by Gayle Roper
“So are we,” Mr. Mowery said, and Mrs. Mowery, Mr. Melchior, and Carl all nodded.
“What you don’t know, Chloe, is that James was career Army,” Mrs. Mowery said. “He was in Korea, fresh out of West Point, and then he served two tours in Vietnam. He retired as a lieutenant colonel.” She smiled at him with pride. “He knows what he’s doing. And so do I. I’ve had every self-defense course known to man, and I’m a better shot than James.”
“Besides,” Mr. Melchior said, “they can’t kill all of us before we get them.”
Chloe frowned, not sure whether that was logic or wishful thinking.
All eyes turned to my sister as Tori strode into the garage. Her gaze went straight to Luke, who shook his head in gentle rebuke.
“Tori, Tori, Tori. What am I going to do with you?” he asked. “I’d just been feeling pretty good because you were safe.”
“And I’d been feeling terrible because you and my sister weren’t.”
I glanced at a thunderstruck Suzy. How did Tori’s presence complicate things? Another person to kill? Another body to dispose of? I felt the tape give a bit at my wrists and did my best to ignore the lactic acid gathering in my arm muscles from the quick, repetitious sawing motion. One thing I was determined about: if Eddie Mancini was going to try and kill me, I would make it as difficult and as look-me-in-the-eye-Eddie-you’re-killing-your-kid’s-mother as I could.
“Go stand by your sister,” Suzy directed Tori.
Tori smiled at her and walked to Luke. She slid an arm around his waist and turned defiantly to Suzy. Luke put an arm about Tori’s shoulders and gave her a little squeeze.
Suzy glared at them, furious and frustrated. Prisoners were supposed to cower, to do as you wanted, not defy you. Her team might have the guns, but Luke’s team had the upper hand.
“So, four people to kill and dispose of,” Luke said, still as cool as if we were at tea with the Queen. “I figure with two, it was to have been a lovers’ quarrel. Three would have made a nice lovers’ triangle. But four gets complicated, doesn’t it?”
“I probably should tell you that the police are due momentarily,” Tori said.
It was her in the limo that followed us! “Where’s Carl?” I called.
Everyone ignored me, and Drew looked pained as he eyed me over his shoulder.
“The idea,” he growled to me out of the corner of his mouth, “is not to call attention to ourselves. Remember?”
“Nobody paid any attention anyway,” I muttered back. “Not vivid enough.”
He gave a totally inappropriate bark of laughter that he tried to turn into a cough. Now everyone did turn to us, and it wasn’t the least bit difficult to appear scared.
Suzy snorted at us in disgust and turned back to Tori. “How did you get here?” She turned to the van driver. “How did she get here, Jay?”
Jay, Taser still in hand, looked most unsettled.
“Know that limo behind you?” Tori smiled sweetly at Jay.
Jay flushed, as did Bud, turning a strange color in the yellowish overhead light. “But there were kids in it,” he whined. “I saw them.”
Kids? Not my kid! Not Jenna! Oh, God, that terrifies me!
“Not only were there several of us inside, but we talked to the cops the whole way here. We gave them the address of this place. They’re on their way.”
“I’m out of here.” Eddie turned on his heel and made for the door.
The sound of the gun firing in the close confines of the garage was ear shattering.
23
WHEN THE GUNSHOT RANG OUT, Chloe thought she’d puke right there in the parking lot. A wave of cold washed over her, immediately followed by a flash of heat.
“Mom!” She raced toward the door, Jenna on her heels screaming for her dad, but the Old Guys Rescue Team beat them to it.
Oh, God, please, please let Mom be okay! Please! I’ll be a missionary! I’ll go to hot places without water and cold places without summer! I’ll do whatever You want!
I dropped to my knees, my ears ringing. Drew grabbed me and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me under him to protect me as glass from a light fixture rained down.
“You will stay where you are, Suzy. You too, Mancini.” The voice was strong and as cold as an alpine winter. “Next time I won’t shoot a light.”
I glanced up and saw Luke with a gun in his fist.
“You were supposed to search him!” Suzy yelled at Eddie.
I shook my head at her foolish recrimination and at a strange new noise. I thought I could hear babies wailing.
“I did!” Eddie protested weakly, staring in disbelief at a cut on his arm where a piece of the ceiling light had sliced him. Blood bubbled up, and he turned as white as Princess after a bath.
“He can’t stand blood,” I yelled. “Remember?”
Drew leaped to his feet and rushed Eddie, grabbing the gun hanging limply in his hand.
The outside door flew open, and in rushed James, Carl, Tinksie, and Andrew, armed to the teeth and blinking in the dimness. James leveled his gun at Luke.
“Not him,” I called as I climbed to my feet. “Her.” I pointed to Suzy.
James changed targets. “On your knees!”
Suzy dropped.
The babies continued to wail.
Chloe and Jenna rushed in, yelling, “Mom!” and “Dad!” at the top of their lungs. They looked terrified.
“Over here, Chlo.” I held out my arms, and my daughter flew into them.
Jenna skidded to a stop when she saw her father holding a gun on Eddie. “Daddy?”
“Hey, baby.” He smiled sweetly at her and held out an arm, but didn’t lower his weapon. She slid up to him for a quick embrace.
“Come over here with us, Jenna,” I called to her. “Your dad’s a bit preoccupied.”
She made her way toward me, glancing back at Drew as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. Her dad, the tough guy. I put an arm around her and the other around Chloe. Duct tape hung from my wrists, and I was getting blood from my many nicks and cuts on both of the girls. I did not care.
I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye, turned, and saw Jay, clearly intent on escape, sidling unobtrusively back into the shadows at the front end of the big truck by which we stood. Chloe followed my gaze. She pressed something into my hand, and I saw a stun gun in metallic pink.
“Push here.” She pointed.
I took the weapon and slipped around the rear of the big truck. Not intent on stealth but speed, I reached the shadowy front fender just as Jay back-stepped to the same spot. He started to turn to run when I placed the gun against his side.
“Oh no, you don’t,” I said. “Get back there. And no funny business. I owe you.”
Jay glanced back, spun, and swung his Taser at me, ready to fire again.
I shoved my pink stun gun into his side and pushed the button.
Jay screamed and collapsed.
“Libby!” It was Drew, sounding frantic.
“I’m fine.” I decided I very much liked having him worried about me.
“She’s behind the truck,” Chloe explained. “One of the guys was trying to escape.”
Tori raced over, and together she and I dragged the limp Jay back to the open area, dropping him in front of Bud.
I held my stun gun out for him to see. “More than one shot here.”
He tried to look brazen. “You wouldn’t have the nerve.”
I flicked my eyes at Jay. Bud’s followed, and wisely he didn’t move.
Tori disappeared for a second, then reappeared with Jay’s Taser in hand. “I think she does have the nerve,” she told Bud. “And if she doesn’t, I certainly do.”
Bud’s head turned from one of us to the other. His shoulders drooped.
“Chloe and Jenna,” I said. “There’s duct tape in the back of the white van.”
“Got it,” Chloe said, and the two raced outside.
Babies continued to cry, and I finally placed the no
ise as coming from the office. “Are there babies in there? Little babies?” The cries were the high-pitched, wavery cries of newborns or nearly newborns with lungs adjusting to air.
“Suzy!” Tori was clearly shocked, not an expression I saw on her face often. “You have your babies here? What? You wanted to introduce them early to their mother, the killer?”
Suzy ignored her and stared at Luke, who was clearly the one in charge. She should have looked subdued, kneeling on the floor with her hands behind her head, but she didn’t. Her spine was straight and the light of hatred still flashed in her eyes. “Let me go. Let me get Vickie and Joey and go.”
“We should let you go because you have kids?” Luke almost laughed at the idea. “We’re probably doing them a favor keeping them from being raised by you.”
“Let me go or I tell the cops Tori’s a thief.” Spite spilled from her mouth like venom.
My shoebox! But how did Suzy know?
Tori flinched and frowned.
“My earrings.” Suzy glared at Tori.
Her earrings? What was she talking about?
“You think I didn’t know?” Suzy railed. “I might be sloppy, but I’m not dumb.”
That last is debatable, I thought as I looked at the remnants of her foolish and criminal caper.
“Remember that ruby and diamond ring you wore one night in the spring? It was my first time back at the casino since Joe died. Ron thought it would help me forget because I do love gambling. Stupid of him to think anything would make me forget Joe.”
“Where is Ron, by the way?” Tori asked, probably to distract Suzy from her accusations.
Suzy shrugged. “Probably at the poker table. There’s a high-stakes game going.”
“So he didn’t plan to help you kill us?”
“Do you see him?”
So if I had things correct, Suzy wanted to murder Luke and Tori in revenge for her brother’s suicide, and she’d brought along Eddie, Bud, and Jay to help her out. Her husband wisely opted out, whether from scruples or ignorance, I didn’t know. And she’d brought her newborns along for the great event.
“As I was saying, that night we met up with the Udells, and Mrs. Udell kept crying because she’d lost a family heirloom, a ruby and diamond ring, amazingly like the one you’d been wearing. And there’s the rope of pearls with the diamond clasp you wore a month or two ago, just like the one Bette Warrington had worn two nights earlier when they had dinner with us. And how about that diamond brooch you were wearing the other night? I don’t know who you took it from yet, but I’ll find out.”
Tori flushed and wouldn’t look my way. All I could think was the verse that said, “You may be sure that your sin will find you out.”
“Oh, Suzy.” Luke gave a slow, sad shake of his head. “Didn’t you know that Mrs. Udell’s ring was returned to her? Someone found it and turned it in to the casino. Bette Warrington was wearing her necklace when I saw her at the SeaSide a week or so ago at a charity dinner. She was telling the story of how honest the chambermaid was who found it behind the bed and turned it in. I think the woman got a reward of a couple of hundred dollars.”
I wondered how much she had gotten from Luke to be the conduit to recovery.
Suzy looked frazzled at the edges. The hate was turning to panic. “My earrings! Eddie saw her wearing them Tuesday night!”
“He must be mistaken.” Luke shot a glance at the still-sweating Eddie, who was leaning against a support pillar to hold himself and his bleeding arm erect. “I have it on the best authority that they will be found under the sofa cushion in the suite where you and Ron are staying.”
Tori stared at Luke, her heart swelling with love for this impossible man. Had he truly returned all the things she’d taken? She still couldn’t bring herself to say stolen. It was too nasty a word, too low an action. Except she had stolen from Libby. There was no getting around that one. Or Eddie had at her request.
And she had trusted Eddie! The thought made her furious. People didn’t put one over on her. She flimflammed them!
She glared at Eddie, but he was so pathetic it wasn’t worth the energy. She glowered at Suzy instead. “Did you send me all those puzzles?”
“What puzzles?” Tinksie demanded.
“Ah, puzzles,” Luke said. “Yes, tell me about the puzzles.”
“They gave you quite a scare, didn’t they?” Suzy asked. In spite of being cornered by a mob of old guys, teenagers, a professor, and a garbage picker, Suzy was remarkably snide. Tori had to admire her brazenness.
“ARE YOU NEXT. YOU ARE OVERDUE. PAY UP OR ELSE. LAST WARNING. Yeah, they scared me, especially when Mick turned up dead with the ARE YOU NEXT one on his chest.”
“And you thought Luke sent them, didn’t you?” Suzy sneered.
Tori looked at Luke with his slick Hollywood appearance, not one hair out of place in spite of all that had happened. “For a bit, though I couldn’t understand,” she admitted softly. “But I chose to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
And it had paid off big-time. Luke might have his own weird set of standards and skate awfully close to the edge of the law, but he was a man of principle. Granted, he set the principles, but he stuck to them. It was okay to take money at a ridiculous rate of interest because the people who borrowed from him were foolish to get entangled in the first place. But if they were going to borrow anyway, it might as well be from him. If he could make good money in the repayments, his good luck, their bad. But it was now quite clear that he didn’t take from those who didn’t deserve it. That was where she had failed.
I think Dad will really like him, Tori thought, vaguely aware of the screech of tires outside. Apparently the cavalry had finally arrived.
24
IT WAS HOURS BEFORE THE POLICE released us. They were very gracious, treating all of us with courtesy, especially the girls, who kept having weepy spells and clingy moments now that the trauma was over. Somewhere the officers found Chloe and Jenna a couple of handheld electronic games that hypnotized them between bouts of tears and what-ifs. They also sent out for Chinese for us as they talked to us and took our statements. When we all piled back into the limo, we were too weary to talk during the short trip back to our lane.
I sat next to Drew, pressed tight to his side. He held my bandaged hand in his. Chloe leaned on me, her head on my shoulder. She held my other hand. On Drew’s other side, Jenna leaned into him, her arms wrapped around his like a vine around a porch support.
Cozy. Strengthening. Wonderful. The stuff of dreams. So close to my fantasy of family that I was torn with the fear that the closeness would vanish like a smoke ring when we opened the doors and real life blew in.
Tinksie, James, and Andrew sat with their heads resting on the back of the seat, their mouths slightly open as they napped. I was filled with affection for them and their undaunted zest for life. From the Kimmel Center to bearding bad guys, they lived fully.
I want to do the same, Lord. Since we made it through today and I may see old age after all, I want to do the same.
The police had taken Suzy away as the babies cried and she screamed that they couldn’t separate her and her children.
“Should have thought of that sooner,” an unsympathetic cop muttered.
The door hadn’t even shut behind her when it flew open again to two women from child protective services. They gathered up the crying babies and took them off. Poor little kids. I imagined that after everything got sorted out, they’d be returned to their father, but what did it do to you growing up with your mom in jail?
“At least they’re too young to remember the agony of the arrest and trial,” I muttered to my sister.
She nodded. “All they’ll have to deal with is a parent in prison. But, hey, look at how well we coped.”
I studied my sister and was amazed anew at her. I had found Madge, who introduced me to Jesus, and I’d had the Lord’s help over the past thirteen years. Tori had faced it all on her own. I found myself wondering ho
w much longer her own bootstraps would continue to support her. Let me be there for her when they break, Lord.
Tori wasn’t with us as we drove home. While I struggled to put one foot in front of the other as I walked to the limo, Tori in her rich green pantsuit that made her hazel eyes deep green, her makeup still flawless in spite of her brush with death, almost danced as she followed Luke to the car he had rented.
“See you Friday sometime,” she called with a careless wave. She looked lit from within. Incandescent. In love. Vivid.
Oh well.
I studied Luke as he watched her and saw what Suzy had seen: a man thoroughly smitten with a woman.
“I used to worry that he couldn’t love me,” Tori had confessed to me when we found ourselves alone in the ladies’ room at police headquarters. “He’s so confident and secure, why would he need me?”
Then she grinned and kept grinning as she washed her hands and floated out of the room, because this evening she had learned with the rest of us in the garage something she hadn’t understood before. Luke saw her flaws and still loved her. And it appeared my selfish, willful sister loved him enough to put her life at risk for him. And maybe a little bit for me. Unbelievable.
Not that that gave her the automatic right to take the big bedroom and to attempt to woo my child from me, but it was a step in my coming to terms with who she was and accepting her that way. Much as I disliked admitting it to myself, I could see that I was as critical and judgmental of her as Mom and Nan were of me. After the grace God had shed on me, the least I could do was share some of it with Tori—in attitude until she allowed me to share in words.
I had decided I liked Luke back in the garage when he confessed to saving Tori’s bacon by returning the jewelry she had stolen. I understood that she hadn’t filched the pieces out of malice or greed but for the thrill of getting away with something. So did Luke. He was going to make an interesting brother-in-law.
I had to admit that I didn’t like his profession, especially the loan shark part. Maybe the people who came to him were foolish and desperate, but that didn’t mean he should take advantage of their situations and addictions. But only Jesus could redirect him, just as only Jesus could change Tori.
