Blonde Bomb Tech

by Lara Santiago

  “I thought our mother’s maiden name was Margaret Elliot.”

  “She apparently changed it when she went away. When I realized who you were to me after the apartment bombing, I kept the letter a secret because I wanted to give you a family, Sabrina. A family you never got to have. You got so screwed in life and I just wanted to surprise you. I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure either way. I’m so sorry.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Hello, blonde bomber,” came the taunting superior voice of John Everett Hollingsworth the turd as he exited the broom closet to her right, holding a big wicked looking .357 magnum pistol in one hand leveled at them both. “Welcome to the reunion party I have planned.”

  “I knew it was you,” Sabrina said, more calmly than she felt.

  “Well, you can’t prove it, and I am far too smart for you. Time for you to die now.”

  “Why?” Sabrina asked. “I need to know why.” She could too prove it, if he stayed long enough to let the bomb squad truck see him. Sabrina braced herself to hear a horrible abuse story of how he’d molested her mother and hoped against hope she wasn’t about to learn that he might possibly be her father. That would send her right over the edge.

  “It’s simple, of course. Money. Your mother, Elise Linden, stood to inherit the Linden House Canning Company.”

  “My mother’s name was Maggie,” Sabrina responded without thinking.

  “That was before she ran away and changed it. Elise didn’t want the company anyway and for awhile that worked in my favor and kept her alive.”

  “So you did set the bomb that killed her.” Sabrina wanted to say ‘Ah Ha’ as well, but controlled herself, looking surreptitiously for the bomb.

  “Yes, but she was not my target. You were,” he said hatefully. The glower on his face expressed his feelings clearly.

  “Why? I was only three years old. What possible threat was I to you?”

  “Well, my dear Sabrina, let me tell you a little story. My aunt Margaret had great expectations for her daughter Elise. She had built that failing canning company practically from the ground up after her father had all but run it in to the ground with his stupidity during the seventies. Margaret made Linden House a success again by the early eighties, but just when she was ready for Elise to pick up the reins and start learning about the business, alas, her daughter didn’t share her dream. She didn’t want to be a businesswoman. She wanted to get married and have babies. Not spend her life running a business like her mother had abandoned her to do.

  “So on her eighteenth birthday, Elise told my aunt that she had fallen in love with a lawyer and wanted permission to marry him. My aunt was, of course, horrified that she had chosen someone completely unsuitable to fall in love with. A lowly government lawyer of all things, and cut her out of the will. They didn’t speak for weeks. I was content to wait, certain Elise would do something willful, as usual, but she bided her time. Perhaps her lawyer lover didn’t want to give up the money. After a short time I knew I would have to do something or risk losing what I’d set my sights on.”

  “So my mom changed her mind and you killed her,” Sabrina accused.

  “No. She caught me with an upstairs maid in a very wickedly compromising position one sunny afternoon and threatened to tell my aunt. I couldn’t have that, of course, it might make her change her mind about who to leave the company to after Elise was disposed of.”

  Of course, because you are a rich spoiled brat, Sabrina thought to herself as he droned on. Where was the bomb? She wanted time to study it as he babbled and glanced around once more, seeing nothing.

  “She threatened to expose my predilections for the hired help, so I blew up the pool house when Elise was supposed to be in it having a party,” he announced as casually as if he’d just ordered a sandwich.

  Sabrina sucked in a breath and looked at him with all loathing she could muster. He was not impressed with her anger. He merely sneered at her and continued, “Unfortunately, only her friends were hurt instead. Alas, she was in the pool and escaped any injury. I had called to tell her, but one of her friends picked up the phone instead. They started laughing…until the bomb shut them up,” he grated out hatefully. “Later on I caught Elise alone and explained what I’d done so she wouldn’t be in such a hurry to tell Aunt Margaret any secrets.

  “After short time, Elise ran away, leaving a note of her intentions to marry her unsuitable lover, and disappeared. Aunt Margaret didn’t know all the reasons for her departure, but it didn’t matter. Elise was gone and I was the next logical heir to inherit the company.”

  Sabrina waded through what he’d said, grateful he hadn’t violated her mother and at the same time appalled at his actions. He’d tried to kill Maggie at her pool party with a bomb. If Maggie had been on the phone with him seconds before the Fireside Inn explosion…then she ran because she already knew that he was capable of murder and rape and possibly a multitude of sins. Sabrina still wasn’t clear as to why she personally had to die. She looked over at Suzanne who was the very definition of fear. She kept looking down at her feet every couple of seconds. Maybe the bomb was on the floor there.

  “She did me a big favor.” John Everett the Turd wasn’t done yet. “Apparently, after the bomb at the pool house, I scared her enough to leave permanently. My aunt disowned her, of course.”

  Of course. Sabrina was inching forward as he spoke to see more of the room. Let him talk and get it all off of his chest.

  “So you still haven’t explained why my life had to end. Why didn’t you just leave us all alone?” Sabrina asked in a petulant tone.

  “Well, I did for about four and a half years. Then Elise let motherhood go to her head and sent a picture of you to my Aunt Margaret. That’s it, just a picture of the two of you. Pregnant Mommy and cute little girl. Aunt Margaret suddenly had a change of heart…the old battleaxe. She was getting older and Elise was her only child. It occurred to her quickly that if Elise didn’t share her business dream, perhaps a granddaughter might.

  “Suddenly, Aunt Margaret wanted to reconcile with the daughter who’d deserted her and meet the grandchild that might yet fulfill her dream. To that end, Aunt Margaret soon sent a private detective out to find her daughter and granddaughter…you.” He paused to embellish the point of his hatred for Sabrina’s existence with a violent shake from the business end of his gun before continuing. “She was considering letting Elise and her inappropriate family come back into the fold. Well, it became patently clear to me that I couldn’t risk that you might one day take what was rightfully mine. So I intercepted the private investigator to do my bidding instead. The detective found you, and so I found you. I told my aunt nothing and she was eventually convinced that no trace was uncovered of Elise. She never knew her daughter and family had been eliminated.”

  “You are telling me you murdered my parents because a three-year-old you’d never met might one day rightfully inherit her grandmother’s company and you, the pouting cousin who didn’t deserve anything, would be left out in the cold?” Sabrina took two steps closer to him and Suzanne as if she were making a big point. She wanted to get a look at the bomb.

  “Stay back.” He waved the gun menacingly.

  “You are one sick pervert.”

  “It was mine.” His voice now contained a maniacal tone and he seemingly was no longer listening to Sabrina insult him. Good thing. She was too argumentative with him. A police negotiator, she was not.

  “I want you to listen to me carefully.” You perverted sick psycho. No need to rile the crazy man now. “I don’t want anything to do with you or your Aunt Margaret or her company or your money. So you can defuse this bomb and go on your merry way,” Sabrina said coldly with a determination she did not feel on the inside. Equal parts of anger, the desire to kill him with her bare hands, and utter fear of the situation vied for attention in her mind.

  “I don’t believe you. Besides, it’s too late now; you’ve seen me and I don’t believe for a minute
you’ll let me go after admitting I killed your parents,” he said mockingly.

  “Perhaps, but it was a long time ago. I’m not a threat to you.”

  “Both of you are threats to me. Be satisfied you’ve lived this long. You both should have died years ago. I didn’t know you were still alive until I read that article about you being a bomb technician, Sabrina. It was kind enough to mention your boo-hoo past of losing your parents. I only then realized you hadn’t died in the blast.

  “Later the same day, as if by divine providence, I intercepted the letter from Suzanne. I didn’t know Suzanne was alive either until then.” His eyes took on a shiny glassy look. He was insane. “It was fate that I found out about you two on the same day. I used the information to set Suzanne up as my scapegoat. I called her the night I set the apartment bomb. I figured having her show up at the apartment would cast suspicion on her, and it worked, too.”

  “I don’t want the money. You keep it.” Sabrina enunciated her words as if he were the simpleton.

  “I have devised a bomb for you and only you to defuse this time, Sabrina. You get to take care of this one all on your own, girly. No help from Smith or Brown or it blows. I have eyes and I’ll be watching for anyone to come in or go out.” Hollingsworth continued as if she hadn’t spoken. In his demented mind she was a threat he thought he’d disposed of twenty-three years ago. He wasn’t stopping until she was dead.

  “You won’t get away with this. The bomb squad is on the way. They’ll see you.”

  “I know the bomb squad is on the way. I called them. I set this up. You will be blamed for this after you’re dead. They won’t see me. I have a plan. I’m going to run out with the all the others in the back.” He began putting on a disguise—a service uniform like a janitor as he managed to keep the gun in place.

  “They know what you look like.”

  “I left Peters in my office waiting for me to come out of my personal bathroom. He will swear I was there the whole time. You will be disgraced first, then dead, and finally life will be as it should. No stupid heirs to inherit everything that is rightfully mine.”

  “You can have it,” Sabrina said again. “Suzanne and I will sign documents that state you get to have it all. Just let us go.”

  “No. I’ll get to have it all now, and I will get away with this. Power and money can buy anything. Too bad you’ll never know what that feels like, Sabrina.”

  “Doesn’t your Aunt Margaret know about us now?” Suzanne asked quietly, “I sent her a letter about my research into the explosion and she wrote me back. She said she was on her way out of the country, but when she gets back she’s going to look for us.”

  “That’s was the letter I intercepted. I’m the one who responded. I’ve been reading her mail for years. I was looking for a letter from Sabrina after I sent the note about the little pumpkin.”

  “Why? I wasn’t looking for a history. I didn’t think I had one.”

  “I knew it was only a matter of time before you got curious and did some checking.”

  “You’re wrong. I didn’t know I had any family. I would never have looked for anyone. You could have had it all to yourself, but now you’re going to get caught. You aren’t as smart as you think you are,” Sabrina said.

  “But of course I am. No one will ever suspect a man with my culture and breeding could have anything to do with the manual labor of bomb-making. You can’t even imagine how difficult it was for me to stifle the urge all these years. But don’t worry, I consoled myself in other ways with lots of women.” The look of satisfaction on his face made Sabrina’s stomach turn over.

  “But you made the bomb that killed our parents?” Sabrina asked to keep him talking.

  “In a matter of speaking. You see, I had an association with a criminal I met in a bar on the wrong side of town while I attended college. He provided me with test answers to idiotic required classes which were below me.

  “In addition, he showed me a few things about demolition and bomb making when I went to his pig sty of a residence. I learned a few other things along the way as I needed to created these most recent bombs of pure brilliance. This is the information age, after all. I must thank you for giving me a reason to enjoy the thrill of fiery explosions again.” Hollingsworth closed his eyes and sighed deeply, as if satisfied on a level Sabrina didn’t want to think about.

  “When we find your criminal friend with the manual labor skills, he’ll give you up and then we’ll have you,” Sabrina said with confidence.

  “Sorry, but the poor man in question suffered a horrible accident the day after I graduated from college. Bombs can be tricky.” Hollingsworth laughed. Creepy maniacal laughter that made Sabrina’s teeth hurt. This man had first tried to kill her mother with a bomb at her own home pool. Elise Linden went so far as to change her name to Maggie Elliott so she could run from him to escape. But Hollingsworth eventually tracked Maggie down because she’d had the audacity to send her mother, Margaret Linden, a picture of her granddaughter, Sabrina. Finally, he killed several innocent people to keep a business which wasn’t rightfully his in the first place. Sabrina wanted to smack the smirk off of his face, but now wasn’t the time.

  Sabrina was getting worried. She’d been in here for quite a while and no one had shown up. The bomb squad should have been here by now, along with fire rescue and a fire truck or two. Where was everybody? Sabrina snuck a glance out a window looking for any hint she wasn’t alone.

  “You are wasting time.”

  “What?” Sabrina stole a glance at him. He’d finished dressing in his janitor costume and as a final touch, had put a baseball cap on.

  “No one is coming.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do, but I couldn’t very well slip out of here if there were any of our city’s finest out there. I told them to only send you, and they did. The nearest law enforcement officer is three blocks away. Everyone in the daycare facility thinks that Suzanne went crazy this morning. I’m about to go rescue everyone now.”

  “Well, then I guess I’ll just untie Suzanne and we’ll go out the front,” Sabrina said cockily.

  “Oh no you won’t. She’s sitting on a bomb. First, you’ll have to discover how to defuse it without help, but since you are too stupid to figure it out yourself, both of you will be tragically lost.”

  “No, Sabrina. You get out. Just leave me.” Suzanne started crying again, her hands gripping the arms of the chair she sat in.

  “Oh, Sabrina won’t be able to do that. Now, if you would please hand me your cell phone and bag of tools,” he said, snapping his fingers at her.

  “Why?” She handed him her bag, which he immediately slung over one shoulder, but she tossed her cell phone out of his reach behind him.

  “Bitch.” Hollingsworth tightened his grip on his gun and took a long step backwards to stand over her phone. She had wanted him to look away, but he didn’t. He held her gaze while one foot felt around on the floor for her phone.

  “Can’t have you calling for help, now, can we?” Hollingsworth stomped the crap out of her cell phone. “Goodbye and good riddance. Please try and stay dead this time,” he remarked before slipping out of the room.

  “I thought he’d never leave,” Sabrina said, as she quickly came around to where Suzanne was sitting.

  “Please Sabrina, you have to go,” Suzanne said, sobbing, and then couldn’t catch her breath. “He cut the phone lines so you couldn’t have any communication with anyone in the bomb squad to help you.”

  “What makes you think I need any help?”

  “He said…”

  “He’s a moron and way too full of himself,” Sabrina assured her sister as she squatted down to look at the bomb under Suzanne’s seat. After studying it for a minute or two she recognized the configuration. It would be a snap to defuse, if she could find the right tools in this office.

  “How much do you weigh? I need to know exactly,” Sabrina said absently, lo
oking all around the room for what she would need.

  “I…I guess about a hundred and thirty…” Sabrina focused in on her sister and cocked an eyebrow in question.

  “All right, one thirty seven, but I’m pregnant,” she said defensively.

  Sabrina smiled. “Me too. Isn’t it cool?”

  Sabrina spent ten minutes darting around the office collecting the things she’d need. Suzanne looked skeptically at her sister when she was done.

  “Are you sure this is going to work, Sabrina?” she asked.

  “Pretty sure, yeah.”

  “Pretty sure isn’t all that reassuring from where I sit.”

  “Well, if I’m wrong…neither one of us will ever know,” Sabrina responded absently.

  “Okay, that’s worse,” Suzanne sighed.

  “Trust me,” Sabrina told her sister.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jake and his company backed the truck into the station bay. They returned from a false alarm. He wished he’d been able to talk to Sabrina this morning, instead of taking the wasted trip. He intended to call her once he got back to the locker room. She should have had time to make it to work by now.

  Jake and his fellow firefighters stepped off the truck, took only a few steps and the alarm went off again. Everyone groaned, then laughed, and reversed their steps. He hoped this wasn’t another wild goose chase.

  A short time later they arrived at an address three blocks from the possible bomb site address as instructed by the dispatcher. The dispatcher had gotten strange instructions directly from Councilman Peters’ office, of all places. Jake wondered, what the hell? Maybe it was a drill. Although they’d had so many actual bomb calls this last month, he didn’t think they needed to practice this particular drill.

  Jake noticed Chief Cochran getting out of his personal vehicle as the fire truck Jake was riding in came to a halt. He was unanimously voted to go over and get the word from the Chief to see what was going on. He pulled off his helmet and outer protective jacket before he headed over to get the scoop. On his way, he saw Sabrina’s boss, Captain Hennessey, standing stoically, arms crossed over chest in front of the bomb squad truck. His stance suggested supreme anger. Behind Hennessey, Sabrina’s partner Murphy restlessly paced in front of the truck like a caged animal that had been teased with a stick. Where was Sabrina, he wondered, as a trickle of unease crept up his spine? Maybe she was late for work.