“So?”
“Just be careful. He’s unstable, and he’s got a rifle.”
“No worries. I don’t know if Grace told you, but I was a Marine. I learned a few things in those years overseas.”
“Nice.” Daisy smiled. “Okay, let’s get this guy out of bed.”
They hurried to the porch in the stiff December breeze, breath puffing from their lips in frozen plumes. Anderson felt snow in the air, and wondered when it would start. He pounded on the door with his fist.
Nothing.
Again, he slammed the wooden door with the heel of his palm, and when that didn’t work he kicked it until a bellowing sound came from within. The door flew open and a bleary-eyed, pot-bellied man appeared before him.
“What the hell? I already talked to the damn cops three times now. What do you two want?”
“Hello, Harry,” Daisy said in a soothing voice. “We just want to come in and chat for a little bit about Skeeter. They still haven’t found my little girl, you know. And we need your help.”
Anderson would have pushed his way inside, but Daisy’s approach was better. And it worked.
“I just went to bed a few hours ago,” Weatherby grumbled, belching. “So make it quick.”
Daisy slid past Anderson and into the house before she was invited. Anderson followed, and Weatherby, shaking his head, trailed them into the living room.
Anderson noticed the man’s shaky hands and bloodshot eyes. Thin veins popped on his nose and cheeks. And the place was littered with beer cans. “Where’s Skeeter?” he said before the man could sit down.
Harry plopped onto the couch. “Don’t know.”
“When did you last see him?” Anderson pushed.
“Don’t remember.”
“Come on. Didn’t you tell the cops that he came home from work that morning Grace disappeared? You said he took off, didn’t you?”
“I guess.”
“And did he have my girl with him?” Daisy said in a sweet voice. “Harry? Did you see Grace that morning?”
Harry scowled and rolled his eyes. “Christ. I told the cops I didn’t see that bitch.”
Anderson jumped up and grabbed Harry’s shirt with one fist, jerking him to his feet. “What did you say? What did you call her?”
Harry shrank away. “Um. No. Sorry.”
Daisy walked around the room, poking into cabinets and under pillows. “Why would you call my daughter such an ugly name, Harry?” Now her voice rang with steel.
No more honey in her tone, Anderson noted, smiling. She was one tough cookie. On her knees now, she was peering under the furniture.
After a few minutes of rummaging, Daisy pulled a bright pink scarf out from beneath the armchair. “Anderson!” she gasped, holding it up.
Anderson saw red. He lunged toward Harry and pushed him back onto the couch, knees in his chest. “Where is she?”
Harry bucked beneath him, and Daisy appeared at their side, her face a mask of hate and fear. “Where’s my Grace?” she screamed.
“That’s my scarf,” Harry blubbered. “Um, I mean it was my wife’s.”
Daisy lost it now, slapping the man’s face. “No it isn’t, you lying sack of shit. I knitted this for Grace. I’d know it anywhere.”
Anderson shook the man, then backed up and dragged him to his feet, yelling at him from two inches in front of his face. “Tell us what happened, or I’ll carve you up and leave you to bleed to death.”
Harry’s eyes popped and he whined. “She was a tease. A freakin’ little tease.”
“What did you do to her?” Anderson yelled, shaking him harder now.
Daisy was crying, tears streaking her cheeks. “Did you kill my girl?” she screamed.
Harry shook his head. “No! I didn’t do nothing. She fought me. But my lame-assed son came in before I could fuck her. He stole her from me. She was mine.”
The rage in Anderson grew and exploded within him. “You tried to have SEX with her?” he yelled, throttling the man until Harry’s face burned brick red.
“Anderson!” Daisy shrieked, pulling at his arms. “Don’t kill him. We need to find Skeeter.”
Chapter 50
Harry sat in his armchair, secured with duct tape Anderson had found in the storeroom in the back. He moaned every few minutes, proclaiming his innocence.
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“What’s Skeeter’s real name?” Daisy said, pawing through a pile of bills. “Is it Arnold? I see a lot of mail here for Arnold Weatherby.”
Harry nodded. “Yeah. He hates that name.”
Daisy spoke under her breath, “Like Skeeter’s a better choice?”
Anderson almost chuckled, watching Daisy in awe. In everyday life, she was proper and sweet, kind and polite, strong and bright; she was your delightful farm wife who could just as easily serve tea and cookies to the ladies of the parish as muck out a horse stall. And yet this morning, she had morphed to a tigress defending her young. Anderson marveled at her, turning back to Harry. “Where does Skeeter go when he takes off?”
Harry whined again. “Jesus H. Christ. How should I know?”
Anderson punched him in the gut, eliciting a snarl from the man. “You’ve gotta know something. Who are his friends? Where do they live?”
Daisy slit open an envelope and unfolded three sheets of paper. “Got it! New phone bill for Skeeter’s smart phone. We can see if he called anyone that day.” She scanned the bill and circled an entry. “This is the only number he called. It looks like it’s out of this area though. Canada, maybe?”
Harry roused himself, and muttered a name. “That’s his pal in Toronto. They call him Bammer. Another loser, like Skeeter.”
Anderson got closer. “Where does this Bammer live, exactly?”
Harry blew out a long breath. “Damned if I know. Somewhere in the city.”
Daisy tapped numbers on her cell phone. “I’m calling it.”
Anderson raced to her side. “Wait. What are you going to say?”
“I’ll just say… Oh, hello. Is this Bammer?” She paused for a minute, nodding her head excitedly. “Listen. My friend and I would like to buy something from you. I don’t want to say it on the phone, but we’ll be in town tonight. Is there a place we can meet?”
Anderson grinned. The woman was brilliant. Had she asked about Grace, she surely would have been shut down. But a potential sale to Bammer would get his interest.
Daisy motioned for a pen and paper, and Anderson slid it over to her. “Okay. Yes. I’ve got it. See you tonight. Around seven? Great.”
∞∞∞
Back at the farmhouse, Daisy and Anderson filled in Dirk.
He stood staring at his wife as if he didn’t recognize her, shaking his head and grinning for the first time in days. “Well, I’ll be damned. And you think she’s with this boy, in Toronto?”
Anderson nodded. “No doubt about it. Before we left him, Harry admitted Grace went away willingly with Skeeter. So the chances are really good that we’ll find her with him.”
“We need to get going.” Dirk checked his watch. “Do we alert the cops?”
Daisy said, “Sure. But when they discover she went off on her own free will, they’ll have no case. Right? They won’t be obliged to help us any more. And especially if it’s out of the country, not even in their jurisdiction.”
Dirk straightened, zipping up his jacket. “Right. So I’ll let them know what you found out, and the three of us can be there by seven if we hustle.”
Portia stood in the doorway to the living room, biting her bottom lip. “I wish I could go with you.”
Dirk walked briskly to her side. “I know, honey. But someone’s gotta watch the farm. We’ll try to be home by noon tomorrow.”
She gave a faltering smile. “Okay. Call me as soon as you find her.”
Daisy blew her a kiss and opened the kitchen door, letting in a cold breeze. “We will, honey. Hang tight.”
Anderson offered to drive, since D
irk’s truck didn’t have a back seat. They piled into his car with Daisy riding shotgun and Dirk marking up maps in the back.
∞∞∞
At quarter to seven, Anderson and Dirk stood in front of a rundown apartment complex in a dark Toronto side street, situated about four blocks from Younge Street. The city bustled with life in spite of the frigid temperatures, and a cold wind blew newspapers along the dimly lit sidewalk. Hooded pedestrians hurriedly walked past them with their dogs on leashes, and one man trundled past hunched over against the wind with a shopping cart full of his possessions.
Anderson saw Daisy’s pale face through the window in the locked car across the street. She gave him a thumbs up sign, and he nodded in return. If anything went wrong, she’d call the Toronto police.
“Ready?” Dirk pulled up his collar against the cold.
“Ready,” Anderson said, pressing the button for apartment 4B.
Two stoned teenagers stumbled out of the building, leaving the outer door ajar.
Without waiting for the buzzer, Anderson and Dirk headed inside. On the fourth floor, they exchanged glances. “This is it,” Dirk said. “Let’s go get my girl.”
The door to apartment 4B was already opened several inches. They knocked once and pushed into the room.
People sprawled around the room in the subdued light, huddled in corners or flat out snoring on mattresses butted end-to-end across the floor. Anderson walked slowly into the room, peering down at each occupant. At the far end, he shook his head at Dirk, to indicate he hadn’t seen her.
Dirk pointed to the first closed door on their right.
Anderson pushed it open slowly to find a man sleeping in the tub and a woman sitting on the toilet. She didn’t notice them and nodded heavily, her elbows on her thighs and chin resting on one hand.
They backed out and tried the next room, where muffled grunts and moans came through the door. Tensing for a fight, Anderson slowly eased it open.
Grace lay on her back, legs spread and face vacant, eyes focused on the ceiling. Was she even alive? She lay immobile, but atop her a heavy-set, hairy-backed man pumped himself into her with wild abandon. Anderson felt the blood drain from his face and heard Dirk draw in a quick breath.
“God in Heaven,” Dirk muttered.
In the corner on a sleeping bag, two men lay in each other’s arms, naked and smiling. The one with purple spiked hair managed to raise his head up for a minute. “If you’re next in line, you gotta wait in the hall. I’ll come get you when she’s ready.”
Anderson strode toward the maggot he hoped was Skeeter and drove his fist into his face, smashing him up against the wall. With blood spurting from his nose, Skeeter went down with a whimper. The obese man beside him—possibly Bammer—never woke.
The man riding Grace stopped midstride and turned to glance at Dirk and Anderson, perspiration dripping down his face. When he saw Skeeter’s bloodied nose, he pulled out, grabbed a pile of clothes, and ran shouting from the room.
Dirk sank to the bed beside Grace, covering her with the worn blanket. “Find some clothes for her,” he barked.
Anderson rummaged in the closet, but only came away with a tattered winter coat and bags of drug paraphernalia. In the nightstand by the bed, he found Grace’s purse and wallet. There was no money in it, but they’d need her ID to get her back over the border.
“Never mind. I’m wrapping her in this. Daisy has clothes in the car for her.”
Anderson hurried to his side. “Let me. Please.” He scooped her into his arms. “We’ve gotta be quick, before anyone else sees us.”
A tattooed thug with multiple brow piercings darkened the doorway. “Hey. What’s going on? That john said somebody beat the shit out of Skeeter and Bammer.”
Dirk didn’t stop to explain that Bammer had slept through it all, but walked up to the man with authority, flashing his wallet. “Toronto Vice. Move out of the way. The rest of the department is on their way. So get the hell out of here, or you’ll go downtown with the rest of them.”
Anderson followed Dirk and pushed past the man, carrying Grace in his arms. “Move out of my way, boy.” He shoved his way through the room, just as the thug began to sound the alarm.
“Cops are coming,” he yelled, scrambling over the bodies.
No one rose to his call. A few sighed and rolled over. One snuffled in his sleep.
“To hell with you all.” Tattoo man shrugged, ran down the hall, and made a beeline for the stairs.
Anderson and Dirk took the elevator to the ground floor, and on their way out alerted Daisy by cell phone. She opened the back door when they approached and helped them lay Grace’s head on her lap in the back seat. “Oh my God. My baby. What did they do to you?” Her voice rang with anguish, and she choked back tears.
Anderson hurriedly climbed into the driver’s seat, and Dirk got in beside him.
Dirk stretched an arm across the back of the seat and grimaced at Daisy. “You don’t want to know, honey. You don’t wanna know.”
Chapter 51
Although the traffic was light, the trip back to Vermont was ponderously slow and punctuated with heavy snow squalls. Gusty whiteouts blocked all vision for precarious minutes at a time, but would suddenly clear, allowing the night stars to sparkle overhead. Anderson’s hands were sore from gripping the wheel and his neck felt stiff from peering through the icy windshield. Daisy had somehow managed to dress Grace, and by the time they reached the border, she’d cleaned her face and brushed her hair to make her daughter look halfway presentable.
“There you go,” Daisy said, pinning a brass barrette in Grace’s dirty hair.
Grace sat up now, staring blankly out the window. She shivered, lying down on her mother’s lap. “Mom. I’m cold.”
“Here you go, sweetie. Let’s put this afghan over you. You’re coming home now. You’re safe, baby.”
“Thanks. I love you,” Grace said, mumbling as she fell asleep.
Anderson slowed and got in line for the Alburg/Noyan border crossing. The tension in the car was palpable. Dirk asked for the girls’ licenses, and stacked them on top of his own. “Here you go, Anderson. I think this’ll be all they need.”
The border agent—a tall caramel-skinned woman—leaned into the car, shining her flashlight on each passenger. “Where you coming from, folks?”
Anderson spoke for the group. “From a mini-vacation in Toronto. We’re headed home to Vermont.” He gave her a friendly smile, and hoped the angst of the days before didn’t show on his face.
“In the middle of the night on a weekday?” she said with a hint of a smile. “Seems rather odd timing.”
Dirk leaned over to speak with her. “Uh, Ma’am? I had a call from my daughter back at the horse farm. We’ve got a problem with one of the mares and she needs my help. So we just packed up and left.”
The woman took their IDs and brought them into a booth. Two minutes later, she returned. “What’s wrong with her?” She pointed the flashlight at Grace.
Daisy leaned forward with a laugh. “My daughter? Oh, she’s just all tuckered out. Fell asleep a while ago.”
The agent nodded. “Okay. Pull over here and pop the trunk for me.”
Anderson parked and hit the release latch, glad that they’d thrown some clothes together before they left and had an assortment of bags and backpacks laying in the back. They could easily pass as vacation luggage.
The woman came back to his door in seconds, frowning at the snow that had begun to fall again. She handed him the IDs. “Here you go. Drive safe now.”
When they’d cleared the station, Anderson heaved a sigh of relief. A half hour later, he pulled over for gas. “Not too much longer, folks. We’ll be home in a few hours.” Noting the silence from the back, he realized Daisy had fallen asleep. He glanced sideways at Dirk. “You need anything inside?”
Dirk sighed and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “No, son. But we’ve gotta talk.”
“Okay. Let me fill the tank first. J
ust be a second.” Anderson felt his insides shift, as if he’d entered a new dimension. Does Dirk know about us? The sun had just risen above the horizon when he finished gassing up the car and headed out for the highway again. “Okay, Dirk. Shoot.”
“Right. First of all, we’ve gotta get Grace to a hospital. But I think maybe we can spend the night at home and bring her in the morning. Portia can help us, and I know she wants to see her sister in the worst way.”
“Okay,” Anderson said. “Long as she doesn’t start needing a fix in the middle of the night.”
“Right,” Dirk said, his face darkening. “Well, what do you think we should do?”
“With all due respect, sir, I’m thinking we ought to go directly to the ER. She might have injuries. She’s gotta be tested for venereal diseases or internal damage. And they’ll need to be sure she didn’t catch anything from those syringes.” He noticed the horrified expression on Dirk’s face and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“What if she has AIDS?” he said, his voice shaking. “I’ve always worried about that.”
“No need to worry until we have a reason to do so,” Anderson said, trying to soothe him.
Dirk suddenly snapped a glance sideways. “Wait a minute. Wait one darned minute. Why are you helping us? Why aren’t you back in school? Didn’t your classes resume Monday?”
Anderson paled, but didn’t say anything.
Dirk shrugged. “Sorry. I guess that was rude. We’re glad for your help, Anderson.”
“I care about your daughter, sir. I—”
“Never mind. Let’s talk about that later. Right now, I’d best call ahead to the hospital. I’ll ask Portia to meet us there.”
He’d dodged the bullet this time, but knew he’d have to tell Dirk about their relationship soon. If the man hadn’t already guessed.
“Sounds like a plan,” Anderson said, flipping down his visor to block the bright winter sun. He’d deal with that problem once Grace was safe in the capable hands of the ER personnel.
Part IV
Finding Caroline
Devil's Creek Page 18
