can tell you.”
“Except there’s the drug connection. I’d still bet on Dane for drugging his kidnap victims. Still, I suppose you could have had meth or some version of it in your wine to cause your hallucinations. And I never could figure how I kept missing the cookers by just a couple of minutes when I’d go to check a place. At least now I’ve got Jonas and Ann to interrogate, and they may give up names.”
“Could Ann have tipped off Dane that you had your search warrant and were heading for his place, so he panicked and killed himself?”
“Everything’s up for grabs. But panicked over what, since we found nothing in his house or the vet buildings? Ann volunteered to come in tomorrow even though it’s Sunday, because so many people will be in town for the evening church service, candlelight vigil and march to the gift shop. I’ll d
ecide what to do about her then.
“Tess,” he went on as they watched the flames dance and crackle, “I’m sorry if it puts you in danger again, this time with the Simons clan if they find out you’re my witness. I swear, I’m gonna have to lock you up. I’d chain you to my bed, except I’m seldom in it.”
He held her tight as they finally heard the distant sounds of the volunteer-manned fire engine. They sat, arms around each other, as if they were watching a big bonfire on an autumn night. Even when the rain got heavier, it didn’t seem to calm the blaze. The old wood fed the fire like a giant torch in the damp, black night. But by that light, Tess saw something that convinced her even more that this could have been the house where she was kept prisoner.
In the flicker of the flames, off to the side, she glimpsed something she had not noticed in the dark.
“Look at those!” she cried, turning and pointing.
To her surprise, Gabe drew his gun. “I don’t see anything. Only old white man-made beehives. I think George Green once sold honey.”
“But to a child—me—upstairs, they must have looked like tombstones! And I remember those back stairs I was hiding on tonight, I’m sure I do! This must have been the place. You can hear the waterfall from here, and there’s a train track a couple of miles over, though I didn’t hear one tonight.”
“It’s enough to give me more reasons to question Marva. Whether it was Dane or her husband behind it, she would know—”
“But what if it was Marva herself? Maybe she wanted children around. But then where would Sandy be held right now?” She shuddered and glanced at the burning house again. “I pray she wasn’t upstairs.... Surely not in that tanning salon. The girls are still missing and so is a piece of the puzzle.”
“Like I said, I’ll start with Marva. And if Ann’s been tipping off her brother, who then phones the meth cookers, maybe she’s also been telling Jonas where I’ve been looking for his dogfight spots for years so he can stay one step ahead of me. What an idiot I’ve been with her. I may have to charge her as an accessory to these crimes—if I can nail Jonas. I hate to fire her, just when I need someone on the desk during the day. Want a temporary job?” he asked, giving her a little squeeze. “Peggy Barfield, the night dispatcher, could teach you the system.”
