Aurora 06 - A Fool And His Honey (24 page)

One of them would have to bring us food eventually. And after some hours, Luke did. But Margaret stood above him on the stairs, her gun in her hand.

“How’s Hayden?” Regina asked, beginning to sob yet again.

“Our baby’s fine,” Luke said briefly and pointedly.

I prayed Regina wouldn’t ask them what they were going to do with us.

“What are you gonna do with me?” she asked. So I was only half disappointed.

Luke didn’t answer, which was just as well. He set down a tray on Regina’s makeshift table, and left. Margaret was vigilant the whole time. I looked as ill as possible, which was no stretch.

There was a bottle of Excedrin on the tray. Regina opened it for me, and though I was afraid it would make me sick again, I took four. What a rebel. I propped myself up on one elbow to try the soup, which was Campbell’s chicken noodle, and I managed a couple of crackers and some water. I was exhausted when I lay back down.

But after about thirty minutes, I found I felt better.

“Help me up,” I told Regina.

“Need to go the girls’ room?”

“No, I need to move a little.”

Regina had carried the tray up to the top step, which she said was normal routine. Margaret had opened the door, bent down, and removed it. It had looked to me like she was alone.

Now, after my cell mate had helped me stand, I managed to walk by myself, though

“walking” makes it sound more organized than it really was. I went over to the cellar storm doors. I had to push against them for myself. They gave only a fraction of an inch. There was a dead bolt inside the cellar, of course, but at some point Regina had unbolted it and left it that way.

“What’s the bar outside made of?” I asked.

“Metal,” she answered gloomily. She had experimented more than she was letting on. “I did think of breaking one of the jars, putting a straight piece of glass through the gap, and sawing at the bar, if it was wood. But it wasn’t.”

“You were talking before like you were content just to wait down here.”

“I was trying to act like I thought everything would be okay.” Now that, I understood. “And I guess I figured they were more likely to let me out if they saw me assuming they were going to let me out.” She shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt.” Her head tensed. “Listen! There’s someone here!”

After a second, I could hear it, too. The front door slammed, and there were more footsteps above us. Suddenly the basement door swung open a crack.

“If you say one word I’ll kill this baby,” Margaret said. “Don’t scream, don’t say anything.”

After she shut the door Regina and I stood looking at each other.

“She wouldn’t hurt Hayden,” I said. “Look at what she’s done for him already!”

“I know ... but.. .”

Suddenly deciding, I managed to get to the stairs, grabbed the wooden railing, began to haul myself up. Then I felt a hand gripping my pants leg.

“She might mean it,” Regina said.

“Martin may already be dead,” I told her. “I have to get out of here and get help for him.” I was pleading.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Roe. Not if there’s a chance she might hurt my baby.”

And Regina, bigger and stronger, clapped a hand over my mouth, held on to me, and would not let me go. I was hardly in any shape to offer much resistance.

We could hear voices right outside the door. Several male voices, one female. Margaret.

“Come over this way where we can hear,” Regina whispered, and dragged me off the stairs and over to a spot by the wall where the dryer vent fed into the basement.

I was adding my niece to the list of people I wanted to die.

But for now that would have to wait, and I listened as she bid me.

“. . . his truck by the road,” a male voice was saying. “His wife has been out looking for him.”

“Is he going to be all right?” Margaret asked, and I swear there was genuine concern in her voice.

“Well, he’s lost a lot of blood,” the man said doubtfully. “We’ll just have to wait and see.

One dead, two in bad shape. They can’t tell us what happened. You didn’t hear any shots?”

“. . . heard what might have been one, late this afternoon,” Luke said. His voice was much fainter.

“And you had already been down there? Everything was okay?”

“Oh, yes, fine!” Margaret. “But—I hate to say this—Martin’s first wife and her boyfriend were there, and there was some bad feeling in the air.”

“Dennis and Martin never did get along,” the male voice said thoughtfully.

“And I really don’t like to say this,” Margaret said, “but it seemed to me like Dennis was kind of making eyes at Martin’s new wife.”

“. . . we don’t know where she has . . .” the voice faded away.

If it wasn’t for the baby, Regina would let me go.

If it wasn’t for the baby, I would scream my head off.

If it wasn’t for the baby, none of this would have happened.

No, no. If it wasn’t for Regina . . .

No, even that was wrong. If it wasn’t for the Granberrys and their desire to have what nature couldn’t give them . . .

No, it was all of these things.

It was quiet upstairs. Our rescue had walked out the door.

Regina let me go.

I sank down on my sleeping bag, exhausted.

“I’m sorry,” Regina said, when she saw my face.

I started to tell her I would never forgive her, but I think she already knew that. At least I was certain that Martin had gotten help, though I had no idea what shape he was in. “Tomorrow morning by surprise,” I said, “we take them.” I outlined my plan, which was based on far too little data.

“I thought you were a nice lady,” Regina said, awed.

“Not anymore,” I told her.

In the morning, about eight o’clock, Luke brought our tray down, Margaret covering him as she had the night before. They looked glassy-eyed, and I hoped Hayden had kept them up all night. There were two cups of orange juice and two Toaster Strudels. No coffee. Well, good.

That would make me meaner, having to go without my coffee.

We ate. I took more Excedrin. I felt about like you’d expect—hell warmed over—but at least I’d slept fitfully. After we’d used the bathroom and washed our faces in the sink, Regina carried the tray up the stairs and put it on the small landing right inside the door as she had the night before.

She came down and stood before me. “You’re sure you can do this?” she asked me. I could tell by the look on her face that I looked bad.

“I’m a lot more worried about you than me,” I said, with mistimed bluntness. “Do you want your baby back?”

“Yes,” she said fiercely. “The people that killed his dad can’t raise him.”

Discovering she was a widow had tempered Regina overnight. I looked in her eyes and saw only determination. It almost matched the desperation I felt, the absolute necessity of reaching my husband to find out what had happened to him. Only that desperation got me up off the sleeping bag, pushed me up the stairs.

I stood, one foot on the landing just inside the door and one foot on the next step down, with my back to the wall, looking over the wooden handrail at the open space of the basement, reviewing what I had to do. I glanced at my watch; it was nine o’clock.

Then there was only the waiting. If it were the much larger Luke instead of Margaret, if for once it were both of them retrieving the tray . . . then we were sunk. I was counting entirely on them being accustomed to Regina’s passivity.

I had been hearing someone moving around in the room right outside the door, which Regina had told me was the kitchen. Now the footsteps became clearer.

The lock clicked, the door began to open, and I took a deep breath. A head appeared as the door swung open and touched the wall right by my hand.

Margaret had come alone for the tray.

She’d bent to pick it up before she noticed me flattened against the wall. And by then I’d reached up, grabbed that long red hair, and yanked with all my might.

Adrenaline had come to my aid, and since I pulled myself back sharply, Margaret shot past me at a good clip, unable even to get a sound out, which was great. She was hurt by the fall, but I don’t know how badly, because when she reached the bottom of the steps Regina lifted a board that had been part of the pile of lumber, and hit Margaret Granberry’s head with all her might.

There was a slight crunching noise, and Margaret lay silent at the foot of the stairs.

“Ick,” said Regina, panting.

My thoughts exactly.

Regina came up the stairs behind me, having stepped over Margaret quite casually.

I picked up the tray to get it out of our way, and took a cautious step into the kitchen.

Margaret had propped the rifle by the door, I noticed. Fat lot of good that had done her.

The kitchen was a beautiful sunny room floored with white linoleum. The sun was bouncing off the snow outside and into the room through gleaming windows. My eyes were dazzled by the brightness.

On my right there was an open door into a den or living room, to my left a closed door that I thought led to the outside. I’d have been in more of a mood to appreciate Margaret’s decorating skills if Luke Granberry hadn’t stomped in the back door just then with an armful of wood.

His face was almost funny when he saw me, and the fact that I had the tray in my hands, as he’d expected Margaret to have, seemed to compound his confusion. I threw the tray at him, and the kitchen was clean no longer.

He dropped his armful of logs and orange juice splattered his pants. He stared down at them in bewilderment.

And suddenly, as if I’d walked into a wall, I ran out of strength. I sank to my knees, and was hard put to it not to fall on my side. The pain in my head throbbed and pulsed, and my legs felt like Jell-O.

Luke looked up from his assessment of the stain to say, “Regina, don’t do that.” His eyes were fixed on a spot behind me and a little to his left.

“You killed my husband,” Regina said. “You took my baby. Now you go get him and hand him to Aunt Roe.”

I managed to turn my head enough to see that Regina was holding the rifle. I wondered if she knew how to fire it.

Luke didn’t move. “You don’t understand, Regina. Where’s Margaret?” he asked, and I saw the beginning of panic on his face.

“I think I’ll just go get Hayden myself,” Regina said, and shot Luke.

I sat on the floor, paralyzed and gaping. When Regina changed, she didn’t mess around. She went full circle.

In the next second, I was aware that I was alone in the kitchen with the moaning Luke Granberry. He was curled in a ball just inside the still-open door. Cold air was pouring in and he was clutching his right shoulder. His coat was stained with blood.

I pulled myself up until I stood with my hands on the kitchen table. I wondered where the car keys were. Then I spied the telephone. I staggered over to it, took it off the wall. I was so sure it would be dead, it was an almost painful shock to find it worked perfectly.

Margaret had neatly posted emergency numbers on the wall beside the phone. I punched in the sheriffs number.

“Come get me,” I said to the man who answered. “I’ve been hurt and I’m too weak to drive and I have to get to the hospital.”

“What’s your location, ma’am?”

I hadn’t the slightest idea.

“I’m at the Granberry farm,” I said.

“What’s that route number?”

I remembered. “Eight. It’s right next to the old Bartell farm,” I said.

“Oh, all right, south of town, that would be.”

“Please hurry.”

“What’s the nature of your emergency?”

“Oh, shit! Just come! There are dead people out here!” I said, and hung up. Stupid man. That would bring them, though the Granberrys might not be dead. Hurt bad, surely that would qualify.

“Here’s Hayden,” Regina said, her voice almost a coo.

I scarcely looked at him. If I’d said, “So?” Regina might’ve shot me. All my energy was bent on lasting, staying upright, until I could see Martin again. “He looks fine,” I said. My voice came out more like a whisper. I was feeling more like my old self every minute, Aurora Teagarden the librarian, whereas Regina seemed permanently transformed into Iron Woman.

But maybe I would never be my old self, I reflected after a moment, since I seemed to be able to ignore Luke’s moaning.

I thought of getting the keys and driving Margaret’s pickup or Luke’s Bronco into town, to save time, but then I had to admit to myself that I would probably pass out along the way. I sank into a chair and put my head on my arms. Regina sat next to me, holding her son, and together we waited for the sirens to get closer.

They even searched Hayden, to make sure he wasn’t packing heat in his diaper, I guess.

“Take me to my husband,” I said, and I said it to every officer who came in the door.

It pleased me that they believed us pretty quickly, after they’d been down in the basement and seen the evidence of our imprisonment. But believing isn’t the same as releasing, and it was all too long before the sheriff himself decided to drive me into the little hospital in Corinth.

“They’re going to transfer Mr. Bartell to Pittsburgh when he’s stable enough,” the sheriff told me.

“He had a heart attack?” I asked.

“Yes,” the sheriff confirmed, his wide Slavic face looking so sorry for me that my heart sank.

I made myself ask about Karl.

“He’s in critical condition, but he lasted this long,” Sheriff Brod told me. “Karl Bagosian is a tough bird. He hasn’t been able to tell us exactly what happened. Would you like to tell me?”

“My husband and Karl were standing in the kitchen with my niece’s friend, Rory,” I said wearily, staring out the squad car window at the frozen fields. To me, it was an alien landscape.

The cold sun made it gleam like the white linoleum in the Granberrys’ kitchen. I saw the blood against it, heard Luke moaning again like an animal.