by J A Whiting
Olivia,
The Munich dealer responded and did indeed meet with Martin that week. Martin had photographs of a recent collectible purchase that he made in the States and wanted the dealer to give his opinion about the piece’s authenticity. The dealer said he told Martin that the item was a forgery, an excellent one, but in his opinion it was not authentic from what he could tell from the photos. Give me a call when you can.
Paula
As Olivia reached for her phone, it started to vibrate. She lifted it from her pocket and looked at the phone’s screen to see who was texting her. It was from Rodney Hannigan: can you meet me at my beach house?
Olivia texted a return message: whats going on?
found something you need to see it’s important i need to leave soon can you come now? Hannigan responded.
Olivia answered: i’m at the store be there in a few minutes
Hannigan’s discovery and its urgency started Olivia’s heart beating hard against her chest. What could he have found? Will it answer our questions? Will the police be able to use it? Olivia put her phone on the desk, shut down her laptop and shoved it into her backpack. She closed the store windows, grabbed her keys, flung her backpack over her shoulder, and locked the door of the shop. She hurried down the sidewalk.
On the desk inside the shop, her cell phone rang with the incoming call from Andrew.
***
Andersen’s driveway was illuminated by lights strategically placed above the garages. There was no car parked in view. The house looked dark from the street side, so Olivia stepped along the walkway that she and Brad had used to reach the decks. There were lights on in the big room off the lower level deck.
Olivia climbed the stairs and knocked on the glass door.
“Come in,” a man’s voice called. “It’s open.”
Olivia put her hand on the knob and turned it. As she stepped into the room, the hairs on her arms stood up and a fleeting sensation of alarm shot through her body, but she dismissed the feelings as anticipation of what Hannigan had to show her. She stepped into the living room and closed the door.
Alexei walked around the corner from the hall and stood before her.
The surprise of seeing Alexei kept her silent, but her eyes narrowed and her head tilted slightly to the side, questioning his appearance in Andersen’s house.
“Hello, Olivia,” Alexei said.
“Alexei,” she said. Her throat felt tight.
“Come in.” He gestured to the sofa.
“Where’s Mr. Hannigan?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm. She stood where she was.
“He isn’t coming.”
“He texted me,” Olivia said even though she knew she had been tricked. Her muscles tensed and her heart was booming.
Alexei shook his head. “I texted you. Mr. Hannigan seems to have misplaced his phone.”
He moved further into the room. Olivia did not want him to get any closer. She whirled and grabbed the doorknob. She yanked on it. The door would not open. She stopped trying to force it and just stood there facing the outside, her back to Alexei.
“Mr. Andersen installed all the latest electronics in the house.” Alexei’s voice was bored. “You just push a button on the control panel and all the doors and windows lock.”
Olivia took a deep breath and slowly turned to face Alexei.
“What do you want?” Her voice sounded thin.
“Please sit down. Relax,” he said. He took a seat in a club chair that was next to the sofas. He slouched a bit and leaned back.
Olivia sat down on one of the sofas at the end furthest from Alexei. He didn’t look at her. His gaze was out the huge windows where the darkness now shrouded the view. They sat in silence until Olivia’s anger began to override her fear.
“What’s this about? Because I didn’t go out with you again?” she demanded. Alexei did not respond. He didn’t even look at her.
Olivia swallowed. “You were in my house that night weren’t you? The night I found you in my backyard?”
Alexei raised his eyes. “Yes.” The word floated on a long exhale of his breath.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
Alexei’s face was like a stone. He turned his gaze back to the windows. “If I did, you wouldn’t be sitting here.”
Olivia started to unzip her backpack. Alexei sprang like a cat and ripped it from her hands.
“Stand up,” he ordered. She slowly stood.
He patted her down. “You should have stayed out if it,” he muttered. He pushed her backwards so she sat down hard on the sofa. He threw her backpack and it landed on the opposite matching sofa. He went and stood by the big windows with his back to Olivia.
Olivia’s mind raced. She looked about the room for a possible weapon. She tried to take slow deep breaths so she could assess the situation more calmly. She didn’t know what Alexei was up to but she wanted to be ready for anything.
Olivia heard the garage door opening below her. Alexei straightened and turned around. Footsteps could be heard on the steps leading from the garages to the main floor of the house. There was more than one person coming.
A burly man with long greasy hair came into the living room from the hallway. No one spoke and no one looked friendly. Dmitri Siderov entered next. He glared at Olivia with cold, deep set beady eyes. Olivia thought he looked like a reptile.
“Ms. Miller, how nice of you to drop by,” he sneered.
“I wish I could say that it was nice to see you again. But I can’t. Because its not.” Olivia tried to keep her voice even. Alexei shot her a look of warning.
“Ms. Miller. So confident and bold.” Siderov smiled. “But that’s a challenge that we like.” His smile vanished. His eyes flashed steel. “It’s amazing how quickly confidence can disappear.”
He turned to Alexei. “You managed to get her here. Good for you.” His voice was mocking. Alexei remained quiet.
“What’s this about?” Olivia tried to steady her voice.
Some noise in the hall caused Olivia to turn her head. Another man came into the living room. He had a deep scar that ran from his left temple to the jaw line. He was pushing a woman whose eyes were fixed downward. She was dressed in jeans and a cotton shirt. Her light brown shoulder length hair was disheveled and partially hid her face. She had flip flops on her feet. She looked exhausted, maybe high. The man snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor. She sat down clutching her knees, not looking up.
Siderov sat down on the opposite sofa and rested his elbow on the arm of the couch. “Thank you for placing that ad in the newspaper, Miss Miller. It validated our suspicions.” A false smile spread across his mouth.
Olivia’s head tilted. “Did you lose a necklace, Mr. Siderov?” she said, her voice laced with sarcasm.
Siderov’s faced clouded and the fake smile disappeared. “You have become somewhat of a gnat, Ms. Miller. Prying into other people’s business. Imagining things that are fiction. Making claims that are untrue.” He brought his hands together with the fingers tapping. “Just telling you to stop would be useless, as it seems that you are the persistent type.” His jaw muscles twitched as he clenched his teeth. “Unfortunately.” He paused. “For you.” He flicked a piece of lint from his pants.
Olivia wished she had texted Brad or Joe about where she was going. She realized that no one knew where she was.
“And where is my other object?” Siderov demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Olivia said.
Siderov let out a deep sigh. “As I thought.”
“I texted my friends that I was coming here,” Olivia lied. “They know.”
Siderov chuckled, but there was no mirth in it. “No matter. We’re leaving,” Siderov said and rose from the couch.
“I’m not going with you,” Olivia said, glaring at him and sitting straighter. She knew it was useless to defy them but she was going to fight whatever they had planned.
Siderov waved hi
s hand dismissively. “Prepare her,” he said to the greasy-haired man.
The man pulled a syringe from his jacket pocket and walked towards Olivia. Olivia’s heart sank. She jumped up.
“Stay still,” he ordered. He reached out for her arm, but she jerked it back. She took two steps away from him. The man with the scar moved across the room from behind to head Olivia off. As the man with the syringe advanced, Olivia stepped onto the coffee table and jumped to the side of the room where only Alexei stood. The woman on the floor lifted her head slightly to watch what was happening. There were four men in the room, but Olivia didn’t care. As they advanced on her, she kicked over the sofa side table and picked up a heavy glass vase. Olivia threw it at the greasy-haired man. She noticed a pen on the glass side table and grabbed for it. The scar-faced guy grabbed her other arm and Olivia reached up and slashed at his face with the pen. The attack caused him to lose his grip on her. In a flash, the greasy-haired man moved closer and punched Olivia in the face.
Explosions went off in her head. She staggered and went down. The man sat on top of her and jabbed the syringe into her arm. Olivia lay crumpled with her cheek resting against the beautiful hardwood floor. Her vision started to blur and despite trying to get up, her muscles would not respond.
She shifted her eyes to the woman who was sitting on the floor on the other side of the room. The woman’s head was tilted down but her eyes were raised and they met Olivia’s. Olivia felt like she was floating. She tried to focus. The woman sitting on the floor looked familiar. While Olivia wondered where she had seen her before, something on the middle shelf of the bookcase next to the woman caught Olivia’s attention. She forced her eyes to stay open.
On the shelf was a red camera bag with gold piping stitched around the front flap. A last name was embroidered in gold thread on the flap. Olivia knew what it said without being able to clearly see the words, because she recognized the bag. She knew who it belonged to. It was Aggie’s. Aggie had been in this room.
Olivia’s vision went black and her head slumped on the floor.
Chapter 24
Olivia’s skin felt damp and cold. Her mind was engulfed in a black fog. It was as if she was swimming up from a murky swamp. Her eyelids moved like heavy drapes slowly opening. They slammed shut again from the piercing bright lights that cut into her optic nerve like a knife. When she tried to move her arm it was like one hundred pound weights were attached to it. He mouth was dry and her lips felt numb. She brought her hand up to her face and pressed her fingers against her eyelids and temples, trying to rub out the stabbing, pulsating pain. She opened her lids just a slit to gradually accustom her eyes to the white brightness of the room.
She lay on a hard, smooth, cold concrete floor. Flicking her eyes around the bare room without moving her head, she observed two plain cement walls. She saw no one. She listened. She heard nothing. She rolled over on her back and turned her gaze away from the two banks of cold, fluorescent lights embedded in the high ceiling. Rolling over made her aware of how sluggishly her muscles were responding. From her position on her back, she could see a third wall just like the other two. The fourth was a wall of bars. A cell.
Olivia focused her attention on listening for any sounds that might provide more clues as to where she was and who was around. A faint metallic humming was all she could hear. Olivia rolled to her side and tried to push herself into a sitting position. The ten foot by ten foot room spun around her and she pressed her palms against the floor to steady herself. Her stomach lurched and she swallowed hard. Forcing herself to take some deep breaths, she waited until her equilibrium was reestablished and the room stopped spinning.
She raised her eyes and crawled over to the edge of the cell to examine what was beyond the bars. A larger empty room with more walls of concrete and fluorescent lights was outside of her holding cell. Olivia thought it looked like the inside of a bunker or a huge basement. There were no windows and she got the feeling that she was underground. There were three drains in the larger room’s floor. There were splotches of reddish, rusty stains here and there on the walls and leading to the drains. Some of the stains were darker than the others. Olivia’s stomach turned to ice. She knew what the stains were. Blood. Her throat tightened. Her eyes searched the room for an escape. All she saw were the straight, high concrete walls. Convinced that she must be being watched, she scanned the walls and ceilings for a video device, but saw none. I know they’re watching me even if I can’t see a camera.
A heavy moan from outside of Olivia’s cell caused adrenaline to shoot through her body and she froze in place on the floor of her cell, straining to locate the source of the sound. Several seconds passed and Olivia heard a scuffing noise coming from outside her cell to her right…then silence. Olivia waited. A cough. Olivia leaned her head against the bars and looked to her right, but could see nothing. Another cough. A woman.
“Is someone there?” Olivia whispered. Olivia waited. No one responded. She tried again, a little louder this time.
“Is someone out there?”
A weak, raspy voice answered, “Yeah.” The person coughed again. “I’m here.”
“Are you in a cell?” Olivia asked softly.
“Yes.” The person had a fit of racking coughs.
“Are you okay?” Olivia said. She heard shallow, wheezing breaths, but no one replied.
Before Olivia could speak again, the loud clang of metal against metal filled the air. She jumped. She heard heavy footsteps coming closer. Olivia scooted back away from the bars.
The greasy-haired man who had injected her at Andersen’s house stepped to the front of her cell. His face was expressionless as he stared at Olivia. He held a butcher knife in his hand, the sharp edges glinting under the bright lights. The corners of his mouth moved up slightly, twitching into a faint grin, and then his face went blank again. He stared at her for a full minute.
“Bitch,” he said.
He turned away slowly and lumbered to what Olivia assumed was the next cell. Olivia did not edge forward, just stayed sitting in the middle of her lockup. She couldn’t see the man. Olivia guessed that the man was staring at the woman on the other side of the wall as he had done with her, but a horrible sound like a war yell came out of the brute as he roared and banged the knife on the bars of the next cell like a crazed banshee. The woman prisoner let loose with a high-pitched anguished wail. Olivia covered her ears with her hands, but she could still hear the screaming. When it stopped, the man lumbered away. Then the metal on metal sound. The rooms were quiet, except for the wretched sobbing of the woman in the next hold.
What the hell? Olivia’s hands were shaking. She hugged her knees and rested her forehead against them. How am I going to get out this? Think. Think.
I’m probably not going to get out. Her eyes filled with tears. Joe. Brad. At least you’re both safe. Olivia wiped her eyes on the hem of her shirt. She lifted her head and scanned her cell and what she could see of the room beyond. She set her jaw as rage bubbled up in her chest. She stood. I won’t make it easy for these bastards.
Chapter 25
Joe added chopped carrots to the salad and tossed all of the ingredients to mix them. He had banana bread baking in the oven and it filled the room with a delicious odor. There was a knock on his kitchen door and Joe looked up to see Brad standing behind the screen.
“Come in, Brad,” Joe called.
Brad entered the kitchen.
“Hey,” Joe said. “I just got in a little while ago. I stayed late working on the Wells house. I’m starving. You probably ate already, but would you like to stay and have a second supper?” Joe asked. “Got plenty.”
“I need to get back to the store. I have an event tonight. It sure smells good though,” Brad said.
“I can make up a plate for you…you can eat it later,” Joe offered. “What’s your event?”
“I have a three piece bluegrass band playing at the bookstore tonight. I’m doing a music theme this week,” Brad
said. “Joe, have you heard from Liv today? I’ve been trying to reach her for the past few hours but she doesn’t answer her phone. But neither do you, for that matter. I tried your phone a couple times too. I got worried and decided to come over.”
“Oh, sorry. I must have left my phone in the truck,” Joe told him. “I haven’t heard from Liv, though. Not sure what she’s up to.”
“She usually answers my texts right away. I stopped by her house before I came here, but no one answered the doorbell,” Brad said. “So I came to see if you knew where she was.”
“I haven’t seen her today. Maybe she’s at the antique store?” Joe said.
“That’s going to be my next stop.”
Joe’s face creased with worry. “Why wouldn’t she answer her cell?”
“Maybe she forgot to charge it is all,” Brad said. “No need for concern.”
But Joe was worried and it was written all over his expression. He took the bread out of the oven and set it on the stovetop to cool. “I’m going with you.” He covered the salad with wrap and turned the crock pot down. “Let’s go,” he said, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
Brad looked in the shop window. The ‘Closed’ sign showed through the glass and no one answered the door when they knocked. “I don’t see anyone. The lights are off in the back room.”
“Where could she be? She’s always either here or with one of us,” Joe said.
“You have a key?” Brad asked.
Joe fumbled through his key ring looking for the right one. Aggie had given him a key to the shop in case of emergency.
“Did Liv have a friend planning to visit?” Brad asked.
“Her good friend isn’t coming until August.”
They exchanged glances.
