Yet.
CHAPTER 33
Foothill Village was quiet as the battered blue Chevy van with a white SHILO DRAMA CLUB placard on the driver’s side pulled up and dropped Eva Nicole Dorsey, known generally as Nicki, off in front of the house she shared with her mom and brother. She punched her code into the lock pad, waited for the whir, and entered the house.
“Mom?” she called.
No reply.
“Mommy?”
Nicki Dorsey peeked into the kitchen. Despite the Kia Soul squatting in the driveway, no one was lurking there, waiting to surprise her. The living room was graced by a rather mournful four-foot fir tree in the corner. They’d tried to cheer it up with a can of Presto-Flok, and tressed the poor thing with white tissue at the base. Six or seven red- or blue-wrapped presents sat at angles awaiting Christmas morning, more wistful than festive.
Most of them were addressed from Santa to Hannibal or from Santa to Nicki. Nicki had one addressed to Mom hidden in the back of her closet.
A scratching sound at the back door caught her attention. Paxie, their ever-absent neighbors’ polka-dotted Great Dane. She smiled, some of her discomfort leaving her immediately at the sight of the big, sloppy grin. Nicki poured kibble into a steel dish and water into a plastic one, and carried them both back to the sliding glass door leading to the patio. As usual, Pax had climbed the back stairs and was fogging the glass with tongue and doggie breath. Nicki set the water dish on the mantel, unlocked the glass door, and opened it just enough, then picked up the water dish again and nudged the door the rest of the way open with her foot.
Paxie whined and backed away with wide-eyed, worshipful thanks as Nicki set the food down. She scratched the Great Dane’s head, went back into the house, and closed the door most of the way to the frame.
“Anyone here?” A forlorn hope. Nothing. No one. Irritation creased her face. This was not new. Ever since Mom had gone undercover on the cop/drug dealer thing, it seemed that career and Hannibal took up 90 percent of her mother’s time and energy, leaving precious little for unimportant little things like Nicki. The sick thing was that Mom had risked her neck on that story, but the expected promotion had simply never materialized.
“Shit.”
Nicki flipped open her phone and dialed. Nothing but a buzz, and then it went to voice mail. “You’ve reached the telephone of Olympia Dorsey. Sorry, but I’m busy saving the world. I’ll have my blue tights off and be back from my secret identity as soon as the crisis ends. Please leave a message.”
Nicki’s frown touched her voice. “Hi, Mom. I’m home. You promised you’d be home. Where are you?”
She went back out onto the front doorstep and looked around the housing complex. Twenty or thirty condos clustered around a central pool and rec area. Too many retirees, but a couple of cute guys who attended her school lived on the diagonal, and when the weather was warm they invited their team over for shirts and skins basketball, and that was always entertaining. Was Mom visiting someone in the complex? They didn’t have any real friends here. No one close, but maybe someone at the homeowner’s association had demanded Mom explain why the trash cans were always put out the night before instead of in the morning.
Nazis.
“Where are you?” she muttered. “Where is Hani?”
She snapped her phone closed, went back into the house, and grabbed a single-serving pouch of Dole pineapple juice out of the refrigerator. She turned on the television, slipped in the Elizabeth Taylor version of The Taming of the Shrew on DVD, and began to watch. Pax settled down on the floor beneath her feet. She didn’t even think about it until the Great Dane nuzzled her dangling hand, then she realized Pax had pawed the sliding door open.
She scratched Pax’s cool nose, happy for the company. Mom didn’t like Pax in the house, but screw it.
Nicki owned six different versions of Shrew (including the rare BBC one with John Cleese!) on DVD and VHS. She’d heard a rumor that Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte had done a version at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, supposedly available through specialty video shops. In six months of searching she’d yet to find a copy but continued to try tracing it down. If it existed at all, she’d eventually find it. But in the absence of such a gem, she’d enjoyed watching Taylor and Burton spar the very most.
But wow. Horne and Belafonte? That would be freakin’ magic.
* * *
Nicki sat mouthing dialogue, a beat ahead of the screen. It was difficult, demanding two different levels of memory: for the original text, and for the edited versions used in all films. Regardless of any changes, Elizabeth Taylor did a star-turn and Richard Burton returned her verbal sallies with brio.
Or was it gusto? One of those two.
Again and again she looked at her phone, expecting a familiar ring tone, a call that did not come.
Then … the front doorbell chimed.
Her lips crinkled in irritation. “What is that? What now?” She got up, slouched through the hall with a mouth full of Pringles. She slipped the chain on the door and opened it wide enough to see. A stranger stood there. White guy. Looked a little like the guy who played Thor, but with shorter hair and a scarred upper lip. She wiped her mouth. “Yes?”
His hand pistoned out, striking the door flat-palmed so that it jolted taut and snapped the chain. It smacked her in the face, smashing her backward across the threshold to fall flat on her butt, mouth open in a stunned O, so shocked she could barely believe what had happened to her.
In that moment the entire world narrowed down to a tunnel, everything outside the clear walls of that tunnel crawling in slow motion. And within the tunnel in a terrible, focused cone of attention, lived a girl named Eva Nicole Dorsey, and a man with a flashlight-shaped device. Nothing else mattered, nothing but her and the man standing over her.
The man who looked like Thor leveled his arm, and electrical sparks climbed the outside of the flashlight. A Taser. Fear was a coppery taste in her mouth. Then … a black-and-white-spotted blur as a hundred and twenty pounds of Great Dane launched herself teeth-first into Thor’s arm. Thor’s scream was a blend of outrage, surprise, and shock. “Get this fucker off me, Shilling! Damn!”
Shilling, the second man, was shorter, wider, and built like a power-lifter. His Taser crackled, sparks twining the flashlight shape as he thumped Pax with it. The Great Dane flew back, howling, and smashed against the wall, nails clicking against the hardwood floor. Shilling Tased her again, then kicked her in the head. Pax yelped and slumped.
“You okay, Marty?” Shilling asked.
“Jesus,” Marty said. “Where the hell did that come from? They weren’t supposed to have a dog. That little bitch…”
They turned around … and Nicki was gone.
“Shit! Where is she?” Marty said.
“She didn’t get past me,” Shilling replied. “Lock the fucking door.”
They did. And then went back and checked the rear window.
“Nicki!” the bigger one called. “Eva Nicole Dorsey! You need to come out now! Look what you made us do! You hurt my friend, and your mother is going to be very unhappy with you.”
* * *
It had taken all of ten seconds to run to the upstairs hallway and pull down the attic’s trap door. Mom hated it when she stood on the clothes hamper to reach the first step, but now that bad habit was a lifesaver, allowing her to vanish without the obvious evidence of a chair, stool, or ladder to betray her. The cord that ordinarily hung down could be pulled up after her. Despite the closed trap Nicki could hear Marty clearly, calling in a mild voice, pretending solicitude and acting as if he gave a damn what her mother thought or felt. She was hurt, dazed, and terrified, crouching there among the Christmas presents and boxed old clothing with her heart in her mouth. She could hear Marty and Shilling searching through the house. She checked her pockets, and only too late remembered that her cell phone was downstairs on the couch.
Light slanted in sideways through the latticed window covers. She heard the intruders thum
ping around down below, and scuttled back, trying to remain above them where she could hear.
She bumped into an orange-and-white corrugated cardboard U-Haul storage box. It had no top on it, and looking down she saw, nested in the bottom right corner a smaller box, a novelty gift, a flying alarm clock. Looked rather like a beanie, with a propeller on the top. She remembered the television infomercial: at the selected time it would rise from the base and zip around the room, squawking, until the victim arose and captured it. She stifled a laugh that threatened to spiral into a scream. This was a gift for her. Mom had noticed that she had bleated with joy at the commercial. Mom had noticed. She wasn’t just an appendage to Hannibal.
Mom had noticed.
Nicki shook violently, the tears an unstoppable waterfall now.
Police sirens whined to the north. Fire trucks to the south. End of the world fever.
“Oh crap, oh crap.”
“Come out now,” came the voice from somewhere beneath her. “And we’ll take you to your mother. Your brother needs you!”
“Hannibal.” She groaned. It was a lie. She knew that. An obvious, stupid lie. And yet she felt her heart respond. Hani needs me …
She heard them coming up the stairs. Stalking back and forth in the halls. Checking everything, and everywhere.
The attic’s dust seemed to respond to the action below, every footstep rousing another small puff of swirling motes. It took every bit of strength and will in her one-hundred-and-eighteen-pound body not to sneeze.
The hatch opened. As the men clambered up Nicki crawled back against the wall, pushing boxes out of the way with kicks and thrashing arms. “Stay away!” she sobbed. “Get away. Help!” The last word rose to a scream.
Thor smiled at her. “You made me do this,” he said, thrusting the Taser forward.
She convulsed, muscles locked together, the world spinning into an agonized Tilt-A-Whirl. She felt the contents of her stomach lurch into her mouth, found herself choking on wet vile sour mash. Watched helplessly as her lunch spilled onto the floor. Helpless as she collapsed cheek-down into it.
And quivered there in her own stink, unable to move.
The men looked down at her. “Shilling,” Marty said. “Kill her here?”
“No,” answered Shilling. “Back the van up to the house, Marty. We’ll take her out through the garage. I think there are ways we can use her. Get cooperation from Mom. Maybe even little brother.”
The smaller man shrugged. “I can tell you, I’m still a little creeped out by this whole thing.”
They carried the paralyzed girl down the stairs from the attic. When they reached the ground floor, Pax was starting to stir.
Shilling snarled. “Kill that fucking mutt.”
Marty shrugged. “How about a little juice, pooch?”
He Tased the Great Dane again, until she convulsed and spewed kibble. They laughed.
A groaning, twitching Nicki was gagged and bound at her wrists and ankles with plastic ties. Marty stood in front of the door while his partner went outside to get the van.
Nicki began to stir. Marty leaned close. “I know you’re scared. Hell, I’d be scared, too. But I really don’t blame you for what you’ve done. What you need to know is that there’s a way for you to come out of this alive. But you have to cooperate.”
The garage door opened. Nicki heard the van roll into the carport. “Now, when we transfer you to the van, maybe you’re not as smart as you look, and think there’s a chance that you might have the opportunity to make a sound. You might think of trying to attract a neighbor. What you need to know is that if you do that, I will hurt you. Badly. The other thing you need to know is that I will come back and kill whoever you attempt to signal, even if they don’t see you. Do you understand? Nod if you understand.”
She nodded, more frightened than she had ever been.
He hustled her up, and opened the door leading to the garage, gun in hand. There was a blur as indistinct as a hummingbird’s wings, simultaneous with a crunching sound, and Marty dropped like a sack of sand.
Then … Terry stepped through the door, so calm and relaxed and unexcited that she thought it was a dream. He glanced from her to the man he had just rendered unconscious. She gargled at him, the sound somewhere between a scream and a prayer.
“Sorry,” Terry said. He hooked one thumb under each side of the plastic band binding her wrists, pulled, and … it just popped. Did the same thing with her ankles.
“What the hell is going on? I saw the other guy come in through the garage, and…” He paused as if trying to find a way to phrase it. “I knew there was trouble.”
“Don’t know,” she sobbed. “I don’t know. I think they have my mother. They have Hani.” That last word, her brother’s name, was a despairing wail.
“Who are they?”
“They didn’t say. I think they have something to do with the police story my mom did.” She choked out an explanation about the barbershop and the crack dealers. Her teeth chattered as she did, and she was surprised to be able to get it out.
And just as surprised by the kindness and compassion in his eyes. “Did they say where they were holding them?”
“No. We can’t go to the police. Not around here,” Nicki said.
“The drug story. That’s what you think?”
“It’s what I know.”
“Then we’ll find some other cops. It was just Smyrna PD, right? Right?”
Slowly, she nodded her head. “Just Smyrna.”
He locked eyes with her. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I’ve got very, very good instincts for bad cops. I promise.”
She was terrified, but desperate to believe. “Okay.”
“We have to get out of here. Now.”
In the hallway, the broad inanimate lump of the stunned Great Dane began to stir.
“We have to take her,” Nicki said. “We have to.”
“We can’t take the damned dog,” Terry said.
Fear left her, replaced by indignation. “Pax saved me. If we don’t take her, I’m not going. Go screw yourself.”
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
She set her feet, hands fisted at her hips, all of the unreasoning terror transmuted into anger at the wrong target. “You’re not going to treat her like some … some malt-horse drudge!”
Terry stared at her, mouth open. “What the hell?”
Nicki suddenly realized what she’d said. “It’s Shakespeare.” Hysterical laughter tickled her throat, and she bent over, laughing and crying and then clamping control back down. She took a breath. “Listen. If we leave Paxie, they’ll kill her. They’ll have her put down, and you know it’s true. I can’t let that happen to her.”
He considered her words. Then he sighed in surrender. “All right. We take the dog.”
That small victory gave her strength and hope. “Where are we going?”
“Where can we go? The local Smyrna police were corrupt.” Maybe. Maybe just a few. But it would be safest to assume they’d have to go a county over to find real help.
“We can find police over in Fulton County. That should be all right.”
They got into the kidnappers’ van and took off. The streets were glaring with flashing lights, the air stringent with smoke. Stores were crowded, and shoppers pushed baskets piled with canned food and bottled water.
Nicki’s sad, wise gaze lingered on the chaos. “Everything’s coming apart,” she said. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Terry said honestly. “But we’re going to do what we can.”
“If the police have my mom … why would other police help us?”
“Because most cops are pretty good,” he said, pulling out onto Atlanta Avenue. “And that’s what good cops do.”
CHAPTER 34
“Where’s Mommy?” Hannibal asked. He rocked back and forth in front of an easel in the underground lab that stank of animal sweat and fear, blinking rapidly.
“Don’t
worry,” Mike the tech said. “She’ll be here.”
“Where is Nicki?”
The techs looked at each other. Then to Maureen, who seemed to have assumed much of the role of supervisor. Stepmother. Babysitter. Something. “She’s … at Christmas camp, hon,” Maureen said. “She didn’t want to come.”
Hannibal didn’t look up. He sat slightly hunched, hands fiddling with the butcher paper mounted on the board, playing with one of the dozen crayons on the tray beneath it. Eyes focused forward. “You’re lying.”
“That’s not nice,” Maureen chided.
“Lying isn’t nice,” he said. “Where’s my mommy?”
Her flat, rectangular face creased into a smile. “You’ll see her soon.”
Hannibal picked up a green crayon and began to draw squares. Without looking up he said, “If you hurt my mommy, I’ll hurt you.”
The room seemed to inhale and hold its breath. Hannibal kept rocking.
The techs watched Hannibal drawing, almost as if he hadn’t said anything. But they understood perfectly well that this extraordinary boy had been brought here for very specific, violent purposes. And the idea of pressuring such a human weapon was discomforting at the least.
The door opened and Madame Gupta entered, gliding as smoothly as an air hockey puck, Olympia in tow. Gupta motioned to the female attendant, and she stepped aside.
“Hello, Hannibal. I’ve brought someone with me I think you want to see.”
Hannibal rose and ran to his mother, hugging her around the waist. A happy reunion. Olympia looked around the room, desperate, seeking an ally anywhere. They watched her as if it was a world’s-end PTA meeting, all smiles and love and creeping horror.
Gupta cleared her throat. “I think there’s something you want to say to him?”
Olympia glared at Madame Gupta, as if she had decided she would only be pushed so far. “I need a few minutes with my child. Is that all right? Hannibal, do you think that they should give us a little time?”
Hannibal pointed at Maureen without turning his head. “She’s a liar.”
“I know, honey,” Olympia said. “But I won’t lie to you. I’d never do that.”
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