Broke: (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-five

Immy scribbled down "AK47" beneath the partial license plate number she'
d
gotten before she was knocked
to the ground
. She
ran back to Theo's room
.

"I found some gun runners," she blurted
when he
let her in
.
She dug out Callahan's card
and dialed the
number.
It rang over to voice mail. Immy
reeled off the license number
, all but the last two di
gits, which she hadn't gotten. S
he said there was a box that said AK47 on it
in Room 151
, then added her own phone number
.

She hung up and rubbed her head, carefully. Even with a light touch, she flinched.

"Immy," Theo said, "are you all right?"
He looked concerned and led her to the desk chair. She sank into it and rubbed her head again.

"
Well, I was kind of
assaulted."

"Should I call a doctor?"
He already had his cell phone out of his pocket.

"No, I'm okay. They
only
hit me with the van." Her head was sore, but she wasn't seeing double and wasn't dizzy.

"Are you sure?"

"I have to finish looking at the motel rooms."

Theo
put his phone away and
glared at her. "No, you do not. Do not look at any more motel rooms."

"Oh, you'll do it?"

He was silent for a moment. "Yes, I'll do it. Now you go home. Or to a doctor."

Immy got the feeling Theo wasn't really going to inspect the motel. Didn't he want to find his father?

"Just a sec," she said, pulling her cell phone from her purse. "I
want to try one more thing
."

She called Ralph, who answered his phone. He was more conscientious than Callahan, evidently.

"What's up?" he said. "I'm on a break, but I'm going back
on patrol
in a couple minutes."

"Uncle Dewey's been kidnapped and the Wymee Falls cops won't look for him. We need a dog."

"Okay, let's break this down. Why do you think Dewey's been kidnapped?"

"He's gone and his wallet is still here."

"Still where?"

"In his motel room."

"How long has he been missing?"

"I guess it's been a couple hours now?" She looked at Theo and he nodded his agreement.

"That's not long enough, Immy. He might have gone somewhere."

"But if you bring a tracking dog, we can find out for sure."

She could hear
the intake of
Ralph's breath. "Do you know how much--"

A knock sounded on the door.

"--those dogs cost? I can't just--"

Theo opened the door and Dewey walked in.

Immy screamed.
"Gotta
g
o, Ralph. Dewey's escaped!"

She ran to her uncle. "Are you all right? Did they drug you? How did you get away?"

"No drugs," said Dewey. "Just some cheap hooch. And they cleaned me out."

He'd been at a poker game in Room 155, four rooms away from the room with the boxes.
He'd taken his money clip and left his wallet. The money clip now contained two dollars.

"I knew I should have kept searching
,
"
Immy said. "Maybe I could have broken up the game before your money was gone."

"Why in the hell did you leave your wallet here?" Theo wa
ved his arms wildly,
as angry as Immy had ever seen him. "We called the cops and told them you were missing."

We? Immy was the only one who had called the cops.

"I didn't want to take all my money with me.
" Dewey looked pained. "
Only took what I thought I could afford to lose. Good thing, since I lost it
,
all
but two bucks
."

Theo stalked to the window and turned his back on them.

Immy's phone rang.

"Imogene, why are you not at your abode? I am prepared to drop off Nancy Drew, but you need to be present."

That meant
Hortense and Drew were finished with their IHOP supper.

"I'll be right there. I have a lot to tell you," said Immy. She gave Theo and Dewey each a brief hug and hurried home. She hoped Theo would begin talking to his father again soon.

***

The next day, Wednesday,
Officer
Callahan called Immy at work to tell her they had, thanks to her
tip
,
gotten excellent fingerprints from Room 151
.
They
had
also
apprehended the gun smugglers and broken up a ring they'd been trying to infiltrate for
over a year
.

Immy was disappointed she hadn't even know
n
she was working on a case. But, she supposed, the cops couldn't tell her everything they were
investigating
, just because she might crack some of their cases.

She had worked hard
at her office job
on Monday and Tuesday and her
ever-renewing
pile of filing was almost gone
now
.
Wednesday
afternoon, energized by helping the cops get the gun runners, she sped through the billing and got caught up through last Friday. Tomorrow, if all went well, she should be completely on top of everything.

When quitting time came, she
left feeling virtuous
, since she
'd
stayed until five, even though Mike Mallett had left at four for a new client interview. On the drive home, she rehearsed the wording she
w
ould use to ask him if she could go along on the next one of those and maybe take notes for him or something. Two pair of eyes would be better than one.
He couldn't argue with that.

Still thinking about how to
phrase
her request
as she reached home
, she let the pig into the
backyard
and waited for Hortense to drop off Drew.
She idly
wandered into the library and
flipped through one of the ancient books
on the nearest shelf
. It was an Edgar Allan Poe
. S
he liked Poe, but this one had yellowed pages and she was afraid it would fall apart if she tried to read it. She took down another volume, then another. Maybe she should dust these bookshelves.

It grew too dark to see so she switched on the brass lamp in the corner
of the library
. Then she realized it was very late. She ran to let Marshmallow back into the
kitchen
and called her mother. Hortense should have
arrived
over an hour ago.

Immy called her mother's cell phone
. Hortense didn't answer
, so she tried the lan
d line phone in the singlewide.

Drew answered. "Yes. Who is this?" Her voice sounded tiny and faint.
And…scared?

"It's Mommy, Drew. Where's Geemaw?"

"Oh Mommy," she wailed. "Come get me." Her words dissolved into sobbing.

Immy couldn't get anything else out of the child
. S
he flew to her
Hyundai
and sped toward Saltlick. On the way she called Ralph, but got
flung into
his voicemail. Sometimes
,
she
got the feeling
he didn't answer when he
saw her caller ID
.

When she reached the
trailer
she hopped out of the car and ran up the steps to the metal door.
She tugged at the handle.
It was locked. She pounded, but didn't hear anything inside.

It was then that she started to panic
in earnest
. Something was dreadfully wrong. The trailer should be shaking with Hortense's weight
as she came
to answer
her knock
. For that matter, Hortense should have noticed Drew crying loudly on the phone. For that same matter, Hortense should have called Immy back. Where was Hortense? And now, where was Drew?

Immy's
breath grew shallow and fast and her heartbeat ran on high. Sweat broke out on her itchy palms.

"Drew, are you in there?"
Her voice wobbled a
slight
bit.

She heard movement inside.

"It's me
!
Mommy
!
"
Immy shouted.

"Are bad mans with you?" Drew's voice trembled
, too
.

"No, just me
, sugar
."

Drew finally unlocked the door and
threw
herself into Immy's arms. Immy
swooped
the child
up and carried her
inside.

"Lock the door!" yelled Drew, so Immy did. Then they sat on the green plaid couch
,
where it took Immy half an hour to calm Drew down enough so she could talk.
Even then, her babble was mostly gibberish.

Immy gradually understood that "bad mans" w
ith
"black on their heads" (ski masks?
football makeup?
) had forced their way inside and had
been
rough,
had
acted
"mean
to Geemaw
",
and
hauled Hortense outside. One of them had told Drew to lock h
erself in when they left. She couldn't describe
the vehicle they'd used
, probably didn't see it,
and Immy doubted she'd be able to identify them. Drew remembered that there were "two bad mans".

When she thought she had everything from Drew that she was going to get, Immy turned off all the lights and opened the front door. She didn't want any perps to see her and Drew backlit from
light within
the living room.

It was full dark now. Nothing stirred outside, except some wind in the dry leaves on the ground. She listened for at least a minute, then, putting a finger to her lips to tell Drew to be quiet, they slowly crept to
ward
the car.
Immy
cringed
each time one of them stepped on a crunchy leaf.

The interior light flashed on when they
clambered into the car. Immy
flinched
, but hustled as fast as she could to close the door and douse the dome light.
Immy had told Drew she wouldn't
have to
sit
in her car seat this time
.
Instead, s
he had Drew
curl up on the floor in the front seat. If someone were watching her drive away, Immy didn't want them to know where Drew was.
If they hadn’t seen her when the car light went on
, that is
.

She went straight to the Saltlick Police Station.
When she saw Ralph's second-best cop car in front, she drew a
deep
breath, the first full one she'
d
drawn in a
while.

"Hurry," she whispered to Drew. "We're going into the station, fast
and
quiet."

Drew complied perfectly.

Tabitha, the
obstructive
front desk person, had left for the day. That would make things easier.

Immy didn't want to stay in the brightly lit lobby with the big windows, so she opened the door to the hallway and pulled Drew with her.

Ralph was at his desk in his tiny office doing paperwork.

"Hi
,
Immy." He looked happy to see her. "What are you doing here? Oh, hi, Drew. I didn't see you."

Drew was clinging tightly to
the tail of
Immy
's t-shirt
and trying to stay behind her.

"It's Uncle Ralph, sugar. You don't need to be afraid of him."

The child sniffed loudly.

"Are you crying?" asked Ralph.

Drew sobbed.

"What's the matter?" He looked from Drew to Immy
and rose, coming around the desk
with a frown dawning on his face
. "Is everything okay?"