Smith leaned closer to Kyle, his gun leading his descent. “Your brother?”
“Yes, my brother, Richard.”Did you people bother to search him?
No response.
“Did you people bother to search him?”
More silence.
“I bet that you people really didn’t even question him . . . Did you?” said Kyle while he intensely eyed Smith’s gun.
Oh, thanks a heap, Kyle — or words to that effect flashed in my mind. True to form, no matter what kind of trouble Kyle found himself in, he always had to involve me. Using an old ploy of his, long practiced on our unwary mother when we were kids, he deflected the interest away from himself by making me the fall guy.
“I checked the guy upstairs; he didn’t have it on him,” interrupted Williams.
With a hard swipe with the back of his hand to Kyle’s face, Smith again pointed the gun a few inches away from Kyle’s head.
“But did you know where to look?” blurted Bo at Williams.
“What do you mean?” asked Smith, whose interest in Kyle suddenly waned along with mine.
“I think you know what I mean,” said Bo. “Where the sun never shines. But then, again, you may never have had the good luck to spend time in prison and play jailhouse hide and seek.”
“And why would the Sheriff’s brother hide something in a place that would be so, shall we say, inaccessible? If he isn’t a colleague of yours and doesn’t know what the item in question is, why would he do that?” asked Smith as he slowly approached Bo.
“Who said that he wasn’t a colleague of mine?” Bo snapped back. Her swelling face winced as she spoke.
“Really? Why do you tell me this now, Agent Boswell?” Smith asked, tilting his head to the side and eyeing Bo with suspicion.
“You people have made your point,” said Bo. “I want no more innocent people hurt. If there is a chance that Agent MacKenzie has whatever it is that you are seeking—”
Me? Agent MacKenzie! The alien phrase made my mind spin. What was Bo playing at? — First it was Kyle who was throwing me to the wolves, and within a blink of the eye, Bo is doing the same. What was going on? Did everyone have it in for me? Had someone declared today as Dump On Richard Day?
“ — I can’t. I won’t put lives in danger by keeping quiet any longer.”
Smith tapped his foot; he appeared unsure. He moved his gun away from Bo’s head. Morgana was the next to speak, or should I say, to cry out. “That’s a lie! Richard is no agent, Serena. You know that. My husband is just a retired high school teacher. He has nothing to do with whatever these people are looking for.”
“I went to school with him, Mrs. MacKenzie. I know that he applied to the FBI. Why did he come here — why?”
“Because, I asked him to. We were to have a romantic get-away after our meeting.”
“No, no, Richard is on assignment. You know, as well as I do, that Richard hates to go to romantic places. What made him change his mind? Remember, it was Richard who was the first to come to Foley’s aid — just a coincidence? And why was Richard so willing to move Foley’s body to town in his car? And it was he who chased Dolan into the cellar, was that just another coincidence?”
Morgana, almost beside herself, yelled out, “Serena, what are you saying? Why are you doing this to Richard?”
“It doesn’t matter,” shouted Smith, revealing his annoyance with the failure of his search. “We don’t have time for this. Check the dead school teacher again.”
Smith’s slip of the tongue about my demise sent Morgana screaming and firing off a stream of angry expletives that would make a pirate blush. Her commentary was brought to an abrupt halt when one of the new arrivals holding a shotgun slammed her hard in the shoulder with the butt of his weapon.
“I’ll go, but it will be a waste of time,” said Williams as he moved to the staircase.
“No, not you,” sternly said Smith. “I want you to stay and organize things down here.” The Smith turned, instead, to Morgana’s assailant. “You go and take this silver haired bitch with you to help.“
Smith uncuffed Bo from Babak and then re-cuffed Arezoo’s husband to Hograve. On her feet again, Bo stretched her arms and felt her bruised face. Her escort, however, wasting no time in following his orders, struck her in the hollow of her back to quicken her pace toward the stairs.
With unwanted guests coming up the stairs, I made a quick and quiet retreat back to Mrs. Prosper’s room. I was surprised to find the old gal sprawled on the blood-covered bed in a similar position that I initially found her.
“Mrs. Prosper, stay exactly where you are,” I said. “We’re having company.”
The old woman gave me a quick thumbs up and became motionless again on the bed. Taking my cue from Mrs. Prosper, I also assumed my opossum position on the gory spot on the floor where Williams and Dolan saw me last. I placed my gun under the bed, to keep it out of sight of onlookers, but close enough for my speedy retrieval of it.
Facing away from the doorway, with my eyes closed, and lying on my stomach, with my ear to the floor, I listened to the ominous footsteps approaching. Lord, how I then wished that I didn’t retire. I would have taken an all day schedule, eight periods of cafeteria duty for life, rather than to be anticipating what I feared would happen next.
The door groaned; wood floor creaked. I felt the boards beneath me ever so slightly rise. Our guests were close.
“Williams did a good job,” said an unfamiliar voice. “Your friends must not have been very cooperative.”
“The old lady was never a threat,” responded Bo, rebuking her shotgun-wielding escort.
I heard a scuffle and I heard Serena fall to the floor, landing with a painful riddled moan. She reached out to me and put her fingers on my neck, and felt my pulse. “He’s dead — ” I wished that I were. Being dead was easy; dying was the part I feared. “What have these bastards done to you?” Bo sighed. Her warm fingers gently went to my blood splotched and matted hair. “Being around me was never good for you.”
“Come on, get to it. Search him,” commanded the stranger.
I never knew until that occasion that fear can give one the ability to accomplish extraordinary physical feats of strength and endurance. You see, I am extremely ticklish. So, when Serena started to explore my limp body, attempting to find a flash drive which I didn’t have, my instinctive response was to curl up, start kicking and laugh hysterically. But I didn’t do any of that — Thank God.
I came close, however. I literally bit my tongue, prayed hard, and hoped to the high heavens that Bo’s curious fingers would stop before my will ran out.
“Don’t massage the body, you pervert,” snapped Bo's watchdog.
“If this guy had the item that you are looking for, Williams would have found it, if he did what I was doing,” Bo barked back.
Another rustling sound, a moan, and then the abrupt impact of Serena’s body landing on me gave me a start. I may have twitched out of reflex. If I did, to my relief, it wasn’t noticed.
“Get his pants off, and prison search him,” ordered the shotgun guy.
I gasped. Was she going to do a full cavity search on me? How could I resist a giggle, a knee jerk, or just several bouts of rapid heavy breathing? The simple answer was — I couldn’t. I knew it, and I hoped that Bo had a memory as good as she had bragged about because she knew it too. If she didn’t remember, Bo and I would be reduced to a couple of lumps of meat on the floor.
“You want me to go up a dead body’s . . . I can’t,” said Bo in a last ditch effort to prevent what was to be the inevitable.
“I don’t care what you go up and down on, honey. Search him. It was your suggestion that he ought to be searched. You must know all about it. Now do it!”
The command may have had certain disparaging implications concerning Bo’s reputation, but for me, our tormentor’s words were more direct and worrisome.
I played as dead as dead could be. She turned me over onto my side so that
she could unbuckle my belt. She was astute enough to have my arm draped over my face which could offer some feeble cover if I had the irresistible need to grin. Bo’s deft fingers flew quickly, which indicated to me that, over the years, she had well mastered the task of undoing men’s belts. But getting the waist button of my jeans unfastened, that was a different story. I had acquired a few extra pounds, since the time she had last relieved me of my trousers. The more her fingertips tried to get the metal disk free from its hole, the more they sent nearly irresistible urges for me to giggle.
I tried to force my mind to other thoughts, and, for what its worth, to lie back and think of England doesn’t work. But I did hear, what I thought was the wind suddenly kicking up against the building. Then there was a loud thud that seemed to come from outside, like something heavy had hit the roof.
“What’s going?” Smith bellowed from below.
“Sounds like wind, may be a tree branch,” was all our shotgun-wielding friend had time to say.
Another thud! This noise was louder and closer than the first, and it came from somewhere in the room. Suddenly, I felt Bo’s presence was gone. From under the bed, I could see Mrs. Prosper on the other side, on the floor.
“You’re on, Doctor!” Prosper cued me from behind the dust bunnies. I sat up and saw Bo struggling with her escort by the doorway. Mrs. Prosper was then kneeling next to the bed. She smiled at me, nodding, and said, “Go to, go to, Doctor. Go to — Tallyho.”
Bo had taken hold of the guy’s gun, and for the moment, she had pinned our assailant against the bedroom wall. Without hesitation, I grabbed my gun from under the bed, clutched my pants to prevent them from falling down, and made straight toward the fighting duo.
“Don’t say a word,” I growled into our captor’s ear, “and let go of that freaking shotgun.” I jammed my weapon into his right temple. “I took out a crazed gunman who threatened to shoot up a school, and I can do the same to you.”
Yes, I admit that I stretched the truth about the crazed gunman, who in fact was just a graduating senior spraying his teachers with a water gun on his last day of classes. But I was ‘in the moment,’ as people say. I was angry, upset, and my adrenaline was up. I used the memory of that incident for the task at hand. The force and conviction of my outlandish threat must have had an impact because our prisoner’s resistance quickly ebbed. To emphasize the earnestness of my request, Bo kneed our friend squarely in the groin. With this final act of persuasion, he let go of the gun and crumbled to the ground.
“Thanks for your help, Old Sport,” Bo said between several deep breaths. “And ah, fix your pants. Our work is not over yet.”
As I buckled myself up, Mrs. Prosper followed up the rear with a large roll of black tape. “Use my Gaffers on him,” the old woman said, triumphantly.
In less than a minute, Bo had hogtied, gagged, and thoroughly padded down our prisoner. Bo even had a quick glance at Mrs. Prosper’s knee, which the old woman banged up when she rolled off the bed to distract our unwanted guest.
“Don’t fret about it, my Dear,” said Mrs. Prosper calmly. “You two have more important things to worry about. By the way, Dr. MacKenzie, did you give Agent Boswell that — ”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, just being reminded of the bandage that I was supposed to give to Bo. I fetched it from my pocket and gave it to her.
Bo promptly ripped the bandage out from its packet and was about to stick it to her scraped up cheek.
“I think that you are to put it on your forehead,” I sheepishly advised, pointing.
“I know how to use a bandage, Old Sport,” countered Bo.
“Dear, do put the bandage on your forehead as Dr. MacKenzie has done,” interceded Mrs. Prosper. And with a knowing and quiet authority in her voice, she added, “Unless, you would like to take the risk of getting shot by friendly fire.”
“What?” responded Bo.
“Listen,” said Mrs. Proper.
We all became still. Our attention turned to the world outside of the room. There was an unmistaken din of murmurings, rustling and commotion emanating from the floor below us.
“As I suspected, the cavalry has arrived,” declared the old woman and then cautioned Bo. “Without your bandage, Serena, you could be mistaken for one of the bad guys.”
Bo put the plastic bandage right in the middle of her forehead and took the pistol from me. “Stay with Mrs. Prosper and watch over our tied up friend,” she said with a mischievous look in her eyes.
“What about Morgana and the others? I have to go with you — ”
“Stay here. Protect Mrs. Prosper. Guard him” — she pointed her gun at our trussed up guest on the floor — “Don’t let him out of your sight. Let the professionals worry about Morgana and the others.” She handed me the shotgun and the few shells that she found on our prisoner. “Use the gun only if you are in trouble. You know most of the bad guys, Richard. Don’t shoot at anyone whom you don’t recognize, or you may shoot one of the good guys.”
Then Bo kissed me on the cheek, wished me luck, dashed out of the room, and disappeared down the hall.
“Are we even sure that help has reached us?” I wondered aloud.
The sudden sound of smashing glass made me flinch; glistening shards sprayed from the broken window into the room. A shushing sound started to come from a smoking canister on the floor a few feet away from me. The billowing cloud of acrid fumes was quickly filling the room.
“Tear gas?” I questioned.
“Smoke, Dr. MacKenzie. It would be best to stand clear of the window, I would think,” said Mrs. Prosper. The old woman wasted no time getting to my side of the room.
I could hear screams and shouts; several shots echoed from below. I peeked down the hall toward the direction of the stairway, but I couldn’t see much. The corridor, too, was filling up thick gray smoke. It was difficult to breath and my eyes became irritated. I ducked back into the room and found Mrs. Prosper was coughing.
“Dr. MacKenzie we must get out of this room and maybe even leave the building.”
“Let’s go then,” I said and finished with a cough. “I think the best chance is to take the back stairs.”
“What about him,” Prosper said, pointing down at our guest fighting for air, bound up and gagged on the floor. “We can’t leave him.”
Or could I? He would, without question, leave me to choke on the smoke.
There are times when one wishes that would be some type of guidebook on what to do in extraordinary circumstances. This was one of those times, and I needed guidance. Do I leave our prisoner bound and hope that he doesn’t suffocate before the “good guys” reach him? Or do I free him and hope the he comes along peaceably? Or do I somehow carry him with us to safety? I instantly ruled out the darker alternative which was to put a bullet in him. I didn’t doubt that he would do it to us if the roles were reversed, but I couldn’t do it — well, not at that moment anyway.
It was difficult to think clearly amid the growing tempest of sound and smoke. We heard disturbing shouts, bangs, crashes of glass and breaking furniture from below. Scraping and thumping noises emanated from the roof above us. The sound of heavy footsteps came from the hallway, and all the while the air was turning gray and making each breath a laborious and painful chore.
Again, I took a quick peek out into the hall, but the smoke was too thick to see much of anything. But the air changed, it burnt the eyes — “Tear gas?” I dashed back into the room.“Do you have a knife or scissor?” I managed to cough out to my elderly companion.
Poor Mrs. Prosper, intuitively knowing my intent, took a hand towel and quickly wrapped a shard of glass with it. “This may do.”
I grabbed the makeshift blade from her and cut free our prisoner's feet from their taped bonds. Then taking him under his arm, I helped him up.
“Go. Get out. Leave.”
My charge wasted no time leaving our company. He ran out into the corridor and disappeared into streaming clouds of smoke.
&
nbsp; “You let him go?” choked Mrs. Prosper.
“Don’t worry, if the good guys are here, they can take care of him. He’ll catch someone’s attention with his hands taped behind his back and gaged.”
Mrs. Prosper nodded, which I initially interpreted as agreement, but she started to double over in a sustained coughing fit.
“We’re getting out of here . . . Now!” I said. Prosper didn’t object.
I grabbed the old woman’s arm and ushered her into the hallway. There I noticed that the smell of the smoke had changed from acrid chemical odor to acrid woodsy one. And something new was in the air — heat.
Behind the billowing curtain of grey, black smoke appeared. Glowing flashes of bright yellow and orange emanated from the direction of the main stairway. I knew that didn’t bode well. My heart skipped a beat. My mind swirled in the maelstrom of speculative calamities. What was happening to Morgana? Was she okay? What about Kyle, Peterson, Bo, and the others, what was happening to them?
The tempest-tossed skiff of my imagination struck against the reality’s rocky shoals when I felt a sharp downward pull on my arm. Mrs. Prosper started to collapse. I let go of the shotgun and held onto my elderly companion with both hands to prevent her from falling to the floor. With my head throbbing, our eyes stinging, and my lungs coughing and gasping for fresh air, the two of us lumbered our way to the back stairway where the smoke seemed less intense.
My ability to judge distance and direction was impaired. Each step that we took became an ordeal. As we travelled down the hallway, we bumped into walls and locked doors. The stairway for our escape seemed to be miles away instead of a few feet. All the while, my elderly companion became more unsteady on her feet and harder for me to hold up. Most disconcerting to me was the fact that Mrs. Proper wasn’t talking. The only sounds she made were long wheezy, gasps, broken by an intermittent coughing spell.
My eyes blurred and burned; my lungs craved for fresh air. Remembering, that the air is always a little better near the floor in a smoke filled room, I wondered if we should drop to the ground. But if we did, then what? Do I drag Mrs. Proper along the floor on my hands and knees in my physical condition? Could I even possibly do that in any condition?
FATED TO THE PURPOSE (Richard and Morgana MacKenzie Mysteries Book 2) Page 18
