The McClane Apocalypse Book Three (45 page)

"That's it. I knew it. I
knew
. Come
on. We need to go somewhere," she blurts as John still just looks
at her with a blank expression.

"Babe, super genius, tell me what's going
on," John asks of her. "You knew what? Ya' kinda' know just about
everything, sweetie, so you gotta fill the rest of us in when you
do this."

He strokes her cheek lightly, but Reagan
knocks his hand away.

"We need to go back to that house. Take me.
Take me there now," she demands. Frustratingly, John stands there
looking confused. Reagan shakes her hands at him with
exasperation.

She tries to speak more slowly, but her mind
is buzzing, "That house. That house in the expensive… you know, the
family? In the barn? The family that was executed in that fancy
horse barn?" she asks so that he can get on the same page, and he
finally nods. "Take me there, now, John. Please."

"Honey, we can't go anywhere right now. We
need to stay here until those people leave," John tries to persuade
her.

"No!" she says loudly. "We need to go there
right now. It's important."

"Honey, I'll take you there tomorrow or the
day after when these hadj are far away from here," John says and
takes her hand in his as if appeasing a child.

"No!" Reagan says forcefully and yanks her
hand free. She doesn't have time for this, for this pointless
arguing. "Fine, I'll take myself."

"Whoa, no way, babe. Not happening. When
they leave…"

"John, we may not be able to
let
them
leave if I'm right about this," Reagan says with prophetic
sincerity. John frowns down at her.

"Ok, ok. Let me tell the guys and get my
rifle and the radio," John tells her and grabs her hand again.

After collecting extra guns and two radios,
they run into Derek and Kelly near the horse barn entrance, and
John explains the situation.

"No way," Derek protests. "Nobody is to be
leaving the farm until those creeps are gone. Tomorrow morning you
can go after they've left if it's that important."

"No, Derek. I need to go
now
," Reagan
argues vehemently.

"I gotta take her, bro," John explains.

His brother sighs heavily and hangs his head
for a moment. Kelly stands quietly awaiting a decision.

"How long are you going to be gone so I know
when to come looking for you two?" Derek asks apprehensively.

He's made it quite clear that he doesn't
like this. John looks to Reagan who holds a shotgun and is wearing
her pistol on her thigh.

"We'll be back within an hour," she relays
and heads for the pick-up truck.

Ten minutes later, after John has disabled
the wiring on the driveway demos, they are driving at a fast pace
down their gravel road that leads to the county road which houses
the suburban properties. They are not obeying seatbelt laws and
speed limit restrictions. Though John has not asked her again as to
why they need to go to that house, he trusts her enough to just
drive her there and not bombard her with any more questions about
it. His absolute trust in her scares the shit out of Reagan and
awakens something that she pushes down, deep down where she won't
have to examine it too closely. When they turn onto the street
where the executive homes were located, John slows down so that
they can get a better look.

"I'm not even sure which one it was," John
says with a confused expression marring his features.

Reagan can understand why because the weeds
and native fescue have grown even taller than they were the first
time they came. The trees have lost some of their leaves and have
turned to fall reds, browns and oranges.

"There! It's that one with the circular
drive and the horse fence," Reagan tells him as she points it out,
and John pulls slowly down the driveway, coming to a stop near the
house.

"Wait here for a second so I can check it
out, make sure we're alone," John tells her.

He briefly places his hand on her thigh.
Within a few minutes, he's back at her door which he opens.

He declares, "We're good. Nobody's around. I
don't think there's anyone around for miles."

Reagan wastes no time and sprints up the
front steps to the sophisticated mansion and through the stately
front door that hangs dramatically off kilter on its one, solitary
remaining hinge.

"Come on. Up here," Reagan says and runs up
the stairs as John follows with his pistol drawn just in case and
then takes the lead.

They pass the nursery again with the double
set of cribs for the twin babies that once lived here, the room
that had left her feeling depressed. Reagan squeezes past John as
they traverse the long hall. The next room belonged to a girl.

She calls over her shoulder, "John, in
here."

John enters first and looks around. It's
dustier than the first time they were here, and Reagan was the only
one who'd come up to this floor to raid for items while the men
shopped the first floor. She goes straight to the dresser and picks
up the photo of the girl and her friends and then the one of her
standing next to her chestnut horse with her prize ribbon so
proudly displayed. She's smiling ear to ear, showing her bright
white, straight teeth. She's exuberant, elated with joy. Her big
blue eyes shine with merriment.

"Look," Reagan orders and hands one to
John.

He regards it pensively, and Reagan waits
until it clicks for him.

"What? Why are you… oh, my God," John says.
"It's Sam. This is Samantha, isn't it?"

Reagan nods. His blue eyes take on a deadly
calm. He nods solemnly, but there is something dark coming over his
features. She's seen this before.

"I knew I recognized her when we first met
their group, but I couldn't put my finger on it," Reagan explains
while she paces. "Plus we've been so damn busy I didn't have
time
to think about it. Look! Her hair used to be really
long. She said she cut it off herself with a knife or something.
Then she wore that riding academy shirt and she told us about her
uncle in Nashville. Last week, she wore a shirt for a private
school and I thought I recognized it as being a school near
Clarksville. That must've been where she went to school. The signs
were all there, John."

"Yeah, I guess they were. We just weren't
looking closely enough."

"She also does weird shit like not brushing
her hair and looking dirty all the time. I think she used to do it
on purpose to make herself ugly. You know, before we let them stay
with us? She doesn't do it anymore because I think she feels safe
now. John, I think Bobby's been raping her," she says. John's eyes
jump to hers and now they seem murderous. Reagan can hardly
continue her explanation, but she also knows that he needs this
information. "She's also had bruises on her that I've seen. On her
face, on her arms. It just all started nagging at the back of my
mind. But then I remembered earlier where we could get a high-chair
and a crib for Jacob because I remembered seeing the twin bedroom
next to this one. And it just clicked and I knew this was where I'd
seen her."

"Come on," he states.

John stashes Sam's photo in his pocket and
tugs Reagan by the hand.

He says, "I'm glad you remembered this. And
now I need to check out that murder scene in the barn again."

Reagan furrows her brow at him but follows
along to the horse barn behind the house.

"Cover your mouth and nose, Reagan," John
instructs her.

He wouldn't have had to because the smell is
even worse than it had been before, probably because of the
decaying horses. Reagan gags once.

They trek down the wide, center aisle to the
back of the barn where John leaves her near a stall. He turns the
corner toward the area where the dead bodies were in the earlier
stages of decomposition. He comes back a moment later and holds out
his hand, palm up which contains two different spent bullet
casings.

"This is a .22 shell and this one's a 9
mill," John tells her and Reagan's eye flit to his. "They're all
over the ground back there."

"What does that mean? I don't
understand."

"Those two pistols we took off the hadj were
a 9 mill Glock and a .22 caliber Colt," John explains.

He tugs her arm and they sprint to the
truck.

"Do you think it's possible?" Reagan asks
even though she knows it already. She knew it when she'd realized
who Sam was and where she'd seen her before, but she hadn't wanted
to vocalize it. The ramifications of this are too great to
believe.

"No, I don't think it's possible. I think
it's probable. That's why they've got Sam and definitely why she
doesn't answer our questions. It's probably how Jennifer ended up
with them and maybe Jasmine, too," John explains.

They speed along the county road and make a
hard left to travel back toward their farm.

"Who do you think did it? All of them? Even
Peter?" Reagan asks with a great deal of worry. "I mean I don't
think Grams's dipshit brother Peter would be capable of
murder."

"Really?" John proposes with a huge amount
of doubt.

Reagan nods and frowns deeply. She replies
softly, "Right. They are probably all cut from the same cloth."

"We're about to find out," John tells
her.

When they arrive, she and John immediately
find Derek at the front porch. He sits near Sue and Isaac while he
keeps an eye on the visitors. John wastes no time getting straight
to the point, and all traces of his good humor and charm are gone,
replaced with nearly unbridled anger and malice.

"We have a problem," John tells his older
brother who is on instant high alert.

"What's going on, John? Why the hell did you
guys have to leave? What did you find?" Derek questions in rapid
fire succession.

"Where's Sam?" John asks.

"She went riding with Cory and Simon. They
should be back in a little bit, though, John," Sue answers.

Her sister is trying to keep her voice
hopeful and light. But she does stand with baby Isaac, sensing the
tension.

"Where's everyone else?" John demands.

"The grandparents are in the study and
Hannah's in the back yard with the kids," Sue says in a rush.

"Sue, in a minute take the kids, Hannah and
Grams inside when I leave here, and tell Doc to stay by the front
door. Keep the whole house locked and don't come out till we come
for you," John orders with enough grit that it scares Sue.

"Dude, what's goin' on?" Derek asks with
apprehension in his brown eyes.

"I think those hadj scum killed Sam's family
and took her. We found this picture of her," Reagan explains.

John digs in his pocket and hands the
picture of Sam with her former girlfriends to Sue and Derek to
study. The girl is wearing the same shirt with the logo for Fox Run
Academy that she'd worn around Reagan while working in the shed.
She'd been right about it when she had thought it was a school near
Clarksville.

"Son of a bitch," Derek says on an exhale of
exasperation.

John tells his brother, "Reagan recognized
her from when we raided that house in the burbs. That really big
house where the family was… in the barn? That was Sam's house. That
was Sam's family."

"They've killed her family and taken her
against her will, Sue," Reagan elucidates further.

"Oh my God, Derek," Sue exclaims, and her
sister's eyes tear up. "No wonder she's so scared of them."

"It's also why she won't talk about her
family or talk about those assholes out there, either," Reagan
explains. Reagan can only imagine the horrors that Sam has had to
endure from those people. Have the men been raping her? Has
Bobby?

"They've probably warned her not to say
anything to us," Derek figures.

His brow is furrowed in such a severe way
that Reagan is starting to wonder just how alike he and his brother
are. Is he also capable like John of murdering people who might
harm them?

"Shell casings near the bodies match the
guns we took from them. They might not be planning on leaving
without a fight, after all. They might not be leaving," John says
with cold intent.

"Yeah," Derek says simply.

He's a man of few words, but Reagan suspects
he's a man of action when he needs to be.

"Where's all the hadj? Some of them are
missing," John observes as he glances toward their camp.

How had he counted them up so fast? Reagan
can hardly even keep track of them most of the time.

"Some of them are picking corn, and some are
out in the apple orchard getting apples," Derek explains.

"Looks like the ones that we don't want out
of our sights are the ones who are," John notes.

His brother nods solemnly. Reagan sees the
two women, Great-uncle Peter and the skinny, tattooed guy named
Buzz hanging around the camp. They appear to be packing. The
stripper is milking the goat. The other five are missing.

"Sue, go. Go now. Give Isaac to Grams and go
get the kids," Derek tells her.

Her brother-in-law sends Sue inside. Her
sister looks worried sick. Reagan is also becoming so.

"We need to go find those teenagers,
Reagan," John tells her as she nods in agreement. "Don't do
anything till we get back with them and can talk to Sam, ok?"

"Right," Derek agrees with a nod. "We don't
know who out there is responsible or if
all
of them
are."

John nods and adds, "We'll go on horseback
and try to meet up with them, get them back here."

"I'll find Kelly and get the hadj all
rounded up," Derek says.

The two men nod in agreement, bump fists and
separate.

Reagan and John dash for the horse barn. He
is unusually quiet as she grabs Harry out of his stall, and John
catches a high-spirited gelding from the pasture that he's never
ridden. His usual mount is gone, probably with Cory or Simon since
she's so well trained. Within minutes they have them saddled and
ready to go. They take off at a fast trot and then break into a
canter when they are clear of the farm. This day has quickly turned
from good to bad. She'd been glad the visitors were leaving. Now
they may need to stop them from doing so. As they ride, the
situation begins to feel more and more desperate.