Drew rubbed a hand along his jaw. “Dr. Prescott still swears he didn’t know Travis was there. But you’re right, the man’s strung like a guitar right now. I doubt he has the physical strength to disable Travis or move him unconscious without help, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“He does the weakling routine,” said Lance. “But don’t get taken in. Check out the picture on his desk. He’s holding up a prize marlin on some charter boat. He’s got the muscles.”
“And he dislikes me and disapproves of Travis. He hates the idea of my being promoted. He’s been in the department as long as Art had been, and he loathes the sanctuary. When the detective’s head fell out of that cabinet, the chair is the one who went nuts screaming he’d be next. He knows something.”
“Okay,” said Darnell. “We’ll talk to him. Maybe he can help us. But listen to me. I wasn’t finished. The person we’re ultimately looking for is a man posing as a federal agent. The man you met at the gala and the one in the picture Trudy showed you are not the same person, though we thought they were. The person you met was Liam Metcalf, but the picture is of Charles Dalton, who has been imitating him for some time.
“Ohhh.” Even in my sleepy state, I understood the importance of Charles Dalton’s name. This was Terry Dalton’s brother. The man Natasha had been afraid of ever since we found her necklace.
“Liam’s ID was taken at your gala. He had it replaced without much fanfare, because the monkey stole something from everybody and destroyed much of it. Liam found his wallet at the end of the chase, but his things were scattered and his badge was gone. My boss asked me to check the monkey’s cage in the quarantine area to see what it had, whether it might have taken a license or badge, and it looked like it could have done it. I don’t think so now.”
“The monkey didn’t take it?” My head hurt. It ached with the weight of exhaustion. “It had dozens of things. How can you be sure?”
“No, I don’t think the monkey took it,” said Darnell. “I think the monkey’s owner did. That capuchin would have destroyed it, and Charles Dalton wouldn’t be imitating Liam in every location where he doesn’t think he’ll be caught. Liam only remembered that the woman crashed into him when he realized he’d been compromised. She took the badge and gave it to Dalton. Dalton had been fooling people before the gala, but we think the badge gave him access to a federal prison.
“It took our misunderstanding to bring the deception to light. Agent Metcalfe never stopped asking our boss to recall us. But she was confused because he seemed to change his mind every other day. Acting as Metcalfe, Dalton was sending messages that directly contradicted the things the real Metcalfe was saying.
“We have enough evidence to arrest Dalton, but we can’t find him. He was counting on an office full of people who never talk to one another. The man’s brazen. He’s also missing.”
CHAPTER 27
Dear Nora:
My friend talks incessantly during our morning walk. I don’t want to be rude, but the very sound of her voice is starting to grate. Please help!
All Nattered Out
Dear Nattered:
It’s winter. Wear earmuffs. Or take up knitting and stay inside. I’m sending yarn and a nice beginner’s pattern.
Nora
“She and Noel have been friends since grade school.”
I woke up with a crick in my neck and Lance’s upper back filling my window. I had fallen asleep on the way home, and my body was not thankful. In front of the van, Hannah and Sara were locked in nearly identical poses, arms crossed, brows lowered. But Hannah’s hair was, as always, impeccable, while Sara’s was an unkempt wreck. I couldn’t decide whether they were glaring at me or at the agents arguing with Lance outside my window. I seriously debated going back to sleep.
No such luck. My open eyes had been seen. “Make her stop!” Sara pointed at me and shouted loud enough to be heard through the glass.
“Make who stop? Lance, honey, move.” I climbed out of the car in time for the meteorite who was my daughter to crash into my stomach.
“Make Miss Trudy stop. She won’t let Hannah-Banana do my hair.”
“Trudy, Hannah is fine. Let her twist the child’s hair.”
“No. I want braids. I want a million long beautiful braids hanging to my knees like hers!”
“Sara, you picked at the twists so much I’ve barely been able to keep them in! How are braids . . .”
“I want braids!”
“Lance, Noel, I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation . . .” Trudy’s innocent wide eyes didn’t work on me. It was a cozy-up tactic, and I wanted nothing better than to keep my distance.
“We picked up our son under what amounted to an armed guard between Drew, his partner, and Darnell,” Lance snapped. “Don’t tell me we can’t fully appreciate . . .”
“You can’t distrust everybody.” Drew, at least, was trying to be a force of reason. “I can personally vouch for . . .”
“I don’t need anybody to vouch for me,” Hannah snapped. “I don’t abandon my friends when they’re in trouble. I’ve got a ton of teeny-tiny rubber bands out in my car and a whole lot of fiber to weave in . . .”
“. . . and she probably took the day off work to do this for us, so lay off.” I so wanted to go to bed.
Their voices erupted around me again into a new babble of arguments, but Hannah was already heading for her car, which was parked in the cul-de-sac. Because the house used to be a funeral home, it’s situated at the end of a tree-lined road designed to get mourners in and out of the area without jamming up traffic.
Because it stood so far apart from the other buildings in the small town of Granton during the Great Depression, it didn’t burn with the rest of the village. And it now has its own street, and my parents own the land between the house and the state route out front. Periodically, realtors pester my parents about buying the excellent road frontage, which they consider the perfect excuse to build yet another suburb and pull Ironweed a little bit closer to Columbus’s urban sprawl.
But Mama and Daddy won’t budge. They don’t want neighbors, and their position was one of the reasons the previous owner sold it to them when she moved to live with her daughter in Arizona some twenty years ago.
“Where’s William?” Mama called, heading out her front door. The question, issued in a conversational tone, stopped the argument as sharply as if she’d screamed it.
“I thought he was with you and Natasha!” Lance pushed through the assembled group.
“He was, dear. Then Natasha took him out back to play hack-up-the-roses, and I haven’t seen either one of them since.”
Mama had barely finished speaking when Natasha started screaming. “Give him back! What do you think you’re doing?”
She wasn’t behind the house. She wasn’t in the roses. She was nearly at the edge of the field, chasing after a pair of people who were hauling William toward a car stopped at the end of the lane. How long had it been there? A few minutes? A few hours? Had someone hidden it in the scrub on the other side of the road? That was the only direction where hills prevented my parents from having a perfect view of the surrounding area.
Lance hurtled into the field. William thrashed mightily, slowing the pair, but not enough, and certainly not stopping them. I planted myself, my arms wrapped tightly around Sara, preventing her from chasing the chasers and preparing to shield her. Drew and his partner, along with Trudy and Darnell, had drawn guns.
Hannah froze halfway to her car, then broke into a run herself. All four guns exploded. Sara rocked backward and screamed, hands over her ears. But nobody stopped running. Hannah’s white sedan screeched down the lane and reached the road far ahead of any of the runners. She parked in the middle of the state route, partially blocking it. Though the other car could have edged around, doing so would have taken time.
The guns banged again. Sara didn’t scream this time, but she huddled against me, whimpering. Then a plume of steam rose from th
e other vehicle’s hood. It seethed to the ground. They weren’t shooting at anybody. They were firing on the car. “Damn,” Drew’s partner muttered. “Aimed too high.” He flicked a finger at the steam. “Got those wheels anyhow.”
The man and woman running with William wouldn’t be going anywhere except on foot. And . . . they weren’t a man and woman. It was a pair of kids finally skidding to a halt. The girl looked familiar.
“Layla! You give him back, you give him back, you give him back! You lied to me!”
Now Trudy, Darnell, and Drew ran, while Drew’s partner dropped back to use his radio. They passed Lance easily, even though he’s in good shape.
“That’s my car!” The male in the pair dropped William and extended his arms helplessly toward his vehicle. “How’m I going to get to work? Kid, let go!” Freed, William now affixed himself to his would-be kidnapper, biting the flesh on the underside of his arm. “Kid, that hurts!”
“Let Robby go.” Layla pulled on William’s middle until Natasha finally caught up and landed a punch on her sister’s temple.
“Go Will! Go Tasha!” Sara sprang to life in my arms. I had gone somewhat limp, and she burst free easily and sprinted after everyone else.
Mama and I were left standing beside the van, staring from each other to the unfolding scene. “Noel, who did you and Lance make mad?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. I don’t know if this is even related. Tasha, stop it, she’s not fighting back!”
“Down! Down on the ground!” Nobody listened to Darnell.
Natasha continued to pound on Layla, even though the younger girl had collapsed to sitting. “What were you doing?” Natasha screamed. “What did you think you were doing? How could you?”
Lance arrived and pulled her off, still swinging. “Natasha, you’re not doing any good,” he said.
“She lied to me. She lied to me!” Natasha sobbed. “She said she was moving out of the state and wanted to see them one last time.”
“Down on the ground!” Darnell repeated.
My mind had stopped giving orders to the rest of my body. I wanted to run after Sara, prevent her from joining the fray, but I was frozen. I nearly lost him. Again. I nearly lost him again. They nearly took him from me. I staggered back against the van.
“Noel,” Mama asked. “Are you okay?”
I couldn’t even shake my head to tell her no, I was not okay; I was horrible. Hannah backed her car out of the road, then turned around in the lane and drove back down to us.
“When? When did this happen?” Lance still held Natasha tightly against him. “How did she know they’d be here, Natasha?” He was trying for a neutral tone, but he had to shout to be heard. Natasha stopped struggling. “We picked him up early. Why didn’t they think he was still in school?”
“And why did I believe her?” Natasha wailed. She melted out of Lance’s arms. “She said she and her mom were getting out of this stupid little town, and couldn’t she see the twins one last time? I didn’t know she meant right now, but then they pulled up out front while you guys were all arguing, and she said she’d settle for William if Sara wouldn’t come out back. It happened so fast, and it wasn’t her mom, it was . . .” Suddenly, she leapt up. This time, instead of attacking her sister, she went after the guy, who was still struggling to free himself from William’s teeth. “Him!”
Lance lunged, but missed her, and she connected a series of kicks to the boy’s shins as she tackled him to the ground.
“Noel? Noel?” Mama shook me, but I still couldn’t move.
I nearly lost him. We brought him home to be safe, and someone nearly took him from home. It’s true. I can’t trust anybody.
“Hannah, help me with her!” Mama’s voice was urgent and distant. Though I felt the pressure of her hands on my shoulder, it didn’t carry the sensation of real touch.
“Noel!” Hannah got in front of me, blocking my view.
Move, I tried to tell her. Don’t get between me and my babies. But my jaw and vocal cords weren’t working either, and the words stayed locked in.
“Ed! Edgar! Noel’s having a spell!”
A spell. That’s what they called it. After I barely escaped alive from my abusive relationship with Alex, flashbacks would claim me without warning, trapping me away from friends and family and throwing me straight back into his world. It took years of therapy, along with self-defense and tae kwon do training, to overcome those horrible flashbacks. Though I wasn’t flashing back anywhere right now, I might as well have been.
Hannah seized the shoulder Mama wasn’t shaking. “Get her, Lenore. She’s going down.” Hannah braced me on one side and Mama on the other as my knees buckled and my legs gave way. They lowered me gently. “Head between the knees, Noel.” Hannah, who had nursed me through many such incidents, still remembered the drill. Together, she and Mama propped my knees up and pushed my head forward and down. “Breathe, honey,” said Hannah. “Don’t think about any of it. Breathe. Come on. I forget your word . . .”
“Peace,” Mama supplied. “Peace, Noel. Think peace.”
Peace. I was supposed to shut out my memories by repeating a specific idea or word until nothing else could get in around it. I had chosen “peace.” But they didn’t understand I wasn’t stuck in memory right now, and I couldn’t stop hearing the fighting at the road’s edge.
“What did you expect me to tell you?” Layla was shouting at Natasha now. “Hey, you and your stupid friends aren’t doing much good protecting our twins, why don’t you let somebody with a clue take a shot? Would you have brought him out to see me, then?”
“I thought I was doing you a favor. I was trying to give you a fair shake. I felt sorry for you.”
“Here’s a news flash, Natasha Oeschle. I don’t need your pity party. Robby and I have it all figured out. We’re getting married next week, and we’re gonna adopt . . .”
“Shut up!” bellowed the boy, Robby.
“Married? You nitwit, you’re fourteen years old!”
“My dad’s going to sign the papers when we visit him tomorrow.”
“He doesn’t even have custody . . . how are you going to get to see him . . . you’re so stupid.”
A loud whistle interrupted them. “Quiet!” Trudy roared.
Blessed silence descended. Silence. Peace. Peace. Peace. Finally, I could push out the other ideas crowding me to a standstill. I don’t know how long it took, but by the time I came back to myself and persuaded my head it needed to lift, Natasha was once more screaming at Layla, whose confidence was shaken.
“You said we were getting married,” Layla wailed.
“You’re not only stupid, Layla, you’re naive,” Tasha shouted. “When did he start being your boyfriend, huh? Bet he started coming around after William got away from him last time.”
“Shows what you know! Robby picked Will up wandering that day and brought him home. He left Will in the garage and went for help. I had already practically moved in by then, you know. I got home and didn’t know Will was there. I accidentally let him out. He freaked in a strange house and bolted. Robby and Merle and I searched for hours.”
“You believed he just found the kid then left him in a garage? And why not call the cops after he took off, huh?”
“Cops.” Layla clearly disliked the police.
Robby broke in. “We were going to if he hadn’t shown up by morning. But he did show up, and it would have looked suspicious.”
“That’s the dumbest, worst lie I’ve ever heard!” Natasha screeched.
“William didn’t understand,” Layla insisted.
“William hates the circle-dot man!” Will yelled.
“Robby’s one of the good guys. He wanted to help.”
“That’s not what William says!”
“Who knows what William says. Nobody understands him.”
“William hates the circle-dot man,” Natasha shouted. “How do you not get that?”
It made perfect sense to me. Lance held Wi
lliam doubled over in his arms. Sara stood at Lance’s elbow on one side, and Natasha sat at the other. The police couldn’t get around them to arrest Layla and Robby. They needed me. But I couldn’t move.
“Natasha, get out of my way,” Trudy finally snapped, and Lance suddenly cleared the children aside to make room for law enforcement.
I rolled to my knees, then stood.
“Easy,” said Hannah.
“I’m good.” I wasn’t. I started across to my family anyway.
Hannah caught my arm on the first lurch. “Let’s take it slow.” She held onto me all the way across the field.
“Hey, William.” I tried to catch my son’s attention, but he wasn’t listening. I sat, collapsed really, and motioned Lance to hand him to me.
He cocked an eyebrow as if to ask, you sure? He had doubtless seen the episode beside the van.
I nodded. As I enfolded William in my embrace, needing to feel the aliveness of his struggling little body, Sara sniffled loudly. “Do I still get my braids?” she asked Hannah.
“I think there’s going to be a delay.” Hannah stroked Sara’s messy hair. “But I’ll get you braided, baby doll. We may have to start today and finish up next week, but we’ll get you there.”
“And I’ll have a million?”
“About.”
“All the way to my knees?”
“Honey, mine only go halfway down my back. I’ll make yours as long as mine. I promise.”
Sara studied her a minute. “Okay,” she said. Then she burst into loud, hiccupping tears.
“Hey, hey, hey now.” Lance picked her up. “It’s over. It’s over.” Only it wasn’t. Not even nearly. Darnell said there were at least two groups. We had one. The wrong one. A pair of kids, and while they might be capable of grabbing a child or cutting into the monkey enclosures, I doubted either of them had the physical strength to decapitate someone or take down a deputy.
Natasha and Layla continued to hurl insults at one another as Layla was crammed into the cruiser. “Tasha, be quiet. I’ll never get him calm with you yelling across the lawn.” In another moment, Layla was inside and out of shouting range anyway.
The Case of the Red-Handed Rhesus (A Rue and Lakeland Mystery) Page 27
