by Olive Balla
Her fingernails chewed to the quick, Jillie struggled with the tiny, fingernail-shaped indentations in the exposed portion of the blades. By the time several seconds had elapsed, the atmosphere in the room had become so charged, Dix almost expected to see everyone’s hair stand on end.
“Let me do it.” Dix took the knife from Jillie’s hands.
Toby shrugged. “I don’t give a jolly care who does it. Just do it.”
Dix opened the larger of the two blades and moved toward Toby. Although she commanded herself to keep a benign expression on her face, she must have failed, because Toby chuckled.
“Now, now,” he said. “Just think of all the commotion you’ll make if you try to do me damage.”
“Please don’t test me,” Mort said. “I’d do almost anything to get out of this hell-hole, and a cut of the treasure is my way out.”
Dix stooped and ineffectually hacked at the bindings.
“She could have gummed these things to pieces quicker than using that thing,” Toby said. “Don’t you ever sharpen it?”
Once Dix finally managed to sever the plastic ties, Toby shook the remnants off his wrists and ankles and then removed the Taser’s prongs from his shirt front. After a couple of false starts, he managed to stand.
“Where’s the treasure map?” He turned his full attention to the women.
Mrs. Potter piped up, “There is no treasure map.”
“I’ve had just about enough of your stalling,” Toby said. “Like the big green guy used to say on television, don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
Mrs. Potter just shook her head.
His face turning red, Toby sucked on his teeth. “I’ll bet you decided to keep it all for yourself after the old man died. Is that how you managed to pay for that new truck out front?”
Jillie took a step out from behind Lil. “Pop made her swear never to tell. But I know where it is. If you let them all go, I’ll show you.”
“Oh, you’ll show me where it is, all right.” Toby lifted the pistol. “Or I’ll shoot your granny friend; then I’ll pop your godmother; then I’ll take my time with the biddy who tazed me. No more negotiations.”
“You’d better do what he says.” Mort looked at Jillie. “You really don’t want to tick him off.” He turned to Toby. “Maggot’s out of the running, and Clot doesn’t care. That means it’s just a two-way split.”
Toby smiled. “Oh, is that what it means?” In one smooth movement, he turned the pistol on Mort and pulled the trigger.
A surprised look on his face, Mort sighed and looked down at his thigh. As if the shotgun suddenly weighed a ton, its barrel dipped toward the floor, and his finger spasmodically pulled its trigger.
The unexpected second explosion resounded through the house, and the three women gasped. Jillie screamed.
Mort dropped the gun and pressed his hands against the sudden blossom of blood on his thigh. “Why’d you…” His knees buckled, and he fell to the floor.
“Sorry, about that Cuz,” Toby said. “That’ll hurt like hell for a few days, but at least you’ll live, family being family, and all.”
Mrs. Potter hurried to the fallen man, knelt, and put pressure on the wound.
“Tourniquet the leg, if it’ll make you feel better,” Toby said. “Then get over there with the rest of the Golden Girls.” He pointed the gun at Mort’s head. “Or I’ll finish him off. You want the kid to have to see that in her dreams for the rest of her life?” Toby motioned toward Mort. “Use his belt.”
Mrs. Potter tugged Mort’s belt free, then carefully tightened it around his thigh. “What kind of man shoots his own kin?”
“The determined kind.” Toby motioned toward his cousin. “He’ll be okay. I just need him out of commission long enough for me to evaporate into thin air.” He turned toward Jillie. “You go get the map. You’ve got two minutes before I start shooting your friends.” He made a big deal out of looking at his watch and pointing the pistol at Dix.
“It’s in a vase in the front room,” Jillie said. “That’s the room behind you.” She stepped around Toby.
The pistol never wavering, Toby watched Jillie’s movements.
Lil shot a look at Dix, then suddenly jabbed her index finger into her sister’s chest. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t broken my phone.”
Dix smacked her sister’s hand away. “I wouldn’t have broken your phone if you’d done what I asked. But I gave you mine, so why didn’t you call for help?”
“Shut up,” Toby said, his eyes pin-balling back and forth between the women and Jillie’s retreating form as a look of recognition dawned in his eyes. “I knew it; I knew I’d seen that kid somewhere before.”
Jillie jerked to a stop and turned back toward Toby, a look of pure fear on her face.
“Go on,” Toby said to Jillie. “You got nothing to be afraid of if you bring me that map. I’ll be long gone before you can tell anyone about anything you might think you know.”
“You never charge your phone, that’s why,” Lil was saying. “It’s dead as a mackerel.” She grabbed a handful of Dix’s hair. “You’re so busy saving the world, you can’t be bothered with—”
“I said shut up!” Toby shifted his pistol slightly.
Dix slapped Lil’s face then grabbed her ear and twisted. “And you’re a heartless old crotch who hates the world.”
“I’m going to shoot the next—” Toby then made the mistake of shifting his attention away from the child and toward the twins.
Before Toby could react, Jillie pointed a small black canister at his head and pulled the trigger. Instantly, his eyes started pouring tears, his nose began to run, and he had to struggle to breathe. He stumbled a couple of steps then fell to his knees.
“Pepper spray,” Lil said. “You won’t die, but you’ll sure wish you could for about an hour or so.”
Unable to see, Toby fired the pistol in random directions until the clip was empty. One bullet found its mark, and Lil yelped.
From a sitting position on the floor, Toby scrubbed at his burning, swollen eyes with the palms of his hands. He coughed and gagged as his nose ran uncontrollably, dripping goo down his shirt front.
Jillie ran to Dix, who pulled her close. “It’s okay,” Dix said. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Or not,” Toby managed to say between coughs. “I’m going to kill all of you.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
As David pulled out of Mrs. Potter’s drive, he considered waiting for backup. But the Ross farm was miles from town, and no one knew better than he how thin local law enforcement manpower was stretched. It could take half an hour for someone to answer his call, and a lot could happen in that amount of time.
He’d only gone a few hundred yards when his scanner crackled to life.
We have an emergency on a farm near mile marker sixty-five off highway three-fourteen. The caller says an elderly woman is unconscious as a result of multiple rattlesnake bites. Valencia County Sheriff has requested help. Any first responders in the area should also be advised a man has reportedly sustained a knife wound.
His insides turning to ice water, David floored the gas pedal. Scenery flew by in a kaleidoscope of color. A flash of something yellow in the midst of a stand of juniper caught at the periphery of his vision, but the instant his law enforcement brain registered it and sent up a red flag, he pushed the thought aside. Whatever it was could wait until he found out which of his aunts had managed to get herself bitten by a rattlesnake.
As he pulled up the Ross’s drive, he saw Cleg Elliott and a younger man staring down at a bundle of something on the ground. David jumped from his vehicle and approached the scene.
Holding a towel dabbed with blood around one of his forearms, Cleg stood as if in a trance, his lips puckering and un-puckering like a blowfish.
The younger man glanced at David, then muttered something about having to go into the house. By the time David realized what the guy really h
ad in mind, the young man was driving away.
Murmuring a quick prayer for whichever aunt had been so desperately hurt, David hurried toward the body on the ground. A nanosecond later, he allowed himself to breathe again. Although the face was swollen, Margo’s telltale skin flap moved in and out with her every breath and moan.
David took a deep, relieved breath. He straightened and turned toward Cleg. “Are you okay?”
Cleg nodded, never taking his eyes off Margo’s body. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. Snakes crawling all over her head, biting and hissing something fierce, even the little bitty ones.” He cut off the beginnings of a chuckle and looked into David’s face. “I don’t know what’s come over me.” He cleared his throat. “It’s a terrible thing; it sure is.” He looked back at the now-mewling woman on the ground. “Looks like she’s still alive.” The tone of his voice wistful, he added, “So, that’s that.”
“An ambulance is on the way,” David said. He motioned toward Cleg’s arm. “What happened?”
Cleg looked down at his arm, a puzzled expression on his face. “Oh, this is nothing. I did it myself.” He peered into David’s eyes. “Your Aunt Dixie, now there’s a woman, got an iron streak a mile wide. She’s the one hatched the plan.”
Electricity sizzled through David’s body. “My aunt was here?”
Cleg nodded. “Yeah, she was, but they’ve all gone now, gone and left me to deal with that.” He motioned toward Margo.
“Where, Cleg, where have they gone?”
“I don’t know, they just up and left. The kid, your aunt, Toby, they all scattered to the four winds.” He looked around. “Mort was here just a minute ago, but I guess he’s gone, too.” He took a deep breath around the nasal cannula that ran from a portable oxygen-making machine hanging from a strap around his shoulder. “How long do you reckon she’ll be in the hospital?”
“Cleg, I need you to think. Were they afoot or did they take a vehicle?”
“They must’ve taken Toby’s truck.”
“Describe it.”
“Nineteen ninety-five Dodge Ram. Club cab, rusty yellow.”
Yellow.
“Did my aunt tell you where they were headed?”
“She said if anyone asked, I was to say she was taking the girl to stay with an elderly family member.”
David frowned. Beth said they didn’t have any other family, at least none she knew of.
“Are you sure that’s what she said?”
An offended look on his face, Cleg said, “I know what Dixie told me.” He tapped an index finger on his temple. “She even made me repeat it so’s I’d not forget.”
His aunt had either hoped to throw the Elliott crew a red herring, or she’d left the clue for David’s benefit. But it seemed she’d given him more credit than was due because he hadn’t the foggiest idea what to make of her words.
Then as if a gong had been struck right next to him, he jerked his head up. Mrs. Potter—Jillie’s godmother—next best thing to a blood relative.
“How long have they been gone?”
“I don’t know, maybe thirty minutes.”
David reached for Cleg’s towel-wrapped arm. “How bad is it?”
Cleg moved the other arm in a dismissive move. “Dix said it wasn’t bad enough to worry about.”
“Maybe you should sit in your pickup until help gets here.”
Cleg nodded and ambled toward his vehicle, chuckling every other step.
David hurried toward his Jeep. If he hadn’t been out of his mind at the report of an elderly woman being snake-bit, he’d have checked out the flash of yellow he glimpsed just off the road. He’d lost all objectivity and was acting like a rookie.
The approaching wail of a siren disrupted David’s self-flagellation.
Muffled sounds of a distant pistol shot followed by the blast of a shotgun floated on the gentle breeze. In one smooth move, David jumped into his Jeep, slammed the door, and fired up his engine. As if the hounds of hell were hot on his heels, he floored the pedal, peeled out of the Ross drive, and pointed his vehicle toward the Potter place.
Chapter Sixty
When Mort came into the house, Jillie’s friend Dix had shoved her behind her back and told her to run and hide. But instead, she looked around the room in search of something she could use as a distraction.
When she spotted the top of a black cylinder sticking up out of Miss Lil’s back pocket, she moved closer to get a better look. Spray paint? Bug spray? Hair spray? It didn’t really matter, because any kind of spray might be just what she needed.
All Jillie had to do was get the canister from Miss Lil’s pocket and then get close enough to the cousins to let them have it in the face. The challenge would be getting them both with the same shot because hitting only one would be a disaster.
But then Toby shot Mort, and during all the commotion that followed, Jillie managed to pick-pocket the cylinder out of Miss Lil’s pocket. She’d palmed the thing and shoved it behind the elastic of her underwear in one smooth move.
When Toby told Jillie to go get the map, Miss Lil winked at her then picked a fight with her sister.
After Jillie gassed Toby, Moms Potter grabbed up both weapons and disappeared into the kitchen. When she came back, she was carrying more zip ties.
Since Mort wasn’t in any shape to escape, she’d only bound his wrists. But like she’d done before, she bound both Toby’s wrists and legs.
“You okay, Lil?” Miss Dix pulled a wadded-up tissue from somewhere in her bra, spit on it, and dabbed at the small spot of blood on her sister’s shoulder.
Moms Potter inspected the wound. “Just a graze, she’ll live to fight another day.”
“I know you didn’t just spit on a used tissue and wipe it on me.” Miss Lil swatted her sister’s hand away. “Don’t you know the human mouth is one of the filthiest things on the planet?”
“Oh yeah?” Miss Dix said. “Well my mouth’s a lot cleaner than yours.”
“Would someone please call the police?” Lil said. “I’ve had just about all this fun I can stand.”
“Will someone please drive me to the hospital to see Beth?” Jillie said.
“I believe that can be arranged,” the police-nephew said from just inside the front door.
“Grand Central Station,” Moms Potter said. “Come in and make yourself useful.”
Within the next few minutes, Mrs. Potter’s house was abuzz with people. A deputy sheriff showed up, followed by an ambulance and two EMTs.
After Mort’s wound was bandaged, Miss Lil’s shoulder was disinfected. Toby’s swollen face was doused with bottled water until he was breathing better. Then the two cousins were handcuffed and taken away. The sheriff and his deputy took statements from everyone present, then left.
“It’s going to take them a while to get those boys to the hospital,” Moms Potter said. “The nearest one’s in Albuquerque. We’ve got critical care places all around, but no hospital.”
Miss Dix looked at her nephew. “Please don’t yell at me. I’ve been awake over twenty-four hours; I can’t be held responsible for anything I might say.”
The policeman-nephew hugged Miss Dix and Miss Lil. “I’m not going to yell at either of you, not just yet, anyway.” With a thoughtful look on his face, he added, “Life doesn’t offer any guarantees, does it? I guess it’s up to us to make the most of the time we have here, however long or short that might be.”
Jillie tugged at David’s shirt. “Can we go see Beth now?”
“You bet we can.” David smiled at her. “You ever ridden in a Jeep complete with a siren and flashing lights?”
Jillie squealed and started for the car.
Chapter Sixty-One
Still wearing her hospital gown, Beth sat in the vinyl-covered chair next to her hospital bed and tried to keep her mind busy by watching television. As she’d done a thousand times within the past few hours, she glanced at the clock attached to the wall at the foot of her bed. Only t
hree o’clock, yet it seemed days had passed since she learned Jillie was on her way.
She’d just turned toward the window when Jillie burst through the door, ran to her, and threw her arms around her neck. The sisters hugged each other, broke into tears, and simultaneously tried to speak.
Beth laughed then said, “You go first.”
“I thought you were dead,” Jillie said.
“And I thought you’d been kidnapped, or worse.” Beth pushed her little sister back and looked into her eyes. “I’m so proud of you, Chili Bean.”
“We all are.” David walked into the room followed by Mrs. Potter and two other elderly women who looked identical, yet didn’t. “Beth, I want to introduce my aunts Dix and Lil.”
“I’m Dix, the nice one.” Dix tapped an index finger against her chest then pointed to her sister. “She’s Lil.”
“The smart one,” Lil said.
Beth smiled at the group. “I can’t thank you enough, all of you.” Tears poured down her cheeks. “If you hadn’t—”
The afternoon charge nurse chose that moment to bustle into the room carrying a huge plastic bag bearing the hospital’s insignia. She placed the bag on the bed and smiled at Beth. “The Physician’s Assistant will review your aftercare instructions then sign you out after your doctor’s final visit. He’ll also answer any questions you may have, what to watch for, that kind of thing.”
“Thank you for all you’ve done,” Beth said to the nurse. “Everyone has been so good to me.”
“It’s been my pleasure. But you’re the one who refused to give up.” The nurse sent a smile around the group. “Everyone on the floor calls her The Feisty One in Four-Ten.” She stepped to Jillie and bent at the waist. “You must be Beth’s sister. You know she hasn’t stopped talking about you from the moment she woke up?”
Jillie beamed.
The nurse smiled back. “Have you decided what you want to be when you grow up?”
“I’d like to be a veterinarian.”
“You’ll be a good one.” The nurse looked at Beth. “I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but some of the state universities offer full scholarships to kids who’ve been in foster care for at least one month. It’s something worth looking into.”