by P D Platt
Solomon’s thoughts returned to Emily. Was she okay? Had the man hurt her? Had she survived the crash? Why hadn’t he heard her?
He rushed to the truck’s door and his heart sank. “Emily?” The cab was empty.
What if the man he’d just killed hadn’t taken his daughter after all? Maybe he’d just been trying to flee for his own sake. Perhaps Daveek had been mistaken. Doubt and second guesses flurried within him.
Just as he began to question his sanity, he heard a voice, one he didn’t immediately recognize thanks to the shock of the situation.
Skye stood in front of her battered car, rubbing her neck. “She’s fine.”
Daveek rushed in from down the street, using the last few steps to slow his pace. Bending at the waist, he dipped his hands to his knees. “I ran…as fast as…I could, but…” he sputtered between heavy breaths, “I got lost.” Spotting Emily, he grinned, and his breathing went from desperate gasps to a long exhalation. “Whew! I’m glad you’re okay.”
Emily stepped from behind Skye, streaks of tears already drying on her pointed cheeks. “Ms. Skye’s car is so cool! Did you see how fast it went?”
Skye and Solomon could only look at each other and laugh. He ran to Emily and scooped her into a tight hug. “You’re not hurt?”
Emily shook her head. “No.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, sobbing as she explained what happened. “He…asked what I was doing…I…I told him I was looking for my brown puppy…” Pausing to wipe her teary face with her sweater, she took in several deep, sniffling breaths. “He said he’d just found a brown puppy and he had it in his truck…h-he told me to come get it…”
“It’s okay, honey. You’re safe now,” Solomon assured her. “None of this is your fault.”
Skye came up to them and placed a comforting hand on his daughter’s back.
Emily exploded with another burst of tears. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I wasn’t very smart.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” Solomon paused. “Just don’t ever do anything like that again, okay?”
“You don’t have to worry about that.” Emily’s sunshine smile formed again on her tear-stained face as she wiped her nose and eyes with her sleeve. “Dad, we have to go back for Sammie. It’s my fault he got out.”
“Sammie, huh? You named the dog already?” He grinned. “Of course you did!”
Emily beamed with pride. “Yep. Now we have a cat named Fuzzle and a dog named Sammie.”
“Okay, okay. We’ll go back. I promise, sweetie.” Solomon turned his attention to Skye. “Are you okay?”
Skye slowly rotated her neck. “I’ve been through worse.”
“I hate to imagine worse than this…” Shifting Emily’s grip on his shoulders, Solomon freed one arm. He grasped Skye’s shoulder and fell silent, choking on his next words. “Thank you. What you just did for Emily tells me everything I need to know about you. I am forever in your debt.” Solomon wrapped Skye in a trembling one-armed hug, unable to hold back the sobs stemming from panic and relief. “Thank you so, so much for stopping him.”
Skye acknowledged the sentiment with a subtle nod.
He stepped back, creating a comfortable distance to look her in the eyes. “I have to confess, I was the one that broke into your house. I want to apologize.” Solomon studied Skye’s face, trying to gauge her reaction. All he could do now was be sincere; the rest would happen as it may. “I didn’t think anyone was left alive inside.” Realizing the awkwardness of his explanation, Solomon added, “I’m deeply sorry about the loss of your father.”
Expressionless, Skye stared at Solomon for what seemed like an eternity, to the point of intentionality. Then, as if flipping a switch, she released a small grin and let out a chuckle. “Man, it took you long enough to admit it. You do realize I already knew, right?”
Embarrassed, but relieved that he’d told her the truth, Solomon slunk his head down. “I was never a decent liar.”
“Or thief. I mean, who steals Goya beans for Pete’s sake?” Skye retorted.
Skye volunteered the use of her dad’s truck so they could go back to look for the pup. It was a feel-good mission they all needed, something to bring a bit of lightheartedness to their day.
“Hop in, everyone. Let’s go find a lost puppy named Sammie!” Skye exclaimed.
Chapter 14—Blockade
Tuesday Morning, March 10
That incident deeply affected Solomon. Early the next morning, he went next door to see Skye. He knocked on the door he’d both destroyed and repaired. He’d reinforced it last night as a show of goodwill, using lumber left over from his deck repairs last fall.
The twin barrels of her shotgun poked through the small crack the door was allowed to open. Without seeing her face, he heard her crackly voice from the darkness within. “Something wrong, Solomon?” Skye pushed the door wider, puzzled by his early morning visit. “How’s Emily?”
“She’s fine. Sammie snuggled with her all night. That little dog’s probably the best therapy for her right now.” Solomon said. He was still feeling antsy after the nightmare event, his feet and hands refusing to keep still.
“Do you think you could get that thing running?” Solomon pointed to the disabled silver pickup still sitting in the street, holding the dead body of the kidnapper. To avoid the kids having to witness the gruesome sight, Skye and Solomon had lifted the man’s corpse into the back of his own truck yesterday evening.
His unexpected question caught her off guard, and it was early yet, still in the twilight of morning, her mind and body still in the fog of broken sleep.
Solomon jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “I want to park it sideways at the entrance to Halcyon Place and put his body in the driver’s seat with the window down.”
Skye opened her mouth but didn’t speak immediately, still attempting to catch up with Solomon’s thought process. “Some sort of blockade?”
He shook his head. “More than a blockade. A warning…like the head-on-a-pike kind”
Fully alert now, Skye saw the pain and anger in Solomon’s eyes. “Well…okay then. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll see what I can do. It probably just tripped the fuel switch. That’s what happened with my car.”
After tinkering for a while, Skye fired the truck to life. They both jumped in and maneuvered the truck until it sat crossways in the roadway, partially blocking the entrance to their subdivision.
As they muscled the stiff body into the driver’s seat, Solomon asked her an unexpected question, “Where’s your mom? If you don’t mind me asking?” The ill-timing of his query seemed lost on him.
“I’d rather not talk about her. She’s just gone, alright?”
Skye left him to it and busied herself with siphoning gas from the truck’s tank. Using a long plastic hose with a bulb-type pump attached, she filled two small gasoline containers they’d brought along for just this purpose.
Solomon continued to manipulate the rigid corpse—so stiff that it planked from the floor to the headrest as if trying to avoid a seat of nails. Solomon’s apparent indifference to handling a dead human shocked Skye. She helped him as little as possible, wincing and turning away more than once, refusing to look at the man’s gray, leathery face.
Solomon rolled down the driver’s side window, displaying the decaying body as a warning to all who might think of entering their neighborhood. As he finished posing the dead kidnapper, something in the cab caught his attention.
“Skye! Look at this.” Solomon held up an object, but with the glare on the windshield, she couldn’t tell what it was.
She made her way to the passenger side, avoiding the driver’s side at all costs. When she saw what Solomon dangled out the window, Skye let out a gasp. It was a superhero action figure, the large, poseable kind. Reaching for the toy, Skye shook her head slowly. “No. Please no.”
Solomon dug around in the back seat. “It’s definitely not Emily’s. And there are more toys back here. Stuffed animals, trucks
…all new stuff. Most of them haven’t even been opened.”
Skye grabbed Solomon’s arm to halt his search. “Does he have his wallet?”
At first, her reasoning seemed lost on Solomon, but he soon seemed to grasp her intention. He fumbled through the man’s pockets and pulled out a brown leather bifold. “Ha! Still carrying it around out of habit, I suppose.” He slapped it into Skye’s outstretched hand.
“We might need these too.” Solomon jingled the man’s keys from the ignition. The keyring held multiple keys—the thought of each key’s potentially despicable purpose only offered more angst.
“Do you think he’s taken more children?” Solomon asked her.
They both knew there was only one way to find out.
___
A few minutes later, they piled into Solomon’s car, puppy and all. There was no way he’d leave the children alone and unprotected. Knowing Sammie would be a distraction, Solomon had been determined he shouldn’t accompany them, not wanting to risk a repeat of before. But Emily insisted, and as usual, Solomon lost the battle of wills with his daughter.
So, Emily and Daveek sat in the back, playing with Sammie and some of the new toys from the truck. Solomon had debated giving them the toys, but in the end, he’d decided some joy had to come from the recent madness. Anything to help the kids feel normal again.
To find their destination, they needed an old-school map, and Solomon knew just where to get one. About a mile away, there was an older, less modernized convenience store. He’d stopped there frequently to buy gas and remembered seeing an old rack holding maps and postcards by the door.
Except for the occasional dog running across the roadway as if it were recess, the streets were deserted. Even though smoke plumes rose thick in the distance, and their chemical stench could be faintly detected, the air around them remained clear. Whatever had been burning had now been consumed, leaving only smoldering remains and smoke that could last for days.
As they drove into the small gas station’s littered parking lot, they noticed the storefront door had been smashed in, looters dropping everything from soda bottles to chip bags everywhere. Inside the store, some genius had broken open the cash register, looking for cash that was now worthless. Other than that, it seemed cigarettes, beer, and even lotto scratch-offs had been the most popular targets.
“Do people actually think they can eat a scratch-off?” Solomon questioned aloud. “Stay here. I’ll grab some jerky and chips.”
“And candy!” Emily added.
“No problem.” Solomon smiled back. “For both of you.”
He went back and forth, returning with armfuls of snacks and drinks. He then snagged several maps—city, county, and state. He didn’t feel the need to concern the kids with the full reasoning behind the map business—the less they knew the better
“Too bad there’s no hot coffee though,” Skye said.
“Right,” Solomon agreed.
After spreading the city map between them on the car’s center console, they tried to locate the kidnapper’s address from his license. In the back seat, the kids were busy trading candies and snacks, discussing which ones were their favorites.
Skye found the street first and slid her finger back to their position on the map. “Less than five miles from here.”
Looking as determined and worried as Solomon felt, Skye rested the stock of her dad’s shotgun at her feet, holding its double barrels like a staff. Her knife sat prominently sheathed on her studded belt, located for easy access. They’d stashed the rifle they’d taken from the dead kidnapper between the seat and the center console; its barrel pointed downward at the floor.
Solomon still had his 9mm tucked in his belt. Although he hated having to kill at all, he felt no remorse for what he’d done. The man had made his despicable choice and suffered the consequences; his life seemed insignificant against the backdrop of what he’d attempted. The thought of children locked away in some stranger’s house enraged him; it could just have easily been his own daughter. If there was even a remote chance that they could save another, they’d do whatever it took. Both were now prepared for the worst.
This new world required new scruples.
Chapter 15—A Rescue
Located just outside the historic district of the city in an exclusive part of town, Pacer Street was filled with spacious and stately homes. At one time or another, they’d been restoration projects for those who enjoyed putting time and money into preserving well-constructed houses. Having withstood countless storms, these homes had sheltered generations of families under their towering three-story-high roofs. Dormers and columns, balconies and wrap-around porches were the norm.
The address on the driver’s license brought them to a massive gray brick mansion, its four grand dormers conspicuous against their backdrop of a red slate tile roof. Manicured ivy majestically adorned the side of the house, contrasting beautifully against the dull brick. It was the sort of house that stared back at you, and the longer you gazed, the more it formed an expressive face, presenting a mental image of an emotion, perhaps reflecting your own psychological state at the time. This place frowned with a scowl from hell.
Landscaping trailers and small earth-moving equipment crowded one end of the long horseshoe-shaped drive, blocking it completely. Obviously in the midst of a makeover, the property’s treeless front lawn stood barren of any grass, with new sod and sprinklers awaiting installation. Yet another project that would never be finished.
A detached six-bay garage, built with the same stony bricks, fully consumed the side yard, flaunting the estate’s abundance and opulent excess. A gothic-looking black-iron chandelier draped over the front stoop, suspended from a long ornamental chain, drawing attention to the home’s towering double mahogany doors.
As they pulled up in front of the wide stone steps, both Skye and Solomon remained silent. With no time taken to prepare a detailed plan—they had only one goal: to rescue anyone in need.
As he and Skye stepped from the car, Solomon stressed to Emily and Daveek once more, “Make sure you stay put. Keep the doors locked until we get back.”
When Daveek stuck up his thumb in acknowledgment, Emily giggled, quickly mimicking the gesture. Sammie crawled higher in her lap and licked her face when she giggled, causing her to laugh even more. The sight of it made Solomon smile; she always made him happy.
He knew it would have been safer not to bring the kids at all, but he was still too paranoid, frazzled even, to consider leaving his little girl at home alone. At least here, he reasoned, the children were only a few steps away.
As they approached the steps to the front door, they heard the distinct sound of a young child’s whimpers, drowning out the gentle hammering of a far-off woodpecker. Without hesitation, they sprinted around the side of the house to where the horseshoe drive connected with the garage. The sound bounced off the mansion’s high walls, making it difficult to pinpoint its origin.
Looking up, Skye pointed to a third-story window. “There!”
The sharp points of the window’s jagged glass panes formed a stark contrast between the darkness within the room and the warm light of morning outside. A tattered window blind slapped a slow rhythm against the frame far above the ground. The faint sobs and whimpers continued, although their source was still unseen.
Skye ran to the side entrance into the main house and used the stock of her shotgun to smash the door glass. As she bent her arm inside to unlock the door, Solomon looked to his right, his eyes drawn to a stream of linen entangled in the shrubbery under an expansive picture window.
Stepping closer, he almost collapsed at the gut-wrenching sight. The space between the house and the bushes contained the body of a young boy, a pool of dried blood staining the smooth river rocks that mulched the garden bed beneath him. The unnatural contortion of the boy’s body made it excruciatingly obvious he was dead. A haphazard rope of tied bed sheets and curtains lay strewn around him, draping the boxwoods like some omin
ous bohemian decoration.
“No. No. No,” Solomon moaned as he stood and stared, transfixed by the poor child’s frightful expression—his lifeless eyes wide and unseeing, his mouth agape. He knew he would never be able to erase the red-streaked gaze of this innocent child from his memory. It would remain there forever, tormenting him—along with everything else now foul in the world.
Stooping over the boy, he verified what he already knew: another senseless death. After straightening out the child’s body with unnecessarily gentle carefulness, he slowly unfurled one of the sheets, preparing to cover him. When footsteps stirred Solomon from his trance, he turned and saw Skye emerging from the house, a small girl clutching her around the neck.
Skye noticed the scene that commanded Solomon’s attention. “Solomon? Is he…?”
Lowering his head, he shook it gently. “She okay?”
“I think so. Just terrified out of her mind at the moment.” Skye kissed the girl’s head. “But you’re safe now, sweetie. Okay?”
Without speaking or turning her head, the child inhaled a few sniffling gasps. Clearly exhausted from the ordeal and the continuous crying, she kept her face hidden in Skye’s neck.
“Anyone else?” Solomon asked.
“No. It was just her and the boy. The pervert had them locked in an attic room, and he’d barricaded the door from outside. The window was their only way out.”
“Let’s get her out of here,” Solomon said before taking one last look at the sheet now covering the boy. “Should we…?”
“It’s only right. He doesn’t deserve to be left in this wretched place.” Skye said.
Skye took the little girl to the car and introduced her to Emily and Daveek.
Daveek smiled. “Hey, Mia! Where’s Benny?”
The young girl, who appeared to be only three or four years old, just stared at him in silence. Although showing no emotion, she petted Sammie when he climbed into her lap. It was as if the little pup sensed her sadness.