by Molly Fitz
"Zip," Jones grabbed my hand and rubbed the pad of his thumb against my palm the way he used to do. "Promise me you'll be careful."
"I will. If I'm not back in two hours, call the police. You have the address, too. It's not that far."
He released my hand with a sigh. "Fine. Go on so you can bring your aunt home. I'll clean up this mess and board up the window."
"Use the broom. The vacuum might scare Loki. There's some plywood out behind the chicken coop. It's probably better if you leave him inside, and if he does have to go out, use the leash." The last thing I needed was for something to happen to one of the Mother Cluckers. "And, Jones? Thanks for this."
"Of course. I told you I'd always be here for you, no matter what happened between us. A gentleman never goes back on his word."
I busied myself by snapping the leash to Basil's collar and hoped that Jones didn't notice the blush creeping into my cheeks. After explaining where he could find all the pet supplies I had bought earlier in the day and grabbing my phone, Basil and I headed out.
The cat and I rode in silence as I navigated the truck down the mountain. I was too keyed up to let my mind wander to what situation Aunt Corliss might be in at the moment. There was no reason for me to wonder what was on Basil's mind. Now that my cat could talk, he could share his thoughts like any human, and he soon took full advantage of the newfound ability to do so.
"Do you have a plan?" Basil asked when we reached the Welcome to Mockingbird Springs sign at the bottom of the mountain.
Instead of turning to go into town, I followed the instructions on my phone's navigation app and drove in the opposite direction for the second time in one day. Unlike when I left the house earlier, this time, my phone held most of a charge.
Basil cleared his throat, and I realized he was still waiting for me to reply. I suggested, "I thought we'd play it by ear."
"Play it by ear? Are you crazy?"
"Yes, play it by ear and no, I'm not crazy."
"Did Aunt Corliss have you tested?"
"Basil, hush. I swear to bloodroot, if Aunt Corliss hadn't already gotten you fixed I'd drive you to the vet myself."
"Hurtful," the cat pouted. He turned his back to me and stared out the passenger-side window.
Tension overcrowded the space between us as I drove the truck into unfamiliar terrain until I gave in and said, "Come on, Basil. You know I didn't mean it. We're both stressed out about Aunt Corliss. We shouldn't take it out on each other."
But the cat stayed put. Basil was so stubborn that I had no doubt that he could hold a grudge through all nine of his lives.
The lack of maintenance on the dirt roads caused the vehicle to bump along, jostling Basil and I like we were popcorn kernels in Aunt Corliss's favorite tin pan of sizzling hot butter. I'd give anything to be preparing for movie night with her right now.
At last the phone app announced, "You will reach your destination in half a mile."
I pulled the truck to the side of the road and stared at the map.
"What are you doing?" Basil finally turned to look at me. "Aren't we going to drive to our destination?"
"And give them the home field advantage? I don't think so. We're going to walk."
Basil made a sound that was something between a hiss and "No."
Chapter Nine
"What do you mean, no?" I stared the cat down, not blinking until it was absolutely necessary.
After several minutes of silence, he informed, "I'm not walking half a mile. In case you forgot, I only have three legs!"
"Only having three legs never stopped you from doing anything at home. Do you really expect me to carry you?"
Basil rolled onto one side and stretched. "Yes."
"Fine." I turned and dug an extra-long pashmina shawl from behind the seat and stuffed my phone into the back pocket of my jeans before getting out of the truck.
By the time I had walked around to the other side, the cat had pulled himself into a sitting position and used his one front paw to bat at a loose thread on the seat.
I tied the shawl at my shoulder, opened the door, scooped Basil up and placed him inside so that he lay like a baby in a sling. At the last minute, I stuffed my purse in the sling with him before shutting the door.
Basil wriggled around until his head popped free and hissed, "What fresh Hades is this?"
"You didn't say how I had to carry you. It's either you ride in the sling or you walk for half a mile with me. What's it going to be?"
Basil mumbled something.
"What? You're happy to ride in the sling? Great! Let's go. We're burning daylight."
As we walked, I could hear the bubbling waters of a nearby stream. I kept my steps as quiet as I could, but every snapping twig or rustling leaf had me looking over my shoulder. The moon rose higher in the sky, and, twenty minutes later, a shack came into sight.
Outside the crude structure, red and yellow flames licked at the outside of a massive copper pot. The foul stench of rotten eggs wafted on a breeze through the woods.
"By the power of Zhibog, what is that smell?" Basil cried.
I pushed the cat's head back into the sling and whispered, "Shh! Keep your voice down. The last thing we want to do is draw attention to ourselves."
Basil's head popped out of the sling again and I crouched into a low squat. The searing pain that ran from my calves into my thighs reminded me that I was long overdue for a yoga class. I did give myself a mental pat on the back, however, for the fact that my jeans didn't split at the seams.
I wrestled my phone from my back pocket. Moonshiners didn't play around. If I was going to take them on, I'd need reinforcements beyond whatever help a three-legged cat could provide.
Taking great care to huddle over the device to avoid having the light seen through the woods, I started to tap out a text to Jones.
"Ya won't get any reception out here, girlie." The gruff voice came from behind me and something hard poked into my back. "Stand up real slow, and keep yer hands where I can see 'em."
"Sir? You might have me confused with someone else. I'm only out here for a hike." As I stood, Basil wriggled deeper into the bag and I slid the phone in with him.
"Sure. And I'm Santa Claus." The man snorted. Like most of the hillbilly population, he pronounced it "Sandy Claws."
"But, I—" I began.
"But, I, nothing! Shutcher mouth, and get over there in the shed."
I stumbled forward but caught myself before I fell. "It doesn't have to be this way. Let me go, and I won't tell anyone what I saw here."
"See? Now that you admitted that you saw something, we'll have to keep you here."
Inside the sling, Basil growled. I wanted nothing more than to give him a reassuring pat, but I needed to keep my hands where my would-be abductor could see them.
Please, don't let Aunt Corliss be tied up in there, or worse, I prayed when we reached the door.
"Open it," the man commanded.
I eased the door open to see a scant amount of furniture but an otherwise empty room. If I walked into this shed, there was a chance I'd never come out alive. It was now or never.
"Hey, what's that?" I cried and pointed up and to my right.
The man replied, "Huh? What's what?"
I spun around and, sure enough, the man's attention was in the direction that I had pointed toward the treetops. Seizing the moment, I brought my foot up between his legs with the intention of bringing him to his knees in pain.
In a move that I never expected, however, his hand grabbed my ankle and sent me crashing to a seated position on the hard ground. The man grinned down at me to reveal large sections of missing teeth. One of his eyes was slightly larger than the other, and a mop of dishwater blonde curls flopped to and fro with the movement of his head. "Yah gotta be quicker than that. I grew up with sisters, and all y'all girls fight the same way."
"Let me go, now!" I pulled my leg in an attempt to free myself. The man's touch made my skin crawl, and it wouldn't
surprise me if he drove one of those nondescript vans with FREE CANDY haphazardly painted on the sides with a cheap spray can.
A second man stepped around the corner. "Caught yerself a live one, Booboo."
"I sure did, Cap!"
"Booboo?" I echoed without thinking it through.
The second man crouched to look me in the eye. "Yeah. Booboo. Because he's the baby in the family, and we're all pretty protective of him. Especially if someone were to cause him pain. You get my meaning?"
"Yeah, I get your meaning," I said. His tone told me it was also a warning against trying anything else like my failed attempt to escape.
The second man, who I now knew as Cap, stood and said, "And before you ask, Cap is short for Captain, not that it's any of your business."
I'm guessing that's not short for Captain of the Interscholastic Honor Society, is what I wanted to say, but I kept my snarkiness to myself as a deeper realization hit me. They didn't mind telling me their names because they didn't plan on me living long enough to rat them out.
"Let her go, Boo. She'll go in the shed like a good girl, wontcha?" Cap leered at me. His expression made me think that he probably had a whole fleet of FREE CANDY vans.
I reluctantly agreed, "Yeah."
Cap snarled, "Yeah what?"
"Uh, yeah sir?" I took a guess.
"That's a good girl."
Every time he called me good girl, I wished I was equipped with Wonder Woman's magic lasso or some other weapon with magical powers. As it was, I only had my smart alec comments, a three-legged cat, and a sack full of cash.
I took a seat on one of the few chairs around a flimsy card table and patted the shawl-turned-sling to reassure Basil that everything would be okay.
Except there was no Basil. The only thing I felt inside the bag was my purse.
Basil was gone.
Chapter Ten
"You sit in here and don't make no trouble, or we'll have to tape your butt to one of these trees out here," Cap explained and nodded toward the wall where an iron hook held the biggest roll of duct tape I had ever seen. He shut the door and the room went dark.
Between my eyes adjusting to the darkness and the glow from the fire coming in through the cracks in the wood planks that formed the walls, I could soon make out basic shapes.
"Basil? Here, Basil. Kitty kitty kitty," I whispered in case he was trapped in here with me. If he was, then he wasn't talking. Great. From the moment he gained the ability to talk, I kept trying to get him to stop. Now all I want is to hear his voice so that I know that the furball is okay.
Somewhere outside the cabin, Cap and Booboo's voices ebbed and flowed. I reached for my phone but it wasn't in my back pocket. No phone meant there was no way to tell how much time had passed. The sun had set, which made the minutes feel like days.
With few other choices at my disposal, I decided to eavesdrop. Most of what I heard was Cap chastising Booboo for getting the recipe wrong and ruining another batch of moonshine.
"But it's so hard to make it without the magic stuff."
At this, my ears perked up. Before they said anything else, another voice joined them—an all-too-familiar voice.
"Have you men seen a cat? It's about this big and has three legs. It belongs to my girlfriend, and, well, you know how women are about their cats. Am I right? I accidentally let it out, and now I'm in the doghouse. She told me not to come home without it."
I pursed my lips to avoid speaking my mind. And by speaking, I meant screaming something like Jackson Thomas Jones, what in the name of all things jiggery-pokery do you think you're doing? You're going to make things so much worse! through that flimsy wooden wall.
"I think I saw a cat in there," Booboo offered.
It didn't take 3-D vision for me to know that BooBoo pointed at the shed that held me captive. No, Jones, don't fall for it! I tried to telepathically warn him. Unlucky for Jones, during the entire time I had known him, we had never successfully finished each other's sentences, much less read each other's minds.
Sure enough, the door opened to reveal my ex on the other side. I crossed my arms over my chest and raised an eyebrow.
Jones winked at me. "Hey, Zip. Fancy meeting you here."
"You know her?" Booboo asked. "But you said you lost your girlfriend's cat!"
Cap appeared behind Jones and shoved him into the shed. "Get back to work, Booboo. It don't matter how these two know each other. They can sit in there until we figure out how to get rid of them."
The door slammed shut, leaving us in near-darkness.
I sensed rather than saw Jones take the seat next to me. Keeping my voice low, I asked, "Why didn't you stay at the house?"
"Are you okay?" he asked at the same time, his voice barely above a whisper.
"I'm fine, but why are you here?"
A deep sigh preceded his next words. "Basil showed up without you and said you needed my help."
"But who's going to find Aunt Corliss if we're both here? If you had listened to me, you wouldn't be in this mess, and I'd only be in half as much trouble."
"I'm not going to defend myself to you, Zip. What if I hadn't taken your call? Who would have swept your living room, fixed the window, fed your dog, bathed your dog after he vomited the dog food on the rug, cleaned the rug…"
"Okay, fine. I do appreciate all your help. The last thing I wanted was to drag you into all of this." Even though there was little chance he could see me, I made vague gestures above my head as I spoke the last three words.
"Time to go, girlie," Cap said as he opened the door.
I jumped from the chair and beckoned to my ex. "Come on, Jones! Let's go!"
"No. Not both of y'all. You."
When I turned toward the door, Cap was pointing at me. Behind him, I saw the black SUV. That was the third time today that I'd seen it. What were the chances? And what was a vehicle like that doing at a moonshining camp?
"No! You're not taking her!"
Jones jumped across the table and tried to tackle Cap, but Booboo dove through the door and slammed his fist into Jones's face.
"Stop it! Get off him!" I jumped onto Booboo's back. The burly man knocked me backwards, and my head hit the door jamb. The world went dark.
There was no way to tell how much time had passed by the time I regained my senses. My head felt like it held the whole percussion section of the Georgia Symphony Orchestra. Blinking helped clear my vision enough for me to realize that I was now in the backseat of the SUV. Whoever had put me here used my purse as a pillow. A surreptitious glance revealed the sack of cash was still inside and appeared untouched. Thank goodness for small favors.
I rose to a sitting position too quickly, and bile rose in my throat. Swallowing it down threw me into a coughing fit. Only when I regained my senses did I notice the front passenger seat was free. The driver and I were the only ones in the vehicle.
"Hi, um, can you tell me where we're going, please?" I asked. "Sir? Excuse me? Hello?"
Eventually, I gave up trying to communicate. This man was either deaf or had trained with the Queen's Guard at Buckingham Palace.
Clouds passed over the moon, and the vehicle's tinted windows made it impossible to see the nighttime landscape outside. With nothing else to do, I settled against the seat until we arrived at an antebellum mansion. The clouds passed enough for moonlight to reveal picturesque magnolias lining both sides of the long driveway, their still-blooming flowers brighter against the trees' shiny, deep green leaves.
Spotlights in the yard shone on ivory columns along the front porch. The pillars alternated between evenly-spaced windows of impressive size across the front of the home, its roof providing shaded sitting areas for the ground floor and a balcony for the second story.
The car stopped midway around a circular driveway in front of the house. A man who could have passed for the driver's twin waited outside. He opened the door and ordered, "You, there. Exit the vehicle, now and get inside."
I grabbed my
purse and felt the back pocket of my jeans again, but the emptiness reminded me that my phone wasn't there. When I didn't move fast enough for the goon's taste, he grabbed my upper arm and half-shoved, half-dragged me to the front door.
"I said get inside," he repeated. "Don't make me tell you again."
For the second time in one evening, I found myself being shoved through a door. Except this time, instead of cheap furniture upon a dirt floor, I was met with the epitome of opulence.
A ginormous crystal chandelier lit the entryway, its light reflected against the glassy surface of the polished wood floors. White glossy trim offset the deep blues and silvers found in the brocade wallpaper. A plush rug, its fringed border tied into tiny tassels, anchored pieces of furniture in the sitting room to my left.
And there was Aunt Corliss, looking like the cat who ate the canary. She laid a hand against her chest and asked, "Zip, thank heavens. Are you okay?"
Chapter Eleven
I rushed to join her on the Victorian-style sofa. Any other time, I'd worry about getting cat hair on its midnight blue velvet surface. Relief at seeing that my aunt was alive took priority.
"Am I okay? I could ask you the same thing! What happened? I got home, and you weren't there. Have you been here this whole time?"
"It's a long story. Were you able to make the delivery?"
"I was, but then I got home to find you missing. Someone threw a rock through the living room window, but Jones cleaned it up."
"Oh? Jones was there?"
"Yes, but don't change the subject. Why are you here?"
Aunt Corliss lowered her voice and confessed, "I'd hoped that by sending you on the delivery that they wouldn't involve you."
"Who wouldn't involve me?"
"This is difficult for me to confess, but business hasn't been what it once was."
"It hasn't? I knew you were cutting back, but you never said anything." Although I wouldn't admit it out loud, I assumed that my aunt's frugality was part of her growing older.
