One Adventure Too Many

by Marja McGraw

  My mother and aunt nodded, no longer appearing sleepy.

  “Be careful, sweetie. There are two men dead. They’re not playing games. Maybe I should say he’s not playing games. The kidnappers were inept, but I don’t think the boss is.”

  Pete headed for the elevator.

  I knew there was a cop upstairs, but I really wanted to go with my husband. None of us knew what to expect or who the boss was.

  Stanley had disappeared, having returned to Felicity, and I wished he’d let us know what was going on. I decided to head back there and check it out for myself, only hoping the nurse wouldn’t kick me out. I wasn’t sure she’d want two of us at Felicity’s side.

  “Stay here,” I said, looking intently at my mother and aunt. It wasn’t a request, but a command.

  With a look of innocence on their faces, they nodded.

  I found Stanley by his wife’s bedside, and the nurse was entering something into a computer. They were actually laughing, until Felicity had another pain.

  “How long is this going to go on?” she asked. “Isn’t it about time? I must have dilated a lot by now.”

  “Mrs. Hawks, it’s going to be a while,” the nurse replied. “You haven’t dilated enough. Just let nature take its course.”

  “Do you understand what they’re talking about?” Stanley asked.

  “More or less,” I replied. “Why don’t you go out to the waiting room and visit with my mother for a few minutes?”

  “Good idea,” Felicity said. “You need a break, my little stud muffin.”

  She couldn’t feel too bad if she was using cutesy names again.

  “Besides, the next pain might make me do something I’ll regret, like smack you.”

  “You’ve already done that once, love bug.” He grinned and left the room.

  She turned to me. “We’ve decided it’s best for all of us

  if he doesn’t come with me to participate in the birth.”

  “That was a polite way of putting it,” I said.

  “Truth be told, I might rip his heart out if he’s there and trying to get me to calm down.”

  “Rip his heart out?” I have to admit, I was shocked. My sweet little friend could be commanding sometimes, but this?

  “Oh, of course I don’t mean that,” she said. “My hormones are still out of whack and he keeps trying to calm me down. It’s very annoying.” She started to cry, and I didn’t know what to do.

  I could try to talk her down, but she might rip my heart out.

  The nurse stepped to my side and whispered, “Distract her. Get her to talk about something totally unrelated.”

  “I can do that.”

  The nurse, whose name I kept forgetting to ask, left the room.

  “So. Want to hear the latest about Zasu and Mateo?”

  Felicity sniffled. “Sure.”

  I told her everything, bringing her up to date, not expecting the reaction I got.

  “Zasu is missing? We need to do something, right now.” She tried to swing her legs off the bed, but it didn’t work.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Oh, yeah, I guess I’m here for the duration, aren’t I? And Gloria is taking care of Sophie? The poor baby must be missing her mommy right now.” She started to cry again.

  I hung my head. The nurse had meant I should talk about something benign, not murders and missing people. What’s the matter with me? I mentally slapped myself. Common sense seemed to have taken a vacation – ever since my relatives had come to help out. Help out? Ha!

  They should be in here with Felicity. They’d know what to say. Sure they would.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  I left my friend and hurried to the waiting room where I found them sitting next to Stanley.

  “You’re needed in Felicity’s room,” I said.

  Stanley started to stand up and I shook my head.

  “No, I mean my mother and my aunt.”

  Eyes wide and faces looking surprised, they glanced up at me. “Us?” my mother said.

  “Yes, you two. You understand what she’s going through and she needs your support.”

  “We’re on it,” Aunt Martha said.

  “You can count on us,” Mom said.

  “I know.”

  “Should I go with them?” Stanley asked.

  “No. Stay here. If they can’t calm her down, then she’ll have the baby just to get rid of them, or in spite of them.”

  Stanley started to laugh. He laughed so hard that he got tears in his eyes.

  “It wasn’t that funny,” I said, grinning.

  “No, but it was what I needed. A little humor goes a long way.”

  “You could use a distraction,” I said. “Why don’t we go upstairs and see what’s going on with Mateo?”

  “No.”

  “No? I thought you’d want to be involved.”

  “I’m not leaving while Felicity is waiting for the birth of our child. It would be just my luck she’d have the baby while I was upstairs.”

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I stood and headed for the elevators. I was way too tired and I needed something to keep myself going. I needed action.

  Pete and Redding were talking to Mateo when I got there.

  Mateo was sitting on the side of the bed, trying to pull on a pair of jeans. “What do you mean, Zasu’s missing?” He sounded frantic. I noticed he flinched when he moved. It made me wonder if he had broken ribs on top of everything else.

  Pete turned to me. “Redding just told him about Zasu. He’s not taking it well,” he said, keeping his voice down.

  “I gathered that. Boy, am I surprised.” Sometimes my sarcasm couldn’t help sticking its ugly little head out.

  I glanced at Mateo. His bruises hadn’t faded much, and he still had stitches in his head, but then it hadn’t been that long since he was injured. I saw that he had stitches at the base of his ear. I hadn’t noticed that the first time I saw him.

  He turned and looked at me. “You must be Sandi. Zasu’s been telling me about you. Can’t you do something to get me out of here?”

  Even his eyes looked pathetic. There was a lot of red near the iris, although the swelling of his eyelids had gone down a little.

  “No, Mateo, I’m sorry but you’ve got to settle down. We’ll find her. You’re not going to do her any good in this condition. Do what the Detective tells you to do.”

  “Help us find her,” Redding said. “Have you remembered anything else about the two men you saw in the forest? Anything at all? Maybe we can discern something from that.”

  “There were three men, not two. I didn’t get a good look at their faces. Everything happened too fast.”

  “Three men?”

  “Yes. I remembered that a third man was standing in the shadows. I couldn’t see anything but his silhouette. Have you caught any of them yet?”

  “One of them has turned up, but he’s indisposed at the moment,” Redding said. He knew better than to give away the facts.

  If Mateo knew one of them had been shot and was dead, he’d go nuts. He’d climb out of that bed and go after… Okay, who knew what he’d do? He wouldn’t know who to go after, but somehow he’d find himself in the middle of things again.

  People who are overwrought are liable to do almost anything.

  If by some fluke he found Zasu, he wouldn’t be able to protect her or himself. Besides, what were the odds that he’d find her? He’d wear himself out and end up back in the hospital.

  “Do you recall seeing a vehicle?” Redding asked.

  “There was a van. I think it was tan. It seems like it had a stripe or something on the side. And there was a car parked under some trees.” Mateo was beginning to remember more than he did at first.

  “Can you describe the car? Could it have been a black SUV?” Pete asked.

  “It was black, but it wasn’t an SUV. I didn’t get a good enough look to tell the make.” Mateo leaned back and seemed
to sink into his pillow.

  “Okay, Mr. Delgado,” Redding said, “they’re going to release you later today. The officer in the hallway is going to transport you to a safe house. He’ll be taking you out the back way so you won’t be seen. I’ll be searching for Ms. Pitts.”

  “We’ll find her.” A familiar voice came from behind me.

  “Who’s she?” Mateo asked.

  “That’s my mother. She’ll leave no stone unturned, I promise you,” I said.

  I turned to her.

  “Where’s Aunt Martha?”

  She made a clicking sound out of the side of mouth. “Someone had to watch Felicity, and Stanley’s asleep in the waiting room.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Mateo looked lost. “Who’s Felicity?”

  “A friend of mine who’s having a baby today,” I replied.

  “Baby.” He looked anguished. “I’d like to see my daughter. Where’s Sophie? Where is she?”

  “A woman in Battle Ground is taking care of her. She’s in good hands.” I didn’t want him to worry any more than necessary.

  “Can someone bring her to the safe house?” he asked.

  Mother stepped forward. “I don’t think you’re in any condition to care for her right now. You need to give yourself a few days to heal. We’ll help with her when we go home.”

  “Zasu is missing, I can’t hold my little girl, and I’m about as beat up as you can get. What’s next?”

  The poor man was so beat up that I couldn’t read his expression, but his voice broke and I thought he might cry.

  My mother sat down on the edge of his bed, placing her hand on top of his. “It’s all going to work out, son. Have faith. The best people are working on finding both Zasu and the dirty rotten scoundrel who took her. When they find him, you won’t have to live in fear anymore.”

  Sometimes my mother surprised me. She was being so

  supportive of a man she didn’t even know, and she leaned over and gently hugged him.

  He hugged her back with his good arm.

  “Where’s your family?” Mom asked. “Shouldn’t they be here?”

  “No family, ma’am. That’s one of the things Zasu and I have in common. She doesn’t have any family either. Well, she does, but they don’t get along and they live across the country.”

  “I see. Well, at least for the moment, consider us family. We’ll take care of all of you.”

  I glanced at Pete, expecting him to react, but he also surprised me. He reached out and awkwardly patted my mother’s back, as though this was something new to him.

  I smiled and thought about how much I loved these two people.

  “When will you be moving him?” I asked, turning to the Detective.

  “To be determined,” he replied. “No one will know when we move him.”

  I nodded and touched my mother’s shoulder.

  “We’d better get back to Felicity.”

  Walking toward the elevators, my mother and I talked about some of what had transpired over the last few days.

  “Good grief,” Mom said. “First we found Zasu and Sophie, then Gloria was taken and then Martha and I were kidnapped. Now Felicity is having her baby, and that poor young man wants nothing more than to be with Zasu and his baby, but Zasu has disappeared. We should all be screaming meemies by now. Remember how angry Phil was when they took Gloria? He was ready to rip someone to shreds. It gives me an idea about how Mateo feels.”

  “Yes, it does,” I said slowly. Something was niggling at the back of my brain. Something in what my mother had said was setting off an alarm, but there was too much going on. I couldn’t single out the one thing that bothered me.

  This type of thing, the niggling part, had happened on other occasions. I needed to sit down and sort through all of the events of the past few days. It would come to me. I just had to give it time, although I didn’t know if we had much time left.

  We returned to the Maternity Ward and found Aunt Martha pacing back and forth in front of a television in the waiting room.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “It looks like Felicity might be closer to giving birth. Stanley is in with her right now. Things seem to be speeding up.”

  Stanley joined us in the waiting room. “I think it’s time. They said it would be a while, but the nurse said my sweetie is dilating quickly now.”

  My mother and aunt grinned.

  “It won’t be long now,” Mom said.

  Aunt Martha nodded her head. “I wish we knew if it was…”

  “…going to be a boy or a girl,” my mother finished.

  “We need to know what kinds of gifts to buy for the baby.” Aunt Martha pulled a small pad of paper out of her purse and began writing notes to herself.

  My mother frowned. “I know that today people say you shouldn’t limit the colors a baby wears, but if it’s a boy I’m sure not going to dress him in pink.”

  Aunt Martha looked at her sister. “I agree. When I see a new baby, I want to know what gender it is. Pink and blue tell a story. Don’t mess with pink and blue.”

  “What about yellow or green?” I asked. “Those colors don’t denote gender.”

  My aunt rolled her eyes. “Pink or blue until the child is old enough to look like a boy or a girl. Period.”

  Mother grabbed my aunt’s arm. “Let’s go down to the gift shop and buy a Teddy bear for the baby. Teddy bears don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl.”

  They headed for the elevator, waving at us as they walked away.

  I turned to Stanley. “What do you think? About the colors, I mean.”

  “Who cares?” he said. “I’m about to be a father and I don’t really care if it’s a boy or a girl. The baby’s coming a few weeks early, and I simply want him or her to be healthy.”

  I gave him a hug. “You’re absolutely right.”

  “Felicity didn’t want me to be in the delivery room with her, you know. She’s right, Sandi. I’d just make her nervous.”

  Pete joined us and Stanley told him what was going on.

  My husband smiled. “Your whole life is about to change, Stan.”

  “It already changed once when I met and married Felicity. How many times does a life have to change? I’m not good with change, you know. Oh, dear, I’ve got to adjust. I can do this.” He was babbling and we let him keep talking. It was good for him.

  My relatives returned bearing a smallish Teddy bear with a yellow ribbon around its neck.

  “Good choice,” I said.

  “And the eyes aren’t buttons,” Aunt Martha said. “They can’t be pulled off and swallowed.”

  “We checked,” my mother added.

  Stanley started pacing again. “Now I have to worry about buttons?” His voice had risen an octave. “What’s next?”

  Pete smiled at his friend. “Relax, man. You’ll make a great father and that baby won’t have to worry about anything.”

  “Right,” said. “You’re one of the most fastidious men I know. Nothing will get past you.”

  Stanley stopped pacing and searched our faces. “I love all of you,” he said. “I couldn’t ask for better friends.”

  Love seemed to be in the air. Sometimes stress makes you realize how important people are to you, just like when we were upstairs and I was watching my mother and husband.

  “What’s going on in here?” Joe’s voice came from behind us. “Someone having a baby?” He grinned at Stanley.

  “What’re you doing here?” Pete asked. “I thought you’d be out looking for Zasu.”

  “I’ve been working all morning. I’m just taking a break to see how Mrs. Hawks is doing.”

  “The baby is due any minute,” Stanley said. “Thank you so much for coming by. It means a lot.”

  “I brought you something,” he said. “I heard you and your wife hadn’t thought of a name yet, so here’s a book of names.” He handed a bag to Stanley.

  The soon-to-be father shook the cop’s hand. “Very thought
ful, Officer. I wish I’d thought of this myself. Felicity will be delighted.”

  “Call me Joe. Gotta get back to work,” he said, suddenly looking serious. “Zasu disappeared on my watch and I promise you, I’ll be the one to find her, no matter what it takes.”

  “Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction here in Vancouver?” Pete asked.

  “Redding got the okay to borrow me since I’m familiar with the case and Ms. Pitts disappeared from Battle Ground.”

  Joe left and we sat and waited. Well, most of us sat. Stanley was back to pacing.

  “Nice fellow, that Joe. I like him. He didn’t have to take the time to come to the hospital.” Stanley looked exhausted. “And he’s conscientious. I like that in a man. He’s taking responsibility for Zasu’s disappearance and he’s going to try to rectify the situation.”

  “Pete,” I said, quietly, “something’s bothering me and I can’t put my finger on it. I know there’s something we should all see, but it won’t come into focus.”

  “Another one of your gut feelings?” he asked.

  “Not really, but I know I’m missing something important.”

  “It’ll come to you. It always does.”

  “I just hope it doesn’t come to me too late. Mateo and Sophie need Zasu. She’s a good person. She didn’t have anything to do with Mateo witnessing a murder. It just doesn’t seem fair that she’s been dragged into this.”

  “Leverage. Someone wants to make Delgado back off. My suspicion is that he saw something he hasn’t remembered yet, and that someone wants everything kept quiet.”

  “Yeah, that same someone tried to have Mateo murdered. What’s to stop him from killing him now?” I asked.

  “The guy has Zasu for leverage, like I said. Delgado’s in no shape to fight back right now. The killer is taking advantage of that, kicking him while he’s down.”

  I hadn’t realized that my aunt was listening. “That’s exactly what he’s doing. Kicking him while he’s down. The first beating didn’t do the job, so…”

  “…he’s giving him another beating, figuratively speaking.” My mother had been listening, too.