Long Gone Lonesome Blues

by Maggie Shayne

  Penny leaned on furniture and slowly made her way to the door. It took time, but she did it. She twisted the knob and pulled the door open. There was a hallway, and closed doors with numbers on each one. And there was a man coming around the corner at the far end. Another guest—help at last! Penny lifted a hand toward him, managed to cry out. “Help me. Please, help me…”

  His head came up fast. Then he ran closer, and her blurred vision cleared, and she saw his face.

  “No….” she whispered as Barlow closed his hands around her arms. “No!”

  Not gently, he shoved her back through the door. Penny managed to tear the ring from her finger as she struggled against him. She dropped it on the carpeted hall before Barlow got her back into the room. Her prison. And she could only wait, and pray he hadn’t brought the Senitrate back with him.

  They had a lead on the drug, and Ben was frustrated with the way the police were handling it. DEA had been brought in, and their agents were all over the small El Paso post office the package had been addressed to. Ben and his brothers had been pushed aside, told to stay out of the way, despite Garrett’s attempts to intervene. The closest they could get to the post office was the coffee shop across the street. Ben sat there in a booth with Adam, watching. There was little else to do right then.

  “Barlow would have to be an idiot to walk into that place,” Adam said, leaning close.

  He was right, Ben knew. Anyone who’d seen the docile area the day before would know something was up. No less than ten dark-colored sedans lined the street. Unmarked cars, they called them, though the police antennas were obvious to anyone looking. And the men sitting inside the cars watching the post-office door almost unblinkingly were not exactly inconspicuous.

  “I can’t just sit here, Adam. I have to do something.”

  “There’s nothing to do.”

  Ben shook his head. “She’s here, in this damned town, somewhere.”

  “But where?” Adam asked, staring out the window.

  Ben shook his head. “If Barlow spots the cops, he’ll move her. Maybe even decide it’s too risky to keep her…alive.”

  “Ben, don’t think that way.”

  Ben lowered his head, closed his eyes. “I’m getting out of here.” He shoved his chair back. Its legs made loud scraping sounds on the floor as he got to his feet.

  “To go where? You don’t even know where to begin looking, Ben.”

  “I have to try. It’s Penny, for God’s sake. She’s fighting for her life, dammit, and she’s doing it alone.” He turned toward the door, but his brother came behind him, not about to let him alone.

  “You’re beating yourself over the head with guilt, aren’t you?”

  Ben whirled to face him. “Of course I am! How can I not be? I let her think it was over, Adam, just to soothe my wounded pride. I let her walk out of that dojo when I should have been on my knees begging her to stay, and to hell with what she did or didn’t do in the past! God gave me a miracle, and I threw it away. I love her, Adam.” He lowered his head, his face contorting in agony. “God, I love her.” He got himself under control, lifted his head again. “I’m going out there, and I’m damned well going to find her.” He waited for Adam to argue some more.

  Adam said, “I’m going with you.”

  Chapter 13

  “I should have guessed you’d try something like this!” Barlow’s voice was loud and angry, and Penny hit the bed hard when he shoved her toward it.

  She said nothing when he loomed over her. But when he reached for another vial of the tranquilizer and saw them all smashed to bits, he looked even more furious. “Damn you! I saved your life!” His eyes narrowed. “Maybe you’d prefer death to life, though. Is that it, Penny? Is that why you’re so ungrateful? Do you want to die?”

  “You saved my life,” she whispered. “And then you stole it from me. You lied to me, told me I had no one when—”

  His hand lashed out to slap her face, and the impact knocked her backward on the bed. Then he went silent, staring at her with dead eyes. “We’ve worked far too hard. I won’t let you do this to her!”

  And that frightened Penny more than the blow had done. “Do…what…to whom?”

  “You’re trying to destroy her, aren’t you? Well, I won’t let you, do you understand? I won’t let you!”

  “Dr. Barlow,” she whispered, “who in the world are you talking about?”

  “We’re getting out of here,” he said. “If you weren’t so valuable to my research, Penny, believe me I would leave you behind, just as dead as you would have been if you’d never come to me. But I can’t do that. And I can’t get the Senitrate.” He shook his head sadly. “Believe me when I tell you, this would have been so much easier on you if I could.” Hands shaking, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocked, shook one free, and lit it, tossing the matchbook onto the nightstand and puffing smoke into the air.

  She’d never seen him smoke before, but then, he wouldn’t in a clinical setting. In a hotel room, apparently, he had no such reservations. He said he couldn’t get the Senitrate. She wanted to ask why, but thought it best to keep quiet. He paced away from her, and Penny scooped the matches from the stand beside her bed and buried them in her pocket. Her face stung, but her head was a bit clearer. Maybe his slap in the face had done more good than harm. She thought she might even be able to stand up without wobbling, maybe even walk now.

  “We can take the elevator directly to the garage where I’ve parked,” he said, thinking aloud. “With luck we’ll run into no one on the way.”

  “Wh-where are we going?”

  “Away from here. Where there won’t be police surrounding the post office waiting for me to show up. Eventually, love, I’ll take you back to England with me, but until you’re…cooperative—”

  “You don’t have to drug me,” she said quickly. “I’ll go along, I swear it.”

  He smiled grimly at her. “No, you won’t. We both know that, don’t we, Penny? But you will, once you have enough of the drug in your bloodstream. You’ll be as meek as a lamb if I tell you to be.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” she told him, glaring. “I wasn’t last time, was I?”

  His brows rose. “Which is why the dosage will be higher this time, Penny. Much, much higher. I’ll make sure the effects are permanent this time.”

  His words sent a chill through her blood. “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, her voice less hostile than before. It trembled instead. Her heart was breaking, she realized. She’d only just found love, and he was going to take it from her all over again.

  “To save lives, Penny. Don’t you realize what you are? You’re the first patient ever to recover fully from HWS. And it was my treatment that cured you. For years I’ve worked for this. I won’t let you rob me of it now.”

  She shook her head slowly, seeing for the first time the glint of madness in his eyes. “But you have the cure. You did it—you…you did what no other scientist has been able to do so far. Why do you need me?”

  “I have the cure, yes, Penny, but I’ve explained this to you before. It’s failed for other patients. It failed…it failed for my mother.”

  She caught her breath, and thought perhaps she was finally beginning to understand. “You…you lost your mother.”

  “Oh, no,” he whispered. “She’s still with me, Penny. Guiding me, telling me what I have to do. I promised her I’d end HWS forever, and that’s a promise I intend to keep.”

  Penny swallowed hard. So the “she” he’d been ranting about was his dead mother…and he still spoke to her. And she to him. She closed her eyes, wondering if things could get any worse.

  “On you,” Dr. Barlow went on, “the treatment worked, and there has to be a reason for that. Something in your body chemistry. You should be honored, Penny, to be given an opportunity like this—to save lives, to cure an incurable disease. You’ll go down in medical history.”

  She shivered and he reached for her. “Come, it’s time we
left. They’re getting too close to us here.”

  She drew back in fear, and he paused, studied her with bunched brows. “You still don’t understand how important this is, do you?”

  Shaking his head sadly, he pulled a gun from somewhere beneath his jacket. He pointed it at her. Penny stared at the perfectly round black barrel, and felt her knees go weak all over again.

  “I told you this would have been easier for you with the tranquilizer. But you’ve ruined that. And now I’ll have to shoot you, Penny, if you don’t do exactly as I say. If you don’t think I will carry out that threat, Penny, you will be in for a surprise. Because I will. And unfortunately the same fate will befall anyone who gets in our way. Now up, on your feet, come on.”

  Swallowing hard, Penny got up.

  Adam and Ben had stopped at a dozen hotels in El Paso, talked to the clerks, shown them Penny’s photo. And so far nothing had panned out. Ben was afraid Barlow had already fled, taking Penny with him, and God knew how he’d find her again.

  At least Barlow didn’t have the Senitrate. Ben clung to that with everything in him as he paced the sidewalk toward the Holiday Inn, Adam at his side.

  Adam stopped walking, tugged on Ben’s sleeve.

  “What?” Ben looked at Adam, saw him craning his neck and then followed his gaze. “What the hell…?”

  “Looks like somebody stuck a blanket out the window.”

  Ben went stiff. “It’s a signal. It’s Penny!” He ran forward, but Adam was beside him in an instant, gripping his arm, stopping him. His foot came down on a notepad some slob had dropped, and he kicked it aside impatiently.

  “Ben, slow down. Let’s do this right. Call the police and wait for them before we—”

  “And have them show up en masse, ready for a shoot-out? Dammit, Adam, we don’t want to turn this thing into a standoff. Barlow could panic. He could hurt her.” The thought made him sick to his stomach. “I’m going up there.”

  Adam looked at Ben, and finally nodded. Then he glanced upward again. “Fourth floor, corner room. Come on.”

  Together they ran to the entrance. Adam seemed inclined to stop at the desk, but Ben had no such inclination. They’d never give him a key for the asking, and he didn’t have time to go into explanations. He took the stairs two at a time, and after a moment of indecision, Adam came running after him. He knew they drew curious glances, and figured the desk clerk was probably calling security right now. He didn’t care.

  At the fourth-floor landing, he burst into the hall, turned in the direction he knew the room to be and ran all the way to the room at the corner. Then he stood outside the door, terrified of what he might find beyond it.

  Adam caught up, reached past him and tried the knob. Useless, Ben knew, without a key. Adam glanced up at him with a quick shake of his head. “You want to knock?”

  Ben looked at the floor. A glimmer caught his eye, and he knelt, gathering the tiny golden ring into his hands.

  Penny’s wedding ring. He closed his palm tightly around that ring and straightened. “Yeah,” he said. “You bet I’m gonna knock. Step aside, Adam.”

  Adam grimaced, but stepped out of the way. Ben drew a breath, let it out and then delivered the most powerful kick he knew how to perform, shouting as he did so.

  The door crashed open, banging into the wall on the other side. Ben leaped into the room, ready to do battle.

  It was empty. A rumpled bed gave him nightmarish chills. The lamp lay broken on the floor beside an over-turned stand. When he moved closer, his boots crunched over shattered glass, and he bent to pick up a piece of a vial with the label still on it.

  Adam was already checking the closet, then the bathroom.

  “They’re gone,” Ben whispered. “Dammit, he’s already taken her somewhere else.”

  “She’s not making it easy on him, though,” Adam said from the bathroom.

  Ben noted the cut telephone cord. The bastard wasn’t making it easy on Penny, either. But she was trying. Damn, but she was trying. He walked into the bathroom, and Adam pointed at the mirror. Ben read Penny’s plea for help written in soap on the glass.

  “She’s something else, that wife of yours,” Adam said. Then he glanced at the bit of glass Ben clutched in his hand. “What’s that?”

  “Drug vials. Tranquilizer, I think. He doesn’t have the Senitrate, Adam, but he’s keeping her sedated.”

  “That would explain the handwriting. It’s shaky.”

  Ben closed his eyes. “Shaky or not, she managed to leave a note. Smashed his cache of dope to bits, and put up a flag to let us know where she was. Left her ring in the hall…” Ben drew a shuddering breath.

  “And she’ll keep on doing it, Ben. We’re going to find her.”

  There were footsteps in the hall. “Just what do you gentlemen think you’re doing?”

  Ben turned to see a man in a suit, probably the manager, looking aghast at the trashed room. “My brother will explain,” he said. “Where’s the parking lot?”

  “But—you…you don’t think I’m going to let you walk away from this mess, surely? Someone is going to have to pay for all the—”

  Ben gripped the man’s shirtfront and lifted him off his feet. “I don’t think you heard me. I asked, where is the parking lot?”

  “In the b-back! And there’s a garage—below.”

  Ben released the fellow, tipped his hat. “Thank you kindly.” Then he left, while Adam blurted explanations.

  Again Ben took the stairs, too impatient to wait for the elevator. All the way down his steps echoed in the empty stairwell. Halfway down, he kicked something that skittered down a few more steps. Frowning, he picked up a part of a torn up matchbook. The letter P had been hastily, sloppily scrawled on the inside.

  “Well I’ll be…” He stuffed the matches into his pocket and ran the rest of the way down, pushed the bar on the door and flung it open, then stepped into the cavernous underbelly of the hotel. Shiny cars lined the place, colorless in the darkness. Ben didn’t know which way to turn, where to look. Until he spotted another piece of matchbook off to the right. “Good girl, Penny,” he whispered. “Lead the way, honey, I’m coming for you.”

  He walked, skimming the rows of cars, scanning the floor for another clue. And he found it. The rest of the matchbook, resting in an empty parking space. For a moment his heart fell. Dammit, they’d already got out of here. But then he heard a voice, and turned. A parking attendant stood in a small booth near the exit sign, holding a telephone to his ear. Ben glanced at the vacant spot again. Level 1, slot 14. He ran toward the little booth, gripping the sides’ of it with both hands. “I need your help. What car was parked in slot 14, over there?”

  The young man had an earring in his nose, and he rubbed it, frowning. “What? Why you wanna know that? Look, I’m not supposed to—”

  “A woman’s been kidnapped, dammit. And she was in that car! Now tell me.”

  The boy’s eyes widened, but then he lowered his head. “Sorry, man. We don’t keep track of what car’s in what spot. Only check to see if they’re registered or not.”

  Ben gritted his teeth in frustration.

  “Was the woman sick or something?” the kid asked.

  Ben’s head came up fast. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, it’s just that a guy did leave here with a woman just a few minutes ago. I wouldn’t have noticed, except she looked sick. Sort of leaning on the door, kinda limp and—I’d have thought she was drunk, you know, but it’s sorta early in the day.”

  “Not drunk, drugged. What do you remember about the car?”

  The kid grinned. “Black Chevy Cavalier”

  Ben frowned, instantly suspicious.

  The kid shrugged. “My dad bought one just like it last year.”

  For the first time Ben felt hope. “Thanks, kid. You’ve been a big help.”

  “Oh, heck, I can do better. If you know what room they were in, I can get you the plate number.”

  Ben gaped, gave his h
ead a shake. “Room 410. And if you’ll let me use that phone, I might just name my first-born after you.”

  The kid handed Ben the phone, and flipped open his logbook. While Ben dialed Garrett’s mobile number, the boy wrote the plate number on a piece of scrap paper and pushed it into Ben’s hand. Ben glanced down. Under the number it said, “Reginald Kenneth.”

  Ben frowned at the kid.

  “My name, for your firstborn.”

  “Reginald?”

  The boy nodded. “Mom was a big Elton John fan.”

  Garrett answered his phone.

  The hotel room was swarming with cops and forensics teams. Reginald was ensconced with one officer, and looked to be feeling pretty pleased with himself as he answered the man’s endless questions.

  Ben paced.

  “Easy. We’re going to find her,” Garrett told him, slapping his shoulder.

  “I want to be out there, looking, not in here answering questions.”

  “Look, we’ve got roadblocks, we’ve got choppers, we’ve got the damned plate number and a description of the car. They’re not going to get far. And as soon as we spot them, I’ll take you to her myself. You got my word on that.”

  Ben shook his head. “Suppose Barlow turns this into a high-speed chase? They could crash. She could end up dead.” He closed his eyes, thinking how ironic it would be to lose Penny in exactly the same manner he thought he’d lost her two long years ago.

  “We’re not going to risk Penny’s life, Ben.”

  “Suppose he pulls a gun, uses her as a hostage, demands we let him leave with her?”

  “Will you quit thinking the worst?” Garrett shook his head, and pressed a handful of sheets taken from a hotel notepad into Ben’s hand. “Here, read this, it’ll take your mind off things.”

  Frowning, Ben took the sheets and glanced down to see a wobbly semblance of Penny’s handwriting slanting across the page. “What is this?”