by Zoe Burke
“I promise I’ll leave as soon as possible, probably another couple of days.”
“No more book-throwing, okay?”
“Ten four.”
The officer returned to his patrol car down the street, and I peered around the corner into the garage, hoping to espy Mickey or Luis. Where the hell were they? At least they hadn’t witnessed that latest screw-up of mine. I seemed to be on a roll.
That’s when a dark blue Mercedes came screeching out with Mickey and Luis running behind it.
I still had the book in my hand, so I threw it again. This time it flew in through the open window on the driver’s side and hit him in the head.
Phillip.
It surprised him enough that he slammed on the brakes and stopped long enough for Mickey to run up to the door, reach in and grab his shoulder and yell, “Cut the engine, now!”
Luis was on the other side but couldn’t open the locked door.
Phillip put the Mercedes in park and turned off the engine.
Drivers behind him started honking.
Mickey yelled again. “Get out. I’ll pull the car over.”
Mickey can be very convincing. Phillip got out.
Luis came around and took Phillip by the arm, while Mickey parked the car on a block away. Luis, Phillip, and I walked up to meet him.
I neglected to tell you…Claudia was not in the car.
Phillip was silent. I wasn’t. “Where is she, Phillip? Where’s Claudia? She was with you just a few minutes ago! Did you hurt her?”
This last question made him wince, but he didn’t answer me.
Mickey stuck the Mercedes keys in his pocket and came up close to Phillip’s face. “You want to talk to us first, or do you want us to take you right to the police?”
“There happens to be a cop nearby. I happened to, um, meet him earlier.”
Mickey frowned at me. “What?”
“Never mind. Phillip, listen to Mickey. You should talk to us first.”
Phillip tried to wrest his arm away from Luis. “Not yet, señor. We need answers first. We believe you know why your daughter needed that gun.”
Bigelow sneered. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you believe. You’ve got no right invading my family’s privacy. Let me go, and I won’t press charges for assault.”
“In your dreams, dirtwad,” I assured him.
“Us, or the police, Phil? I’m waiting for your answer.” Luis was firm.
“You,” he finally answered.
“At the hotel suite?”
“Sure. Why the fuck not? Let’s go.”
We walked the few blocks to The Nines. I called Claudia on the way, but she wasn’t answering.
My Hepburn biography was back in my purse, dented and dirtied, but intact and as sturdy as she was. I think she would have liked to know that her book had more than one story to its name. Then I recalled Drew’s story about Sal being attacked with a book by a homophobe. Maybe that was my unconscious inspiration. I’d have to tell him.
We got back to the hotel and rode the elevator up to the suite. Phillip had a key and let us in.
The lights were all off.
On turning one on and surveying the bedroom and bathrooms it was clear to all of us.
Nancy was gone.
Chapter Thirty-one
“I have never hurt my daughter,” repeated Phillip for the umpteenth time.
“That’s not what Nancy told us,” Mickey said, also for the umpteenth time. “Aren’t you tired of going around and around on this, Phil? Aren’t you worried about Claudia? Do you even know where she is?”
He shook his head. “She ran away from me when we came out of the elevator to the parking garage.”
“What movie did you see, by the way?” I asked.
“Gone Girl.”
“That must have really cheered her up,” I sneered.
He shrugged. “She picked it.”
“Appropriate, I guess, given the current circumstances,” suggested Mickey.
I kept dialing Claudia, every five minutes or so. Still no answer.
“Mr. Bigelow, you told us that you wanted to talk to us, but you are not talking to us. I am thinking we should call the police, Mick, sí? This is getting us nowhere.”
Phillip sat up straight. “You have nothing to tell the police. All you have is the word of my wife, and as you can see, she is nowhere in sight. My guess is she is on her way back to Seattle.”
“With Claudia?”
Another shrug. “I hope not.”
“Why is that, Phillip?” I asked.
He gave me one of his sleazy leers. “You already think I’m a rapist. You probably think every man who looks at you twice is a rapist. I know your type, girlie.”
I jumped up and started toward him but Luis stepped in and held me back. They both know that I can handle being called just about anything but “girlie.”
“Mickey, let’s call Dawson and Monroe. Let’s get rid of this dirtbag. Wherever Claudia is, she’s better off than with him.”
I turned on my heel and stalked off to the Jacuzzi bathroom to collect myself. I took the opportunity to call Mom and Dad to let them know we were okay and that we’d probably be home in an hour or so, after we deposited Phillip at the police station.
I hung up, washed my face with some fancy smelly soap and dried it on a plush white towel. I opened the drawers in the vanity and saw nothing but the hotel’s hair dryer. I didn’t know what I was looking for, other than some kind of clue, any kind of clue, as to Phillip’s guilt or Nancy’s whereabouts. We had already looked through Nancy’s suitcase, which looked nicely packed and ready to go, until we messed with it. But nothing turned up there, either.
Then I noticed the shelf under the sink and squatted down to take a look. There were two bottles of pills, maybe the ones I had seen on my last visit to this suite. This time I read the labels. They were prescriptions for Claudia. One was clozapine. The other was for lithium.
I didn’t know what clozapine was. Lithium, I thought, was for treating bipolar disorder.
Great. Claudia was a certified nutcase, thanks to her perv Dad.
I was walking out into the hallway leading to the living area when my phone vibrated. It was a text from Claudia.
I’m with Mom. Meet us outside the hotel. Come alone. We have Mom’s car.
I couldn’t go and not tell Luis and Mickey. I didn’t want Phillip to hear, though, so I motioned Mickey to come into the bathroom. I told him about the pills and showed him the text. “What do you think? I should go, right?”
Mickey scowled. “I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of you going alone.”
“We need to make sure Claudia is okay. I’ll be fine. Maybe I can talk her into going to the police. I’ll let them know that we have Phillip.”
Mickey nodded. “All right. Keep me posted. We’ll wait here at least until we hear from you.” He kissed me. “Be careful. Do you have your weapon?”
“Huh?”
“That book. You have a good arm. Who knew?” He kissed me again.
“You should see my glider.”
He smiled. “I think you mean slider.”
“Whatever.” I hugged him, nodded to Luis on my way out, and took the elevator down to the street.
Sure enough, Claudia and Nancy were waiting for me in a Honda CRV. Nancy was in the driver’s seat. Claudia climbed out, opened the back door, and directed me to climb in.
With a gun in her hand.
In some situations, I’m actually very good at doing what I’m told.
Chapter Thirty-two
Mickey and I had established a routine a few months earlier. We don’t say “hello” when we answer each other’s call, if we’re in trouble. We keep the line open, and the one calling knows to listen, to hear any clues
about what might be going on.
As soon as Claudia slammed the back door—after first explaining if I tried to run, she’d shoot me, right then and there—my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw that it was Mickey.
“Don’t answer that!” Claudia waved her gun at me.
I swiped it like I was hanging up, but I was answering it. Just not with “hello.” I put it back in my purse but close to the top, hoping the light of the phone wouldn’t be seen.
Throwing my book again didn’t seem like a good idea, so I started to babble, which is what I do when I don’t know what else to do. “Claudia, where are we going? We have your father at the hotel. He can’t hurt you anymore, and if he even tried, I bet Luis or Mickey would make sure he walked funny for the rest of his life, if you know what I mean. All I’ve done is try to help you, and your mother knows the secret about nasty ole Phillip, so I think you can walk away from all of this, maybe see a therapist, put your dad in jail, even lock him up yourself, like in that movie The Secret in Their Eyes? Did you see it? It was from Argentina, I think, and it had this great ending, which I sort of already blew just telling you this but…”
“Shut up, Annabelle whatsyourname with the dentist’s business card.” She held the gun on me, but I could see that her hand was shaking.
I was feeling shaky myself, so I sat on my hands. “What about you, Nancy? Do you know where we’re going?”
Nancy had pulled out into the street and was turning to head toward the Willamette River. “If I were you, Annabelle, I’d keep my mouth shut.” She sounded surprisingly calm. “And, yes, I did see that movie. Subtitles.”
Nancy was clearly an astute critic of the cinema.
We continued onto a bridge and I leaned forward to read the signs. “Okay, it looks like we’re getting onto Highway 5 north. Are we going to Seattle? And is this your Honda CRV, Nancy, or is it a rental? Nice silver color. Any reason you both need me to go with you, at gunpoint? Because, really, I’m good to go, if you want to let me out anywhere…”
“I want you to stop talking now, do you understand?” Claudia’s hand was still shaking. She repositioned herself so that she could hold the gun with two hands and point it at my head.
“Yes.” I shut up. I figured I had given Mickey as much information as possible. I just hoped he had been able to hear me over the phone.
We merged onto the highway, but quickly exited onto Route 84 east. “Did you know that Route 84, even though it’s an interstate highway, doesn’t actually go all the way across the country?”
Claudia ignored me and turned on the radio, loud. John Fogerty was singing “Bad Moon Rising.”
I’m not kidding.
Then she reached over and took her purse from beside me on the backseat, took out her phone, and dropped the purse on the floor in front of her. She checked for messages or whatever with one hand, while keeping the gun pointed at me, sort of, with the other.
We exited 84 somewhere, but it felt like we were still heading east. I saw a sign that read “Blue Lake, 3 miles.”
Claudia was looking straight ahead now. I dug into my purse and swiped the phone off, hit my text icon, chose Mickey at the top of the list, typed in “blue lake,” and hit “send.” I stuck the phone in my pocket.
The radio was blasting. This time it was Pharrell Williams singing “Happy.” I happen to love that song, and I don’t care how tired you might be of it, it’s a pretty damn near irresistible ditty, in my opinion, and it was giving me some measure of strength in that moment.
Nancy drove into a driveway, parked in a lot, and killed the engine. Claudia turned around toward me. “Get out.”
I didn’t like this one bit. I didn’t understand one bit of it, either. How had I become the enemy? All I did was end up with a gun that wasn’t mine, and now I was kidnapped a second time in a week, this time by a skinny white girl.
A young, scared, emotionally sick white girl.
From a rich family in Seattle.
With messed-up parents.
She’s not going to kill me, I thought. She can’t be a good shot, and she can’t see too well in the dark. And I bet her hands are still shaking.
I grabbed my purse strap.
“Hurry up, Annabelle.” Claudia opened the door for me.
Such a thoughtful young woman.
Nancy was already closing the driver-side door when I leaped out and flung my purse at Claudia.
And I ran.
Some of the park’s paths were lit with streetlamps. I avoided them, seeking the darkest areas for cover. I didn’t hear anyone following me, but I was running my ass off and couldn’t hear much except for my own fierce panting and boots hitting the pavement.
I made it to a densely wooded area and huddled behind a row of bushes.
My ears were as alert as a doberman’s (at least mine weren’t pointy), but I heard nothing except some rustling of branches. I briefly worried about bears or wolverines or mountain lions or rabid badgers or crazy hyenas in this neck of the country but concentrated instead on David Straithairn, who kept out of sight in The River Wild while tracking his wife and son who were held hostage.
That wasn’t helping to decrease my panic, so I pulled out my phone to see if I could reach Mickey.
Then I definitely heard something.
A gunshot.
Then silence.
I dialed Mickey.
No service.
I huddled with my coat wrapped around me like a cocoon, wishing I was wrapped in Mickey’s arms in our bed in New York City instead. I’ve never missed my sock-monkey hat so much in my life. My poufy coat was nice and warm, but it didn’t do anything for my oversized lotus-leaf ears, which felt like they were hardening faster than super glue in the chilly wind.
I didn’t know whether to stay put—would anyone ever find me, before I turned into a poufy-coated, hatless statue?—or to head back to the parking lot.
I decided that movement was called for.
I’ve already said that I’m a fast runner, but I’m not particularly stealthy. In fact, I would say that “stealth” is not anywhere on my character description, should I be featured in a dictionary. But I tried to be quiet as I darted from behind tree to behind tree to behind park building. At one point I got down on my stomach and crawled military-style—or at least, what I thought was military-style, not ever having been in the military—trying not to groan and whimper as I did.
I finally got close enough to the parking lot to see that the Honda CRV was gone. That had to mean that both Nancy and Claudia had left, or one of them was gone and the other one was shot.
I figured Nancy was shot, since Claudia had the gun.
Was she lying dead somewhere, or sitting up somewhere, or wandering aimlessly, half dead, like a character in Pineapple Express where everyone gets shot at the end but the good guys…? Never mind. I won’t tell you the ending.
This made me realize that I no longer knew who the good guys were. Except for me and Mickey and Luis and Mom and Dad, of course.
I crouched beside a trash can, rubbing my hands, and peering around its side. The lights that illuminated the walkways helped me see a little bit in all directions.
Then I heard a moan.
I inched my way forward and risked calling out. “Where are you?”
Another moan.
I made my way toward it, carefully, aware that the moaner could be armed. Maybe everyone in the Bigelow family was a card-carrying member of the NRA.
I saw a figure, sitting and leaning against a wooden building.
It wasn’t Nancy, and it wasn’t Claudia.
But it was a member of the NRA.
It was Loren Scranton.
Chapter Thirty-three
Scranton was not hurt badly. Even I, unseasoned detective that I was, could see that. His upper arm—not the o
ne that was already broken—was bleeding, but not a lot. I lifted it away from him and could see that there was no real bullet hole and no exit hole, either.
“Just a scratch,” I told him, trying to come off as cool as Susan Sarandon in Thelma and Louise and using a line from, oh, probably a hundred movies. “What are you doing here? Who are you, and I mean, for real?”
“Followed you here.”
“You’ve been following us everywhere. I’m more than a little sick of you.”
“The backpack. The police really have it?”
“Why should I talk to you about any of this, until you tell me what’s going on?”
“So how did she end up with the gun?”
“Like I said, you hear nothing from me until you give me something.” My voice was quivering, but I hoped I was keeping it under control. I knew Mickey would show up soon, as long as my phone had been in service for the duration of the ride to the park.
I saw my purse on the ground, where I had hurled it at Claudia. I retrieved it and looked inside. Nothing missing.
I crouched in front of Scranton. “You were supposed to retrieve the backpack? That’s why you were talking to me and Mom at baggage claim?”
He nodded.
“Ricky set that up?”
“I don’t know any Ricky.”
“So who told you to get the gun and give it to Claudia?”
He moaned again.
“Buck up, Scranton. Like I said, I’m sick of you, and I’ve already hit two people tonight using a book and a purse.” I shivered.
“I wasn’t supposed to give it to Claudia.”
“Hmm. Okay. So who were you supposed to give it to?”
He closed his eyes. “Phillip Bigelow.”
That’s when I heard a car approaching, fast, and that’s when I sat down and leaned against the same building, next to Loren Scranton.
I was exhausted.
***
Mickey ripped Scranton’s sleeve off from his shirt and wrapped it tightly around his arm. I guess it was bleeding more than I thought. They were in the backseat of Dad’s car. Luis was driving, and I was navigating, using a map on my iPhone. We were taking Scranton to the hospital, where Dawson and Monroe would meet us.
