by JB Lynn
“No ransom note,” I replied, more to reassure the cop than her.
“Whatever are we going to do?” Loretta asked.
“Find her,” I replied in the most confident tone I could muster. “We always do.”
The answer seemed to appease all of my aunts.
Too bad it was total bull.
Chapter Eighteen
Once I’d assured the cop that I had no idea where my mother was, and getting the full story about why some people were assuming that she’d been kidnapped, I retreated to the basement to rally the troops.
“Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!” DeeDee barked as I descended the stairs. “Mike. Mike. Mike.”
“Took you long enough to return,” God groused from his glass enclosure.
Piss leapt up and blocked my view of the lizard. “How was your date, sugar?”
I sank onto the sofa tiredly, kicking off my black heels. “Thank you for sending Mike,” I said to the dog.
“It wasn’t her idea,” God said haughtily.
Ignoring him, I smiled at the cat. “And the date was pretty good. We had dinner under the stars.”
She purred her approval and climbed into my lap.
“Your mother is missing,” God interjected. “Or don’t you care about that?”
I took comfort in petting Piss. “I care, but it’s such a regular occurrence that I can’t see getting hysterical about it.”
The little guy puffed out his chest. “I’m not hysterical.”
“Find help will I,” DeeDee panted, resting her chin on my knee.
“Thank you.” I stroked her with one hand and the cat with the other.
“Well, let’s go then,” God urged.
“Go where?”
“To the scene of the crime.”
I sighed. “They’re not going to let us into the institution tonight. Our best chance to get inside will be during regular visiting hours.”
“We should go patrol the perimeter.” The lizard flicked his tail like he was whipping troops into a frenzy.
I yawned. “Now?”
“Now!”
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, trying to decide the best course of action. There were so many variables at play that my head was spinning.
I knew that Susan believed my father was responsible for her sister’s disappearance since she’d claimed to see him recently. But I didn’t think that telling Susan that it had been Thurston, not Archie, who’d been on the grounds of the mental institution was a good idea. There was, however, a chance that Thurston’s enemies had taken her…if you believed the eyewitness story that she’d been dragged off into the woods. But considering the witness was also a patient, there was no way to determine the validity of the story.
There was always a chance Mom had just wandered off on her own. She’d been known to do that, too.
And I had no idea where to start looking for her.
Despite the fact I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right, I had to agree with the lizard that the most logical place to start searching would be the grounds of the facility.
“Fine.” I grudgingly got to my feet and started removing my black dress. “We’ll go check out the grounds.”
“Was it so hard just to agree with me?” God mocked.
I turned my back to him.
“Me too? Me too? Me too?” a little voice whispered.
I strode over to look down at Benny. His little whiskers quivered as he looked up at me.
“You want to come along?”
“Please. Please. Please.”
“Only if he promises not to speak,” God demanded.
“Don’t listen to him, sugar,” Piss purred. “Of course you can come along.”
“Too me?” DeeDee asked hopefully.
“Everyone can go,” I declared. I turned and glared at the lizard. “And the only one who can tell anybody what to do is me.”
I knew from the way he puffed out the orange flap of skin beneath his chin that he wasn’t happy with that declaration, but he stayed silent.
I quickly changed into jeans, placed Benny in a shirt pocket, God on my shoulder, and ushered everyone out the cellar’s storm doors. “Quiet,” I warned. “I want us to make a clean escape.”
“Busted,” a male voice mocked.
Squinting into the shadows, I realized Larry Griswald was watching me.
“How’d your date go?” he asked, ignoring the fact I was creeping out of the B&B with a dog, a cat, and a lizard on my shoulder.
“It got cut short by the calamity du jour,” I replied.
“I checked with my people in the D.C. area and they swear that your father is there, so for once, this isn’t his fault.”
“I appreciate the information.”
“You’re going to look for her?”
I nodded.
“Look we. Look we,” the dog panted.
“You’ll call me if you need help?”
“Honestly,” I replied tiredly, “anything you can do to keep my aunts relatively calm will be the biggest help of all.”
“It would be easier to survive a shootout,” Griswald replied dryly.
“Well, you’re pretty close to being Superman, at least according to Susan, so I figured I could ask the impossible of you.”
Griswald chuckled. “You do have some of Archie Lee’s charm.”
I shuddered at the thought.
Griswald grew serious. “I don’t know what your mother has got herself into, but at some point, Maggie, you’re going to have to decide that you are no longer one hundred percent responsible for her or anyone else in this family.”
“But not tonight,” I quipped.
“Soon,” Griswald urged. “Now go before someone realizes you’re missing.”
The dog, the cat, and I hurried to my car. Griswald had already gone into the kitchen entrance before I started the engine.
“I like that man,” God declared.
“Me too, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a danger.”
“Danger! Danger! Danger!” Benny whimpered.
“You are safe,” I assured him.
“The only one Griswald poses a threat to is Maggie,” Piss explained. “He’s a man with a badge, and she’s a gal with a gun.”
“Technically, I don’t have a gun right now,” I corrected, though I made a mental note to reach out to Patrick Mulligan to see if he could supply me with an unregistered weapon.
I had a feeling I was going to need one soon.
Chapter Nineteen
At God’s suggestion, I parked a couple of blocks away from the mental hospital and we began walking in tightening loops around the grounds in search of my mother, or a clue that could point us in the direction of what happened to her.
God rode on my shoulder and Benny in my pocket while DeeDee did her best bloodhound impression, sniffing the ground and dragging me along at a breakneck speed. I suspected that the familiar scent she was following was that of Piss, who was running ahead, but I saw no point in breaking that to her, since she seemed to be taking her job so seriously.
“So how did your date go?” God asked, as DeeDee did her best to dislodge my shoulder by yanking mercilessly on the leash.
“It was pretty good; educational, actually,” I replied breathlessly. “DeeDee, slow down!”
“Down slow,” she panted in agreement.
“Educational?” God asked.
“I think that maybe the apes smelled pickles.”
“Huh?” God asked eloquently.
“The gorillas. I think they smelled pickles.”
“And what does that have to do with your date? Or education? Or the search for your mother?” the little lizard ranted.
It took me a second to answer because I was fighting to keep my balance as the Doberman dragged me along in the darkness. “Angel and I went to a pickle store and—”
“He took you to a pickle store?” God boomed indignantly. “You waited forever to go on this date and
he took you to a pickle store?”
“Um, no, actually,” I corrected him crossly. “He set up a romantic rooftop dinner under the stars. It was my idea to go to the pickle store.”
God sighed dramatically. “And you wonder why you’re single.”
“Shhh,” Piss warned. “Someone’s coming. Hide.”
Considering we were walking down the middle of the street, there weren’t too many places to hide, but I yanked on DeeDee’s leash and we hunkered down behind the nearest car.
We heard low, muttering voices first and then footsteps as they grew closer.
“The only humans out at this hour are looking for trouble,” God whispered.
“Trouble. Trouble. Trouble,” Benny squeaked nervously.
“Will you protect I,” DeeDee pledged on a low growl.
As the two men got nearer, I began to make out snippets of their conversation.
“….told me,” said one.
“….under the bridge,” argued the other.
“If we don’t….” one warned.
“…she gets involved,” the other countered.
I startled everyone—the two men and all of the animals—when I jumped up out of my hiding place and demanded to know, “What are you doing?”
Ian and Uncle Thurston froze like a pair of deer in headlights right there in the middle of the street.
Ian recovered first. “Maggie.”
“Don’t Maggie me.” I dropped DeeDee’s leash and advanced on the two men, fueled by the kind of anger I usually reserved for my father when he endangered someone with one of his hare-brained schemes. Marching right up to Thurston, I poked him in the chest. “It’s your fault she’s missing, isn’t it?”
He blinked and cleared his throat. For a second, I thought he was going to resort to the sort of blustering, lying response that his brother was so fond of, and I could feel my blood pressure skyrocketing.
“It’s not my fault,” Thurston said regretfully. “But I did fail to properly protect her.”
“We’ll find her,” Ian interjected.
I turned my attention to him. “Do you know who has her?”
He took a step back as though my fury was a physical assault.
“No, but—”
“Easy, sugar,” Piss chastised.
I was surprised that she’d returned to the pack, but it wasn’t the time to ask if she’d found anything, considering I had two fresh sources of information standing in front of me.
I swung back to Thurston. “What does this have to do with pickles?”
“Now really isn’t the time for your crazy gorilla-pickle theory,” God opined from my shoulder. “We’re only a block from the mental hospital. The way you’re acting, they could have you committed.”
Thurston’s eyes widened when he heard the lizard squeaking.
“What’s your pickle theory?” Ian asked curiously.
“Ask him.” I stared pointedly at Thurston and tapped my foot impatiently.
“How on earth did you figure that out?” Thurston asked.
“I’m the one asking the questions,” I countered with false bravado. It wasn’t like I could tell him that the gorillas who’d cared for him after his attack had told me about the smell. “Now, you give me some answers.”
Thurston glanced at Ian nervously and I realized the reason he wasn’t more forthcoming was that he was worried about my brother’s disapproval.
Ian looked from him to me. “Tell her.”
Thurston sighed heavily. “The Malleti family is trying to collect an old debt from your father.”
“What kind of old debt?” I asked suspiciously. After all, over the years, Archie Lee had screwed a lot of people a lot of different ways.
Thurston shifted his weight from one foot to the other and I had the distinct impression he was ready to physically flee.
“Old debt,” he repeated.
“Just go on with your story.”
“A long time ago,” he began slowly and then paused.
“In a galaxy far, far away,” God prompted.
Ian made a choking, spluttering noise. I looked at him sharply.
“Swallowed a gnat,” he explained. “Finish the story, Uncle Thurston.”
“I don’t—” Thurston began.
“Look,” I said tiredly. “You can tell me whatever idiotic thing my father did. I’m used to it. All I care about now is finding my mother.”
Thurston nodded. “A long time ago, Archie had a deal going with Jim Malleti. Archie stole stuff. Jimmy fenced it. For a while, things went smoothly, but then…”
“He got greedy,” I supplied. “Or lazy.”
“Both. I’m afraid. He started bringing less stolen goods, but demanding the same payment.”
“Typical, Archie,” I muttered. “Always wanting more, but trying to get away with doing less. Let me guess, he stiffed them on their last deal?”
“Worse. He let Malleti get caught when the cops busted the operation. And now Jimmy is out of jail and wants revenge.”
I frowned. “But you said this happened a long time ago?”
“Twenty years.”
“Somebody got twenty years for a stolen goods charge?” I asked incredulously. I’d been on the fringes of criminal activity long enough to know that was an extremely oversized penalty for the crime.
“No, the bulk of the sentence was due to Malleti assaulting a cop during the arrest. Archie paid back the money that was lost with interest, but rumor has it that Jimmy wants a pound of flesh for the years lost.”
I didn’t even ask where my father had come up with the cash. “And now he’s got my mother?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Thurston looked down at the ground guiltily.
“And the attack on you? What was that? A warning?” I tried to keep my voice calm despite the fact I was furious at my father, miffed with Thurston, and afraid for my mother.
“More like a disagreement that got out of hand. I was trying to reason with Malleti and things escalated quickly.”
“Why the zoo?”
“Jimmy has a thing about the zoo. Says it reminds him of all the time he spent in a cage.”
“So what do—” I began.
But then a streak of black went tearing past.
“DeeDee!” I called reflexively. “Stop!”
But the Doberman didn’t. She kept racing away.
“Come back! Stop!” I began running after her.
“Whoa!” God cried. He grabbed my hair as he went flying off my shoulder.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted him flying through the air like a trapeze artist.
“DeeDee!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs.
Piss tore past me. “I’ll catch her, sugar.”
A moment later, Ian ran past. “I’ll catch her.”
“Save me!” God begged as he crashed against my cheek.
I stopped just long enough to deposit him into my pocket and started running again.
“Off. Off. Off,” Benny protested since I’d dumped the lizard right on top of him.
“The mouse is going to eat me,” God wailed.
“He’s not going to eat you,” I panted, as first DeeDee, then Piss, then Ian disappeared around a distant corner.
I glanced back over to see if Thurston was bringing up the rear of the demented chasing chain, but he was nowhere in sight, which meant I was the lowly caboose.
“You really need to get into shape,” God lectured as my breath wheezed.
“Hush. Hush. Hush,” Benny chastised.
“He’s gnawing on my leg.” The lizard heaved himself out of my pocket, more concerned about the rodent’s carnivorous leanings than the potential of falling to his death. He scrambled up my shoulder as I loped in the direction the others had headed.
“Faster, you fool,” God ordered. “Faster.”
“Shut up,” I panted.
“You don’t have to be disrespectful,” he countered, latching on to my earlobe like s
ome kind of living dangle earring.
I was about to flick him off when he yelled the warning.
Chapter Twenty
“Look out!” God screeched as a car careened around a corner and headed straight for us.
I barely leapt out of the way, crashing into a minivan parked on the side of the road. I turned to flip off the driver when I saw the wide-eyed passenger in the backseat. “Mom!”
The car sped away.
“What’s the license plate number?” God asked.
I couldn’t tell, it was obscured by tactically placed mud.
Plus, I had to jump out of the road again when a sedan went speeding past.
Whirling, I raced back toward my car, determined to give chase. I couldn’t let Mom’s abductor get away.
“We should have brought the crow,” God opined.
“Enough with the post-useful suggestions,” I gasped, tearing open the car door and diving inside. Tires squealed as I floored it and spun the steering wheel to turn in the direction my mother had disappeared.
“If you kill us, you won’t be a help to anyone,” God warned grimly.
I ignored him and pressed the pedal to the metal.
“You don’t even know where you’re headed,” God cried. “They’re nowhere in sight.”
“I’ll find her,” I ground out through gritted teeth, cutting across a corner at a precarious angle.
“Too fast. Too fast. Too fast,” the mouse complained, clearly terrified.
“We’re going to die, Benny,” God warned.
That’s when the flash of black crossed in front of the car. Instinctively, I stamped on the brake and yanked the steering wheel. The car slid to a bone-shuddering stop.
“Dead?” Benny squeaked.
God tumbled into my lap and groaned. “Oh! My poor sensitive skin.”
“He’s not dead yet,” I muttered, peering out over the steering wheel, trying to spot whatever had almost caused me to crash.
Something slammed against the side window. I automatically recoiled by leaning away and screaming like a too-stupid-to-live braless chick in a low-budget horror movie.
“Crushing me,” God gasped.
The killer’s breath fogged my window.
“Maggie!” DeeDee barked excitedly.
