“What’s your name?” Harvey asked again.
She didn’t answer.
“I’m not here to hurt you.” He placed a caring hand on her shoulder. “I’m here to help, but I need to know your name.”
“It’s…” she mumbled, trying to remember her full name. “It’s...”
“What’s your name?”
“Amy Wu.”
Chapter 33
“Amy Wu? Are you sure that’s your name?”
“Yes,” the girl replied. It was the first time she had heard her name out loud in a very long time.
Harvey looked at Jack, still standing at the entrance to the basement, his mouth opened in shock.
“How old are you, Amy?” Harvey leaned forward.
She shrugged again.
“Amy, how long have you been here?”
“Most of my life.” She felt the tears beginning to well in her eyes, overwhelmed by all the new stimuli.
“It’s ok.” Harvey rubbed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He knelt down next to her, calming her with a slower tone of voice. “It’s ok. We’re here now.”
He looked back at Jack, mouth still wide open.
“Who else do you live here with, Amy?”
“No one.”
“No one? Does anyone else come here?”
“Just him.”
“Who is ‘him’?”
“I don’t know his name. He comes once a week, leaves me food, keeps me safe.” Her arms folded across her chest, eyes looking down. “I love him. Please don’t hurt him.”
“We’re not hurting anyone, Amy.” He looked at Jack and nodded.
Jack drew the gun from his hip holster, turning towards the back door of the house.
Harvey kept the tone of his voice low. “Is he part of your family?”
“Family?” She looked at Harvey with large, round eyes. “I don’t have a family. I’ve just got him.”
“We should leave,” Jack stated, coming closer to his friend and the girl, uncomfortable with the situation. “This isn’t good. We have to go.”
“Not yet,” Harvey replied, desperate for more information.
“Harvey,” Jack said over his friend’s shoulder, “right now, we have to get this girl out of here. Everything else can wait.”
“I agree that we have to go.” Harvey stared down inside the concrete basement. “But I need more information first.”
“Harvey, it’s enough,” Jack said, back turned to the house behind him. “We really have to—”
Chapter 34
Jack Grayson dropped to the ground, hit hard from behind.
A large silhouette was cast behind them.
“You really should have listened to him, Harvey.”
“Terrance Marshall.” Harvey knew the voice well, but still, he pointed the flashlight at the older man’s face.
“Get that thing out of my face.” Terrance grumbled as he picked up Jack’s gun from the ground.
With his vision blurry, Jack rolled onto his side, looking up at the large man now holding his weapon. The light from the living room window shone on Terrance’s face, highlighting his lack of emotion.
“I knew you would come to save me!” Amy shouted, moving towards him, but Harvey put his arm out, preventing her from going any closer to the man.
“Don’t move.” Harvey stood tall. “I need to understand what’s happened here.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Amy Wu has been presumed dead for five years. There are many, many questions to answer.”
“You can ask all the questions you want,” Terrance said, waving Jack’s gun in his hand. “Doesn’t mean I have to answer them. Now, you three, inside.”
Harvey assisted Jack to his feet, holding him under the arm. Jack was still too far away, and his mind too fuzzy, to make a move on Terrance.
Loosely holding the weapon, Terrance studied the two tall men as they walked towards the back door to his house, Harvey’s hand placed on the girl’s shoulder. Rubbing the back of his head, Jack opened the door, his eyes taking a few moments to adjust to the bright light inside, before he led them into the house he searched only days ago.
Terrance escorted them into the living room, but then placed the gun on the kitchen bench, and slumped onto his worn couch.
Confused, Jack picked up the gun, and then looked at Terrance.
“You can keep the gun,” Terrance stated. “I don’t need it. I don’t want it either. I’ve done enough damage with those things. I have one more problem to solve, but you’re not it.”
With her eyes wide open, Amy looked around the house.
“The house is so beautiful,” Amy said in wonder, not to anyone in particular. Her head spun around as she looked at all the extra luxury. “There’s so much space.”
Jack and Harvey looked at each other, confused. “You haven’t been in here?”
“No.” Her voice was filled with innocence. “Never.”
Harvey’s attention turned to Terrance, who was looking down at his hands, shoulders slumped forward. “Start talking, Terrance.”
“If you’re going to shoot me, just do it already. I deserve it,” Terrance mumbled, wiping a tear from his eye. “I’m dying, you know. You might as well finish me off now. When all this comes out, I’ll be a dead man anyway. There’s no way I’m going to survive this one.”
“Don’t say that.” Amy turned, but again, Harvey held out his arm, stopping her going any further. “Please don’t say that. You can’t die.”
With love in his sad eyes, Terrance lifted his head to look at Amy, the girl he had protected for so long, the girl he had raised in the basement, the only meaning that he had left in his life.
“That’s why you wanted your ashes spread in the yard. So I would find Amy.” Harvey lowered his arm.
She ran to Terrance’s side, hugging him, stretching her skeletal arms around his large torso.
“I didn’t want to leave her down there alone. If I died, I didn’t want her to be alone in the world. That’s why I left the basement door unlocked, just in case something happened to me.” He patted Amy on the back as she held him, her head snuggled into his chest. “And I knew that you would take care of her, Harvey. You’re a good man, and I knew you would have done the right thing.”
“You’d better start talking about why she’s here.” Jack’s grip on his gun was firm but still pointed towards the floor.
Terrance looked at Harvey, then back to the girl who wouldn’t let him go.
“I was hired to…” Drawing a long breath, he pulled her arms off him and leaned forward, coughing deeply.
“Steady.” Jack took a step forward, the gun now focused on the torso of the felon.
“Don’t worry, I’m not that stupid. I have nothing to gain by taking you out.” Terrance shook his head.
“Go on, Terrance. Continue your story.” Harvey placed his hand on Jack’s arm, indicating that he should lower the weapon.
“Five years ago, I was doing a lot of work for Kevin. I made some bad decisions, decisions that I still regret to this day. That’s when someone approached me to kidnap Amy. I didn’t know that they wanted to kill her; I thought they were just going to use her for ransom. I didn’t like Kevin, so I jumped at the chance, but when I found out what they wanted to do, I got so angry. I left them by the side of the road. I didn’t know what else to do, so I bought Amy here.”
“Who? Who hired you?”
“I can’t tell you that. But I will tell you that they thought that Amy had died. The day we kidnapped her, we had an argument. They shot at my car, and I told them that Amy was dead. For all these years, they believed me.”
“Who was it?”
Terrance shook his head, leaning both forearms on his knees. “When the police wouldn’t arrest Kevin for Monty’s daughter’s accidental overdose, the rumor was that Monty was going to kill Amy, but someone else stepped in first, and offered me $500,000 to help kidnap her. They knew that Monty would take th
e fall for the crime. I agreed because I thought that was all it was going to be—a kidnapping. But then they said that they were going to shoot her, and I lost it. I couldn’t let another innocent girl die.”
“So you kidnapped her yourself?”
“I brought her here. I thought it was only going to be for a few months, while I figured out what to do. I couldn’t take her back to her parents’ house. How could I explain to Kevin what I’d done? He would have killed me on the spot.” Terrance rubbed his hand over the top of his head. “And then I figured it out.”
“What were you going to do?”
“I had to kill two people, and I had to start with Monty Lee. If I let Amy go, then Monty would just hire someone else to kill her, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. He was hell-bent on revenge for the death of his daughter. The best way to keep her safe was to hide her away from those people that were trying to hurt her.”
“But instead, Monty lost a second daughter to Kevin Wu.”
“I know,” Terrance said with remorse, chin almost on his chest. “I didn’t want that, and I didn’t expect that. I felt so bad, but all I knew was that I had to keep this girl safe. I did my best. I made sure she had books, and I was even looking for an old television for her. I tried to keep things normal.”
“Normal?” Jack scoffed. “Kidnapping a girl and hiding her in a basement for five years is not normal. This is not a normal childhood. You’re a murderer and kidnapper. Who knows what you did to her?”
The normally angry Terrance Marshall didn’t respond. Feeling defeated, his time for anger had long past.
“How long were you going to keep Amy here?”
“As long as it took.”
“So, Monty wasn’t only running from Kevin, he was also running from you.” Harvey worked through the timeline. “And it was you that shot at his house, almost killing his wife and child.”
“It was. He knew I turned on him, and he knew I was going to hunt him. I’ve been looking for him for a very long time, but in my old age, I’m slowing down. I don’t have enough steam left to find him. And only once I had taken Monty out of the picture, could I turn to the second person.”
“Why?”
“Because as soon as I took out the second person, I would have been killed. There was a guarantee on that.”
A moment of silence fell over the room; Harvey and Jack considering how to move the situation forward.
“I told Monty that you sent me there after him.”
“You found him?”
“In the mountains, near Wrightwood, on a settlement within private property. There was an old house surrounded by five caravans—looked quite the ideal life in a commune. But he became very angry when I mentioned your name.”
“I went there, and I didn’t see him.”
“And he’s been stalking this house. I saw him here earlier today, watching your place.” Jack lowered his gun.
“A black pickup truck? Tinted windows?”
Jack nodded.
“I saw it just outside before I went to sleep tonight. I thought it was strange, just sitting there, and I knew something was up. Thought it might have been you guys—that’s why I wasn’t sleeping well.”
“If Monty finds out that Amy is still alive, he’ll kill you.”
“If anyone finds out she’s alive, they’ll all want to kill me, but I’m not afraid of death anymore.” With Amy’s help, Terrance lugged himself up off the couch. “I went to church, Harvey.”
“And did what?”
“Asked for forgiveness.” He began to move towards the front window to check on the pickup truck.
“Really?” Harvey opened his mouth.
“I confessed that I had sinned and the priest told me to pray the Lord’s Prayer. I haven’t done that since the day I returned from war. I cried, Harvey. I blubbered like a big hunk of a mess. The priest was there for me, and he blessed me. Honestly, I feel free.” He opened the blinds, leaning close to the window to check any movements outside.
“You can’t die yet. You still have too much explaining to do.”
“Like what? It’s all out in the open now.”
“You need to tell me where the footage is. And Kevin’s black book.”
“Sorry.” Terrance’s eyes looked down as he leaned on the windowsill, tired of what life kept dealing him. “I destroyed the footage the day I took it.”
“Did you watch it?”
“No.” He shook his head, ashamed of his past. “I didn’t. There’s no black book either. Sorry, Harvey. If I had it, I would give it to you. I would love to help you, but I can’t.”
“Then why convince me that you still had it?”
“To keep me in the loop. If I had told you that it wasn’t available, I wouldn’t have heard from you again.”
“Then you have to testify for me. Tell the court what you told me about Kevin. Amy becomes my leverage.” Harvey looked across at Jack, gun lowered, but still ready for action.
“For you, I’ll do that.” Terrance rubbed his shoulder. “And I’ll tell you something else. You’re looking at the wrong person for Tiffany’s murder. You’re—”
The close and loud rumbling of a pickup truck captured their attention.
“Expecting someone?”
“No.” Terrance leaned close to the living room window again, but the sudden shine of headlights almost blinded him.
“Get down!”
Chapter 35
After a sudden, massive impact sprayed Amy forward, her world was a blur.
Her head was dazed, her vision was blurred, and the taste of blood filled her mouth. When she raised her head off the ground, she looked down at her sweater, drenched in red. She was not even sure if the blood was hers.
Pain shot down her left side as she tried to turn over. At least one broken rib, maybe two. She was short of breath as she stared at the black pickup truck halfway into the living room. In front of the truck was a pile of bricks, broken under the force of the bull bar. Furniture had been thrown around the room, resembling a bomb site. Like cardboard, the front wall of the home had crumbled under the force of the powerful truck.
With the headlights still on, the driver’s side door swung open.
As the man stepped out, she gasped.
The sight of the blood-stricken man wasn’t shocking; it was the shotgun he was holding that startled her.
“Amy!” Terrance spluttered blood from his mouth, trying to move under a pile of bricks. “Amy!”
As Terrance struggled to push the bricks off him, he heard the click of a loaded shotgun.
“Stay right there,” the man said.
Terrance’s vision was still blinded by the glaring headlights.
“And you,” the man continued, “stand up.”
Rubbing the side of his head, blood running down his arms, Harvey began to stand up. “Monty?”
“That’s right.” The shotgun pointed to where Jack lay, thrown backward from the impact, the gun dislodged from his hand, lying a few feet away from him. “Don’t go near that. If you move, I will shoot you.”
“Monty Lee.” Terrance spluttered again.
“Terrance Marshall. I never thought we would see each other again.” Monty grunted, pointing the gun back at Terrance as he tried to move. “But I’m glad this day arrived. I will finally get revenge for what you did to my Tiffany.”
“I didn’t kill Tiffany,” Terrance moaned.
“Don’t lie to me! I know you did it!”
“I didn’t,” he whispered. “Tiffany died because of what she knew. She died because she overheard a conversation. But I tell you, I didn’t kill her.”
“I don’t believe you! And I will kill you for what you did to my girl!”
“Do it,” he whispered, as the searing pain shot up his leg. “Just don’t hurt her.”
Monty’s vision went back to the girl struggling to move at the side of the living room, having been thrown three feet through the air.
“Who�
�s the girl?”
Terrance looked up at the raging man standing in front of them. “No one.”
The non-response piqued Monty’s curiosity. “Stand up.” With his gun, he indicated to the girl. “Stand up and move over there.”
She didn’t move.
“I said stand up!”
Despite the pain aching through his legs and torso, Terrance struggled upwards. “I said leave her alone.”
“Is she yours?” Monty grunted. “Because if she is, I will make sure that you watch her die. Just like I had to watch my children die.”
“No.” Terrance shook his head, trying to stand up straight despite the pain aching through his ribs, chest, hips, and legs.
“Who is she?!”
“No one.”
“She’s someone! She’s right in front of me! I can see her.” Monty Lee, veins popping out of his skin, walked over and grabbed Amy by the hair, turning her head to look at Terrance. “She sure looks like someone to me.”
As Monty focused on the girl, Jack Grayson edged sideways.
“Wait.” Monty stared at the girl. “It can’t be. No.”
The shock ran through him.
“What’s your name, girl?” he whispered, pulling her hair tighter, tilting her head backward.
“Amy,” she whispered.
“Amy what?!”
“Amy! Don’t tell him your last name!” Terrance called out.
“Amy what?!” Monty held the shotgun to her head, resting the cold metal against her jaw. “Amy what?!”
“Amy Wu,” she answered innocently.
Monty’s world stopped. Not a movement.
For all the action, for all the adrenaline, she was the only thing he could see.
That daze didn’t last long.
“Amy Wu?” His pleading eyes looked back at Terrance. “Amy Wu? The girl that my daughter was killed for?”
Terrance didn’t answer.
“She’s still alive?!”
Monty didn’t know where to turn. Who to turn to. What to do next.
Running on instinct, he pressed the shotgun harder into her chin.
Bill Harvey Collection Page 59