Broken Vows (Domestic Discipline Romance) (37 page)

"What's he doing?" Josh whispered.

Kevin shrugged watching his friend.

"I was special ops," Bubba said softly. "I can hear a drop of water fall thirty feet away under the right conditions. There is something thumping in here. It is not a clock, and it is not a water drip. Your dog can smell her, and he wants to go to the balcony."

Bubba lifted Buddy in his arms, carried him to the top of the stairs, and put him down. Buddy whined and sniffed, and began barking and scratching at the back of an empty bookcase.

Bubba put the stethoscope against the wood of the bookshelves. He moved it in one direction, then shifted and moved in the opposite direction.

"Kev, get me a crowbar, maybe a sledgehammer."

Josh ran up the stairs, grabbed Buddy, and carried him halfway down the spiral steps before exchanging him for the crowbar Kevin was bringing up. Josh joined Bubba on the walkwy, but backed out of the way as he began to pull on the one of the bookshelves, and then he stepped up to add his strength to the effort.

Bubba tried to force the crowbar between the side panels, but he could not wedge it between them. He turned at a shout from Kevin.

"Here!" Keven only came halfway up the stairs before tossing a heavy sledgehammer to his friend. The balcony walkway was already crowded with only two men on it.

After several hard slams with the sledgehammer, Bubba busted out the cross shelves. He put the stethoscope against the back wall and listened. "She's back there! I hear her crying. Get out of the way!"

With a full swing, he slammed into the solid back of the shelving, once, twice, four times before there was a splintering of the wood. Another mighty swing and they all heard the sobbing.

"Jenny!" Josh shouted as her hand came through the hole.

"Back away, Jenny," Bubba ordered. "I have to make a hole big enough to get you out." Four more mighty swings and he stepped forward bracing his hands on the shelving on each side and kicked in the smashed wood. He bent down and pulled Jenny through the hole.

Jenny went into her husband's arms, shivering and sniffling.

"We've got you," Josh mumbled. "We've got you. Are you hurt anywhere?"

Jenny shook her head.

"Okay, let's get you down," Josh said. He guided her down the steps from behind, as Kevin backed down in front of her until she was on the ground level where he lowered her to sit on the floor.

Josh inspected Jenny from head to toe. She appeared unharmed except for a covering of thick dust, and reddened swollen eyes.

"How did you get back there?" Josh asked.

"I don't know," Jenny said hoarsely. "It opened and swallowed me. There's no light in there, and no sound." She looked over to the clock. "I have been in there three hours! It seemed like forever."

"Do you want me to check her out or call Rescue Services?" Kevin asked.

"I'm okay," Jenny said, but her voice cracked and was scratchy. "I was scared, but not hurt. I need a bath and something to drink."

"Okay," Josh agreed. "A bath and a drink, but if your voice doesn't come back soon, we are going to the emergency room."

* * *

After a quick shower, clean clothes, and a hug from each member of her family, Jenny sat on the sofa with a cup of hot tea.

Kevin turned to her. "Can I at least take your vitals?"

She nodded as he wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm.

"Remain quiet," he instructed gently. He looked around at her audience. "Stop staring at her, you will make her blood pressure rise."

Jenny smiled. So long as she was out of the dark she did not care about anything else. Her voice was gone though. She had lost her voice before with strep, so she knew it would come back in a day or a so.

"Blood pressure is a little high, but it's to be expected after a trauma," Kevin said. He listened to her heart. "Beating strong and healthy." Then he put the earpieces into Emmie's ears and pushed the breast piece against her chest.

"Bump bump, bump bump," Emmie exclaimed in surprise. When he moved the piece to his chest, she listened intently.

"That's your heart, inside you," Kevin said, tapping her on the chest and putting his instrument away.

There was a knock on the door and Bubba came in. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Jenny said, although no more than one syllable came out.

"She was scared, but besides losing her voice from screaming, she seems good," Josh said.

"You won't believe what is behind the wall," Bubba said.

"Hidden treasures?" Kevin scoffed.

"Maybe," Bubba said gravely.

Four heads all turned at the same time.

"You didn't fall through the bookcase where I broke through," Bubba said. The bookshelf on the end has a button on it that unlocks a mechanism to open a hidden panel, and then it closes real fast. You must have hit it accidently, fell in, and locked yourself inside. There is electric in there for lights. The switch is over by the stairway."

"A stairway to where?" Kevin asked, "There is no basement under this house."

"I didn't go down it. I figured it wasn't my business, but I am curious."

"We all are. First, I need to take Jenny to the emergency room."

Jenny was shaking her head and mouthing 'No.'

"If not there, at least to our doctor," Josh insisted.

Jenny grabbed a pen and paper, and wrote furiously. "Call for appointment. Go find out what is there!"

"I'm not leaving you alone!" Josh exclaimed.

"I'll stay with her," Mila said. "I'm curious too, but whatever you find you can show me later. I'll make the doctor appointment. Go!"

"Make it for as soon as possible, and lock and set the alarm behind us," Josh ordered as the three men went to investigate.

Mila followed them to the door, then closed and locked it, activating the alarm as instructed. "Do you feel as if you're in the middle of a
Nancy Drew
mystery?"

Jenny scribbled something on her pad and held it up.

Mila laughed at the words…
Hardy Boys
.

* * *

Kevin went to his truck and pulled out two large flashlights before the three men entered the house once more. They went up the spiral stairway stepping over the boxes and debris on the balcony walkway. Bubba pushed the button he had found and the bookcase swung open, and then quickly swung back to close, but he jammed his large combat-boot-clad foot against it.

"Hold on." Kevin grabbed the pry bar and wedged it in the hinges. As they walked across the small space, he bounced up and down once. "It's solid," he said as Josh flipped the switch and lights came on. They saw a steep narrow stairway leading down to who knew where.

"Dang," Bubba grumbled as he hit his head several times. The steep stairwell was at a maximum six-foot high.

Josh and Kevin both had to duck, but with his height, Bubba had to stoop nearly a foot.

"Be careful," Kevin warned over his shoulder. "If you knock yourself out down here, we will never get you out!"

Josh ran his hand over the walls. "Someone went to a lot of trouble to build this. This is cinderblock parged with cement."

"The little entrance space upstairs behind the bookshelves was insulated with Polycore™. It's soundproof and fireproof. No wonder we couldn't hear Jenny's screams." Kevin said.

"Man, how deep is this thing?" Bubba demanded with a grunt.

"We are about eighty feet underground," Kevin said as he stepped into a hallway a little wider than the stairs. He turned on his flashlight since almost half the light bulbs had burned out. When the other two men looked at him quizzically, he shrugged. "One hundred and twenty steps with an eight-inch rise, that's eighty feet. I counted."

"Was Bentley a survivalist?" Bubba asked shaking his head. "You know, a
Doomsdayer
, the world-is-coming-to-an-end kind of thing?" The hallway ended and they stood in a circular room. Bubba went down on one knee, bending his cramped neck.

"I would say he was more the banker type," Josh said as they faced a huge vault.

* * *

Climbing up and out of the passage, the two men followed Josh into his office. He went through a stack of blueprint copies, unfolding one and then another. "These are the originals, and there is no indication of anything behind those bookcases."

"Well, if you were building a secret vault, you wouldn't advertise it," Kevin said. "He did originally hire outsiders for the building. I wonder if he built it in an old mine shaft. Old gold and silver mines riddle these mountains. The vault would have had to have been brought in piece by piece and assembled down there, with the house built on top of it."

"Whoever designed it did a damn good job," Josh said. He pointed at Bubba's head. "You need to get your cut cleaned and disinfected. There's probably thirty years of dust and bacteria down there." He pointed to a stack of file boxes. "We need those brought over to my place."

Bubba picked up three boxes while Josh and Kevin took two apiece. They carried the boxes over to the guesthouse."

"Well, what did you find?" Mila demanded.

"A lot of ingenious designing," said Josh setting the boxes down. "Jen, are you okay?" He anxiously searched her face and eyes.

Jenny nodded yes.

"She has a doctor appointment at four-thirty," Mila said.

Kevin opened his EMT kit and doctored the cut on Bubba's head.

"We don't have much time before we have to leave for the doctor," Josh said to the women. "Here's the scoop. We found a stairway leading to a vault. It's an older model, but still a vault. It is also huge and locked. Bubba, I need you back on duty inside the main house. We can assume Jenny has found what our burglar has been trying to find, and now it's wide open. If you feel you need reinforcements, call them. Please, be careful.

"Mila, Kevin, while I take Jenny to the doctor, I want you to start filtering through these boxes. It's all miscellaneous stuff turned over to me when I inherited this property. I have been through most of it, but I was not looking for a vault combination. Start through it again and set aside anything that looks like a six-digit combination, and we'll try the numbers on the vault later." He turned to his wife. "Are we taking the kids with us or leaving them here?"

"Leave them here," Mila said. "There's no sense dragging them out into the cold."

At the end of the lane, before Josh pulled out onto the road, he picked up Jenny's hand and squeezed it. "I'm sorry you were so frightened."

"Not your fault," Jenny said with her raspy voice. She picked up his hand and kissed it, and he drew it back to kiss hers. He pulled out into the road, but he did not let go of her hand.

* * *

Kevin activated the security system, and then carried a box over to set it on the kitchen counter. Mila checked the crock-pot roast beef, before walking over to sit on the stool on her side of the counter. She reached for a stack of papers, but he put his hand on them.

"Have you given thought to what I said this morning?"

"I have done nothing all day, but think about it."

"Did you come to any conclusions?"

"Yes," Mila snapped. "Sometimes you can be a jerk!"

"Yes, I can," he snapped back. "Sometimes you can be impossible and surprisingly childish. It was why you got your ass spanked last night. Are you going to spend the night at my place or yours tonight?"

There it was, Mila thought. He had thrown down the challenge. She looked at him. He was the man who had held her hands and made her laugh through the surgery where they had watched her baby being born. He had worked his butt off preparing a decent place for her to come home to and he had been at the hospital every night. He was a rescuer, a man who nurtured. It was in his DNA. He was also genetically a dominant man. What she knew so far of him did not change the way she felt about him. She had been mad, but she was also intrigued."

"Mila," Kevin broke into her thoughts. "I lost you there, where'd you go?"

"Into a private place where I make decisions," she answered.

His eyebrows lifted and his pupils might as well have been question marks.

"I have a foldable canvas bassinet I want to take with us this evening. I also called my GYN. I asked them to fit me in on the first cancelation. I'm tired of waiting."

Kevin leaned across the counter to kiss her. "I can handle it. Are we okay?"

"We're okay," Mila said, swallowing. "You have to understand, on the relationship curve, I'm at the low end. So far, I haven't had much success."

"I'm a good teacher. One of my many assets."

"Humility is certainly not one of them," Mila quipped as she pulled over a stack of papers. "Grab a pen and paper in case we find something useful."

Jenny sat on the exam table. The doctor had examined her throat and left. She knew the drill. The doctor would walk back in to say her larynx was traumatized and it would take a few days to get her full voice back. She had been through this so many times after football games and concerts, any event requiring cheering. She had known what would happen after the first scream, but she had not had a choice.

"Mrs. Grayson?" the young doctor came in looking at her chart, not at her. "You should be fine in a week or so. I want you to refrain from talking for a week, seven full days, no cheating. I am going to prescribe a strong antibiotic. Is there any chance you might be pregnant?"

The nurse smiled at Jenny as she walked back into the waiting room. She was carrying a small pad of paper in her hand with the words 'No Talking' written on it.

"This is your next appointment and a prescription," the nurse said, cheerfully handing her slips of paper. "We'll see you on the 14
th
, and be sure to make the other appointment." She looked up and smiled as Josh joined them. "Keep her from talking and get the prescription filled." She turned, picked up her clipboard, and called another name.

"Are you sure you are going to be okay?" Josh asked.

Jenny nodded and held up her pad of paper.

He took her hand and squeezed it, but she pulled it away, wrote something on her pad, and showed it to him.

"Now?" he questioned and she nodded.

Josh pulled down a side street, came out at a light and changed directions, and drove to Julia Scarlett's craft store and gallery.

Jenny jumped out of the vehicle, but Josh joined her although she held up one hand and mouthed five minutes.

"Nope, I'm going in to make sure you don't speak."

She rolled her eyes, but went in ahead of him. She waved to Julia as she entered the store and dashed down an aisle.

"Jen has laryngitis, so she is not supposed to talk," Josh warned Julia.

She smiled. "I hope it's not too serious."

"Shouldn't be. She has a history with it."

Jenny came up to the counter with packages of what to Josh looked like something brown and stringy, along with white cottony stuff.

"I know you can't speak, but when you can, I need you to call me," Julia said as she rang up the purchases. "I have been getting a lot of contacts from people trying to track you down. You might want to think about starting a Facebook account or setting up a website for contacts. I had a woman last week argue with me for twenty minutes and then was obnoxious when I wouldn't give her your phone number."

"Sorry," Jenny wrote on her pad.

Julia smiled. "We'll worry about it later when you feel better."

One more stop at a convenience store and finally they were on their way back home.

"Have you found anything?" Josh asked as soon as he entered the guesthouse.

Mila held up a legal pad. "We found fourteen numbers so far, which could be possibilities, but we're not finished going through everything yet. Nothing as simple as an envelope labeled
Vault Combination
."

"Most people pick combinations from something they can remember easily," Kevin said. "They do it with bank-card pin numbers, which is why banks tell people not to use their birthdays."

"Do we have a birthday on Bentley?" Josh asked. "We can still try it." He checked his phone and grimaced. "Jen, I have to go to my office for a few minutes. I have more incoming calls from the credit card people. Now, I have to explain to them why they can't speak to you directly for at least another week."

"Why don't you turn it all over to your attorney," Mila asked.

Josh looked stunned for a moment. "It never occurred to me. I'm so used to dealing only with my brothers when I need legal help."

Mila looked amused. "It's not as if you can't afford it," she teased.

"True. I'm calling Mr. Mitchim and dumping it on him. Thank you, Mila, sometimes I need a reminder."

"You need a reminder you are stinking rich?" Kevin said dryly. "It would not be the kind of thing to slip my mind."

"It doesn't," Josh said with a laugh. "I'm just not used to the idea of not doing everything myself."

Jenny slapped a note in front of him.

"Yes ma'am," he said, reading it before looking over to Mila and Josh. "Right now, I have to explain to my daughter why Mommy can't talk."

By the time they filtered through the rest of the boxes, they had accumulated another ten numbers. Josh called Mr. Mitchim, gave him the pertinent information to handle the credit-card fraud people, and asked him to look through his files for a possible safe combination. His attorney was able to give him birth dates and social security numbers for Mr. Bentley and Mrs. Dougherty, although SS numbers were nine digits, which could raise an endless array of possibilities.

"Who wants to go down with me?" Josh asked.

"I do," Mila exclaimed. "I haven't been over since you found the secret passageway.

Jenny shook her head no and backed away several steps.

"Honey, are you okay with this?" Josh asked going around the bar and hugging her."

Jenny nodded okay.

"I'll ask Bubba to guard you and the kids while we go down and try these numbers."

Jenny nodded again as they trooped out. Bubba knocked on their door and Jenny motioned for him to come inside, but he shook his head and said he was guarding the perimeter. She began pulling vegetables out of the refrigerator to make a salad. She was setting the table when she heard a thump outside. She peered through a window to see the huge bodyguard slumped flat on the deck not three feet from her front door. She also saw the back of a man going through the front door of the main house as she quickly backed away from the window. She thought he was carrying a rifle.

Jenny looked at her kids playing on the floor, back to the main house, then to Bubba. She grabbed the phone and dialed 911. Try as she might, when the operator came on the line, not a whisper or a sound came out of her. She left the line open and ran for the kids.

She gathered Emmie and Adam hustling them upstairs and inside her closet. She ran downstairs and back up again carrying Little Kevin to the closet and putting him into Emmie's little arms. She also pushed Buddy into the closet since he had followed her and the children. She knew he would guard them fiercely.

"St_," Jenny ordered Emmie although only a faint sound emerged. She closed the door and pushed a chair in front of it.

Back downstairs, Jenny picked up the phone and tried again to speak, but could not make the sounds she needed. The operator kept repeating ‘Hello, hello, do you need assistance?' She ran into the kitchen and smashed glass after glass into the sink, hoping the 911 operator would get the idea. Jenny looked around thinking she needed a weapon, but she was not very good with the rifle. Then she thought of the seven-pound barbell she used when she exercised. She ran into another room to get it when her eyes fell on Kevin's toolbox. Mila had told her about the gun he kept in a compartment under the top tray.

She opened the toolbox and lifted out the top tray. She saw the compartment had a key slot and used one of the large screwdrivers in the box to pry off the lid and remove the revolver. Hurrying outside, she activated the security system and stepped over Bubba's inert body, hoping and praying he was not dead. She opened the front door to the main house and listened, when she did not hear anything, she quietly slipped inside.

She went straight to the library, but it was empty. Looking up, she could see lights coming through the hole Bubba had made to rescue her earlier. With fear tingling up and down her spine, Jenny faced the space where she had so recently screamed in terror. She stepped on the first tread of the spiral stairway, only to immediately step back and slip off her boots. Then she silently climbed the stairs shakily holding the revolver out in front of her.

Jenny shivered as she stepped through the hole in the wall, but the small space was not so terrifying when lighted. She made her way to the steep stairwell reaching downward, not an empty space as she had imagined, and silently began to descend. She heard voices eventually, which got louder as she continued into the bowels of the sub-basement. She realized she was close to the bottom when she clearly heard a man's voice raised in anger.

"Keep trying, whatever is in there belongs to me! That bitching old woman promised me, and I'm getting my share!
My
share!"

"We don't know the combination," Josh growled. "It might have to be drilled open."

"I'll get it open if I have to blast it open!"

"Try it, you could bring this whole mountain down on us," Kevin taunted.

"Shut the fuck up! What do you know? You had everything handed to you on a silver plate, college, a business. Nobody gave me nothing."

"I worked for everything I have," Kevin snarled. "Something you have never tried."

"Shut the fuck up!"

Mila's eyes widened when she saw Jenny's head peek around the corner from behind the man holding a rifle on them. Kevin saw her too. The armed man noticed their reactions and whipped around to confront her, but not fast enough. Jenny pointed the revolver and fired as Kevin tackled Blake Parker.

Mila dove to the floor as the bullet missed Blake and ricocheted off the steel vault with a ping. Josh, who had his back to the others while trying another combination, jerked at the sound of the shot and immediately ducked, as well. Somehow, the bullet found its mark. Blake Parker had given a half scream before Kevin pounded a fist into his face.

Two seconds was all it took to reverse the hostage situation. Mila and Josh were still processing the 'what and who,' when Jenny squeaked, dropped the revolver and ran.

Mila grabbed the gun and handed it to Josh. Kevin backed off his old nemesis still trying to figure out what had happened. "I've got Jen," Mila shouted as she bolted down the narrow hallway after her sister.

"Jesus," Josh exclaimed.

"He's done," Kevin said still on his knees. "She got him," he barked out with a laugh. "The ricochet must have hit him." He ripped Blake's shirtsleeve from the shoulder to check the gunshot wound. "Come on, we have to get this piece of crap out of here before he wakes up. I have wanted to smash his face in for a long time. I finally got my chance."

"Jenny," Josh suddenly exclaimed jumping to his feet.

"Mila went after her. Come on, the quicker we get to the top, the faster we find out what the hell is going on," Kevin said, grabbing one of Blake's arms and dragging him toward the stairs.

Kevin took Blake's arms, Josh his feet, and they half carried, half dragged him.

Mila was fast on her sister's heels. She had not known Jenny could move so quickly, she was barefoot and flying. She followed as Jenny jumped over Bubba, burst through the front door, ignored the alarms, and ran upstairs.

"Jen," Mila screamed stopping her sister at the stairs. "Little Kevin?" she demanded.

Jenny mouthed 'yes,' pointed down the hall, and ran again.

Mila deactivated the alarm and went back to the deck to check Bubba. He was out cold.

Jenny appeared at the top of the stairs with both Adam and Little Kevin in her arms. Emmie was behind them holding Buddy by the collar. Jenny put Adam into his playpen and the infant in his port-a-crib. She hugged Emmie before setting her in the playpen too. All three children were screaming and crying. With one leap, Buddy jumped into the playpen to comfort the children.

Jenny ran to help Mila, who was trying to drag the nearly three-hundred-pound man inside.

Once Bubba was inside, Mila felt his skin, opened his coat, and tried to find a pulse.

Jenny ran over, retrieved the phone, and handed it to her sister. It was still an open line.

"Hello? Hello?" Mila shouted.

"Ma'am," the emergency operator responded.

"We need help, police, ambulance…" Mila exclaimed.

"They are on the way, ma'am," the operator responded. "Can you tell me what is wrong?"

"A man is out… unconscious, and we don't know why," Mila exclaimed as she heard sirens. "They're here!" She tossed the phone aside to open the front door and run outside.

"In here!" she screamed as a fire truck and an ambulance careened to a stop. A rescue squad and three police cars followed them.

Mila directed the EMTs into the guesthouse and screamed at the police. "Go to the main house, the library!" She went inside as EMTs scattered, some towards the children and some bending over Bubba.

"The children aren't hurt, just scared," Mila yelled over the noise.

Jenny grabbed Mila's arm and shook it. "Tak_ car_ __ ki__," she squeaked before running out the door.

Carrying the dead weight of an unconscious man up eighty feet of stairs was not easy. Kevin held Blake under the arms while Josh held his feet, everything in between dragged and bumped. They had to stop three times simply to catch their breath. They were twisting and turning the body down the spiral stairway when suddenly the library filled with cops with drawn guns.