“Maybe they’re making deliveries,” I suggested.
“Uh-uh.” Lily shook her head vehemently. “Just wait.”
We waited. After a few minutes, nothing happened and I had to lean down to rub the backs of my calves, which were now aching a little after standing on my tiptoes. “Here they are,” whispered Lily furiously, her fingers gripping the top of the wall. “They have the dresses and they’re loading them.”
I sprang up, reaching again to see. Lily was right. Two men had several garment bags in their arms, and all of them were white except for a pink bag. Lily gasped and grabbed my arm. “That’s my dress!” she hissed. “They got my dress! It was stored in a pink bag!” As we watched them tossing the dresses through the doors, one of them stuck his head inside the building and I caught the sound of his voice, but lost what he said at being such a distance away. After a moment, a woman exited, pushing the door to the bridal store closed with a slam of her shoulder. The two men shut and locked the van doors and all three of them climbed into the cab.
At the same moment, my phone quietly buzzed in my pocket. I kept one eye on the van as I extracted it, glancing down. Solomon. Whatever it was, it could wait. I hung up.
“They’re getting away,” said Lily. I grabbed her before she could run after them. “We have to stop them!”
“We could get run over. Let them go.”
“Nooo! My dress is in there!”
“We’ll follow them.” My phone vibrated again, and once more, I hung up, returning the phone to my pocket. The van passed us before we jogged to the end of the alleyway, leaving us free to sprint across the road. I beeped my car open and we clambered in.
“Follow that car!” yelled Lily, her voice rising somewhere north of hysterical. “Follow! That! Car!”
“I am! And it’s a van.”
“I know it’s a van!” she screeched, grappling with her seatbelt. It clicked into place and she flopped back in the seat, her breathing heavy. “But haven’t you always wanted to say that?”
I admitted that I did, but the next best thing was being the awesome driver who caught them! With that thought in mind, we shot off after the van, turning left around the block and catching sight of them fleeing toward the end of the street. With no traffic between us, I cooled it on the gas and followed slowly.
“They took a right,” said Lily, as the van turned right.
“I see it.” I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white. Should I speed up and risk being seen? Or slow down and risk losing them? Those questions crossed my mind more than once as we followed the van through several turns until it hit the highway heading out of town. Amongst traffic, I felt calmer. There was less risk of them spotting us, with my car being just one of many. I had to hope they were confident enough in their heist that they weren’t worried about being followed. All the same, I matched my driving to theirs: calm, maintaining my speed just under the limit, carefully obeying every sign and signal. We followed them for several miles, past residential areas that gave way to industrial units and further still.
“Where are they going?” asked Lily, searching the signs as they appeared.
“Beats me. There isn’t much out here,” I recalled, this route being so far off my usual stomping ground. “We’re heading the wrong way for the city and we missed the turn for the freeway.”
“Maybe they’re meeting someone else to transfer their bounty.”
“They’re not pirates,” I said as the sign for the docks flashed past and the van, several cars ahead, indicated it was taking the turn. “Actually, maybe they are.”
“Huh?”
“We’re going to the docks.”
“I don’t think fisherman are wearing white this season,” Lily quipped and I had to laugh.
“Or tiaras. Anyway, this is where the tankers come into port. There’re lots of storage containers there. Maybe they’re planning on storing the dresses in one. They're big enough. Who would ever search for them there?”
“Not I,” Lily replied. “But then, I’m not a gangster. Also, how lucky is it that you turn up for surveillance and Perfect Brides gets hit?”
"You wanted it to happen!"
"I changed my mind!"
The van’s headlights disappeared as it turned after heading through the docks. Now that there were only the two of us entering the shipping yard, I held back, advancing slowly. We passed through the gates and braked, searching for the van. The yard was vast. Row after row of containers, some packed three and four deep, the alleys between them, dark recesses.
“There,” said Lily, pointing and I caught a flash of headlight.
“We can’t keep driving,” I told her, “It’s too suspicious. We’ll follow on foot. We won’t be seen that way.”
I turned the car in a half circle, and parked it between two other vehicles, in the semi-full lot, figuring it was less conspicuous there. One of the cars had a flat tire so I assumed it must’ve been there a while, and the other probably belonged to a dockworker. Even better, we were pointed toward the exit in case we had to make a fast getaway. As I climbed out, glad I'd switched my heels for sneakers, Lily reached into her purse, extracting two flashlights and handing one to me.
“No dog bone?”
“I gave it to Barney. He was such a good boy, rescuing you.”
“Aww.”
“And you didn't think that bone would come in useful! Now, let’s rescue my dress.”
It took us twenty minutes of searching before we found the van. By the time we got there, it was empty. After a few minutes, spent observing it from the darkness of an alleyway, we came to the conclusion that no one was returning. “Watch my back,” I told Lily.
“Why?”
“I’m going to see if the dresses are still in the van.”
“And if they are?” she pressed.
“I’m going to call the cops.”
“I was hoping you would get my dress first, then we could call the cops.”
“Just make a diversion if you hear anyone coming.”
“Okay.”
Before Lily asked me how, I jogged across to the van and peeked into the passenger window. Nothing was in the cab. No people and nothing to suggest who they were. Keeping my shoulder to the van, I jogged around the side to the back and tested the handle. It opened easily, the door swinging backwards. I took one look, eased the door closed, and paused when I heard a voice. Someone was approaching. I waited tortuous seconds before I heard a footfall on the far side of the van. Quick as a flash, I moved around to the other side of the van, and crouching low, ran back to Lily, sliding back into the shadows as Lily’s flashlight flickered off. Two men stepped out from the other side of the van. One lit a cigarette and said something in another language and the other laughed.
I took Lily’s hand and drew her away.
“What did you see?” she whispered as we stopped at the other end of the container.
“Nothing. It was empty!”
“Where’s my dress?”
I waved my hand in a large arc. “My guess? In one of these containers.”
“How do we know which one? There’re hundreds.”
“Maybe thousands,” I agreed, realizing my estimate wasn’t helping matters albeit too late. “It can’t be far. They wouldn’t have parked too far away. If we circle around, we’ll find it, I’m sure.” I looked up at the container. It was a dark, rusted red, the same as the one opposite. Above us, I thought the container was dark blue, but it could have been because of the dim lighting. It hardly mattered, since the containers were unidentifiable. “We need to find a number or something,” I told Lily, “otherwise I can’t tell the cops where to look.”
“The doors have numbers painted on them. I noticed when we were looking for the van.”
“That’s great, Lily!”
Lily beamed. “Not just a pretty face, but an amazing body, and an exceptional mind!”
“Funny, I was going to say the same about me, but I was wa
iting for the right moment.”
We probably walked back on ourselves a couple of times before we caught the sound of voices and cautiously moved towards them, ending up in the alleyway, opposite an open container. We hung back, and the position of the moon enabled us to see them, but they couldn’t see us. I didn’t want to test that theory so I insisted we only peek around the back of a container. There were five of them: one woman and four men. I recognized one of the men as the man I heard talking by the van, and the woman from outside Perfect Brides, but I still couldn’t make out their accents, not to mention identify their language. Occasionally, one of them said an English word, but mostly, their conversation was lost on me. Beyond them, in the container, were dozens of boxes and garment bags, the long line of them receding into the dark. Several more garment bags were tossed on the floor outside, not yet loaded. Another container lay open, but it was cast in shadows and I couldn’t see inside.
“Let’s go,” said one of them clearly after some kind of discussion in which they nodded and gesticulated while pointing at the container. “Ten minutes, okay?” he added, resuming his own language again. Whatever it was, they all followed him, leaving the container wide open.
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know.”
“My dress has to be one of those!” Lily said, pointing to the heap on the floor. “Let’s get it. Come on. We’ll be gone before they even know.”
“We can’t. It’s too risky.”
“I know, but we need the container number,” Lily pointed out, “and we can’t see it with the doors open.”
“Okay,” I conceded, my heart thumping. “Okay, I’ll get the container number. You grab your dress and then we run faster than we’ve ever run before straight back to my car. Deal?”
“Deal.”
We sprinted to the container. I rounded the door, searching for the number. It wasn’t there! I lurched around, racing to the side, and around the door. There it was. Letter J, number 341. I repeated the code as I stepped out. Lily had a garment bag in her hand, but as she turned to me, her face fell. “I could only find your bridesmaid dress,” she said, looking past me. “Mine is still in there.”
“We should go. They said ten minutes.”
“We have seven more minutes,” Lily said, “it has to be just inside. There it is! Lexi, there it is! I see it. It’s the only pink bag. Here, put this on!” She thrust the bag into my arms as she raced past, reaching for the pink garment bag.
“What?”
“Put it on,” she insisted, wrenching open the bag and pulling out her dress. “I am not losing these again!” She stepped inside her dress and pulled it on over her jeans and sweater. “Put it on, Lex. You won’t drop it if you’re wearing it and it keeps your hands free.”
That seemed like a good idea to me, but later I would claim not to know what was going through my mind at that moment. I pulled on the dress, getting it up to my hips when I heard feet on the tarmac, and footfalls that were heading towards us. Then one loud voice, followed by another. Across the small clearing, came another set of footsteps, but their echoing made it impossible to hear from which route they came. If we crossed the clearing now, we risked being seen by whoever was behind us, or running into whomever was ahead of us. There was only one thing to do. I grabbed Lily’s hand and pulled her into the container, pushing her into a crouch behind a bulging rack of garment bags. I put my fingers to my lips, trying not to jump as a faux fur stole landed on my lap. I was tempted to wrap it around my neck for warmth, but instead, I flicked it onto the floor.
“Maybe we should have called the police after all,” said Lily.
“That’s what I’m doing,” I hissed back, my hand shaking as I set up a text message. J341 docks, I typed, then 911. I typed Maddox’s name and hit “send,” just as the garment rail was yanked forcibly over, and all the dresses landed in a fluffy mess in front of us. Right then, a beam of light flashed into my eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
I’ve been through a lot more scary things than looking down the barrel of a gun. I probably would have been more afraid if I had actually seen the barrel of the gun; but it was a small model, and not quite as terrifying as being threatened by a sawn-off shotgun. I fully intended to rethink my fear response later, assuming I lived through this.
“Get out. Very slowly,” said the man in an unidentifiable, but heavy accent. He held a flashlight in one hand, the gun in his other and used the flashlight to motion us forwards. His face was hard and angular, his chin covered in several days’ stubble. A knit cap was pulled over his hair, covering it completely and he had a black windbreaker zipped right up to his chin. “Get out of container and put your hands up.”
I darted a glance at Lily to see how she was taking it as we rose, shuffling past the stolen dresses in our own finery. Instead of appearing frightened, she looked furious. Her chest was rising and falling quickly and her cheeks were pink. Her hands were perched defiantly on her hips and her lips pursed. “If you—” she began, addressing the gang spread before us. Of the four men and one woman, each had a gun trained on one or the other of us, and their faces were inscrutable, which didn’t bode well. Lily continued, “—If any of you even think about shooting this dress, I will kill you. If even a drop of blood gets on it, I will not only kill you, and very slowly, but I will haunt you. Forever. I will move the furniture in your homes, I will pinch you, I will throw crockery at your heads, and you will never ever get away from me if you hurt my dress!” she screamed.
“She’ll do that if you hurt me too!” I yelled after her because righteous indignation seemed perfectly timed for this moment, and what else was I supposed to do? “And I’ll help her haunt you! We will scare the living shit out of you forever because that’s what besties do!”
The gunman looked over his shoulders at his gang and made a slow, circular movement around his ear. How rude!
“Don’t make me come over there and smack you!” yelled Lily, “I am not crazy. I’m getting married and bloodstains just don’t cut it when you’re walking down the aisle. You stole my dress and I’m stealing it back. I knew I should have insisted on taking it home,” she said as an aside to me. “Next time, make sure I take it home.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I assured her, turning to the gang. “I’m her bridesmaid. Bullet holes are not good accessories on bridesmaids!”
“You two are nuts,” said the gunman. “Shut up or I’ll shoot you. Her first, then you because she is crazy one! Though maybe you crazy too!”
“I am not!”
“You’re really trying my patience,” yelled Lily. “I might just go Bridezilla on you!”
“Enough!” yelled the gunman, seemingly at a loss as to whether to shoot us or keep yelling.
“Shoot them and throw them in the bay,” ordered the woman. Her voice was heavily accented also, but her English was pretty good. I suspected there would be a few bridal store owners who could recognize her in a lineup. “We don’t have the time to waste for this.”
“I’m not shooting them,” said the man. “I steal stuff. I don’t kill people. Plus… you heard her.” He waved his gun at Lily, but she didn’t flinch.
The woman sighed. “The crazy girl cannot haunt you. She will feed the fishes.”
“Actually I’m going to get married. And we don’t have time for this either. Lexi, let’s go.” We started to walk away. I don’t know what made Lily think that would work, or why I should follow, but the important thing was: we tried. For a moment, the gang members were too stunned to do anything, then a bullet exploded against a nearby shipping container and the shouting resumed. “Stay where you are!” yelled the man.
“Take off your dresses!” yelled another male voice.
“Shoot them!” screamed the woman.
“Make up your minds!” yelled Lily.
“Maybe we should take off the dresses,” I suggested softly. We were frozen to the spot. Too scared to move, too incensed to want to st
and still. Plus, one of the gang really wanted to shoot us, and I suspected the others weren’t too far behind. “It’s hard to run and hide while we’re wearing these.”
Lily looked appalled at hearing that. “No way! I paid for this dress. It comes with me.”
“We need to go,” said another man, his gun pointed at my chest while he spoke to the woman, who was clearly the leader. She replied in their language and he shrugged. “Let’s forget the dresses. We have enough and the ship is departing soon. If we don’t get the container loaded, they’ll leave without us.”
Again, the woman spoke rapidly. Again, he simply shrugged, turning to the others who also gave disinterested shrugs. I had the awful feeling something was decided and it wasn’t to release us.
“You,” said the woman, advancing closer. “Get in a container.”
“Are you kidding me?” said Lily. “We just got out of one.”
“You’re not coming with us,” the woman explained. “You get in empty container. I can’t sell dresses that smell of American corpses.” She fired a shot into the ground a few inches from Lily’s feet and Lily shuffled backwards.
“I’m a little bit Irish,” I said, holding my thumb and forefinger up. The woman turned the gun on me and I edged backwards too. It was bad enough that we were backed into a corner, but as I glanced over my shoulder, and saw the dark depths of the empty container, my stomach flipped. So what if the container wasn’t scheduled for loading on this particular ship? It was going somewhere eventually. Or nowhere. I didn’t fancy the chances of anyone looking for us. All Maddox had was the number of the container holding the dresses. A quick glance at this container showed me the numbers weren’t sequential. We’d be dead before they found us.
“We have to run,” I murmured to Lily. “We cannot get into that container. If we do, we’re toast.”
Lily hitched up her skirts and nodded. “What’s the plan?”
“You go left, I’ll go right.”
She straightened up and fixed me with an incredulous look. “That’s it? You couldn’t come up with something better?” The woman yelled at us, interrupting our quiet, but tense conversation, and we edged back a little more, stalling for more time while we still could.
Weapons of Mass Distraction (Lexi Graves Mysteries) Page 25
