With Baited Breath (18 page)

CHAPTER 15

Kathy finished speaking with the 911 dispatcher and turned back to the hedge, only to find that Tori had vanished. Knowing how upset her friend was at the thought of children in danger, Kathy had an inkling of where her friend had gone, but decided to take a circuitous route. She stuck to the east side of the hedge, fumbling in the dark. Branches swiped her cheek and tangled in her hair, along with a sticky film that clung to her face. She clawed at the webs, hoping there wasn’t a live occupant in the middle of it. She stifled a scream and shuffled along.

“What are you doing here, bitch!” an angry male voice cried.

“Ow!” Tori wailed.

Kathy’s heart nearly leapt into her throat at the sound of her friend in pain. She couldn’t see what was going on, but heard a dull thud and then scrabbling on the other side of the hedge. Fear closed her throat—she couldn’t make a sound as she heard Tori groan and the sound of something heavy being dragged away.

Kathy followed the sound for a terrible few seconds, and then it faded out. Terrified, she put an arm in front of her face and plunged through the hedge. Sharp branches scraped her hand, her head, and tore at her clothes as she clawed her way through the four or five feet full of branches. She broke free in time to see the dark figure kick her best friend in the stomach.

Terrified, Kathy’s breath caught at seeing Tori writhe in pain. Then the guy picked her up, tossed her over his shoulder, and headed into the house.

Kathy turned away, fumbling for her phone once more and stabbing the numbers 911.

“Ward County 911. What is your emergency?”

“Help me! My best friend has just been attacked by some big goon!”

“Calm down. Where are you?”

“I’m at 8766 Ridge Road, next door to The Bay Bar. I just got off the phone with another 911 dispatcher about trespassers at the same address. One of them saw my friend and attacked her. I think he’s taken her hostage!”

“Are you safe?”

“Yes, but—”

“Stay away from the house. Go to a safe location and wait for the Sheriff’s deputy to arrive.”

“But my friend—!” Kathy cried.

“Won’t be helped if you’re in trouble, too,” said the calm female voice.

“She’s hurt. He kicked her. What if he kills her before the deputy can get here? I’ve got to get help. I’ve got to—” But Kathy didn’t finish the sentence. She shoved her phone back into her pocket and turned for the bar, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste as she bypassed the hedge and hurried along the side of the house.

She stumble-ran across the grassy area in front of the bar, swung around the side of the deck and barreled up the steps, then threw open the door. “Help!”

Paul looked up from his stance behind the bar, and a couple of the bikers turned to see what the commotion was.

“Tori’s in trouble. A guy broke into the house next door and he attacked her.”

Except for the pounding music, the bar had gone silent.

“C’mon, guys,” yelled one of the bikers dressed in black leathers, with a blue-and-white bandana covering his head. He slammed his beer bottle onto the top of the bar. “Let’s give the little lady a hand.”

“Hold it,” called a voice from the front corner of the room. The guy with the crew-cut stood. He withdrew a badge from his jacket pocket. “Ronald Field, Homeland Security.”

“See, I told you that guy was a fed of some kind,” Bandana-Guy said.

“Everyone stay put,” Field said with authority. “A federal investigation is in progress. Don’t interfere under penalty of prosecution.”

“Listen to him, guys,” Paul implored. “You know the feds would just love to nail a bunch of bikers.”

Kathy glared at Field. “Are you going to save my friend?”

“I don’t have authority to move against the people in that house.”

“What did you see?” Paul asked.

“A couple of mean guys. They tied up to Cannon’s dock and herded a bunch of kids into the house. Tori think’s they’re traffickers.”

“Traffickers!” Bandana-Guy practically exploded.

“Kids?” another one of the guys shouted, furious.

“If there’s kids involved, you can’t just go bursting in. They might get hurt.” Paul pointed out.

“I ain’t letting any kids get exploited,” yelled Bandana-Guy, and threw an arm into the air, beckoning his comrades to follow.

“You’re all under arrest,” Field hollered, but the bikers ignored him and moved en masse toward the door, with Kathy leading the way.

Once outside, she paused in the parking lot. “They’re at the back of the house, in the kitchen. There’s no lights. How will you see?”

“What’s the layout of the house?” Bandana-Guy asked.

“There’s a door to the kitchen at the back. The front door is probably unlocked. The hallway goes straight back to the kitchen.”

He nodded, then turned to his friends. “Terry, Rick, John—you go through the front door. Give a yell. As soon as we hear you enter, the rest of us will storm the back.”

“Give us two minutes to get into position, and then bust in.”

“You got it.”

“I’ll show you how I got there,” Kathy said.

They followed her to the hedge where she and Tori had first watched the squatters when they’d arrived. She pointed to the deepening darkness. “This way to the back of the house.”

The group split up, with the majority of the bikers following Kathy. She had no idea where she’d first pushed through the hedge, and had to take a good guess. “Cover your faces,” she advised, before she plunged in. They followed close behind. Kathy burst through the hedge and nearly stumbled into the yard with the guys right behind her. They sidled up to the back of the house, and waited. Kathy swallowed, listening hard. What if they couldn’t hear the diversion from the bikers out front? What if the brute had already killed Tori? What about the children?

Suddenly, they heard a racket, and Bandana-Guy jumped onto the step, threw open the back door and hollered, “Bonzai!”

The others echoed his shout and stormed into the kitchen, with Kathy bringing up the rear.

The room exploded in a cacophony of screams and shouts. A shot rang out and Kathy could just make out Bandana-Guy barreling into the tall brute, knocking him to the floor. Another two bikers joined the melee and the four of them rolled around the garbage-strewn floor, the air blue with curses and shouts.

A flashlight on the counter gave off just enough light so that Kathy could see the children huddled in a corner, screaming and crying, and in the opposite corner lay Tori, curled in a ball with her hands covering her head as though to fend off blows.

Kathy went to her and tried to pull her hands away, but Tori screamed and lashed out.

“Tor, it’s me, it’s me! Kathy!” she shouted.

Tori froze, staring up at her, and Kathy gathered her suddenly sobbing friend in her arms. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

“The kids, the kids!” Tori wailed.

“We’ll take care of them, I promise,” Kathy shouted above the rest of the caterwauling.

The sound of a siren cut the air, and then was suddenly silenced.

Bandana-Guy and the other bikers had finally subdued the brute and yanked him to his feet. “How do we get out of here?” he asked Kathy.

She pointed. “Down the hall to the front door.”

“Come on, scum,” Bandana-Guy said, and he and the other bikers hauled the dazed and staggering man forward.

Kathy tried to help Tori to her feet, but she fell back in pain as her right knee collapsed under her. “We’ve got to help those kids,” Tori cried.

Now that it was quieter, the children had stopped screaming, but their whimpering was heartbreaking. Kathy again tried to haul Tori to her feet, and this time succeeded. They hobbled across the messy kitchen and paused before a little girl.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Kathy said gently. “We’re here to help you.”

If anything, the children seemed even more frightened and huddled together into a solid mass in the corner.

“Shhh,” Tori said. “We won’t hurt you, I promise,” but her words were of no comfort to the frightened children.

“Maybe we’d better back off,” Kathy advised.

“Yeah,” Tori agreed. “But I won’t leave them. Not until I’m sure they’re safe.”

“We won’t leave them,” Kathy assured her. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been better,” Tori said, her voice strained.

Thundering footsteps preceded the appearance of an armed deputy. “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

“The bikers—they got the bad guys, and with no help from Homeland Security,” Kathy said bitterly. “These kids,” she said, sweeping her arm through the air to point to the children, “are their contraband.”

“What are you two doing here?” he demanded.

“Saving the day,” Tori said wearily.

And so they had.

CHAPTER 16

Tori watched as Herb traced the confines of the small ER cubicle for at least the hundredth time. There was no mistaking the depth of his anger.

“How could you do something so stupid?” Herb bellowed for at least the tenth time.

Dressed in only a hospital gown, Tori sat on the edge of the ER bed, swinging her one good leg. The other one was bruised and badly swollen, and the thought of putting weight on her knee filled her with dread. She hadn’t caught sight of her face in the mirror yet, but she’d been told she had the beginnings of a spectacular shiner.

Kathy sat in one of the hard plastic chairs, the bed remote in her hand. She’d been hogging the thing for the past two hours, watching HGTV reruns. They’d traveled to Bora Bora and probably Timbuktu, and then segued into two home renovations in Toronto. Meanwhile, Tori had come and gone for x-rays, a CAT scan, and had been poked and prodded by a series of doctors and nurses. She was sore—very sore—but grateful her best friend had engineered her rescue.

“Gramps, they were little kids. They were dirty, they were hungry, and they were scared. I couldn’t
not
do something.”

“Yeah, well, don’t ever do anything that stupid ever again.” He moved his angry glare toward Kathy. “And do we have to watch another episode of drivel on that stupid channel?” Herb grumped.

“Kath!” Tori implored.

Kathy shrugged and tuned to the Rochester all-news channel, where the on-air weatherman blathered about temps for the upcoming week. “There are a few things I don’t understand,” she said, turning her attention to Tori. “Where did the smugglers get the spikes that they stuffed into poor Mr. Jackson’s mouth?”

“From our shop,” Tori said. “We saw for ourselves that the big guy picked the lock on your house.”  Kathy smiled at the reference. “He must have locked up when he left, and because Gramps was so preoccupied with losing grandma, he never noticed.”

Herb nodded.

“And what about you, Mr. Cannon? I heard you talk to that fisherman, Larry. You warned him not to talk to the cops. Why?”

“That blowhard?” Herb asked. “I don’t believe a word he says. If you’d heard the fish stories that guy has to tell, you wouldn’t either. I figured he’d only mess up the investigation by confusing the issue.  Biggie Taylor looks tough and talks tough, but I happen to know he’s an old softie. He may have bugged Jackson for some of his worms, which is annoying, I’ll grant you, but I’ve seen him get all panicky when there’s a hurt bird or duck out on the water.”

“Anissa sure had him cowed when she confronted him on the bay bridge,” Kathy agreed.

“There’s something I don’t understand. Anissa and I looked at her father’s journals and found pages missing from the last page. I wonder if we’ll ever find out what happened to them.”

“I’ve got a theory,” Kathy said. “When I went to The Bay Bar to get help to rescue you, the Homeland Security guy nearly had a fit. He seemed prepared to let those guys get away with another murder—yours—in order to build a better case against them.  I wasn’t going to let that happen.

“And I’m damned thankful you stood up to him,” Herb said.

A man with a blue bandana poked around the curtain. “Are you Tori?” he asked.

“What’s it to you?” Herb asked.

“Mr. Cannon,” Kathy admonished. “This is the man who saved Tori!”

“Oh. Sorry,” Herb said. He offered Bandana-Guy his hand. “I’m Herb Cannon, Tori’s grandfather.”

“Nice to meet you. Dave Albright.” They shook.

Kathy moved to stand beside the man. “Sorry I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself earlier. I’m Kathy Grant, and this is Tori.”

“Nice to meet you,” Dave said, nodding to Tori.

“Mr. Cannon and I followed the ambulance here with Tori, so we don’t know what happened back at the house. Are the kids okay?” The last time they’d seen them they were in the back of two police cruisers eating ice cream that Noreen had provided.

Dave nodded. “A social worker came and picked them up. They’re somewhere here in the hospital getting checked out. They’re from Indonesia and were probably stolen from their parents.”

“They must be out of their minds with worry,” Tori said, shaking her head.

“They’ve already found an interpreter. I think they’ll be in good hands until they can get them all home, but God only knows what they’ve been through.”

“Are we going to be arrested?” Kathy asked.

“Arrested?” Tori asked, aghast.

Kathy nodded. “That guy with the crew-cut was from Homeland Security. He forbad us to go and rescue you, but I’d hate to think what would have happened to you and those kids if we hadn’t.”

“My brother’s a lawyer. I already talked to him,” Dave said. “We may have disrupted an investigation, but we saved seven innocent lives. That’s gotta trump any charges they can throw against us.”

“Any?” Kathy asked.

“Well, most of them,” he said and gave her a comforting smile.

Kathy smiled back.

Tori knew that look.

The cubicle’s curtain was pulled aside and the resident, Dr. Patel, stepped into the small enclosure. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said.

“I was just leaving,” Dave said.

“Maybe I’ll see you at the bar sometime,” Kathy said.

He gave her an even bigger smile. “Maybe.” He stepped away, and Herb cleared his throat, indicating they should listen to the doctor.”

“Ms. Cannon, I’m pleased to tell you that although you have a strained ligament in your knee and an abundance of contusions and lacerations, you will make a full recovery. I suggest a number of hot baths and inflammatories, such as aspirin or ibuprofen, and a little tender loving care from your family. In a couple of weeks you shall be feeling on top of the world once again.”

“Thank you, doctor. It’s a big relief,” Herb said.

“I’ll second that,” Tori said and laughed.

“If you’ll wait here, I’ll get the paperwork started for your discharge.” The doctor gave them a smile and they watched her leave.

“You’re still not out of the woods with me, young lady. If you were just a few years younger, I’d ground you for a month,” Herb said sternly.

“How about I paint the house instead?”

“With that bum knee, it’s going to be weeks before you can climb a ladder.”

“Maybe Kathy will help me?” Tori said, looking at her best friend.

“Sure. I’ll paint, and you can stand around and criticize my work.”

Tori laughed, but Herb suddenly looked up at the TV. “Shhh! They’re going to announce the winning Powerball number.” He grabbed the ticket stubs from his shirt pocket.

“But I didn’t buy you a Powerball ticket,” Tori said.

“No, but I did,” Herb said.

They listened as the announcer called out the numbers. “Ten; nineteen; thirty-seven; thirty-eight; fifty. And the Powerball number is twenty-eight.”

“Damn,” Herb cursed.

“Sorry, Gramps,” Tori said.

“There’s still Mega Millions,” Herb said and fished out three different ticket stubs.

Tori shook her head, while Kathy attempted to stifle a smile.

“And the Mega Millions numbers are: two; thirty-two; thirty-five; fifty; fifty-nine, and three.”

“Oh my God! I’ve got it!” Herb shouted.

Tori’s mouth dropped, and Kathy looked just as shocked.

A nurse stuck her head around the curtain. “Sir, this is a hospital. I must ask you to keep your voice down.” She disappeared.

“I won! I won!” Herb said in a harsh whisper. “Oh, my God, I won!”

“How much did you win? How many numbers did you get?”

“All of them!”

“All of them?” Kathy repeated.

“Oh, my God,” Herb said once again. “I can pay my taxes.”

“I think your tax bill just went through the roof,” Kathy corrected him and laughed.

“Do you know what this means, Tori?” Herb asked, smiling.

“You’re moving to Florida?”