“Well, call home,” Janet finally responded, breaking my reverie. “Seven heads are definitely better than two.”
I tried calling my parents’ house phone first. When no one picked up, I called Addison’s cell. She answered halfway through the second ring. “Well?”
“Are you with everyone?” I asked.
“Yes, and you’re on speaker,” she assured me.
“Is Rachel there?”
“No,” she answered. “Just your parents, Mika, James and I.”
I took a deep breath and turned to Janet. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for my parents to hear the bad news about their daughter-in-law. “This is looking a lot more complicated that we originally thought,” I said slowly, searching for the right words. There weren’t any. Besides, with as much as I’d already put my dad through, he deserved honesty. My mom could deal. “Looks like it’s some kind of drug ring.”
“Not some kind of,” Janet said loudly. “It is a drug ring. We’ve got a few pounds of coke sitting in the backseat as we speak.”
I heard my mother gasp and I just knew that my dad was making the sign of the cross. “What are you going to do if you get pulled over with all of that?” my mother squeaked.
“Drive slowly, drive slowly!” my father shouted. “Don’t draw attention to yourselves.”
“Pop, we’re driving fine. Just relax,” I soothed.
“How did you walk into that?” Mika asked incredulously. “The drugs, I mean.”
“Right place, right time, I guess,” I told him.
“Didn’t hurt that Ernie was a total moron,” Janet chimed in. “I can’t believe someone like that would be working for an operation this big. He didn’t check us at all.”
“Who’s Ernie?” James asked.
“He’s just a low-level mover from what I can tell,” Janet shared. “Got into the business to save his shop. Has some pretty fancy equipment that was just installed. I think he usually dishes drugs through the rear entrance. Not sure why he didn’t call us out for coming in through the front save for the fact he thought we were new.” She paused. “I hate to say this, but I also think that Rachel could be more involved in this than she’s letting on.”
“You think Rachel is involved in drugs?” my mother asked, aghast. “That’s impossible.”
“Sure looks like a possibility,” I admitted. “At the very least, it appears that she’s involved in moving the drugs from place to place.”
“Trafficking,” James supplied. “Drug trafficking is the official term.”
“There’s an official term!” My mother cried out. “Drug trafficking.” Her thick Boston accent rolled over the unfamiliar words as she enunciated different syllables until she found some that didn’t sound overly harsh. I could just imagine her sitting with friends over a game of Bridge, telling them that Rachel was in prison for drug trafficking almost as though she were asking the ladies if any of them needed another glass of punch.
I allowed the news to sink into them for a few moments before I added, “I think we might have a lead on Riley’s whereabouts.”
There was a collective gasp. “Where?” my mother nearly screamed. I pulled the phone away from my ear in pain. One thing that my mother had never learned was that you didn’t have to shout when a phone was on speaker.
“A warehouse,” Janet told them.
“Well, where is it?” my father asked when she didn’t continue.
Janet and I looked at each other. “Um. We don’t know exactly,” I told him. “But it’s possible that we can find it. There’s someone we ran into down here that we can follow. I’m pretty sure he would lead us right to it.”
“No way,” Mika cut in. “That’s way too dangerous. Where’d you meet him? The bookshop operation?”
“It could be our only shot to find Riley,” Janet protested.
“Hold on,” my father interrupted gruffly. “You all know that I want nothing more than to find Riley and have this whole nightmare over and done with. But in this case, I think Meeko is right.”
“Mika,” everyone corrected him.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Anyway, he’s right. You girls can’t just follow some random yahoo and hope that this person leads you somewhere when we don’t have eyes on you. You could fall into trouble and we’d have no idea how to get to you.”
“Well, if that doesn’t work for you, then we need to come up with another plan, and quick,” I responded. Janet nodded and pulled our car into an empty lot next to an abandoned construction site just a few blocks up from The Quill. I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned closer to her with the phone.
Suddenly, we heard the snap of fingers. “Richard!” Addison cried.
“You mean Kris Kringle?” I asked. Richard was Addison’s friend with the Chicago PD who worked in narcotics. I’d met him when Addison invited him up from Chicago to help on the Barry case. He looked a lot like Christmas card images of Santa Claus, including the red rosy cheeks and the bright twinkle in his eyes. Until he faced hardened criminals, that is.
“I’ll give him a call. See if he can keep tabs on the two of you until we get there,” Addison went on, ignoring my comment.
“We don’t need a babysitter,” Janet insisted. “And we don’t have that much time. Our lead is going to leave The Quill soon, if he hasn’t already. It’s not like we can just sit around and wait for someone to get here to tail us.”
“Just call him and then have him call us for a location,” I told Addison. “We can explain where we are. He can track us. It’ll all be fine.”
“Sounds risky,” James mused. “What if we can’t get in touch with him right away?”
“Risky is just the way we like it,” Janet promised him. “And likely our best shot at seeing if these creeps really do have Riley. We don’t have any other leads at this point. We have to try.”
“If Rachel was pushing drugs for money, I’ll kill her,” my dad growled. “If her actions put Riley in danger-”
“Let’s not worry about that right now,” I said, determined. “We have other things to focus on. And Addison has a phone call to make.” After a few short goodbyes, we hung up and I turned to look at Janet. The car idled in the lot, puffing out exhaust and fumes into the freezing morning air. “Where do we go from here?” I asked her. “You’re in the driver’s seat on this one. Literally and figuratively.”
She shrugged and ran a hand over her smooth hair. “I know that it’s a dangerous move, but I think that we need to get back to the bookstore. See if Shannon leads us anywhere good if you’re up for it. Best case, to Riley. Worst case, it will be another clue, I’m sure. I feel it in my gut. Richard can catch up to us.”
I nodded. “You’re right. Let’s get going.” I reached for my seatbelt when, out of the corner of my eye, in the side mirror, I caught an object racing towards us. Swiveling to look behind us, I spotted a large, navy Buick barreling through the empty lot, straight for our car. “Hold on!” I screamed to Janet. A loud crash. Though I was struggling to clasp my seatbelt, my hands were shaking too hard and I missed the buckle. There was impact. A scream. I couldn’t be sure if it had been Janet, myself or both of us. I felt the side of my head hit the windshield and then my entire world went black.
I awoke slowly. I was lying on a cold floor in an incredibly dimly lit room. As my eyes adjusted, I tried to sit up, but immediately groaned and collapsed back into a pile of bones. My head was pounding. Additionally, I wasn’t totally sure why or even where I was exactly. My memories felt jumbled and fuzzy, but I tried to piece them together anyway.
Gently, I raised my hand and touched the side of my head, which was cold and wet. When I moved my hand to view what was on it, I nearly fainted. My fingers and palm were completely covered in bright red, gooey blood.
“Marian,” I heard someone whisper behind me. “Marian, are you awake? Are you okay?”
“I’m awake,” I moaned. “I need to lay here for a minute before I decide if I’m okay.” I paused and swallow
ed hard, trying to dispel the metallic taste in my mouth. Running my tongue along my teeth, I sighed with relief. None of them were missing. My tongue sure did hurt though. I’d probably bitten it at some point. Immediately I tensed up. Had I had a seizure? Was I in some kind of hospital? “What happened?” I asked Janet, my head still lying on the ground. I couldn’t see where she was. “Hey, come here, will you? Check my head, I can’t tell if I’m still bleeding.”
“I can’t. I’m tied up,” Janet responded simply. Just then, I heard the squeaky sound of ropes rubbing against one another. How had I missed that sound before? It was incredibly distinct. Like a violin on its last breath.
As gingerly as possible, I rolled from my back to my side. Slowly, slowly, I twisted my neck until I could spot Janet out of the corner of my vision. She sat at the far edge of our dingy light, covered in shadows. We were clearly not in a hospital. Not even a shoddy one. At one point, it looked like Janice had been gagged, but she’d managed to maneuver the black handkerchief they’d used down where it was wrapped tightly around her lower jaw. Her hands were neatly duct taped together and her entire upper body was coiled with thick white rope, the kind one might find looped between fence posts near a large body of water. Her hair was wild, as if someone had been handling her by it. Her button-down shirt had been ripped away and a dark, seatbelt shaped bruise appeared on her upper shoulder and disappeared under her white tank top. “So you are,” I said, with as much of a smile as I could muster. Then, with a cringe, I whimpered, “Ow.”
“You’ve been through worse,” Janet said encouragingly. “Remember a few weeks ago when your car blew up? You hit your head pretty good that time, right? On concrete?”
“Yeah, I did,” I muttered. “What is the deal with me and cars? I’m going to start riding the bus.”
Janet snorted. “Didn’t you tell me that back in college you witnessed a knife fight on Milwaukee Public Transit and that you’d never use it again?”
“I’m changing my mind,” I grumbled, feeling my aching head again. I hoped that when I pulled my hand away, there would be less blood. There wasn’t. I sighed heavily and tried not to gag. Photographing crime scenes was one thing. Experiencing one live was a whole different matter. I didn’t have the stomach to witness my own grisly demise.
Janet pursed her lips sympathetically. “I can’t even imagine how much pain you’re in right now, Em, but I need you to come help get me out of these so that I can bust us out of here.” She gestured as much as she could with her hands and wrists.
“Fat lot of imagination you have if you think I can get myself all the way over there,” I groused. The simple act of turning my head had made me nauseous. In that moment, 8th grade Science came rushing back to me. My teacher had told us that every part of the human body was connected. Shoulder pain could mean heart trouble. Foot pain could mean your allergies were about to kick in for the season. Bizarre things like that. I’d never actually believed much of that. Now, though? Now, I had no doubt that every single nerve and tendon was somehow fused together purely as a form of torture.
“I just need you to try. Please.” Her eyes were pleading. Seeing as how she was tied up and I wasn’t, whoever had us locked in here clearly hadn’t expected that I would wake up. Or they expected that if I did, I wouldn’t be of much help. What they didn’t plan on was my level of stubbornness. Few things piss me off more than when someone expects me to fail. Pain or no pain, I’d have to try. Moyer blood runs thick with thoughts of revenge and the triumph of a simple, “I told you so.”
Gritting my jaw, perhaps to keep from crying out in pain, or maybe just to keep from vomiting, I slowly eased myself onto my stomach. From there, I awkwardly pulled myself across the cold, hard concrete, pushing with my feet. The first few feet had me slipping and sliding, as my hands were both covered in blood and I couldn’t firmly plant them on the floor. I had to stop every foot or so for a deep breath and to wipe away the tears of pain that were blurring my vision. All the while, Janet gently spoke quiet words of encouragement. Somehow, and I’m completely bewildered by how, I eventually ended up at her feet. “Great!” she whispered. “Now I need you to pull yourself upright so that you can get this tape off of me.” She gestured again with her wrists.
It took several attempts, several moans of agony and one dry heave, but I finally made it into a sitting position. Laying my head on Janet’s lap and not even caring that I was soaking her pants with my blood and mess, I began to work at the tape. When her hands were free, I used her chair as a pulley and maneuvered myself around to the back. Inspecting the knots, I shook my head, then winced. “I’ll never be able to get these untied,” I told her, frustrated. “These knots- it’s like someone was a Boy Scout.”
“Swiss Army knife. There is a hidden pocket in my back waistband,” she assured me. “I didn’t bring you this far to fail now, Moyer.”
I slowly felt along under her belt until I came across a hard lump. “Sorry,” I muttered, reaching my hand inside her pants and opening the zipper.
“I appreciate that you want to get squirrelly, but this really isn’t the time. Plus, I’m married.”
“Tease,” I threw back, pulling out the knife and finding the sharp blade.
After what seemed like an eternity, I’d made enough cuts in the rope that Janet was able to undo the whole lot of them and free herself from the chair. She twisted and turned until the ropes fell to her feet and she could stand to stretch. Once she was free, I groaned and slowly made my way back down to the floor. Its coolness felt wonderful against my hot, sweaty body. “That’s better,” I sighed, splaying my arms wide.
“Let me see you,” Janet chided, kneeling next to my head and pulling the handkerchief wrapped around her chin down and around her neck. Gently, she parted my hair and inspected what I could only assume was an incredibly ugly-looking gash. It felt huge, even though it was probably rather small. “They cleaned out the glass before they brought you in here,” she told me quietly. “Glued you, too, which looks to have stopped most of the bleeding.”
“Most of the bleeding?” I scoffed, glancing at my hands, which were caked with blood and dirt from the concrete floor. “How much was there to begin with?”
She took the knife from my hand, folded it and placed it back into her secret zipper pocket. “It probably looks worse than it actually is.”
“Can you see my skull?”
Janet smiled and patted my arm. “Thankfully not.” We continued to sit this way for a few moments, me splayed out on the floor and Janet huddled over my head, gently touching my arm. “I was afraid you wouldn’t wake up,” she confessed. “There was just so much blood. I’m no doctor but I thought maybe I’d lost you.”
“You’re going to have to fill me in on what’s happening,” I told her. “The last thing I remember, Addison was going to call Richard who was going to then call us. My guess is that, that second call didn’t actually take place.” I glanced at our surroundings but my gaze paused on Janet’s chest. “I don’t mean to stare, and you do have a lovely chest, but that’s a nasty looking bruise you have on it. My expertise with photographing bodies tells me it’s recent.”
“Do you remember the car accident?” Janet asked me quietly.
I thought hard, but shook my head. When she didn’t say anything, I asked, “Should I be worried that I can’t remember we were in an accident?”
“Again, I’m not a doctor, but I assume that, that isn’t great,” Janet confessed. “But do you remember your name?”
“Clarence,” I joked.
“And do you remember that you helped wrestle me out of some ropes just now?”
“I did?” I asked, feigning shock.
“So I’d like to think that you’ll be okay until we can get you to a doctor,” she smiled. “It isn’t total short-term memory loss.”
“And when do you think we can make that happen?” I asked her hopefully. “I’d love a morphine drip and maybe a soft pillow. Oh, and some chocolate pudding. T
hey still serve that in hospitals, right? Maybe a hot dog platter with curly fries?” My stomach began to groan in agreement.
Janet laughed, loud and clear. “I’m not sure.” From there, she began to fill in the gaps that were scattered throughout my memory.
Someone had quickly gotten word that two women who weren’t supposed to be sniffing around The Quill were. I found myself briefly concerned for Ernie’s well-being. If sending someone the wrong drugs had almost gotten him killed, I hated to think what they’d do to him when they found out he’d given away their entire operation.
At some point, it had been ordered to find Janet and I before we were able to spread the word. We were wanted, dead or alive. That’s about the time Janet and I were clobbered by a huge Buick. Janet, thankfully, had still been wearing her seatbelt, but I’d unbuckled mine shortly before we were hit. As a result, Janet ended up with some serious bruising only. Meanwhile, I had almost become a hood ornament. Oddly, whoever was driving the Buick had slowed down a bit just before the collision, almost as if they’d wanted us to live. Janet still hadn’t figured out who had been driving it. While I could sort of recall the vehicle approaching in the mirrors on our rental car, I didn’t seem able to remember so much as a shadow of the person behind the wheel. For all I knew, it could have been the President.
After we’d been hit, two thugs had crawled out of the backseat and pulled us into their car, which was, of course, still running. I once saw a Buick get rammed by a dump truck and the driver walked away without a scratch. Those things are tanks.
One of the thugs had proceeded to drive Janet’s rental to this super secret location, probably so that it wasn’t left behind for someone to find. Unfortunately, as they drove us away from the abandoned lot, they’d tied a bag over Janet’s head. She tried to keep track of the amount of time they drove, as well as all of the twists and turns, but she was convinced that they drove around for a while unnecessarily before we ended up where we currently were. A warehouse.
I had been passed out cold the entire time. A middle-aged, pepper-haired gentleman with wire-rimmed glasses had quickly examined my lifeless body. From there, Janet said, he’d tweezed a bunch of glass shards out of my head and hair, glued together the largest of the gashes and recommended pain relievers, to which everyone around the table had simply laughed. Janet, whose head bag had been removed and was now able to see what was going on, was forced to watch as two creeps searched my lifeless body for weapons. When one of them tried to get fresh, Janet had attempted to hit him but was promptly reined in.
Allison Janda - Marian Moyer 02 - Seduction, Deceit & a Slice of Apple Pie Page 11
