by Sylvie Kurtz
She gasped as her finger popped off the “page down” button. The cursor blinked, and there in black-and-white was the oyster irritation that had plagued her since Ace had discovered that the pen was a thermometer.
Methylsulfonylmethane, MSM, a veterinary product or supplement sold in health-food stores. Used to cut methamphetamine to increase profits.
Veterinary product. She uncapped the thermometer case and slid out the thermometer. Veterinary product. As she chewed on her thumbnail, a swamp of cold chilled her from head to toe. Veterinarian. Simon Bales.
Your hair reminds me of a filly I treated earlier.
Felicia? Was that where she was? Was Simon Bales holding her prisoner? Was the vet part of the gang? Was he the one supplying them with MSM?
Rory jumped off the bed and paced the room, trying to slow her thoughts and order them. Think. What did she remember of her brief encounter with Simon Bales? He’d struck her as an inoffensive teddy bear, jovial and kindhearted. As if he took life in easy strides and took time to smell the wildflowers on the side of the road. The kind of man who’d sit on the shore of a river to watch the sun set and throw a line more for show than a desire for a fish dinner.
Britney had mentioned that her husband was busy with the vet when Mike had come by asking for help. Had Simon Bales been there at the boat ramp? Had he seen the car go in? Had he rescued Felicia? Had the thermometer fallen from his pocket then? Had it been there before Mike dumped the car or appeared after?
Rory pounced on the case and examined it, but the scuffs and scratches could mean anything.
What if he wasn’t as innocent as he looked? What if he was part of the gang? What if—
No, she wasn’t going to go there. She stared at the blue numbers Ace had penned in her hand. They seemed to throb there. But she couldn’t call him. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t call him. He already had enough on his mind.
Rory rushed to the kitchen where she’d spied a phone book and looked up Simon Bales’s number. Holding her breath, she dialed.
“Bales Veterinary Clinic.” The female voice was efficient and slightly bored.
“Is Dr. Bales in?” She had no idea what she’d say to him if he did answer. Forging ahead without a plan wasn’t like her.
“He’s out on rounds right now. This is his answering service. Can I take a message?”
“No, thank you.”
Rory dropped the phone back on its base. Of course. What had she thought? That Felicia would answer the phone?
The address in the phone book stared back at her—123 Meadow Lane, Summersfield. Could it be that easy? Could she just drive there while he was out on rounds and look around? Or would that make her one of those too-stupid-to-live losers in horror books, the kind that went up dark stairs toward the chainsaw-armed slasher?
Then she smiled. Of course, the answer was right there. She took a peek out the front door and Glasser’s car was still there. With a quick detour to her room, she stuffed her laptop into her tote bag, then headed back down. She found the agent shooting the breeze with Kingsley in one of the basement offices.
Poking her head through the office door, she said, “Glasser, I’m taking your car.” He was armed. He was trained. Sebastian had told him to take care of her.
As she’d expected, he was up as if someone had zapped him with a cattle prod. “No, you don’t.”
By the time he reached the car, she was already sitting in the passenger’s seat, fastening the safety belt. “Meadow Lane outside of Summersfield.”
“What?”
“That’s where we’re headed. Do you need directions?” She fired up her laptop and called up a road direction web site.
“I’m not taking you anywhere, except back to the boat ramp.”
She reached for the seat-belt clip. “Fine, I’ll take my own car.”
His hand clawed around her wrist. “You’re not going anywhere.”
She looked into his pale-blue eyes. “I know where Felicia is.”
His irises became exploding black stars. “Meadow Lane?”
“123 Meadow Lane. Simon Bales is a vet.” She drew out the thermometer case and waved it. “This belongs to him. I found it at the boat ramp.”
Glasser looked straight ahead, both hands gripped knuckle-white on the wheel. She could almost hear his mind sorting through his options. He’d already screwed up once. He couldn’t afford another mistake.
“It’s your chance to make it up to Felicia. If you find her, you’ll be the hero.”
Eyes narrowed, he flicked his gaze back to her. “I’m in charge.”
“Of course.” She typed in their destination.
“You do what I say.”
“Absolutely. You’re the one with the gun.”
He turned on the ignition. “As long as we understand each other.”
“I just want my sister.” She hit the “enter” key.
“Okay.” He started down the drive.
As she waited for the directions to Meadow Lane to load, the phone in her tote rang. She picked it up. Nothing. The bag still chimed. Ace’s phone. Her heart chugged for a beat or two. Had he found Bianca?
She dug through the contents of the bag, found Ace’s phone and punched the on button. Before she could say anything, a small voice came on. “Ace?”
“Bianca?”
“Who is this?”
“A friend of your brother’s. He’s worried about you.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“If you—”
“Where is he?” There was anger, harsh and brassy, in Bianca’s voice.
“He’s out. I—”
“Well, of course, he’s not there.” Bianca sneered. “Why would he be when I need him?”
“I can—”
“Forget it.”
Rory held the phone with both hands as if that would keep Bianca on the line. “Bianca, please, don’t hang up.”
Bianca sniffed, little girl lost. “I’m going home. You tell him that.”
“Bianca, wait, let me come and get you.”
Another sniff. “You’d do that?”
“Of course.” Rory let out her cooped-up breath. “I’ll call Ace and we’ll both meet you there.”
A shuffling. Material against wood. “Okay. I don’t know exactly where I am.”
“Give me a description of what’s around you and I’ll find you.” Squeezing the phone between her ear and shoulder, Rory called up a blank page and poised her fingers over the keys.
“I’m in a barn,” Bianca said. “I kind of twisted my ankle.”
“Are you all right?”
“It hurts, but it’s not broken.” The sound of shifting again. “It smells like super sweet strawberries and there’s a bunch of factories or something on the other side of the pond.”
Rory frowned as she typed. Why did that sound so familiar? “Do you know what town?”
“Summersfield.”
Rory’s pulse tripped, then picked itself up. Summersfield was not a safe place for Bianca. Right outside of Taz’s printing plant was even worse. If Ace was spotted, he was dead. Soon after Mike’s accident, the gang had placed a hit on Ace. Penny had called with the warning. Not that either of them had planned on ever going back to Summersfield.
“Bianca, listen to me. This is very important. Stay where you are. I’ll be there—” Rory glanced at her watch “—in twenty minutes. Don’t go outside. If anyone comes, hide. I’m in a dark blue car and I have red hair. I’m wearing a burgundy jacket and I carry a big tapestry tote bag. Don’t talk to anyone else. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah, sure.” But the voice sounded distracted.
“Twenty minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
Reluctantly Rory cut the connection.
“What was that all about?” Glasser asked.
“Drive, I’ll tell you later.”
He shot her a slicing look, but she didn’t care. Finger shaking, she dialed Sebastian’s number.
“Sebastian, I need a huge favor.”
“Everything okay?”
Rory closed her eyes and shot out her deduction. “I know where Felicia is.”
“Where?”
“At Simon Bales’s farm. I need for you to go there, please, and bring her home.” She hesitated. “He’s a vet, Sebastian. He has access to MSM—the stuff the gang uses to cut their drugs.”
Rory could hear the clang and buzz of activity along the boat ramp, could imagine Sebastian overseeing the droning task force around him and calmly coming to a decision. “I’ll handle it. I don’t want you anywhere near there, understood?”
She pressed her lips tight, then blurted, “Bianca called.”
“Is she all right?”
“She has a sprained ankle. Glasser and I are going to pick her up.”
“I’ll call Ace.”
“No, don’t. She’s at a farm near Taz’s printing press. I don’t want him to risk being seen.”
“I have to tell him.”
She sighed. Yes, he had to. “Then tell him she’s on her way to the Aerie. We’ll meet you there.”
Sebastian drew in a slow breath and let it out. “Okay. Let me talk to Glasser.”
“GOOD GIRL,” the man with the pockmarked face and the three eyes said as he jerked the phone out of her hands.
“You promised,” Bianca said, licking her lips.
Smiling, he pulled a rock from a bag in his pocket. The barn was dark, except for the dust motes floating on slashes of sunbeams prying through the cracks between the planks. A sharp stink—a cross between urine and vinegar—that even the sickening strawberry smell couldn’t disguise stung her nostrils. Her bones were cramped in the hard corner of the empty stall. The moldy straw had no cushion. But once the rock came out, nothing else mattered.
“A gram.” Her skin itched and she scratched at her forearms. “You promised a whole gram.”
“I always keep my promises.” He popped the top from a can of generic cola, dropped the rock into the opening and swilled the can around. “Here’s your reward.”
Bianca snapped the drink out of his ink-streaked hand and gulped it down.
The rush hit her bloodstream like a broom and swept out all the tiredness, all the blues, all the doubts.
Her heart pumped, her lungs cleared and the cold, heavy feeling left her limbs.
And in less than a minute, all was right with the world.
Chapter Fifteen
“The gate’s locked,” Rory said, tugging on the big brass padlock hooked to a chain thick enough to hold an elephant in place. No need for a Keep Out sign with this. Well-used, she thought, as she stroked the sun-warmed metal, looking for courage.
Four horses grazed in a paddock behind the biggest of the three buildings. Their tails swished lazily at mini vortexes of blackflies. The chestnut mare snorted, shook her head, and once more attacked the new grass with nimble lips.
Glasser drew his weapon from its holster at his hip and scanned the farmyard. “I want you to stay in the car.”
“Can’t.” Rory wished she felt as brave as she sounded, but her bones were turning to water. She would give anything to be sitting at her desk at the library, surrounded by books, searching for answers. But she’d thrown her job away, and nothing in her life was certain anymore. So she forced her marrowless legs to move with confidence. “I told Bianca to look for me and to hide from anyone else.”
“That wasn’t smart.” Glasser climbed over the weathered gray fence.
Rory crawled between two boards. “Who would you trust if you were a scared teenager? A scowling guy with a gun or a short librarian?”
Glasser muttered something she couldn’t make out.
They started down the drive, feet making almost no noise on the hard-packed dirt. She was aware of her heartbeats, of the blood flowing through her veins, of the fear oscillating up and down her spine. Stop it. Think. Observe.
Her attention diverted to the ruts in the road, to the grass struggling to grow alongside, to the dark mouth of the barn gaping vacantly at them.
A pitbull—dirty white with patches the color of dried blood—shot out from the side of the second building, snarling and scarfing barks, making her hands jump to her heart to keep it in. The same kind of thick chain that bound the gate yanked him short. He rebounded, flapping pink and black gums over yellowed teeth and a chainsaw growl. Underfed and hungry, Rory thought as she carefully placed Glasser between her and the dog.
Glasser shoved himself against the dull red wall of the barn, gun pointed at the open door. “Call her.”
“Bianca?” Her voice came out in a dry squeak. She rubbed her throat. “It’s me, Rory Cates, Ace’s friend.”
“Yippee!” There was something disjointed about the girl’s voice.
“Bianca?” Rory started to step toward the dark opening. Glasser stopped her with his arm straight out. “Let me go in first.”
Gun aimed ahead of him, Glasser moved one slow step at a time. Rory followed, the thunder of her pulse masking the sounds around her. Crossing the threshold seemed to propel them into an alternate reality. The stench hit her first, then the sauna slap of heat, then the shadowed posts and beams that reminded her of a nightmare.
“Bianca?” she called again, mopping sweat from her forehead.
Laughter tripped high then low.
“Bianca?”
“Wheeeee!”
When Rory’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she couldn’t make sense of the picture before her. A slim girl, wearing navy pants and a red sweatshirt, head tipped back, hair spinning around her, was wheeling from a rope tied to a rafter like Mowgli swinging on a jungle vine. “Bianca?”
Glasser’s foot caught on something. He looked down, froze. Following his downward glance, Rory spotted the thin wire strung across the concrete aisleway. What now? she meant to say, but never got the chance.
Swearing, Glasser rammed a hand against her chest. She staggered backward, lost her footing. Her shoulders jarred against the concrete, evicting her breath. A shot carved through Bianca’s wild peals of laughter. Glasser fell next to her as if he were a suit dropped from a hanger. Red drops and raw chunks rained down on her. A scream rattled against her ribcage, but no sound came out of her open mouth.
Then something cold and hard jammed against her skull. Her gaze skewed up, followed the steel of the shotgun barrel up and butted into Taz’s hell-cold one. “Move one muscle and you end up just like him.”
PUSHING THE INDIAN as fast as it would go, Ace sped toward the Aerie. The whole mess was almost over. Rory had found Bianca and they were both safe at the Aerie. Now that he’d been made, he couldn’t go back undercover. Not here anyway. Maybe not anywhere. He was ready for something different. Something permanent. Something like Sundays and cinnamon.
Once they found Felicia, he’d lay his thoughts out to Rory. A house—wherever she wanted. He didn’t have roots. It didn’t matter where he lived. Maybe a shop of his own. Amen for RUBbers—they’d keep him in oil and pistons for as long as he cared to play with engines. Rules, discipline and drug therapy for Bianca. Boot-camp-style wasn’t working. Maybe home, hearth and tough love would. With a partner like Rory, he could give it a shot.
Lost in his daydream, he was turning onto 101 when the pager vibrated. He glanced at his belt. His cell number. His heart stuttered. Rory. Why? To tell him she and Bianca were safe at the Aerie? To tell him the divers had found Felicia? He pulled into a gas station, found a pay phone and dialed his own number.
“Prompt,” the scratchy voice said. Not Rory. Not Bianca. Taz. “I like that in a man.”
Crazed laughter spiked the background like a rivet gun. Ace swore. Bianca was high. Had Taz fed his poison to Rory, too? “What do you want?”
“We’ve got a situation. You know how this stuff works.”
Meth? More than he wanted to. “How much d’you feed them?”
“She asked for a
gram. She got a gram.”
She asked. Bianca. A gram. Eyes closed, Ace dragged in air and ground out an oath. That’s how they’d gotten her; fed her addiction. “What about Rory?”
“I’m saving the bitch for later. She’s standing over the cesspool right now. You don’t give me what I want and I pull the planks. You know what that means, don’t you?”
The task force had been watching the gang for years now. Years of cooking meant years of waste products. A cesspool’s worth of caustic, flesh-eating sludge. And he was dangling Rory right over it.
Ace couldn’t answer.
“Make the situation disappear or they will,” Taz warned. “One at a time. And you’ll hear every scream.”
“I’ve got no pull.”
“Sure you do, man. You’ve got the pull of love.” He spat the word out. It had no meaning for him. And too much for Ace.
A faint whomp, whomp beat like a lazy pulse in the background. It dug into Ace’s skin, flowed into his veins. He knew that sound, had lived hellish days listening to it while working at Taz’s printing press. But if they were at the plant, then the noise would be louder. They were close enough to hear the mutant frog sound, far enough for it to fade into the background.
A flash of mud-encrusted boots cut across his mind. A memory of a manure odor he’d mistaken as unwashed. A smile that smirked and sniveled—not in deference, he now realized, but with the wily cunning of a fox who’d just eaten a hen no one knew was missing.
Suddenly, it all made sense—why they’d never caught Taz in the act of cooking, why the cook site was never found. They’d pegged the wrong man. Tank wasn’t a boot-licker; he was the boss.
“What do you want?” Impatience pebbled Ace’s voice.
“Send ’em on a goose chase. Just give me long enough to pull up stakes.”
“I can do that.” Ace tested and fiddled with his options, but couldn’t quite figure out how to tune this mess. If he did as Taz asked, the corridor lived. Kids like Bianca would fall prey to the siren call of its false promises. If he turned the task force toward the lab, Rory and Bianca would pay the price.