Lending a Paw: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery (Bookmobile Cat Mysteries)

by Cass, Laurie

Shifting around a little, I sat up and used my heels to push myself over to the wall. I was good at picking out knots, but it was a slow business. It’d be even slower because even if it were full daylight, I couldn’t see anything except the inside of the bag, but perseverance was my middle name.

  Well, my middle name was actually Joy, but that wasn’t the point.

  I don’t know how long I spent poking and picking at those knots. It could have been twenty minutes; it could have been four hours. Every so often, my hands would start tingling from a lack of blood flow and I’d have to let them rest.

  Break periods I spent breathing lightly, trying to hear for car noises, for footsteps, for voices, for anything. When my fingers stopped tingling, I started in again.

  The last knot was the tightest. Two, three, four, five times I had to rest my hands. Each time I rested, I wondered if I’d ever get out of there, wondered if I was wasting my time. Then I’d take a deep breath and start in again.

  There wasn’t much choice. No one knew where I was. If I wanted to get out of here, I’d have to get myself out.

  Fatigue was seeping into my bones when that horrible tight knot released. In a flash, my fatigue vanished. I ripped the bag off my head—and saw nothing. Panic flared hot. I shot to my feet and spun in a circle, searching for light. Any light, it didn’t matter, the merest speck would be fine, please, just let me see something, I can’t be blind, please . . .

  I turned in a circle, starved for sight, scared beyond measure . . . and then I saw the merest speck of brightness. High up on the wall, through a gap in the siding, I spotted a star. I froze, staring at it, drinking it in, loving it.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  At least that’s what I tried to do. In my happiness at being unbagged, I’d forgotten that he’d taped my mouth shut.

  With my hands in front of me and my vision assured, I was feeling strong and very, very angry. Fiercely, I worked at the tape. Hooked my thumbnails under the tight edge, pushed, didn’t get anywhere, used my fingernails, thumbnails again, pushed, felt a searing pull and clean air on an infinitesimally small portion of my face, felt exhilaration, scrabbled frantically at the tape, pulled, pushed, pulled . . . got a good grip a very good grip PULL!

  The hot rush of pain was eclipsed by my gasp of relief. “Off,” I said, putting my head on my knees and panting. “It’s off.”

  I sat a moment, then let the tape drop to the ground. It was tempting to ball it up and hurl it hard as I could, but I was too tired.

  Tired, but not dead.

  Which was good, but now what? As far as I knew, my cell phone was still in my backpack, far out of reach. If my bad guy had been smart, he’d have smashed it to bits, on the off chance I’d get out of my prison cell. Speaking of which . . .

  I put my hands on the floor and pushed my awkward self to my feet. Time to explore.

  It didn’t take long. After I’d felt my way around the room once, I went toe to heel with my feet, rounding up since my shoes were maybe ten inches long. My prison was rectangular, eight feet wide on the short side, ten feet deep. The door was solid and its hinges were on the other side. I’d felt a window frame on the wall opposite the door, but it was boarded up.

  There were no other openings. There was nothing in the room. I felt every inch of the walls up as high as I could reach and down all the way to the wooden floor. No hooks, no nails, no nothing.

  I jumped, reaching high with my tied hands, trying to touch the ceiling, trying to find chain, a rope, anything.

  Instead, I grasped a lot of empty air.

  I stood in the middle of the room, gasping for breath, trying not to think too much about reality, because it wasn’t that great. In spite of partially freeing myself, I was still locked in an empty windowless room with no tools and no weapons. If the guy came back, there was little I could do to stop him doing whatever he wanted to do to me.

  The guy. I stood straight and stared into the dark at the door. For a while I kicked at it and when I stopped from fear of breaking bones in my feet, it was just as solid as when I’d started my assault.

  Then for a while I banged on the boards covering up the empty window frame. They were attached from the outside, so maybe I could knock one loose. The boards were wide and I was small and desperate—if I could make a gap, surely I could squiggle through.

  But the boards must have been screwed in, not nailed. All my thumping and banging didn’t do a thing. Not one single thing.

  Finally exhaustion took over, yelling at me that it was time to quit, that I should wait until morning, wait until it got light.

  I sat next to the door, positioning myself for a quick jump up and a fast run should it happen to open.

  I laid my arms on my knees, put my head on my arms, and slept.

  • • •

  My dreams were filled with the growls of animals in the dark and threats that I couldn’t quite hear. At some point, I twitched awake into the barn’s dim light. I’d heard something. . . .

  The whooshing of bird wings flew past. “Caw caw!”

  Blue jay? Crow? Maybe a robin? Bird identification was another skill I should work on.

  I rubbed my face, felt the sticky leftover from the tape, felt the yuck on my unbrushed teeth, felt the dirt and sweat and general ick all over my body and in my hair. When I got out of here, a hot shower was the first order of business.

  When I got out?

  Smiling, I mentally patted myself on the back for having such a cheery thought first thing after sleeping in the locked-up corner of a barn with my wrists tied together. Good for me. My self-esteem, which should have been at rock bottom, was, due to some miracle, doing okay. Now for the rest of me.

  I pushed myself to my feet and looked at my surroundings. The morning sun didn’t exactly flood the place, but enough light was filtering in through gaps in the wood that I could see well enough. The door was indeed solid, the boards over the window were indeed stuck on tight, and the ceiling was indubitably out of reach. The only opening I could see anywhere was a gap between the ceiling and the top of the inside wall.

  Hmm.

  If I could get up there, I might be able to wriggle through, but since there was no way I could scale a ten-foot-high smooth wall, there wasn’t much point in . . . wait a minute.

  The window. It was close to that inside wall.

  If I could get my hands free, I could use the thin boards that framed the window as a sort of ladder. I could climb to the top of the window, lever myself up and out over the wall. An average-sized man would never be able to do that—the half-inch wood around the window would surely collapse under his weight—but this compact woman could.

  The first part of the plan, however, might be the hardest of all.

  I looked at my bound wrists. Thick black tape encircled each one, then wrapped around them both. Twice. It was thicker than normal duct tape, and it felt stickier. Duct tape on steroids, Rafe had called it. It’ll stick to brick, stone, stucco, or plaster, he’d said, and it was doing a fantastic job of holding my wrists together.

  The result of last night’s inspection-by-feel of the walls matched what I saw now. No nails hanging anywhere to help me out, no screws, no hooks, no nothing. I couldn’t even find a good sharp splinter to help me puncture the tape. My bad luck I got imprisoned in a barn built to last.

  I sat down and studied the stupid tape. It was just tape, after all. There had to be two ends, and one of them had to be on the outside. All I had to do was find the end, peel up one corner, and unwrap the whole thing. Easy.

  Unfortunately, the outside end was on the far side of my wrists, making it the worst location possible for unwrapping. I could hardly see it, could barely even feel it.

  I picked at the unmoving end and got nowhere.

  A tool. My kingdom for a tool. My grandfather had always carried a penknife. My dad carried a money clip that had a bottle opener. All I had was me and the clothes I wore; shorts, T-shirt, underwear, socks, and shoes.

/>   I smiled a wide, happy smile. Shoes. I was wearing shoes. With laces.

  Bending forward, I untied my left shoe and pulled the lace through the eyelets. I grabbed the aglet at one end of the lace and pushed it up against the end of the tape.

  Nothing.

  Push. Push again. Push again.

  Nothing.

  Despair leaked into my formerly almost-perky attitude. The perkiness must have come from the unrealistic expectation that formulating a plan was as good as having it come to fruition. Sometimes I hated real life.

  Push. Push-at-this-freaking-strong-tape! Move!

  Nothing.

  I took a deep breath, trying to stop the tears, trying to keep on trying to get free. It wasn’t easy. I couldn’t think of any other way to get loose, so I had to go on trying. Because the only other choice was to sit in the corner and wait to die. And that wasn’t a true choice, not really.

  Push. Push. Push.

  Time passed.

  Slowly.

  The room heated up. Yesterday’s humidity lingered on. The sunlight shifted around, slanting now from the left instead of the right. There wasn’t a breath of air. Sweat stuck to my fingers, rolled down my face, pooled in places I didn’t want to think about. At least my status of dehydration meant I didn’t have any full-bladder issues.

  Push. Push. Push.

  I rested. Maybe slept a little.

  Push. Push . . .

  And then the tape moved. Just a teensy bit, but it moved.

  I sucked in a breath. Maybe I’d imagined it. Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe . . .

  Holding that breath, I lifted my wrists to see. I hadn’t imagined it. I’d actually, finally, made the end of this insanely strong tape move a little.

  I would have cheered, but a sudden urgency overcame me. The guy could be coming back even now. Just because he’d been gone a long time didn’t mean he wouldn’t come back. If he came back now, right before I escaped . . . if he found me . . .

  No. That wouldn’t happen. I wouldn’t let it happen.

  Fighting panic, I jabbed at the end of the tape.

  Just a little more, a little more, there!

  I’d pulled off an inch of tape. Hallelujah! I rolled the shoelace aglet up inside the sticky stuff, used my hot, swollen fingers to tie the other end of lace through an eyelet of the shoe, stretched my leg out, and pulled.

  The ripping sound of the tape unfurling was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

  I kept rolling the unstuck tape into a larger and larger sticky ball, kept using the leverage of my leg to pull off more tape, rolling, pulling, rolling, pulling. . . . Free!

  Of their own volition, my hands moved apart as far as they could go, as if they wanted nothing to do with each other. A hiccuping sob bubbled up out of me. Silly old hands. You’d have thought they’d have gotten used to each other, tied together like that for so long.

  How long, in fact, had it been? I had no idea.

  The urgency came back with a vengeance. I untied the one end of the shoelace and relaced it through the shoe. I yanked at the big ball of tape, but couldn’t get the other end free of the sticky mess. Cursing, I was forced to leave the tape attached to the lace, and tied a bad and very lumpy knot.

  I scrambled to my feet and ran across the small room. Hand there, foot there, and I was balancing on the bottom of the window frame. Hand up, foot up, hand up higher into a cobwebby darkness, foot up on the window frame’s top, other foot beside it.

  Gingerly, I stood up straight, doing my best not to look down. I didn’t think I was afraid of heights, but I’d never been standing on a board not even an inch wide with my head at least ten feet off the ground before, either.

  I poked my head over the top of the wall. Please, let there be a way out. Please . . .

  The darkness on the other side was deep. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t an unlocked door through which I could escape. All I had to do was figure out a way to get over the wall and drop down on the other side without getting stuck in the ceiling or breaking a leg on the way down.

  I stood there, my legs starting to quiver, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Was that a shelf down there? Maybe it would hold me. Maybe . . .

  The sound of gravel crunching changed everything.

  Without thought, I jumped high and shoved myself into the small space at the top of the wall. I didn’t fit, didn’t fit, had to fit, had to get through and out and away before he got here, had to go out, and then my head and shoulders were through and—

  Voices. Footsteps. Car doors opening and closing.

  I grabbed the top of the wall, pulled, couldn’t get my big fat butt through the gap, wiggled, squirmed, pulled the rest of me over to the other side, slithered down the wall, hung on as my feet scrabbled for the shelf.

  Where was it? I had to find it couldn’t risk landing on it had to run had to get away had to—

  A hand clamped around my ankle.

  “NO!” I yelled, screamed, shrieked. I kicked, I kicked again, I was not going without a fight, he’d have to kill me in order to kill me he’d have to—

  “Ms. Hamilton,” said a male voice, “this is Detective Inwood. You can come down. Don’t worry. You’re safe now. It’s okay.”

  But I was frozen in place. I couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t even nod my head. Strong hands encircled me, helped me down, away out of that barn, and into the sunlight of early evening.

  Evening. I’d been in that barn a full day.

  “You’re shivering,” Detective Devereaux said. “Let me get you a blanket.” Two police cars were in the driveway, one unmarked vehicle and one patrol car with someone, I couldn’t make out who, sitting in the backseat. Devereaux sat me in the unmarked and brought me a fuzzy blanket. I saw real concern in his eyes.

  I tried to thank him, but it came out as a froggy croak.

  “What was that?” the detective asked. “Your voice is pretty hoarse. Bet you’re dry as a bone after spending, what, almost twenty-four hours in that barn. I’m so sorry we didn’t get to you sooner.” He looked over his shoulder. “Deputy, get the lady some water, will you?”

  A uniformed officer, whom I recognized as Deputy Wolverson, ran over with a water bottle. He cracked the top off the bottle, and held it out to me.

  Water. I stared at it. At him. My mouth moved, but nothing came out.

  “Go on,” Detective Devereaux said. “It’s all yours. There’s more, if you want.”

  I did my best to smile at the deputy, then took the bottle and drank greedily, slugging it all down, not wasting a single precious drop. Nothing had ever tasted so good. The detectives let me drink, then asked if I needed an ambulance. I shook my head. All I needed was water and, after a gallon or so of that, a hot shower and whatever dinner Kristen wanted to cook for me.

  “You sure?” Devereaux asked. “We can have one here in no time.”

  I shook my head again and drank water until I couldn’t drink any more. When I lowered the bottle, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and envisioned dinner. Prime rib or whitefish, that was the question.

  “Okay, then,” Devereaux said. “What was that you were saying before?”

  “. . . Thanks. Just . . . thanks.”

  He studied me. “You know, we were listening to you all along.”

  Either my time in the barn had done something to my hearing or I hadn’t gotten the memo about you-know-where freezing over. I looked at him. He didn’t appear to be playing a practical joke on me. “It didn’t seem like it,” I said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  I finished off the water bottle and he handed me a full one. When I’d poured it down my throat, I said, “If that was an apology, it wasn’t a very good one.”

  “How about if I say I’m sorry you were locked in a barn all night?”

  I shook my head.

  He looked around. “Hey, Woody! She wants me to apologize for you being such a jerk.”

  Detective Inwood came ove
r. “Ms. Hamilton, I’m deeply sorry.”

  I eyed him. “For what?”

  Inwood sighed. “Ms. Hamilton, we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. Please accept my apologies for not seeming to take you seriously. But we were, and it was your tip about the quad that got us looking in the right place.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Apology accepted. And I’m sorry, too. I should have had more patience and I really shouldn’t have lost my temper yesterday.”

  The detectives nodded, and, for the first time, we were friends. But . . . “How did you know I was out here?”

  They exchanged a glance I couldn’t interpret at all. “You can thank your cat,” Inwood said. “He was howling and making such a racket this morning that your neighbor, Louisa Axford, came to see what the problem was. When you weren’t there, she used the key she said you gave her”—he looked at me with his eyebrows raised and I nodded—“to get in. She was worried you might have been sick and went in to check. That’s when she saw the note you’d written. The one that said you’d expected to be back by dark yesterday. Good idea, leaving that.”

  Bless you, Mom, I thought. You were right all along and I will forever do whatever you say without question.

  “The note also said where you were and what you were doing,” Devereaux said. “We’ve been searching for you for some time. Nice to find you all in one piece.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly, and I told him how much I appreciated their efforts, but . . . “Who’s in the backseat?” I gestured to the other vehicle.

  “Oh, yeah.” Detective Devereaux smiled. “That is a gentleman who was found driving down this road. After a short chase he obligingly stopped. Since the only place the road leads is this house, what do you bet we’ll find his fingerprints all over this barn and that nice quad parked inside?”

  “A quad with an ORV license issued to one Kyle Sutton.” Inwood raised his eyebrows. “And I’m willing to bet that Mr. Sutton here owns the exact type of rifle that was used to murder Stan Larabee. What do you think, Don?”

  What I thought was that it was over, and that I wasn’t surprised at the ending. So it had been Kyle Sutton. He was the one who put me in the barn. Afterward, he’d probably left for his shift at the restaurant. Some of those growling noises in my dreams had probably been his car returning.