The Laundry Hag's New Year's Clean-Up

by Jennifer L. Hart

  “Great. Maybe you can go get help.” I didn’t say police in case the stoner panicked.

  “No can do.”

  I blew out a frustrated sigh. “Let me guess, no gas?”

  He shook his head. “Car’s in the shop. I got in a little fender bender last week,” he giggled as though a car accident was a terrific joke.

  “Great. Any other transportation around here? Horse drawn carriage maybe? Or a bike?” Not that I was in any shape to pedal.

  He thought about it a minute. “Well, there is the golf cart.”

  “Golf cart,” I echoed numbly.

  “Yup. It’s in the shed out back. Battery should be full up. I used it yesterday to go pick up some provisions, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do.” A golf cart wasn’t fast or sturdy but it could go off roading better than a standard vehicle. As long as we stayed away from the main house, we’d be in the clear.

  One problem. I looked down at my bare feet, torn dress and messed up knee. “Do you have anything else I can wear? Sweats maybe? Socks or shoes?”

  “There’s some stuff in the spare room. Maybe some of that will fit you?”

  The dubious look he shot me made me narrow my eyes on him.

  “How about a first aid kit?” Maybe I could wrap my knee in an ace bandage until I could reach some medical professionals. Not sure what the protocol was for the injured joint, but it screamed as though it needed something.

  Another sound of bubbling, then Derek lifted a piece free and inhaled a huge lungful of smoke.

  “Derek,” I snapped in my best drill instructor tone. “Focus.”

  “Oh, hey, dude.” He gave me a dopy smile. “What were you saying?”

  The guy had the attention span of...well...a drug addict. I could send him off to the bathroom only to lose him in the wonders of his own reflection. “Help me up.”

  Miracle of miracles, he set the bong on the end table and got to his feet. I took the hand he offered and gritted my teeth as I put weight back on the injured joint. Little black dots danced before my eyes but I remained conscious. “It’s all downhill from here, right?”

  “Duuuuuddddeee,” Derek agreed and giggled again.

  I BURNED WAY TOO MUCH time wrapping my injured knee and changing into a pair of oversized sweat pants and a dayglow orange T-shirt that read Pardon me while I polish my knob. The image accompanying the words was a line drawn hand wiping down a doorknob. It could be more awful. If Neil caught sight of the hideous garment, he’d snag it to wear to Easter dinner at his mother’s house.

  If we both made it into the New Year.

  I’d been hoping he would have found a way out of the house by now. Been counting on it actually. Neil would know what move to make next, who should be called and what should be said. The fact that he hadn’t shown up at the pool house had my stomach in knots. I hoped he was hiding somewhere, lying low until he got a moment to make a break for it. I feared he’d been captured or worse, was planning some stupid heroic maneuver that would get him killed.

  “Derek, take it from me. Don’t fall in love with a hero.” I said as my new stoner buddy retrieved a pair of plastic flip flops that were much too big for my feet.

  “Noted,” Derek said. “How are you going to wear the shoes with those socks on?”

  I had already cut holes in each of the socks between my big and second toes. After sliding the flipflops in place I stretched out a piece of duct tape I’d found in the kitchen drawer and used it to secure my makeshift snow shoes.

  “Dude, you’re like MacGyver or some shit.” Derek’s bloodshot eyes went wide.

  “Not even,” I muttered while cutting a hole in the purple and red chenille blanket that I’d found in the linen closet. “MacGyver would know how to outwit all the bad guys up at the house. Come help me tape the sides shut.”

  I poked my head through the hole and stretched the fabric out to cover the t-shirt like a poncho. I held my hands up so Derek could tape the sides shut. It was far from a sleek look but the makeshift gear would keep me from freezing to death during the golf cart ride to the local police station.

  “Okay, let’s go.” I said to Derek as I donned a second pair of socks as pseudo mittens.

  He was staring off into space.

  “Derek,” I snapped. “Let’s get a move on.”

  “Where?” my new sidekick blinked at me.

  “The police station.”

  He held up his hands. “Oh, no way, dude. This stuff I got, it’s like illegal, you know?”

  I barely stifled a growl of frustration. “Listen, Derek. Once the cops hear what’s going on at the main house, they won’t care about your stash.”

  Derek crossed his hands over his chest stubbornly.

  I didn’t want to leave him so close to the hostage situation. What if Amber’s team of bad guys decided to check the pool house? But I couldn’t let him delay me, either. “Fine then. You stay here. Just...shut the lights off and keep the doors locked.”

  Fat lot of good that would do him if the villains came here next.

  He gave me a salute though. “Aye aye.”

  “Right.” I grabbed the keys from the counter and with my makeshift cane in one hand and the rifle slung over my shoulder headed out to the shed which was the size of a single car garage behind the pool house where the electric golf cart slumbered.

  The door handle to the shed was ice cold. I wrapped one hand in the trailing fringe of my blanket/poncho and with the other inserted the key. It turned with a soft snick and I was able to lift the single garage door up, revealing the dark interior.

  The shed had power, probably ran off a power source same as the pool house. Alas, no phone. I spied rakes, coiled hoses, a ride-on mower, gas-powered leaf blower, electric edge trimmer, hedge clippers, and bags of garden soil. A few empty trash containers and dozens of clay pots. The golf cart was tucked off to the side, away from the yard tools and covered by a tarp and secured with bungee cords. I limped over and propped my weight on my good leg, stooped to unhook the bungee cords.

  No, I wasn’t MacGyver because MacGyver could have taken one glance around this storage shed and engineered some sort of distress beacon, or weapon to blow up the bad guys getaway van. He could have sent smoke signals for help instead of praying the golf cart would get me to the police before the villains could escape.

  Before anyone got hurt.

  After dragging the tarp down, I limped to the wall and extracted the three-pronged heavy duty plug from the outlet. The cord ran down into a port under the front seat, an electrical umbilical cord tethering the cart to its source of life. I removed the charger from the port and dropped the cable to the floor. I pulled myself up into the driver’s seat, and then unlooped the rifle from my shoulder before taking a look at the controls. Having never driven a golf cart before, I didn’t know what to expect but the controls looked similar to a car. Narrow pedal for acceleration, wider one for the brake. No gear shift, probably because the stupid thing would max out at fifteen miles per hour.

  “Any port in a storm though, right?” I muttered and inserted the key.

  The engine didn’t roar to life like a gas powered one would have. It did a little chug chug and then hummed.

  “When you don’t know the words....” After snapping on the seatbelt, I took a deep breath then depressed the small petal. Whirrr went the battery powered cart and I lurched forward into the icy night.

  Chapter Seven

  Fifty-six minutes ‘til midnight

  Neil

  They were stealing photographs?

  From my vantage point wedged between the rafters outside of the gallery, I watched George and Long Island guy—L.I. guy for short—remove pictures from their frames and stuff them in an oversized accordion portfolio. I was too far away to make note of the subject of the photographs. Though many appeared to be black and white. Odd, that they weren’t taking any of the paintings. Many of them were valuable and would probably fetch a much better price.


  I snuck down from my hiding spot and trailed them as they started to strip furniture from various rooms.

  “This one?” George rubbed at the knot on his head, then pointed to one of the floral pattern chaises in a hall.

  L.I. guy retrieved a slip of paper from his jeans pocket. “Nah, it says the blue one.”

  “I don’t see no blue one.” George looked around in confusion as if a blue chaise lounge would suddenly appear in the hallway.

  “Skip it.” They moved on, unaware of their shadow.

  I watched as they stacked various items at the head of the stairs. L.I. guy was the only one armed and though I was tempted to take him out when the fool slung his assault rifle over one shoulder so he could heft one end of a Brazilian Cherrywood desk, I didn’t think I could take both of them without alerting whoever was left downstairs.

  It was an odd hodgepodge of classic craftsman and Victorian vintage that they selected. I couldn’t see a pattern, a rhyme or a reason behind any of it. My mother would know better about crap like that.

  They did damage, too. A prybar took out a hall table, and L.I. guy seemed to delight in the sounds of porcelain objects crashing against the marble floors. They had all the stealth of a herd of stampeding rhinos.

  “That’s nice,” George pointed to a small wall clock.

  “It’s not on the list,” L.I. guy responded.

  A list that maybe Amber had made for him? What to take, what to trash, what to leave alone perhaps. Though she was riddled with character flaws, my ex-wife did have exquisite taste. Maggie had said she was posing as some doctor’s fiancée. Perhaps she’d made note of what items were worth taking on an earlier visit.

  I studied L.I. guy dispassionately. Dumb as a post, did what he was told. Definitely Amber’s type. So where did the fiancé doctor come in? Was she just using him for access to the Swenson’s or was she planning to ditch L.I. guy as soon as she got what she wanted?

  The fact that she was still pretending to be a victim, that she wanted to keep her cover intact was telling. She’d be a perfect sobbing witness. I’d fallen for her crocodile tears often enough to know how she wielded them like a weapon. Yet she’d risked coming up here to make sure everything went to plan. Why?

  On the third trip, they didn’t come back up and I decided to chance sneaking down to the second level.

  And almost ran into the fourth man.

  A burly guy with a thick crop of hair who was overly fond of garlic. It was the stench of his breath as he huffed and puffed his way up the stairs that tipped me off. I clambered over the railing. Dropping down to a crouch, I solidified my grip and prepared to hang by my fingertips as he tromped by. My bad shoulder screamed in protest at the abuse as my feet dangled in midair three stories over where the van was parked.

  Fifteen years ago, I could have held that pose indefinitely. But between joints no longer accustomed to such abuse and my wife’s home cooking giving gravity some extra flesh to hold, he couldn’t move by fast enough.

  Unfortunately, L.I. guy called out to him and he stopped directly across from me.

  “Don’t forget the mirror on the landing.”

  “That thing looks heavy.” Garlic breath wheezed.

  “It’s on the list. It goes.”

  “How ‘bout you and George come get the mirror and I’ll get the rest of the money off the crowd?” Garlic breath made his counter offer.

  “George is loading the van. And I got one more room to clear out.”

  I closed my eyes and prayed they wouldn’t continue to argue. As it was, I already had to worry if my shoulder joint would freeze in place.

  Garlic breath mumbled but I felt the shift in the floor as he continued on up to the third story. I listened, heard the squeak of a sneaker on marble as LI guy headed off to whatever room he was emptying out. Figured I had about a minute to climb back over the railing and get down the stairs without being seen.

  Tried to pull myself up.

  Nothing.

  Damn it. My rotator cuff was frozen solid.

  Maggie

  THE GOLF CART WAS NOT an all-weather all terrain sort of vehicle. It did okay on the level patches, but lost traction in the deeper snow drifts. And because the stupid thing didn’t have headlights, I had a hard time telling where iffy spots were located.

  If I got stuck out here...

  No, I wasn’t going to think about that. It was like Neil had said. One heartbeat at a time, stay in the moment, focus on the task at hand.

  Speaking of hands, mine were holding up fairly well in my sock mittens. The burned tissue was highly susceptible to temperature extremes. The one good thing about my knee injury? Nothing seemed nearly as painful as it did.

  Except the worry over what had happened to Neil or Leo. Or me if the golf cart battery died before I made it out to the highway.

  “Stay in the moment,” I chanted as the cart rumbled along.

  I’d headed toward the driveway by way of the pool house, bypassing the turn where all the vehicles had turned toward the main building. Did the Swensons have a private security team, maybe even a gatehouse? I thought back to our limo ride, which felt like a lifetime ago. If there was a gatehouse, I’d have to avoid it. Chances were good that the vanload of bad guys had taken out any of the security people.

  What about a fence or a wall? Would it be possible to even leave the grounds except through the main road?

  Again, Neil’s voice in my head staved off panic. Don’t borrow trouble. Focus on this heartbeat. Then the next. Then the next.

  The wind tugged my hair out of the neat coif Leo had done what felt like years ago and stray strands whipped into my eyes and mouth. The cart jounced over some rocky terrain, bouncing me in my seat. I hit a patch of ice crusted snow, skidded sideways and then came to an abrupt stop.

  Wrrrrr. The tires spun. I leaned forward, rocked back. Then did it again. And again. No doubt about it. I was stuck.

  “Reverse it, dumbass,” I muttered to myself. Problem was I didn’t know how. It wasn’t like the golf cart came in a standard T. And the quarter moon was obscured behind some clouds and I didn’t know what the hell I was even looking for.

  “Don’t cry,” I ordered myself even as I swiped at my eyes. My mask was back at the pool house and without it there was no hiding just how epically I had screwed this up. My knee messed up, lost in below freezing temperatures in a freaking golf cart of all things.

  As if toying with me, flurries descended from the clouds.

  “Really?” I said and shook my fist at the sky. “I’m going to be the first woman in history to freeze to death with socks on her hands and flip flops duct-taped to her feet,”

  Something beeped. I frowned and fished my phone out of my pocket, heart pounding. Maybe I’d gotten far enough away to get a signal.

  “Oh, please oh please, please please please please.” I chanted, already planning on calling my frenemy Detective Capri, or Mackenzie Taylor, the P.I. from Boston. Either of those badass chicks would know exactly what to do. Hell, I’d settle for good ol’ 911 to say hey, Happy New Year and oh by the by there’s a vanload of armed men and my husband’s ex-wife is in league with them and could you swing by the frosty field and pick me up on the way before I freeze to death in my stolen golf cart?

  I wouldn’t even care if they laughed as long as they sent someone out to investigate.

  But it wasn’t the phone coming to life. No bars at all. I put it away again when I heard the beeping again, followed by the purr of an actual engine.

  I froze in place when I saw the headlights.

  A snowmobile. And it was heading right for me.

  Neil

  TRY AS I MIGHT, MY damn rotator cuff wouldn’t budge. Without the ability to flex that arm, I couldn’t pull myself back up onto the staircase, dangling like a forgotten yo-yo.

  So, if I couldn’t go back up...what were my other options?

  Dropping to the ground floor was out of the question. Not only was it too much of
a risk to land, it would alert the unsubs to my presence. This needed to remain a covert operation. Hand over hand climbing down the side of the spiral staircase was also out, because of my jacked-up shoulder.

  My grip was sure but I couldn’t stay where I was, I’d lingered too long already.

  I was at that point in the stairs where they curved back toward one another, before diverging again on their way to the third story. From what I’d witnessed, the set of stairs on the far end of the foyer hadn’t been used and the unsubs didn’t seem to know about the servant’s stairs either. If I could get across the space, I could go up the second set to the alcove outside the gallery. Something sparkly caught my eye. The lights from the enormous penis. My head was about two inches below the left nut.

  I studied the bracing at the top. Looked secure enough to hold a few hundred extra pounds at least for a minute or two. The strands of crystal looked delicate but the shape was held together by a wrought iron frame.

  Without thinking too much about it, I swiped my right foot out and around the metal circle that flared out to form the head.

  “Good thing you were circumcised pal, or I’d have nothing to stand on,” I grunted as I dragged the phallus closer. It didn’t fall crashing into the fountain so I took that as my sign that it would hold up.

  I shifted my weight slowly, letting my foot and the chandelier take my weight. Whoever had constructed the penis knew their stuff because although the crystals clinked, the metal didn’t groan. Maggie was probably right about the cleaning. Once my foot was in place I used my useless arm to wrap around the nearest strand to get my other foot in place.

  The last step was the hardest, letting go of the stairs and letting the fixture support all of my weight. Somehow, I managed it. Clink, clink went the crystal strands. The thick chain held though. I exhaled a moment too soon.

  “Yo yo yo, hurry the hell up,” It was L.I. guy, coming back up the stairs. “We’re moving out in ten.”