Fighting for Anna

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  I pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The thunderous boom of the shotgun exploded against my eardrums as it slammed against my shoulder. The spotlight ping-ponged like a laser around the shed, then fixed on the ceiling. In the echoing silence, Maggie let loose a soprano scream that melded with a tenor oomph and groan outside the car, followed by the thud of a body hitting the ground. Dazed, my ears ringing, I realized I’d dropped the shotgun. I grabbed for it and slammed the butt of the stock to my shoulder, pumping it and jumping to my feet in the rumble seat, yelling like a banshee over the opera around me.

  Maggie quieted, and the groans stopped. The shot had peppered holes through the walls and ceiling, and faint moonlight streamed in—a constellation of sorts. I peered over the edge of the rumble seat. A figure in black writhed, hands clutched to the gut. Short dark hair stuck out of its mask in the back.

  “I’ve got the gun pointed at you,” I said. “Don’t move.”

  The man spat out, “Fuck you.” The groaning resumed.

  “No, thank you.” I kept my eyes on him. “Maggie, do you have anything we can tie him up with?”

  I heard pats as she searched her body.

  “I don’t,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here and go call the cops.” I thought of my phone back in my handbag.

  Maggie slipped as she stood. “Dammit.” She reached into the floorboard and came up with something sheathed in plastic. She shook it.

  While Maggie was otherwise occupied, I hopped out and grabbed the man’s Glock, stuffing it in the back of my waistband. Then I snagged his light from the shed floor. I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving our accoster to follow us. Using my left hand for the flashlight, I went to the door. Baling wire snagged the sleeve of my shirt. I was so happy about it I didn’t even mind the rip. There were three lengths of it holding the door up. I mined the lower two, leaving the door hanging from one strand at the top. I took my makeshift restraints back inside. The man in black swiped at me when I crouched beside him, but his aim was off and his arm fell to the earthen floor without touching me. His breathing was ragged and shallow.

  “Save your strength.” I wrapped wire snuggly around his ankles. Moonlight through the roof glinted off little blond tufts of hobbit hair on his fingers as I closed the wire like a twist tie around his wrists. “Stay put.”

  Maggie had freed herself and the plastic package from the rumble seat. She was standing beside me, watching.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  We ran along the path back to the house, the only sounds our footsteps and our heavy breathing. Maggie dragged behind me, barely able to keep up. When we reached the backyard, the back gate was open. We burst into the house through the door by the kitchen, passing Janis and Woody again. I averted my eyes. Maggie’s breath intake was sharp, and then she moaned. I laid the shotgun on the kitchen table. After a moment, Maggie joined me inside and set her package beside the gun.

  “I’ll get my phone,” she croaked, and took off toward the bedroom.

  I looked back at the table. Where was the handbag I’d left there?

  Maggie squeaked, then I heard a cracking noise, a thump on the floor, and running footsteps coming toward me. Maggie, I thought, and then thought ended and instinct took over. I snatched the shotgun from the table and bolted out the door. I hurdled the side gate and crouched behind Bess. I breathed in and out once to steady myself. There’d been more than one of them. I half stood. The shotgun was pumped, and it had two shells left in it. I put the barrel over the edge of the truck bed. A short person was sidestepping through the door frame in shadows. It looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame. Not now, I told my imagination, but as the figure drew closer, I realized it wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me. It was thick and dark but with something smaller and light colored moving jerkily beside it.

  “Stop right there,” I yelled. I didn’t want to shoot. I hadn’t wanted to the first time tonight. But I would if I had to. The choice between me and a bad guy wasn’t a choice at all.

  The voice that answered exploded in my brain. “Michele!” Annabelle screamed.

  I didn’t understand. Annabelle’s voice came from the figures on the back porch, but how? The how didn’t matter, and the mama tiger in me roared. “Let go of her!” But my command was toothless, and I knew it. I couldn’t shoot now. Even if I was a good enough shot, a shotgun was too imprecise and there was no way I could avoid hitting my daughter. In frustration, I aimed away from them and pulled the trigger anyway, hoping to scare whoever was holding Annabelle into releasing her.

  It didn’t work. A woman’s voice, tight with an edge of desperation, called out to me. “I’m leaving with her. Put your gun down and come out with your hands up where I can see them.”

  I fumbled with the shells in my pocket, loading another to replace the one I’d wasted. “We shot your partner and called 911. It’s over. Let her go before anyone else gets hurt, and you make this worse for yourself.”

  She cackled. “Your friend didn’t make it to her phone. Nice try.”

  Annabelle started to sob. “I’m sorry, Michele.”

  The woman jerked her, hard, and Annabelle’s cries intensified.

  I had no choice. I tossed the shotgun into the open.

  “Good start. Now come on out, hands high.”

  I was on my way, I was going to comply, but I never got the chance. A rifle shot cracked, and the woman crumpled. Annabelle screamed more shrilly than even Maggie had. Out of the darkness, Lumpy appeared, rifle in one hand. He grabbed something from the grass at the woman’s feet and stuffed it in his belt, then snatched Annabelle up. He ran past the lifeless dogs, kicking open the gate, with my precious daughter in his arms. He set her on her feet, and I wrapped her in my arms, squeezing the stuffing out of her.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lumpy,” I called to my ex-Texas Ranger neighbor. I was going to be a little nicer to him from now on.

  But he didn’t seem to hear me. He was back in the yard, bent over the woman in the grass. She screeched as he pulled her arms behind her, not bothering to be gentle. Annabelle sobbed against my shoulder.

  “Shh. It’s going to be all right,” I told her, rocking her side to side, one hand cupping her silken head, the other rubbing in circles on her back. The sound of a car pulling up the driveway chilled me. “Lumpy, someone’s coming,” I shouted.

  “Probably the sheriff. I called ’em on my way,” he grunted, wrestling with his prisoner.

  Sirens wailed, growing closer fast. The car materialized in the moonlight. But it wasn’t the sheriff.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  It was Rashidi John who jumped from his car and ran toward us.

  “It’s okay. He’s a friend,” I shouted at Lumpy.

  Annabelle babbled what she knew of our story to Rashidi, and he hovered over us, apologizing over and over for leaving. He said his sense of unease had grown through the afternoon and into his interview dinner, until he couldn’t stand it. He’d made excuses halfway through and driven like a bat out of hell the whole way back.

  The sheriff himself and my two favorite deputies pulled up less than a minute after Rashidi.

  Lumpy waved to the lawmen. “Over here.” The sheriff and Tank headed straight to him without acknowledging us. Junior peeled off our way, though.

  “Maggie,” I told him. “She’s in the house. Hurt.” I hoped she was only hurt. “And I shot a man who tried to kill us. I tied him up. He’s in a shed on the back of our property.” I described the exact location.

  “Alive?” Junior asked.

  “When we left him, alive and ornery.”

  He nodded. “There’s an ambulance on the way. I’ll call another.” He moved off quickly toward the house, where he conferred with his partner and the sheriff then disappeared inside.

  “Stay with Annabelle?” I asked Rashidi.

  He nodded, and I slipped away, closer to the house, into ear
shot.

  Lumpy was telling his story to the sheriff. “I been keeping a closer eye on things. This house is the last’un out on this road, and I’d seen Ms. Hanson and Maggie drive into town, then a car went by and didn’t come back. I got suspicious and drove down the road. ’Bout that time, I saw Ms. Hanson and Maggie return. Then I found a passenger van, no one in it, on the side of the road. I went home, stewed on it, remembered I’d seen one like it before when it shouldn’t’a been here, and reckoned I’d better check things out here, quiet-like. I walked over, called you on the way. Saw this here woman holding Ms. Hanson’s daughter, and Ms. Hanson out yonder.” He gestured toward where Rashidi and Annabelle were huddled next to Bess. “She made Ms. Hanson throw down her gun, so I shot her in the shoulder.”

  Tank snapped a set of metal handcuffs around the woman’s wrists. She howled in pain, but I didn’t feel sorry for her. More bright lights spun their way up the drive. An ambulance this time. Tank pulled the mask off the woman’s head. Behind me, I heard an enraged Annabelle shout.

  “That’s the woman who fired me from Senator Herrington’s campaign. Mrs. Sloane. What’s she doing here?” Annabelle had run to my side as she yelled, Rashidi keeping pace with her.

  Tank had dragged her to a sitting position, and I got a better look at her. Dark shoulder-length hair mussed by the ski mask, late middle age. My handbag on her shoulder. I recognized her, too, and my fists balled. Lester’s ex-wife. Julie Herrington Sloane, the Lonestar Pipeline heiress. Why on earth would she break into Gidget’s house and hold a gun on Annabelle? And if she did those things, what else had she done? I started toward her, a snarl on my lips, but it died as Maggie wobbled out the door with Junior trailing behind her.

  She weaved the last few steps to me, her hand to her head. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “You’ve probably got a concussion,” Junior said. “I told you not to get up. Come back to the house.”

  Maggie sunk to her knees, then on her haunches. Luckily, her dogs were out of her line of sight. A phone rang, and she groaned, holding up her hand. Her ringing phone was clutched in it. It stopped ringing. Maggie stared at her screen, squinting. “I can’t read it. The letters are squiggly.”

  Annabelle grabbed it and real aloud. “Mom.”

  “Shit. I wanted to talk to her.”

  The phone sang out its voice-mail tone. Junior walked up to Maggie with an ice pack. She pressed it to the back of her head. Then he met the new paramedics at the gate. They took off into the woods carrying spotlights and a stretcher.

  “You want me to play it?” Annabelle asked.

  “Sure.”

  But before she could, another car pulled up out front.

  “It’s Jay!” Annabelle thrust the phone at me. “I was meeting him here.” Which was the answer to the question I hadn’t asked, and the reason for her very bad luck in running into Julie Sloane, I guessed.

  “I’m sorry about tonight,” I said.

  She shot me a brilliant smile as she trotted toward Jay, who was climbing out of his car. “It was scary, but you’re a badass, Michele, and it was kind of cool.” She disappeared into the darkness between the cars, and I heard the sound of Jay’s voice. I smiled, just a little.

  Maggie slumped over with her head in the grass, the ice pack crowning her head. “She doesn’t know the half of it.”

  The paramedics rolled a stretcher toward Julie Sloane. The tall woman who had helped Gidget was one of them. She was focused on her patient and didn’t glance my way. Just as I was about to play Maggie’s mother’s message, her phone rang again.

  “It’s your mother,” I told her.

  Her voice was muffled by the grass. “Put it on speaker.” I sat cross-legged beside her and did. “Hi, Mom,” Maggie mumbled.

  “What’s wrong, darling?” a woman’s voice asked. It was a caring voice, a sweet voice with a little quaver to it. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “I got hit in the head, and I’m a little woozy.” Maggie straightened up to a kneeling position and readjusted her ice.

  “Oh no!”

  “And somebody killed my dogs.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

  “And I just saw a copy of my birth certificate, but your name wasn’t on it.”

  The line went silent. I drew in a deep breath and held it.

  After a few seconds, her mother cleared her throat. “What do you mean, dear?”

  “I’m at Anna Becker’s house, Mom, with my friend Michele Lopez Hanson, who’s writing a book about Ms. Becker. I’ve been helping her. I found a picture of you and dad with Anna’s parents. Were you friends?”

  “We were, but what does this have to do with the birth certificate?”

  “It was in Wendish. It looks just like the one that I’ve had all these years—with my name and birthday—except for two things. The name of the mother was Anna Becker and the place of birth was here at the Beckers’ farm.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “Mother?” Maggie said. “Do you know anything about this?”

  The silence this time was even longer. When her mother answered, her voice was small, and the quaver more pronounced. “We all promised we wouldn’t ever tell. I didn’t even know such a document existed.”

  “What do you mean, you promised you’d never tell?” Maggie’s eyes had opened and she had dropped the ice. Her voice was stern.

  “We promised the Beckers.” Her mother sniffled. “Oh, Maggie, we’ve always loved you as if you were our very own. We tried for years and weren’t able to have children. The Beckers knew. When Anna showed up at her parents’ pregnant and in labor, they called us.”

  Maggie cut in, her voice sharp, her face pained. “So you’re saying Anna Becker is my mother?”

  There was a sob on the other end of the phone. “I am your mother. I have been your mother since the moment you arrived in this world, but Anna gave birth to you.”

  I reached for Maggie’s hand. It was cold from the ice. I squeezed it hard. Tears had welled up in her eyes. To my surprise, I felt them in my own.

  The tears didn’t show in her hard voice, though. “So who’s my father?”

  I sucked in a deep breath and held it. Another ambulance pulled up in the Grand Central Station parking lot that was the strip of grass beside Gidget’s house.

  “Anna wouldn’t tell her parents. I’m so sorry, darling. I really am.”

  I exhaled, feeling a flicker of disappointment. It was enormous to learn that Maggie was Anna’s daughter. But the part of me that was writing Gidget’s book as well as the part of me that was Maggie’s friend wanted desperately to know the identity of her father. Tank motioned for me to join him on the back porch, so I squeezed Maggie’s hand again and released it, leaving her talking to her mother. I glared at Julie Sloane as I walked past her. What in the world was taking them so long to get her off the property?

  He took me in the house to the kitchen table. “I need a full account of the events of tonight from you.”

  “I already told Junior, but sure.”

  Sheriff Boudreaux stuck his head in the door. “We need you,” he said to his deputy.

  Tank shot to his feet and pointed at me. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  He hustled after the sheriff. I sat at the table, gathering my thoughts and just breathing. The package Maggie had brought from the car was still on the table. I stared at it now. It was a square, more than two feet on each side, wrapped in butcher paper and layer after layer of plastic sheeting.

  I looked down at myself. Bloody hands and knees. Dirt streaks. Ripped clothes. I was a sight. From my seat in the kitchen, I could see Maggie had taken the phone off of speaker. She squatted, phone to ear. Rashidi and Lumpy were talking like old friends, and I saw Lumpy clap Rashidi on the back. Annabelle was in Jay’s car. No one needed me right that second. I looked back at the package. I wanted to know what was in it. I got a knife from a drawer and carefully sliced open the layers of plastic on one edg
e. Then I did the same thing on the other edges. I pulled the plastic and paper away, revealing a waxed-canvas portfolio. I unzipped it. I reached in and found a hard-edged object wrapped in tissue paper. I felt like I was pulling apart Russian nesting dolls as I unfolded the corners of the paper. Finally I came to the baby doll in the center: a painting of a man and a woman. But not just any painting. An extraordinary painting, as the wrapping job had hinted, in a style I’d recognize anywhere. I put my hand to my throat. Could it be? I peeled the tissue back from the bottom right-hand corner. My head felt light, my mouth was dry. Andy Warhol. I ran my fingers gently over the canvas and felt the ridges and whorls left by the brush of the artist himself.

  I picked it up and ran outside. “Maggie,” I called. She kept talking to her mother. “Maggie!” I shouted, my voice sharper.

  She put her hand over the phone. “What is it?”

  “You’ve got to see this.”

  Maggie stood and winced, her hand cupping the ice to the back of her head. A male paramedic wheeled a stretcher toward her. She waved it away.

  He said, “You need to get that checked, ma’am. You probably have a concussion.”

  She said, “I promise I will, but not right now.”

  The paramedic shook his head as he pushed the stretcher back to the ambulance.

  Maggie put the phone receiver against her chest. “What is it?”

  “Look,” I said. “It was in the package you found in the car.”

  The paramedics working on Julie finally started wheeling her toward the ambulance.

  Maggie stared for a few seconds and said, “Is that an Andy Warhol?”

  Julie Sloane gasped.

  “It’s so much more than that. Do you know who the people in it are?”

  “They look familiar, but I’m not sure.” She looked at me, her eyes confused and concussed.

  “It’s Gidget, with Boyd Herrington.” I beamed. “Your parents.”

  As she rolled past us, Julie hissed. “It’s just a painting, not a paternity test. You have no proof.”