Chapter Twelve
When they left the restaurant, Jake again pulled on the hat and sunglasses that Marc had given him. “Thanks, Marc.”
“For what, the burger, or the disguise?”
“I was referring to your lecture about keeping my priorities straight. Guess I haven’t given that much thought.”
“That’s what a coach and a caddy are for. Just trying to help you keep your head in the game.”
But Marc was the one who was distracted, not by his daughter, but by the near accidents - those occurrences having taken place in the short time since they had returned from the Savannah River Golf Links. Were they just coincidences? Marc was skeptical.
As the two headed back toward Rose Hill, streetlights buzzed to life as the sun slowly slipped behind the live oaks that lined the city streets.
“You think Mom and Ann Marie have finished their dinner?” Jake asked.
“Probably not. I’m sure you know how women love to talk, especially when food is involved. More food means more conversation.”
“I won’t tell Mom you said that.”
Marc grinned. “Nice to know you’re a quick study, not only in golf, but also in some of the basics of manhood.”
They approached Laurens Street, the city’s main drag. Music could be heard in the distance. Continuing in the direction of their hotel, the music’s volume increased. A signpost reading ‘The Alley,’ led off to their left, which appeared to be the source of the tunes. A crowd was gathered along one side of the street.
“Want to check it out?” Marc asked.
“Sure,” Jake said. “They sound pretty good, whoever they are.”
Marc didn’t care for modern music, but he understood why Jake could be attracted to it. As they continued, Marc noticed that The Alley showed signs of having undergone recent restoration, probably a remake of the City’s center to accommodate an influx of upscale restaurants and boutique shops, he figured. About midway down the street, a mostly younger crowd had gathered in front of a bandstand. Some were dancing, but most were just standing and swaying with the music. A combo was assembled and the female lead singer, wearing distressed jeans, a few tattoo’s and a black tee shirt, was belting out a pop tune.
Jake seemed slightly more enthralled than Marc, as his body moved in time with the others in the crowd.
“Wonder what they’re playing?” Marc shouted over the noise.
Jake looked at Marc with a puzzled look, “Come on Marc, you must have heard of Selena Gomez. She rocks.”
Marc had never heard of Selena Gomez, but he could see that Jake was getting into the music as he bobbed up and down. “Want something to drink?” Marc shouted.
Jake glanced at his watch, “Yeah, maybe a soda, Coke or something?”
“Wise choice. I’ll be right back,” Marc shouted and headed for an outdoor bar set up next to the bandstand. After waiting in line for a few minutes he paid for the drinks and returned to find Jake talking to a girl about his age, maybe a little older. She appeared to be asking Jake if he wanted to dance.
Marc handed Jake a foam cup of Coke. “Who’s your friend?”
Before Jake could answer, the girl asked Jake, “This your Dad, or something?”
“He’s my ca…”
“Father-in-law,” Marc interjected, fearing that Jake was about to reveal he was Jake’s caddy.
“Oh, so, you’re like, married?” The girl directed her query toward Jake.
“I’m afraid so,” Marc said. “Who are you?”
“Never mind,” the girl replied. Then, with one last glance toward Jake, she turned and left.
Marc lost sight of her as she passed through the crowd of spectators.
“Sorry, Marc. She just walked up to me about the same time you were returning with the sodas and asked me if I wanted to dance.”
“Well, did you?”
Jake hesitated. “I guess the thought crossed my mind, but you know I wouldn’t have. I’d rather dance with Ann Marie.”
“I know, forget about it. If you want, let’s listen to this next set. Then I think we should head back to the hotel. The girls will probably be returning from dinner soon.”
Fifteen minutes later, Marc and Jake turned the corner. The sign for the Rose Hill Hotel and Restaurant was visible a block away. Marc could hear kids playing in the pool. He looked, but didn’t see their SUV in the parking lot.
“Either the girls haven’t returned yet, or they’ve parked somewhere else,” Marc said.
The sudden cry of “Daddy, Daddy,” caused Marc to shift his focus to the front of the hotel. Ann Marie was running toward him. He could see she was crying.
“What’s the matter?” Marc asked as his daughter fell into his arms.
Ann Marie continued sobbing, trying to catch her breath. “It’s Laura,” she gasped between sobs.
Marc held his daughter at arm’s length, trying to assess the problem. He could see the front of Ann Marie’s blouse had been torn.
“What happened? Where’s Mom?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know, they took her,” she managed between sobs.
“You’re not making sense. Tell me what’s going on.” Marc said, handing her his handkerchief. Ann Marie’s sobs slowed, but she was still out of breath. Marc led her to the pool area where they sat around a table. After a few seconds, Marc could see his daughter was beginning to collect herself.
“So what happened?” Marc repeated.
Ann Marie exhaled, “It was all so fast. We’d just left the restaurant. We were walking to the car when some men stepped out of the shadows, like they were waiting for us.”
Ann Marie stopped to blow her nose and wipe more tears that streaked down her cheeks.
“Go on,” Marc urged.
“One of them said, ‘Good evening, Detective Burns.’ He directed his remark towards Laura. I don’t know why he called her that. Naturally, Laura said she wasn’t a detective and that he must have her confused with someone else. Then the other man said something like, ‘Don’t you know it’s a serious crime to impersonate a police officer?’ Laura told the man he was mistaken, and that they should leave us alone or she would call a real police officer.”
At this point, Marc could see that Ann Marie was tearing up again. He laid his hand on top of hers, “That’s okay. You’re doing good, baby.”
Marc thought of the incident at the Apex Irrigation Company the previous evening. A pang of guilt coursed through him. “What happened then?”
“I heard something, a hissing, like the sound of an aerosol spray. I think one of the men sprayed something in Laura’s face. I heard her starting to scream. I couldn’t see much in the darkness, but the other man grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her back. I screamed at the man and tried to help Laura get free, but he pushed me back and I fell. When I looked up, the men were dragging her into a waiting van that was parked on the street. I could hear Laura resisting, but I think they had put something over her mouth because her screams were muffled.”
“Okay, anything else you can remember?”
“I tried to get up to help Laura, but this other man grabbed me and held me down. He said, ‘Shut up, or we’ll spray you too.’ Then, he threw something toward the front of the restaurant. ‘There’s your car keys, little girl.’ He said if I wanted to see my future mother-in-law again, I should be quiet and just leave. That’s when they put Laura in the van and left. It took me a few minutes to find the keys in the grass. I came back here and parked in the first spot I could find.”
Marc looked at Jake. He appeared upset and probably torn between how Ann Marie had been treated and the apparent kidnapping of his mother.
“Can you remember anything else?” Marc said, thinking about what he and Laura had encountered the evening before.
“Just that the man holding me had a message for you.”
“A message for me?”
“Yeah, he said to tell you, he called you by name: Mr. LaRose. He said not to call the
police, the real police, to mind your own business, and that you should pay more attention to Jake’s golf game. He also said that you shouldn’t bother yourself with affairs that don’t concern you and that there would be no further warnings.”
Jake went to Ann Marie and hugged her, inducing a fresh batch of tears.
“Daddy?” She asked.
“What, dear?”
“Why would these men call Laura a detective and for you not to call the real police?”
Marc sighed, “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it later, I promise. But for now, I think we should get you cleaned up and ready for bed.”
“But don’t you think we should report this to the police or somebody?” Ann Marie asked.
“Let me handle that,” Marc turned to Jake. “Would you mind taking her to our room? Stay with her. There are a few things I need to do.”
“Okay, but are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”
“No, I need you to stay with Ann Marie. Besides, you need your rest.”
“Marc, my mother is being held hostage somewhere! I can’t even think of playing golf tomorrow.”
“Let me take care of your mom. You take care of Ann Marie.”
After Ann Marie and Jake left, Marc found their rented SUV. He opened the rear hatch and retrieved the H&K semi-automatic pistol he had hidden in the spare tire’s wheel well. Marc didn’t have a South Carolina pistol permit, so he was careful that it wasn’t seen. At this point, however, he felt the risk of being caught with an unlicensed handgun was a small price to pay.
The SUV’s dash clock indicated it was almost nine. Darkness covered downtown Aiken and the streetlights were on. He would start with a check of the Apex Irrigation building where he and Laura had visited the previous evening. It was a risky move; the kidnappers were probably expecting him. He drove to an area a couple blocks from the Apex plant. There were a few residences scattered among the commercial buildings. He parked and locked the SUV, then headed out on foot. It was quiet except for a few barking dogs, apparently stirred to life by this stranger walking by just as darkness was falling.
When he was a half block from the Apex building, he spotted an abandoned gas station set back off the street. There was a poster wired to an old Texaco signpost planted at one end of the lot. The old gas station’s windows were boarded up. Marc suspected the building was probably used for storage. Using the dim lighting provided by a single streetlight a half block away, he cut through the rear of the lot and found a break in the chain link fence that surrounded the station on three sides. He cautiously stepped through the deep grass and turned in the direction of the Apex building.
Another few minutes of slow going brought him to the perimeter fence that surrounded the Apex building and its offices. Aware that the uppermost strands of the fence might include sensors, Marc scanned the fence line for another option.
Suddenly, a loud grunting came from somewhere along the fence line ahead. Marc stopped, his H&K at the ready. Cautiously, he proceeded along the fence looking for a way through or over it. Once again he heard grunting, this time just a few feet away. Then, a dark flash and a squealing gave Marc a start as whatever it was ran past him toward the wooded area to his right.
“Wild boar,” Marc whispered. He had heard there were feral hogs about, but didn’t expect to find one so close to the Aiken City limits. He knew that boars rarely attacked humans unless they were cornered, or protecting their young, but he also knew that a boar’s razor-sharp tusks were nothing to be taken lightly. Creeping along the fence, Marc found where someone or something had dug a channel under the fence.
Probably the boar, he figured. Could be that the boar was living inside the fence line, safe from any wild dogs roaming about. Marc crept to the channel and with his hand, felt around beneath the bottom of the fence.
With what light that trickled in from the streetlamps and the sliver of moon coming over the horizon, Marc couldn’t tell if there were any sensors. If there were, whoever was monitoring the system should be aware that boars lived in the area. Would his attempt to crawl under the fence through the channel made by the boar seem any different? There was only one way to find out. Lying down, with his back on the cool earth and pushing with his heels, he inched his body under the fence. A minute later, he was on the other side. No sirens or alarms sounded, but he knew if the system was wired with a silent alarm, not hearing one didn’t mean he was out of danger. Marc lay in the cool grass, listening.
After hearing or seeing nothing unusual, he continued in the direction of the street and the Apex building. He could see there were a few lights on inside, some at the front of the building where he and Laura had confronted Jim Simmons the evening before. Most of the light, though, was coming through the windows, located at the rear of the building.
The fenced-in lot was mostly empty, save for patches of overgrown grass, weeds and the rusted-out hulks of a few discarded vans that were lined up and left to deteriorate. Even with the dim lighting and faded paint, “Apex Irrigation” was still visible on their sides. Using the vans as cover, he quietly stalked from one to another, slowly making his way toward the back of the Apex plant.
As he closed in, he could see that the building formed one side of the fenced-in lot. Light from inside seeped through the two industrial window casements set into the cinder block wall at the back of the structure.
Marc figured if he could get to the windows, he might determine if Laura was being held inside. However, when he made it to the back wall, he discovered the windows had been frosted over making it impossible to see what was happening inside. In the still darkness, he listened intently for any sounds, but all he heard was the passing of an occasional vehicle on the street that ran by the front of the building, or the buzzing of a cicada that had recently emerged from its seven-year nap. The wild pig that had startled Marc earlier had apparently wandered off in search of more tender grasses or berries, or maybe an elusive canebrake rattlesnake.
Marc studied the window. Its glass was six panes across and six panes high. Each pane was held in place by a rusty metal frame. He pushed in on one of the inner panes and felt it give way. He examined the window again. The middle panes, about six feet off the ground, were separate from the outside panes and were tied to an interior hinge that allowed the center portion of the window to tilt in, apparently for ventilation. Someone had forgotten to relock the section, probably after the chemical spill that resulted in the death of Zach Saylor.
As Marc was about to push on the section again, he heard the sound of muffled voices coming from somewhere inside. Marc stood motionless, but with the thick glass he could barely make out what was being said. “Why did you bring…here?” After a pause, a different voice replied, “Where ...we take her?” Then, “Take...plant.”
Marc strained to listen, but the voices seemed to retreat to another part of the building. As he pushed in again, the rusty hinge emitted a high-pitched squeak. Marc froze. He strained to listen. Silence. Either no one inside had heard the noise or they had and were waiting to see what happened next. He rose up on his toes, trying to look inside, but the inch of clearing between the glass and the frame was not enough to allow him to see anything. Then, he heard the sound of a car engine starting up at the front of the building. Whoever he had heard talking before was apparently leaving.
Marc went to the corner of the building and through the cyclone fence saw two people walking toward a sedan parked where he had seen the vehicles the evening before. When the car door opened, someone was being shoved into the car’s rear seat. The person appeared to be a female and was handcuffed with her hands behind her. That’s got to be Laura, but where are they taking her?
Marc ran back to the opening in the fence he had crawled under minutes before. In the distance, he heard the muffled sound of car doors slamming shut. Racing toward his SUV, there was the sound of tires on the crushed stone parking lot. As he rounded the corner of the Texaco station, the sedan passed by on the s
treet out front. With the car key in hand, he jumped in the SUV and took off after the sedan. But when he got to the roadway, there were no taillights, just darkness illuminated by a scattering of streetlamps. He floored the engine in an attempt to catch sight of the vehicle. As he passed several streets that ran perpendicular, he slowed and glanced down each one, hoping to locate the sedan. At the third intersection, he caught a glimpse of a car’s taillights a few hundred yards off to his left. The car was turning.
Marc slammed on the brakes, backed up and made for the intersection. However, when he arrived at the turn, there was nothing but another string of streetlights. He pushed down hard on the gas pedal and as the last streetlamp whizzed by, he saw another sign, “Aiken City Limits.”
“Where the hell does this road go?” he whispered. Undeterred, he forced the SUV forward at top speed, hoping to again catch sight of the now familiar taillight configuration. Through the darkness he could see he was coming up on an intersection. It appeared to be a main thoroughfare. There was a steady stream of car lights traveling in both directions. The traffic light facing him was turning red. As Marc slowed, he saw a road sign, “Whiskey Road.” The intersection was illuminated with lights from the gas station on the corner. As Marc’s vehicle came to a stop, he spotted movement to his right. Someone was walking toward the gas station. Marc knew the walk. It was Laura.
Relieved that he’d found her, but pissed that he had not been there for her, Marc tapped the SUV’s horn and pulled into the station’s lot. Laura turned, came around to the passenger side and got in. Her face was wet with tears and contorted in apparent anger. Was she mad at her captors or someone else? He would soon find out.
“You alright?” Marc asked.
“No thanks to you!” Her response was quick and terse.
Guess we know who she’s pissed at, but why? “What happened?” he asked.
“Those assholes handcuffed me and forced me into their car.”
Masters of Terror: A Marc LaRose Mystery Page 10