I walked over and picked up the runner kneeling down to inspect the hardwood floor beneath it. There was a small notch in the wood. I stuck my finger in it and pulled. A square piece of flooring rose up revealing a stairway leading down to the basement.
“Alphonso was just walking back into the living room. “C’mere,” I yelled. “I found the entrance to the basement.”
“Take it easy there, Sweetcakes. Someone went to a lot of trouble to hide this. It might be booby trapped. Let me go first.”
“I appreciate the chivalry, but that’s not fair. Why would you put yourself in danger like that?”
“Because Santiago would kill me if I let anything happen to you. This way I’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of survival.”
My stomach flipped very pleasantly. Sometimes I get these feelings at the most inappropriate moments!
When Alphonso got to the bottom of the stairs he called up to me. “You’re not going to believe this. Come on down.”
Following the beam from his flashlight, I took the stairs two at a time and found myself in a small, furnished apartment. There was a living room, complete with couch, end tables, lamps and a television set. I turned on a light and saw a door to the left that led to a tiny bathroom. There was a closed door on the right.
Alphonso glanced at me, Glock in hand and ready for action. He nodded toward the closed door and walked over to it with me right behind him. He opened the door and took an immediate step back, blocking my view. “Oh fuck,” he whispered, losing his characteristic cool. “Man, that’s sick.”
“What’s in there?” I squeaked.
Shaking his head he stepped aside allowing me full access. It took my brain a minute to fully process the scene before me; two, pregnant, teenage girls sitting on twin beds, chained to a post like a pair of junkyard dogs. Oh my God.
Chapter Seventeen
The terrified look they gave us was almost too much to bear. One of the girls started to cry. She couldn’t have been more than 18, with large, dark, haggard eyes and a swollen belly. The other was younger and less visibly pregnant. She stared at us, her eyes full of mistrust.
“Alphonso,” I whispered, “put the gun down.”
I approached the beds slowly, swallowing bile and outrage. “We’re not going to hurt you,” I said calmly. “We’re here to help get you out of here, but we can’t do it alone, and we have to make sure the people that did this to you pay for what they’ve done. So that means I have to call the police. Do you understand?”
They just stared at me as if I were speaking Klingon. I dug in my bag, took out my phone and called Bobby.
“Call the Haycock Township police and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can,” he said. “If you have any trouble, tell them to call me.”
“Um, we sort’ve broke into the house. Think that’ll be a problem?”
“Not when the cops get a load of what you found there.”
“Oh, and, uh, hypothetically speaking, what would happen if they found one of us packing a concealed weapon without permission?”
“I didn’t hear you ask this question, but if I were Alphonso I’d get my ass out of there real quick.”
“Thanks, Bobby.”
Fifteen minutes later I heard footsteps pounding above our heads.
“Down here,” I yelled.
Light flooded the stairwell and five armed officers appeared, guns drawn. A female cop stayed with the girls and tried to soothe them while her partner worked on sawing off the chains. Two more cops inspected the basement apartment and the last one took my statement.
“The people you’re looking for are James and Eleanor Garner. They own this property and they’re the ones who kidnapped the girls,” I said, giving him the Garners’ address in Philly.
As I finished giving my statement, Bobby showed up and all the tension I’d been holding in came out in one big whoosh of tears. He put his arms around me and let me cry into his shirt.
“You did good, Sweetheart,” he said, hugging me to him. “I think you may have just solved the Olivia Bowen homicide as well. We figured it had to be someone who knew her, but we couldn’t come up with a motive. Bowen was probably on to them so they had to get rid of her.”
As we walked outside, local news crews stormed the property. My first instinct should have been to call Eric to give WINN an “exclusive” on this “Breaking News,” but it wasn’t. I just wanted to right a wrong and go home. And then I had an epiphany. I suck at my job. Might be time for a career change.
Bobby offered to give me a ride home. On the way, he got a call that the Garners had been picked up just as they’d pulled into their garage. They were in custody and on their way to the station.
“Bran, do you mind if we go directly there? I’ll have Osbourne run you home.” Jimmy Osbourne is a rookie cop Bobby’s taken under his wing.
“Fine by me. The sooner you get there the sooner you get those sick-o’s off the street permanently.”
I was sitting in DiCarlo’s office when I saw them being escorted into the interrogation room by two police officers. Their hands were cuffed behind their backs. Eleanor had giant mascara stains running down her cheeks. She had obviously been crying. James looked like he was on the verge of crapping his pants. A ripple of satisfaction flowed through me.
Bobby told me to stay in his office, and I would have, except that I was very thirsty and had to get a drink of water at the water fountain that, coincidentally, was located right next to the interrogation room.
Garner shuddered in recognition. “This must make your day,” he spat at me.
“Umm, not yet.” I balled up my fist and socked him in the gut as hard as I could. “But I’m getting there,” I said as I watched him throw up all over his shoes.
I stuck out my hands for the cop to cuff me. “It was worth it,” I told him.
He looked from me to Garner to his partner and back to Garner again. “Must be the flu. It’s going around.”
*****
“Paulie, I’m telling you, I’m fine.”
“Th-then why didn’t you call me back? Here I am, closin’ up the bar and I look up at the tv and see Breaking News, and the next thing I know, my sister is p-p-parading cross the screen in the middle of a crime scene—what the hell, Bran?”
I glanced over at the clock in my living room. 7:15 a.m. I’d been asleep for three hours. Great.
I wasn’t in the mood to be alone last night, so I’d waited for Bobby while he went through his paces with the Garners, and then he drove me home.
“I’m gonna come in for a while, if that’s okay,” he’d told me.
“You don’t need to stay with me, Bobby. I’m really alright.”
“Yeah? Well maybe I’m not.”
Rocky greeted DiCarlo with her customary devotion, rubbing against his legs as if he were a giant can of tuna. I went to the back door to let the dog out. When I came back in, Bobby was sitting on the couch, his blue jean clad legs stretched out, feet up on the coffee table. Rocky was tucked in behind him on the couch pillow, purring softly.
Bobby shifted over to make room for me and I cuddled in next to him, laying my head in his lap.
“You’re something else, y’know that?” he said, stroking my hair.
“So I’ve been told,” I sighed.
“Love you, Bran.”
“Love you too.”
I fell asleep right after that and woke up when Paul called. DiCarlo was gone. He’d taken off my All Stars and stuck a couch pillow under my head. On the coffee table he’d left a note, written on the back of an old Safeway receipt. “Sweet Dreams.” Mercifully, I hadn’t dreamed at all.
“Paul, I’m really sorry. I must not have heard my phone ring.” I took my phone out of my bag and checked for messages. There were six. Four from Paul and two from Nick.
“Paulie, I’ll come by later to see you, okay? Don’t be mad—and don’t tell Mom.”
“It would serve you right if I did,” he told me, hanging up.
I retrieved the messages on my phone, blasting past Paul’s to get to Nick’s.
“Hello, Angel. Alphonso filled me in on what happened. Give me a call.”
The next message was sent a few hours later. “Just checking in to make sure you’re okay. Call me.”
I thought I noted a touch of urgency in his voice and was just about to call him back when I heard a knock at the door. I stumbled over to open it, in all my morning-breath and bed-head glory.
Nick stood on the steps, unshaven and sexy as all get out. His chest looked slightly broader than usual and I could see the outline of his bandages under his tee shirt. He gave me a wry smile. “Hello, Angel.”
“Nick,” I squeaked, equal parts delighted and mortified. “Um, come in. I was just—uh—I’ll be right back.”
I took the stairs two at a time, brushed my teeth, changed my shirt, applied some fresh deodorant and ran a comb through my hair. When I came back down he was sitting on the couch, petting the dog.
“I just heard your messages. I’m sorry I didn’t call you back—shouldn’t you be on bedrest?”
“I’m fine, darlin’, good as new. I wanted to make sure you were okay. You had quite a night.”
“Yeah, it was pretty eventful. Listen, have you eaten breakfast yet? Since you came all this way, the least I can do is feed you.”
Nick sat at the kitchen table while I scrambled around trying to find him something to eat. “Would you like eggs or pancakes? Cereal?”
“Whatever you usually have for breakfast is fine with me.”
That would be marshmallows toasted on top of the stove. “How about French toast?” I said, taking a stale loaf of sourdough out of the refrigerator.
For once I didn’t have much of an appetite, so I sat there with Nick while he ate his breakfast. I’d only burned it a little bit and anyway he didn’t seem to notice.
Nick finished his plate and put down his fork. He eyed me for a minute and then said gently, “What’s wrong, Angel?”
“Nothing.”
He sat quietly and waited until I was uncomfortable enough to fill the void. “Okay, it’s just that—look, I’m really grateful that we found those girls, but—”
“We still don’t know what happened to Star,” he finished for me.
“Yeah,” I said, absently running my finger through the syrup that was left on his plate. “Crystal needs closure, one way or the other.”
“So do you, Darlin’. Let’s go over it again.”
“Star wasn’t like the others,” I began. “She wasn’t pregnant. She got involved through a random meeting.”
“You said you suspected Garner’s wife knew about the affair. She didn’t go on the trip to Los Angeles with him. What if she followed him on the day in question, found out who he was seeing and then went back later to grab Star?”
“Bobby said she had an alibi and plenty of witnesses to back her up for the time period in question. I guess she could have hired someone to take Star, but… Nick, if Eleanor did take Star, why would she be driving her around in a car that’s so easily identifiable? I mean it has vanity plates. That’s like saying, Look at me, look at me. Unless Eleanor wanted to set James up to get back at him—but why would she mess up a lucrative business just to get revenge on her husband?”
And in the next instant I answered my own question. “Oh my God. She wouldn’t. Eleanor didn’t kidnap Star. But I think I know who did!”
I ran into the living room and shoved my feet into my shoes. “I’m sure I’m right. I’ve gotta go.”
“I’m coming with you. You can explain on the way.”
*****
“It all makes perfect sense when you think about it, Nick. It was their daughter, Caitlin. It had to be. Make a right here.” We were headed for the Garner’s house. I only prayed the kid was still there, not spirited away by some well meaning relative.
“Everything points to her. Remember I told you about the day I’d seen them at the restaurant. She saw how her mother reacted when her dad put his arm around her. What if she knew why they were having trouble and she wanted to do something about it? You know how kids are. I can just imagine her thinking if she can just get rid of Star, her parents will be happy again.”
“That’s a big leap from her wishing her parents would stop fighting to kidnapping a real live girl.”
“Yeah, but that’s not all. Eleanor was at a dinner party the night Star got picked up. She has an airtight alibi. Someone took their car. Caitlin had access to it, plus, a kid would be far less likely to think about the ramifications of driving around with vanity plates. Look, her mother’s out for the evening, there’s the car… but she couldn’t have done this alone. Besides being too physically small to pull off something like this, Harmony said she saw a guy driving. It must’ve been Caitlin’s behemoth boyfriend, Ben.
“The more I think about this, the more sense it makes. And if my hunch is right, I have a good idea where they took Star. Pull over a sec.”
Nick pulled to the curb and parked. “What’s going on?”
“Ben lives at his parents’ house. They have a sound studio in the back of their house. I’m assuming it’s soundproof. When I was at the Garners’ place I met Ben. He said his parents were in Europe and they’d be coming back in about a week. He’s an artist, and he’s been storing his paintings in the Garners’ garage because he was storing something else in the studio while his parents were gone. Nick, I’ll bet you anything they stashed Star in there.”
“So where’s this kid live?” he asked, starting up the car again.
“Damn! I don’t know! I don’t even know his last name… wait… he wrote his signature at the bottoms of his paintings. I closed my eyes. “Ben… Stein? Stiller? St—Stivac! Ben Stivac!” I whipped out my cell phone and punched in the number for Information.
Two minutes later we were back in business. The Stivacs lived about three blocks away from the Garners’. Nick pulled across the street from the house and parked. “Unhh!” I whined. “The studio isn’t visible from the street. Why can’t anything ever be easy?”
“Because if it was, you wouldn’t be interested.” It was an offhand remark and scarily true.
“It’s only a little after 9:00 a.m.,” I said, checking the time. “Let’s hope Ben isn’t an early riser.”
We snuck around to the back of the house and spied a small structure, about 15 by 20 square feet. It looked like a converted garage.
Nick checked around for an alarm system. Not finding one, he pulled some tools out of his back pocket and went to work on the lock.
“Wait,” I said, putting my hand on his wrist. I was shaking so hard I could barely stay vertical.
Nick put his hands on my shoulders and gazed steadily into my eyes. “You’ve been through so much, Angel, I wish I could protect you from this one. But no matter what we find in there, just know that you tried harder for that kid than anyone has in her entire life. And you’re not walking into this alone. I’m right here with you.”
I nodded slowly, blinking back tears as Nick opened the door.
As our eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the room, we heard a rustling noise followed by an unearthly bellow.
“Get me the fuck out of here!”
I jumped a mile. Seated cross legged on a mattress in the corner of the room was a teenage girl with stringy brown hair. She looked like she hadn’t bathed in weeks, which come to think of it, she hadn’t.
“Star?”
She jumped to her feet, looking like she was getting ready to bolt, only she couldn’t figure out how to get around the two of us. “Who the hell are you?” she sneered instead.
I bit my lip hard to keep from bursting into relieved laughter. “We’re friends of Crystal’s and we came to get you out of here,” I told her, replaying an eerily familiar scene. And for what seemed like the umpteenth time, I took out my phone and called the police.
*****
Late afternoon found an unlikely trio traveling e
astbound on the Betsy Ross Bridge to Tom’s River. Nick was driving. I was riding shotgun and our newest charge, Star, was in the back seat, hanging her head out the window, sucking in her newfound freedom. The nightmare was finally over.
Ben folded like a house of cards the minute the police showed up at his door. The story bore out the way I’d suspected. Caitlin had heard her parents arguing about the “teenage whore” James had gotten involved with. So she convinced Ben to help her save her parents’ marriage by eliminating her mother’s competition.
On the afternoon of the 15th, the kids followed James in Ben’s car as he picked Star up on her corner and took her to the motel. That night, with her dad in another state and her mother at a party, Caitlin and Ben drove back to the neighborhood to look for Star. There was one hitch in their plans. Ben’s car was overheating, so they decided to take SMILEY 1 instead.
They had never planned to hurt Star. They just wanted to scare her into breaking off contact with Caitlin’s dad. But Star, in inimitable street kid fashion, stuck an attitude and things just spiraled from there.
Caitlin was picked up at her aunt’s where she had been staying since her parents’ arrest the night before. She, too, seemed to welcome the chance to unburden herself. I asked Bobby what he thought might happen to them.
“They’re both under the age of eighteen, so my guess is after a psychiatric evaluation, they’ll be given community service and remanded to the custody of their parents, or in Caitlin’s case, her aunt. Star refuses to press charges, so there’s not much of a case against them.”
I turned around to Star, who was now flipping the bird to a guy in the next lane over. “Um, if you don’t mind my asking, how come you didn’t press charges against Caitlin and Ben?” Don’t you want to see them pay for what they did to you?”
Star shrugged. “I’ve had far worse done to me. Besides, they were okay, and at least I was getting fed.”
The more likely reason was it was easier to let it go than to get caught up in the legal system. Street tough to the bitter end.
No Such Thing as a Free Ride Page 25
