by Ann B. Ross
“I know,” Coleman said, nodding sympathetically, “but could you or Latisha identify them?”
I shook my head, knowing that the hooded, rain-streaked figures we’d seen had been effectively disguised.
“Here’s something else,” Coleman went on. “I’ll put out a Be-on-the-Lookout for black Suburbans first thing tomorrow. We’ll stop every one of ’em, check the occupants, and run the license plates. Can’t make any arrests, but it’ll narrow the field and maybe give us a line on who it is.”
“That’s good,” Mr. Pickens said, nodding, “and I’ll go out at first light tomorrow and drive through all the parking lots of hotels and motels—they’ve got to be staying somewhere. I’ll take down the plate numbers of every black Suburban I see and get them to you to run.”
“I can help with that,” Sam said. “We can divide up the B&Bs in town and the motels out along the interstate.”
“That’ll work,” Coleman said. “Count me in.”
“Me, too,” Lloyd said.
“Good deal,” Mr. Pickens said with his usual confidence. “By this time tomorrow we should know who we’re dealing with.”
“Lots of tourists in town this time of year,” Binkie said, slightly dampening my surge of hope, “but it’s worth a try.”
“Only thing we can do, honey,” Coleman said, patting her knee. “At this point, anyway.”
Mr. Pickens stood, nodded toward the hall door, and said to Sam and Coleman, “I’ve got a county map in the study, and a list of tourist accommodations. Let’s plot our rounds so we can check as many parking lots as we can before guests start getting up.”
As the three men and Lloyd went across the hall to the study, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes in gratitude for capable and willing friends. Then nearly jumped out of my skin as Latisha threw herself back against the sofa and howled at the top of her voice, “Oh, no-o! I forgot my pocketbook!”
Chapter 46
“Latisha!” Lillian sprang across the room, took Latisha by the arm, and said, “Hush that up! What you mean yellin’ like that? You wake up them babies an’ scare everybody to death. What’s wrong with you?”
“But, but, Granny, I left my pocketbook at Mr. Sam’s house. Miss Lady’s house, too. An’ I need it!” Tears flooded down Latisha’s face as she sobbed and gasped for breath.
“We goin’ back over there tomorrow. You can get it then.”
“No, Granny,” Latisha said, shaking her head, “that won’t do. I need it now.”
“Well,” Lillian said, firmly, “it’ll have to do, ’cause I’m too tired to be drivin’ all over creation tonight. We goin’ home an’ you goin’ straight to bed.”
Latisha put her head in her lap and sobbed piteously, pleading with Lillian to take her back to our house. But Lillian’s face was set in stone, and I had no doubt that her surgically altered foot was bothering her as well. She was of no mind to limp out to the car and make an unnecessary trip just to retrieve a little red plastic pocketbook.
“I’ll take her,” I said, getting to my feet. “Besides, I need to move around a little. Sam will be awhile, I’m sure. So I’ll run Latisha over to the house and we’ll be back before he’s through. You sit down and rest, Lillian, and let me do this.”
Lillian tried to discourage me, and I had to put up with a chorus of “Let me,” and “I’ll do it” from Binkie and Hazel Marie. But I’d had my fill of sitting around waiting for the men to decide who would cruise the parking lots of the Holiday Inn, the Quality Inn, the Motel 6, and Stewart’s Rooms for Rent.
“Come on, Latisha,” I said, taking her hand. “We’ll take Mr. Sam’s car and be back in a few minutes. You remember where you left your pocketbook?”
“Yes, ma’am, I think I do.” Latisha sniffed wetly and wiped her face with her arm. “And, Granny, I promise I won’t never forget it again.”
“They Lord,” Lillian said with a roll of her eyes, as she gave in and sank onto a chair. “I sure do thank you, Miss Julia, an, Latisha, you better thank her, too.”
“I will,” Latisha said with another loud sniff, “jus’ as soon as I get my pocketbook.”
Glancing in through the study door, I saw the men bent over the desk, intently studying a county map, marking the locations of hotels, motels, and inns, and deciding who would go where. I dangled my key chain, which also held Sam’s electronic key, so he would know I was leaving, and mouthed, “I’ll be back.”
Night, helped by the cloud cover, had fallen by the time we walked out onto the porch. And James was still sitting on guard, his empty plate beside his chair.
“Y’all goin’ home already?” he asked, blinking alertly, but I thought he’d been dozing.
“We’ll be right back,” I told him, as Latisha and I carefully maneuvered the steps to the walk.
Sam’s car was bigger than mine, so I had to adjust the seat before starting the engine. Looking back at Latisha in the backseat, she seemed twice as far away as when she was in my car.
“Will you go in with me?” she asked, sounding small and uncertain.
“Yes, of course.”
“Good, ’cause I don’t like goin’ in a dark house by myself.”
“I don’t, either. But we’ll switch on the lights as soon as we get there.”
“Uh-huh, ’cept we got to get in ’fore we can switch ’em on.”
I smiled at her quickness. “We’ll just have to watch out for each other. Here we are,” I said as I pulled into our drive and parked behind my car. I turned off the engine, unbuckled my seat belt, then watched as the headlights went off, wondering why in the world we hadn’t left a few lights on, the yard lights especially. The night was as black as pitch.
Holding hands, we stumbled to the back door, which took an eternity to unlock, doing it by feel rather than by sight. Reaching inside as soon as it opened, I felt for the switches on the wall, flooding the kitchen with light.
Latisha edged past me as I turned the deadbolt on the door. She dashed across the room, yelling, “There it is! Right where I left it!”
And, sure enough, there the little red purse hung by its shoulder strap from the back of the chair, right where she’d left it. And right where she’d also left her new shell design, piles of mostly broken shells, and Hazel Marie’s hot-glue gun.
Latisha slipped the strap over her head and one arm, then sat down and unsnapped the clasp. She began rummaging through the fully packed pocketbook, checking, I supposed, that all was as it should be. Although who would’ve disturbed anything with all of us away for the past few hours, I didn’t know.
Noticing the blinking light on the answering machine, I punched the button to hear the message. “Julia!” LuAnne’s voice sounded so stricken that it unnerved me. “I have to talk to you. Call me! Please call me as soon as you get home. This is just awful!”
Fearful, as I’d been so many times before, that some tragic event had occurred, I turned to Latisha. “Honey, I’m going to run up to the bedroom and return this call.” As well as to use the bathroom, which I didn’t mention. “We’ll be ready to go back in just a few minutes.”
She nodded, busily pulling out a few things from her pocketbook, making sure everything was there. Making my way upstairs, turning on a few lights as I went, I felt my nerves thrumming away at the distress I’d heard in LuAnne’s voice. What could’ve happened? What had she done?
After relieving myself—the most urgent calling—I dialed LuAnne’s number from the phone beside our bed.
“LuAnne? It’s Julia, what—”
“Oh, Julia, thank goodness you’re home. I just needed to talk to somebody, because I can’t take this anymore. Nothing’s working right. I can’t find an apartment that I like or can afford. And I’m all packed up with nowhere to go, and Leonard just goes on about his business like I don’t even exist! And now I’m having second thoughts, becaus
e you know, in spite of everything, I do love him.”
I knew no such thing. But, as I listened to her begin to cry, I did know that I’d had enough of listening, commiserating, and sympathizing—none of which had done any good. Her cries for help had always drawn me in, while she’d done nothing to help herself. Duped again, I thought, as I recalled the fright I’d felt at the distress in her voice. My shoulder felt permanently damp from all the times she’d cried on it, and all of a sudden, I’d had enough.
“Get hold of yourself, LuAnne!” I stormed. “I am not going to listen to you moan and groan about Leonard another minute. Either live with him or get rid of him—I don’t care which—but I’ve had enough of it. And another thing—”
A long, piercing shriek from downstairs ripped through the house, sending a sudden shock through my system. Latisha! I slammed the phone down and ran, nearly breaking my neck on the dim stairs.
Chapter 47
My heart banged against my chest as I missed a step and slid halfway down the stairs, then scrambled to my feet and ran through the downstairs hall toward the kitchen whence screams and banging and crashing noises emanated.
Yelling for Latisha, I dashed into the room, nearly tripping on an overturned chair. Regaining my balance, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Latisha, her arms flailing away, hung by a red strap held by a hairy-legged man in Bermuda shorts who was swinging her around, scattering shells, glue gun, salt and pepper shakers, a Dawn dish detergent bottle, and various kitchen utensils around the room.
“Put her down!” I screamed, running toward the man. “What’re you doing? Turn her loose!”
I grabbed Latisha by the waist as another revolution brought her within reach, and before I knew it, I, too, was swung off my feet. Crashing into the peninsula counter, I lost my grip on her and so did he. Latisha slid across the floor, curling up beside the refrigerator. Breathing hard, the man turned his attention to me. As I scrambled for anything to fend him off, all I could see was the dark, determined look in his eyes as he raised a fist with a gold-ringed finger.
Rob, I thought, and wondered where the other two were—but not for long. I dropped to the floor just in time to avoid a blow to the head.
“Run, Latisha, run!” I yelled, scooting to the other side of the peninsula.
Expecting Rob to be on me, I hoisted myself to my feet only to see him leaning over Latisha, tugging at her.
“Get away from me!” she yelled, kicking wildly at him. “Help, help, Miss Lady! Don’t let him have it!”
But that’s exactly what I intended to do—if I could find something to let him have it with. Coffeepot! There it was, a glass coffeepot on the counter, half full, cold as yesterday’s, but with a handgrip for convenient pouring—or swinging.
Snatching it up, I headed for Rob, who now had Latisha cornered next to her little shell-strewn table. Still screaming and kicking at him, she scooted under the table. He dropped to his knees and crawled in after her.
Raising the coffeepot, I braced myself, getting ready to brain him as soon as his head poked out. Then another, deeper scream overrode Latisha’s, and Rob backed out so fast that he almost knocked me over.
Screaming and high stepping, he danced around, scrubbing at his face. “Get it off! Get it off!”
Leaning over, he brushed frantically at his naked legs, and I saw my chance. Drawing the glass pot way back to work up momentum, I swung hard and caught him on the side of the head—cold coffee sloshing over him and the refrigerator. A dazed look swept over his face as his eyes rolled back in his head. His legs slowly giving way, he crumpled to the floor.
“Come on, Latisha! Run!” I yelled, reaching for her.
She came crawling out, her red pocketbook dangling from the strap across her shoulders, and a gun pointed at Rob.
“Good Lord!” I gasped. “Where’d you get that!”
“From Miss Hazel Marie,” Latisha said.
Glue gun—of course! With the aid of a coffeepot, Rob had been hot waxed into submission.
Knowing there were two others somewhere, I grabbed Latisha’s hand and pulled her toward the door. She screeched as the glue gun’s cord slowed her until it popped out of the receptacle. At the same time, my foot touched something that skittered toward Latisha, and she, being closer to the floor, scooped it up without missing a step.
I almost missed one, though, as I slid on shattered glass from the window on the door. Rob had just broken in with Latisha sitting right there and me in the bathroom—the nerve of him!
Seeing the car keys on the floor, I swept them up and ran, dragging Latisha with me and throwing her into the front seat of the car with no thought of seat belts or backseat safety.
Ramming the key into the ignition and the gear into reverse, I stepped on the gas. The car spurted backward onto the street at nine miles an hour, helpfully engaging the door locks.
“Are you all right?” I screamed at Latisha, my nerves twanging as my eyes switched back and forth between the rearview mirror and the windshield. Two others on the loose. Got to move! Got to get to Mr. Pickens and Coleman.
“Yes’m, I guess,” she said, sniffing. “At least I got my pocketbook, but I’m hopin’ you won’t tell Granny on me.”
Giving her a quick glance as I took a corner a little too fast, I asked, “For what? You were wonderful, Latisha. Nobody could’ve done better.”
“Well, yes’m, I coulda, ’cause Granny tole me not to never leave the glue gun plugged in. An’ looks like I did.”
The urge to laugh surged up so unexpectedly that I had to grip the steering wheel to keep it down. I might never have stopped if I’d given in to it.
“Well, this one time, Latisha, I’m glad you did. We might never have fought him off if you hadn’t hot-glued him.”
But they surely weren’t done with us. Where were the other two? As we sped through a residential area, getting closer to safety, I became aware of a peculiar beeping sound.
“What’s that noise?” I asked, glancing at the dashboard for a warning light.
“That man’s smartphone,” Latisha said, holding up a black rectangular object that was not only beeping its head off, but blinking off and on like crazy. “Look like somebody callin’ him.”
“Well, don’t answer it.” Not knowing a smartphone from a dumb one, I didn’t like the sound or the look of it.
Whirling the car into the Pickenses’ drive so fast that I took out part of a forsythia bush on my way, I had a notion to grab the black box and throw it as far as I could sling it. Who knew what it was? Did bombs beep and blink?
Before I could do anything, though, Latisha was out of the car and running for the porch, the box beeping and blinking in her hand and the glue gun’s electrical cord trailing behind her. I sprang out after her, yelling for help.
James jumped up, his eyes wide and the shotgun at port arms. “What’s goin’ on? You folks all right?”
“Stay alert, James!” I didn’t stop, just dashed inside where help awaited. “They may be following us.”
“Oh, Jesus,” he said and snapped to attention at the head of the steps.
—
“Looks like part of a tracking system,” Mr. Pickens said, turning the little boxlike device over in his hand. “It’s not a cell phone, that’s for sure. I’d say it’s a scanner of some kind, probably operating on radio frequency identification or RFID.” Which didn’t mean one thing to me, but it was obviously operating on something because it was still blinking and beeping up a storm.
Coleman was on the phone, calling in the cavalry from the sheriff’s office. “Yeah, on Polk Street. Home invasion, child endangerment, assault on a female—two females—attempted robbery, and that’s for starters. And spread out, there’re two more of ’em somewhere, maybe in a black Suburban.”
Everybody who’d come for dinner had also come running to the study, when we, wi
ld-eyed and frantic, burst in. Between us, Latisha and I told what had happened, gasping out the details of our close-quarters encounter with Rob.
Sam kept rubbing my arm and saying, “Julia, Julia,” and Hazel Marie wrung her hands, while Binkie and Lillian searched Latisha for signs of injury.
Coleman hung up, saying, “A car’s there now, and more on the way.” He frowned at the madly working device, still in Mr. Pickens’s hand. “Whatta you think?”
“Well, it’s operating on a signal from something that enabled them to track us not only from the beach but from one house to another, that’s for sure. Only thing is, we don’t know where the signal’s coming from.”
“Got to be close,” Sam said. “Somewhere around here from the looks and sound of it.”
“James may need backup,” Coleman said, reaching for his service weapon under his shirttail and heading toward the porch. “An empty shotgun’s not gonna cut it.”
My nerves were still on edge throughout all of this. In fact, as relieved as I was to have given the slip to Rob, it now seemed that worse things were in store. Strange people after us and strange devices tracking us—this we knew. What we didn’t know was why.
Looking around the room, I saw anxiety or puzzlement on one face after another except Latisha’s. Gazing up at Lillian, she asked in a pitiful little voice, “Granny, I sure could use some more of that ’naner puddin’.”
“I could, too. Come on, baby girl, let’s go to the kitchen an’ get some.” Lillian took her hand and they walked out, crossing the hall, going through the living room and the dining room, and on into the kitchen.
Mr. Pickens, still examining the device in his hand, suddenly said, “Sam, look at this. It’s slowing down. Still going strong, but not as fast or as loud as it was.”
Both Sam and Mr. Pickens stood watching the black device, then they looked at each other. “Lillian!” Mr. Pickens yelled as he left the device with Sam and ran toward the kitchen. “Take Latisha out in the yard. Take her out to the garage!”
