• • •
The crowd grew more closely packed, and Laura sought out Kelly to signal they should ask folks to begin forming a double line down one side of the hallway to the refreshments and fashion show door. Fire regulations would require some space in each of the hallways. She caught Kelly’s attention and beckoned for her friend to join her.
As Laura did so, a woman bumped into her arm. She looked familiar and it came to her in an instant. The triangle of head to shoulders, the space between the eyes, where the arms fell, the length between the bottoms of her nostrils to the top edge of her upper lip.
“Aren’t you the lady who brought in all those wonderful goods to my shop? You know you never left your name and I found a lot of things I can sell. I wanted to thank you and give you a receipt for your taxes.” Laura could be a good pretender. She knew exactly who this woman was—Mary Wilson from Eagle Junction High School, the teenager who did not get to purchase the red dress that Brittany bought, the teenager who thought she could win Dante Lelanley’s heart with a red dress.
She also might be a murderer.
“I’m surprised you recognize me. Most people don’t notice or remember me.” She went on to talk about women who have everything and was wearing the same long, dark wig with blonde highlights as she had on that day in front of Laura’s shop.
“I have a few things I would like to discuss with you.”
The conversation began to take an uncomfortable turn and made Laura a little nervous as she strained to hear the words aimed at her ear, but the woman had a grasp on her forearm that wouldn’t let go, her long nails digging into Laura’s skin. The diatribe continued until the woman declared that all pretty young girls should be treated the same, and elite, privileged ones should be shown their real place. They deserve more than a boring, anonymous life, such as hers had been.
The lady suddenly let go of Laura’s arm and turned away toward the hotel front door, as a man approached Laura and took her place with an iron grip on the same upper arm.
Laura winced.
Kelly was only two layers of people away, had noted the encounter and wondered what was behind Laura’s now startled and very disturbed face. She sifted her way through another layer of people to get closer to her friend, now only one person away.
A moment later, Laura called out to Kelly and smiled, but Laura’s words to her didn’t make any sense.
thirty-six
Come with me, quietly. And don’t try anything stupid.”
The words were spoken softly in her ear, but they were deadly in their tone.
Laura also felt the barrel of a hand gun in her ribs.
“Okay, but I have to—”
“You don’t have to anything. Move.”
“Actually, I do have to leave a message with my friend, or someone will call 911 before we’re out the front door because I’m not supposed to leave. Several people are watching me, including the cop at the front desk.” She pointed at the front desk.
He glanced up and coincidentally noticed a uniformed officer watching the crowd and settling on Laura.
For once the angels were with her, she thought, or maybe it was Saint Samuel Rage, as Connor had called him. Or maybe it was all just because she’d pointed her arm and her action had caught the officer’s eye.
“You be very careful what you say or you will die in this lobby, along with a lot of other people, including that cop.”
“I understand,” she said and called out to Kelly, now one person away from her.
“Kelly, call Connor and tell him I found a supplier for the hula hoops for Founder’s Day. My phone’s dead. Can you call him quickly? He was going to drive down to Minnetonka to get them, and I want to catch him before he leaves. It’s important!”
She saw the blank look on Kelly’s face as the lady nodded, and Laura hoped she would do exactly as directed.
Laura was hustled out the front door of the hotel, through throngs of excited people, to a sedan at the end of the crowded parking lot. His grip on her arm was painful, and she had no idea what was going on.
“Why are you doing this? Where are you taking me?”
“Shut up!”
“I’m sure this is a mistake—”
“No mistake and stop talking or you will die here in the parking lot.”
He was parked behind one of the dumpsters, and forced her into the trunk of the car.
“You can’t get out. The back seat is welded into place and there’s no way out. And it’s all sound-proofed, so you can scream all you want. No one will hear you. You go where I take you. Your life as whoever-you-think-you-are is over.”
As the trunk lid slammed shut, Laura wondered what was happening. Panic overtook her in the cramped space of the trunk as she tried to stretch her arms and legs to find the size of her space.
It was small and there was nowhere to go.
What was she going to do?
How long would her air last?
thirty-seven
Unbeknownst to Laura and her friends, a young man was in the hotel lobby, hoping to get a glimpse of Laura Keene. He had waited and watched for her, stared as he spotted her in the crowd, laughing and trying to beef up everyone’s excitement over the silent auction.
He found her manner engaging and genuine. It jibed with all that he had heard about her in the social blogs for her new shop and community engagement and holiday spirit. He kept his distance but followed her around a bit until he saw her expression change when a woman took her arm and spoke into her ear.
Then a man grabbed her arm and was rushing her through the crowd toward the front door. It was clear that Laura didn’t want to go with him. He heard her call out to her friend but was too far away to make out what she was saying.
He hurried after them as quickly as possible against the incoming sea of eager bidders, pretended to be seeking a better phone signal in front of the hotel, turned his back on the pair but watched them in the reflection of his phone.
No, no! This can’t happen! It’s all wrong!
As the man hustled his captive around the corner of the building, Justin Carlson followed, still pretending to be texting, then talking on his phone. He took several pictures but stayed behind two tall bushes at the entrance to the parking lot and watched in great distress as the man shoveled Laura Keene into the trunk of the car and slammed it shut.
Justin snapped more shots of the car and the license plate, still pretending to be talking as the car sped past him out of the lot and onto the highway. Then he called 911 from the hotel courtesy phone and reported the kidnapping, giving the plate number and description of the car and the kidnapper, the direction they were heading, and explaining he was only in town for the auction and didn’t want to leave his name.
He took a cab back to his hotel on the highway outside Duluth, hoping they would find her. It was a very odd feeling for him. If anything happened to her, then what would happen to him? Would he just go back to work as if there had never been a letter to read or a twin to find? What would he say to his adopted parents?
It was all very disturbing.
• • •
Back inside the dark trunk, Laura tried to remember what her father always taught her about saving your breath if you were caught in a small space with limited air. She tried to slow her breathing, but it didn’t work as panic once again filled her in the utter darkness, causing her heart to pound and demand more oxygen.
Then she remembered something else her father had taught her long ago, in the early days. As a kid, she’d always thought he’d seen it on TV. Maybe it would work. Amazing she even remembered it, but he had drilled it into her brain pretty deeply. Her hands groped in the dark for what she sought.
thirty-eight
Sergeant Connor Fitzpatrick showed up at the silen
t auction shortly after the double lines of the multitude had begun to filter into the refreshment and fashion show room. He parked in the front in a fire lane and parted the crowds with his arms until he found Kelly Rogers behind the front desk, waiting for him.
“Tell me exactly what she said.”
Kelly watched his face go blank, then go cop.
“Okay, what else did you see? Do you have a description of the man? And how long ago was this?”
“Not more than twenty minutes, but I couldn’t see him well. She just went out to put the bag of duct tape in her car. Connor, she didn’t have her phone with her. It’s here where we locked up our purses, and it’s not dead. I knew something was wrong. And it had nothing to do with hula hoops,” Kelly added after answering his questions and wiping away tears. “I told Erica but not Jenna because they need to keep the show and then the auction going. Jenna would faint. She thought something was going to happen today. She had chills.”
“You were right to call me right away. Give me a description of the woman who spoke to her.”
Connor recognized the woman as part of an ongoing investigation into the theft of the silent auction items and quite possibly the disappearance of seven young women.
He called the dispatcher who put him through to the officers on the road who were already out on the highway following the anonymous 911 call and gave them Kelly’s description of the man who had forced Laura out the door. The description matched what the anonymous caller had given, and thanks to that caller, they now also had the tag number and car make and color, a late model Lincoln MKZ sedan, black, dark windows.
Nobody knew the man had a gun.
• • •
Justin Carlson sat in his room, re-reading the letter from his adoptive parents over and over. He might have been a straight-A student, but he had no coping skills to figure out how to handle this situation. He wished he had some bigger and better reservoir of courage somewhere and hoped he had done enough to save the girl who was supposed to be his sister. This was no way for things to happen, and not how it was supposed to happen.
The television in his room was on the local news channel, but there was no news of Laura Keene’s kidnapping. Perhaps that was the best news, or perhaps it was the worst. He just didn’t know.
He did know one thing: If Laura Keene was lost then all would be lost for him.
___
Minnesota State Highway 61 came out of Duluth near 26th Avenue East. The Lincoln sped along 61 heading north. The driver was focused on where he was going and why, plus how much money the girl in the trunk of his car was going to add to his wallet. With the sun in his eyes and the visor down, he did not even see the blinking lights on his dashboard, signaling something was wrong with his rear running lights.
Back in the trunk of the car, Laura Keene’s fingers had found what she was looking for. Unfortunately, she was in pitch darkness and her eyes were only able to adjust to a certain extent. What drove her was the realization that she could not rely on Kelly’s having gotten the message straight and called Connor immediately, nor could she count on Connor remembering the “safe words” from their childhood about hula hoops that meant, Help, I’m in Trouble. She was on her own, going somewhere she knew nothing about, or what would happen when she got there, wherever it was.
Everything was up to her and what she could recall her father teaching her. The bag of super-sized duct tape rolls was awkward and bulky, jabbing into her ribs and side. She tried to slip it off over her head, but there wasn’t enough room for that maneuver, so she worked around it.
She found the back corners of the trunk and dug out the carpet covers behind one of the tail lights. Once she accessed the wires, she could see the colors of the wires in her hands whenever her captor slowed and hit the brakes. She uncapped and untwisted the wires and tested which one would stop and start the running lights. Then she started signaling the Morse code she remembered her father had taught her in Girl Scouts, and she hoped that someone would recognize the “SOS” and “GUN” she was signaling over and over. It was her only hope.
• • •
Laura Keene couldn’t see the burgundy and white state police car that trailed the car in which she was trapped, three cars back. But the trooper driving it saw the Lincoln with its blinking tail light. When he called it in after recognizing the tag number on the BOLO, he was told to follow and not engage, and stay in a different lane, given the signals coming from the blinking tail light, which he was able to read. He followed it all the way to a small hotel some miles farther north on the highway when it turned in to the parking lot. The trooper sped past the hotel as he was told and pulled off the road a quarter mile up the highway where he awaited further instructions.
• • •
When the Lincoln stopped and Laura heard the driver’s door shut, she immediately shoved the wires and carpet back into place as best she could. The trunk opened, and the man reached in to yank her out of the car, and she was at too much of a disadvantage to fight him. She was blinded by the sun after being in darkness for the better part of a half hour and the heavy bag of duct tape was awkward and caught on the lip of the trunk twice as she climbed out. Once she lost her balance and scraped a knee on the macadam.
He jerked her to her feet and shoved her toward a back door of the hotel which was unlocked, dragged her by one arm up the stairs with his other hand jamming the gun firmly in her ribs once again, and warned her to be quiet as they entered the hallway to the rooms on the third floor.
She did as she was told and was poised to take whatever action she could when an opportunity arose.
When the door of the hotel room opened, she was shoved inside and smacked against the wall. She turned her head and got the shock of her life when she saw who was there.
thirty-nine
Laura recognized the voice of Eric Williams before her brain could process him in the expensive suit and shining wingtips. Her mouth opened, but she said nothing and noticed he blinked when he saw her.
“I told you my client doesn’t like blondes,” Williams said in a nasty and harsh voice she had never heard coming from his mouth in all the years she’d known him. “He wants a brunette. Take her back to wherever you found her or give her to someone else.”
“I don’t care who or what you or your client want; this is what you get. I was told. You got a problem, you talk to my boss. I’m sure she’ll be very happy to argue with you about her decision. So she’s yours. You might have a little fun with her first,” he smirked. “Maybe that will make up for your problem.”
“No thanks. My client doesn’t take kindly to anyone messing with what he considers his property. He chops off heads, hands, and other significant parts for that.”
“Well, I hope he enjoys his blonde because that’s who he’s getting.”
Williams reluctantly handed over a fat envelope, presumably filled with cash, to Laura’s kidnapper.
“I may not want to do business with you people ever again!” he spat at the man who was halfway out the hotel room door.
“Who cares?” was all they both heard as the man slammed the door behind him.
Laura turned her full attention to Eric Williams. She couldn’t believe he was part of a human trafficking group, or that he would buy someone from them. It was unthinkable! Regardless of what she thought of him as a person, or insurance salesman, this was beyond the beyond.
He saw the horror on her face and put up his hands.
“Now, Laura, it’s not what you think. Let me show you something—”
But reaching into his inside coat pocket was as far as he got because she doubled her fists together and belted him in the jaw with all her strength.
He staggered back against the wall, stunned.
“Laura, wait! I can explain—”
But she grabbed the
heavy sack of twelve super-sized duct tape rolls off her shoulder and over her head, and wound up to swing around and slug him with it.
forty
The woman’s beautiful face was contorted in fear and anger.
“Look at what you’ve done!”
“How was I to know it would backfire?”
“Everything you’ve done lately has backfired!” she shrieked.
“None of this is my fault. Don’t worry; I can still get us out of the country.”
“Pull all our cash from the safe. We’re going to need it. It is the only resource we have.”
“Let’s go. Are you ready?”
She grabbed a bag from one of the locked cupboards in the back room of her office.
“I am always ready,” she sneered at him.
• • •
Back in the hotel where Laura Keene faced off against Eric Williams, a different and unexpected exchange was taking place. Both of Eric’s hands were up in the air, like a surrender. He reached again into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out what looked to be an ID of some kind.
“No, Laura, it’s real. Take a closer look.”
“Toss it on the bed.”
When she picked it up, she recognized that Eric Williams indeed carried a genuine gold, detective shield.
“I almost smacked you in the head with this bag of duct tape. You’re a detective?” Laura’s eyes were as big as saucers.
A Dress to Die For Page 19
