by Roslyn Woods
“Please! Can’t you just tape me to a chair instead? Do I have to stay on this cot?”
“Yes.”
“But I can’t move and my wrists really hurt. I got nauseous. What if I have to throw up and I’m lying on my back? I could choke to death.”
“It hasn’t happened yet, and it’s not likely to happen.”
He came toward her with the box cutter, and she could see that his eyes were brown. He wore a large silver ring on his right hand and a narrow gold band on his left.
“Does your wife know you’re holding me here? Does—”
“You shut up about my wife! I mean it. Don’t say another word about her!”
Shell fell silent. He was angry, ready to snap. She didn’t know what he was capable of.
Find me. Find me, Dean. I’m in the barn.
He cut the tape from her ankles first and unwrapped them. He stared at them for a few moments and frowned but said nothing. Then he stood up and came over to the right side of the cot and cut the tape against the frame of the cot as he had done before and unwrapped her right wrist.
“Shit! What’s this?” he asked, looking at her blistered and bleeding wrist.
“I’m allergic to adhesive,” Shell answered. “I’ve always been allergic to it.”
Jack stood up straight as if the hand he’d just dropped had burned him. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked angrily.
“Well, let’s see…the first time you taped me up I was unconscious. The second time I was under the influence of whatever you put in my drink—”
“Shit!” he said again, and he came around the cot and cut the tape loose on her left wrist. It was blistered and bleeding, too. He stood up again and paced for a minute while Shell tried to sit up. “Use the toilet!” he shouted.
She tried to stand, but the room was turning in circles, and she stumbled and fell onto the floorboards. “I’m going to throw up,” she said.
He came over and lifted her to a standing position before jerkily walking her to the toilet room. She barely made it to the sink before she started heaving, but she was empty. There was nothing in her to bring up, and she heaved a few more times before her body calmed down.
“Are you about done?” he asked, impatient.
“I think so.”
“Use the toilet!” he repeated and stepped out.
For the first time since her abduction, Shell’s fear turned to anger. She looked down at the bleeding skin on her wrists. No wonder they hurt. She was angry that this man had drugged her and subdued her, that he had hurt her and frightened her. She didn’t know why she hadn’t hated him before. Maybe it had been the influence of the drugs, but she hated him now.
There was nothing to fight him with. Nothing she could use to hit him. He was solid, a kind of fireplug of a man, and she could tell he was strong. But she abhorred him, and she didn’t want to submit to his will. She knew she couldn’t beat him with physical strength, but she had to find a way to resist.
When she stepped out of the bathroom he was waiting for her with the drink. “You need to drink this,” he said, sounding calmer. “You’re getting dehydrated. That’s part of the dizziness and nausea. It isn’t just the drugs. I’ve put an anti-nausea in this time, so that should help.”
He handed the large cup to Shell, and she took it as if she was about to drink it, but she allowed it to slip and fall from her fingers onto the floorboards. She knew it was spilling through the cracks into the dirt below them and she saw the flash of anger in Jack’s eyes before she sank to the floor as if fainting.
“God damn it!” he shouted, but she remained on the floor with her eyes closed. “Wake up! I said, wake up!”
But Shell remained on the floor unmoving and as limp as she could make herself.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” he shouted. “God damn bitch! You’re so lucky you look like Lindsay!” he said as he put his arms under her and lifted her as if she weighed nothing. She knew he was carrying her to the cot, but she really had no strength to fight him, and her dizziness had returned. Even as he carried her, the room was spinning.
He put her on the cot, and she could feel his eyes on her, but she didn’t open her own. He shook her roughly. “Wake up! Shit!”
She remained limp and kept her eyes closed. Suddenly she was heaving again, and she rolled on her side in case something should come up. The room was continuing to spin, and Jack was no longer beside her. She looked up through her dizziness and saw that the door in the wall beside the bathroom had been opened. She could see a few paintings in there. She closed her eyes again as he came back through the door with an armful of rags. He shut the door and came over to the cot and sat on the floor beside Shell.
“I’m going to wrap your wrists with cloth, then I’ll put the tape over the cloth. The adhesive won’t touch your skin,” he was saying as the room continued to turn.
She didn’t speak and only opened her eyes once in a while as he tore the rags into strips. Soon he was wrapping the cloth around her right wrist and putting tape over the cloth before taping it to the metal frame of the cot. She flexed her wrist as much as she could, hoping she was making it a little bigger while the tape went around. Then he moved to the opposite side of the cot and did the same to the left wrist. Next he tied some cloth strips together and wound them around her ankles before taping around the cloth.
She opened her eyes when he shook her again, moaning from her nausea. “Please let me go,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done wrong. I never meant to hurt anyone.”
“I’m going now. You’re not going to get to sleep through it this time, and if you hurt, well, that’s just too bad. You shouldn’t have spilled your medicine. I was giving it to you for your own good, you stupid bitch!”
“When are you going to let me go?”
“Maybe never.”
“What? You said I just had to wait it out.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“You said you didn’t want me to be scared. You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“I know what I said.”
“What time is it?”
“You don’t need to know that. It won’t make a difference.”
“Is it Saturday?”
He didn’t answer but stood up and looked down at her through the mask. Shell thought his eyes had narrowed to mere slits. He was angry. She knew that people rarely survived abductions. She knew it wasn’t looking good for her. His promises had meant nothing. Probably all kidnappers said reassuring things to their victims.
He turned and headed for the door. “Eight hours. That’s all, and I’ll bring you something to drink.” Now he was reassuring her again, acting as if he felt a responsibility for her giving enough to drink. She could see him opening and closing the wood door, and then she could hear him locking it, and stepping through the dry grass toward his car. She heard the car door open and close and the engine start before he pulled away.
She guessed it might be around two p.m. If it was Saturday, the memorial for Garrett was in progress. Someone would probably know by now. They would think it was strange when she hadn’t come to the memorial. Billie or Margie would try to call her. Rita might try to reach her. Someone would know she had been taken. Dean might even know, but she didn’t think he would go to the memorial if he was avoiding her. Still, Margie would tell him. Margie would try to reach her, and maybe she would tell Dean.
Chapter 40
It was nearly five p.m., and Detective Arabella Aquila and her partner, Detective Bret Harris, were standing inside Margie and Donald’s front door. Billie, Leonardo, Dean, Margie and Donald had formed a semicircle facing the detectives. Aquila had lots of questions about who had seen Shell last and what state of mind she had been in. During the course of getting answers to her questions, Billie revealed that Shell had been staying with Leonardo and himself because she was fighting with her boyfriend. The detective was pretty angry that she was just now learning that Shell Hodge and De
an Maxwell had been in the midst of a personal conflict when she disappeared. The fact that Shell had left her house to stay with friends over relationship trouble seemed to be important information.
“Did you think this was an insignificant factoid, Mr. Maxwell?” she asked Dean sarcastically.
“It’s pretty significant to me,” he answered, “but I don’t see how it impacts your case. She wasn’t with me when she disappeared, and she hadn’t seen me since Wednesday.”
“According to you.”
“People, people, people!” shouted Billie, looking at the officers. “Time is of the essence, here! Yes, Dean is guilty of being pigheaded, but you folks at the APD have already gotten it wrong accusing him of doing something he didn’t do once, and I can see you’re about to try to do it again!”
“He’s the last person who would hurt Shell!” Margie added. “He’s crazy about her—”
“That’s not necessarily a good thing,” answered Detective Aquila.
“I mean ‘crazy’ in a good way,” Margie clarified.
“I want to know if Michelle Hodge was depressed enough to do something to hurt herself,” she said. “And I want to know if anyone was angry enough to do something to hurt her. These things happen every day, and I have to look at all the possibilities.”
“In the meantime,” said Margie, “Shell’s tied up somewhere and you’re trying to pin the blame on the people who love her!”
Detective Aquila sighed. Then she spoke. “Do any of you have any information that might help me understand why someone would have abducted her?”
“We’ve been trying to puzzle that out between us,” said Leonardo, sounding matter-of-fact. “The gallery had been having issues since we launched, even before we launched, actually. We think there are people who had a motive to hurt Garrett who didn’t have any reason to target Shell. We’re trying to understand it.”
“And,” added Billie, “we have to acknowledge the fact that this abduction may not have anything to do with anything. It could be a random kidnapping of a pretty lady in a parking lot.”
“Oh please don’t say that,” said Margie. “I have to believe we can figure this out and find her.”
“What about the surveillance of the parking lot?” Dean asked. “Was anything seen on the video?”
“We don’t know yet,” answered Aquila. “It was dark. They’re still examining it. Does anyone know of anyone who’s been unkind to Miss Hodge in the past few weeks? Anyone besides her boyfriend?” asked Detective Aquila giving Dean a sidelong glance.
“The only person I know of,” answered Dean, ignoring the implication of her look, “is Estelle Travis. She was mean to her last Friday right after we found Garrett’s body.”
“That would be Friday the twenty-fifth?” she asked.
“Right. We went over to the gallery to show a buyer the two Travis paintings that were there. Estelle Travis met us there with the buyer, and she was condescending and obnoxious to Shell.”
Detective Aquila wanted the exact particulars of the conversation between the people at the gallery on the morning of Garrett Hall’s death, and Dean repeated, as closely as he could, everything that had been said.
“And Miss Hodge was offended by this?” she asked.
“Maybe. She didn’t seem to react much. She was too sad about Garrett to care, I think.”
“It’s odd Estelle Travis would be unkind on the same day Michelle’s partner had been killed.”
“You don’t know Estelle!” said Billie. “She’s never kind unless it’s in her interests, and then it’s only skin deep.”
“Well, I don’t know where to start. I’m going back over to the station to talk to Sergeant Gonzalez about the suspects in the Hall case. Y’all stay available.”
“We will,” Donald answered. “Thank you, Detective.”
It was nearly seven p.m., and Shell’s partners and the people who thought of themselves as her family, were still seated in Margie and Donald’s living room in a state of shock. Donald had made coffee for everyone, but they were already on edge with a terrible sense of worry and dread. Finally, Dean spoke.
“I know,” he said, “this is all my fault. Shell and I haven’t talked about anything for days. If she’d been with me she wouldn’t have gone out late at night and—”
“You can’t think like that, Dean,” said Donald. “Whoever did this was likely watching her, waiting for her to make the wrong move, waiting for an opportunity.”
“Maybe, unless Billie’s right and it was a random kidnapping just because she’s so beautiful,” Dean said, his voice breaking. “I still feel like my failure to listen to her caused her to get into the trouble she’s in.”
“How do you think we feel? If Billie and I hadn’t been arguing, she wouldn’t have wanted to go out looking for another place to stay last night. I want to talk more about the way Estelle treated Shell last week,” said Leo.
“What are you thinking?” Margie asked.
“Well, in terms of the gallery, Estelle is the only one of the people we had trouble with who was even conscious of Shell, as far as I know. Did she, for example, know anything about the fact that Garrett was training her to authenticate paintings?”
“I don’t know,” said Dean.
“Actually,” said Billie, “I think I told Estelle that Shell knew what Garrett was thinking about the paintings. I might have told her he was training her. I just can’t remember. But after Shell and I picked up the painting that was at Garrett’s house on Wednesday, we took it home, and Shell and I talked about contacting Estelle and Mendoza. I wanted to show it to him because he was supposed to be here on Sunday—tomorrow—for a music thing.”
“And?” asked Margie.
“And we agreed to do it. Shell, I have to admit, was reluctant because she thought maybe Garrett was onto something.”
“But did you do it?”
“I told her I thought we should do it anyway,” said Billie. “We didn’t know about the bequest from Garrett then, and I thought the gallery had no way to stay afloat without a big sale. Anyway, she still tried to talk me out of it, but I’m afraid I kind of insisted till she gave in. I called Mendoza, and then I called Estelle and told her Shell and I would be showing him Comanche Sky on Sunday so Estelle could plan on being there.”
“Last Saturday,” Dean interjected, “we drove over to Dripping Springs. We wanted to look at wildflowers and Shell wanted to have a look at Estelle’s ranch.”
“And?” asked Billie. “She didn’t tell me about this.”
“And we looked at it from the road and then drove up a little side road that went up behind Estelle’s place. We took the dogs out to run. It was pretty deserted except for an abandoned house and an old barn. Shell started feeling really upset when we were walking up to that barn, so we decided to leave.”
“She was upset how?” asked Margie.
“She had a sort of panic attack. We got the dogs and went back down to town, and she really didn’t feel normal again till we got back to Austin.”
“What do you think it was about?” Donald asked.
“I thought it was a delayed reaction to Garrett’s murder,” Dean answered.
“That actually makes sense,” said Donald.
“Then on Monday,” Dean continued, “I was having dinner with Margie when Shell was in Dallas, and I looked at the file she was working on that showed the paintings the gallery has sold. I saw the barn that’s standing behind Estelle’s house in one of the Travis paintings…one of the paintings that was sold in February.”
“You’re sure?” Billie wanted to know. “Wes Travis never lived in Austin. It would be pretty weird if he painted that barn. Did you tell Shell about it?”
“No, I got upset about something personal before I’d had a chance to tell her,” Dean answered. “But I still don’t see why she panicked when she saw that barn.”
“Maybe,” Leonardo began, “…maybe she saw something. Maybe she—”
“Saw what?” asked Margie.
“I don’t know,” Leonardo said, falling silent.
“Tell us!” Margie said, tears streaming down her face.
“It’s something Garrett said,” he answered. “He said Shell had a gift. He said she had a sort of paranormal insight into paintings. He thought she saw things the painter had thought about but hadn’t actually painted in.”
“What?” Billie asked.
“He was talking about authenticating the paintings. He said she saw things that weren’t actually there. He saw it in her because he had the gift too, but he said she was far more gifted than he was.”
“Where are you going?” Margie was asking Dean as he headed for the door.
“I’ve gotta get Sadie, and we’ve gotta get over to Dripping fast.”
Chapter 41
It was about five when Wilson stopped the car at what he thought was the most interesting gate he had ever seen and rang the bell next to the keypad. He waited while the light flashed on the intercom. It took a minute before a voice responded. It was a woman speaking, not Estelle Travis, and she sounded fairly young with a heavy Spanish accent.
“Hello, I see you there. Do you have an appointment with Ms. Travis?”
“No, we don’t,” Wilson responded, holding his badge up so it would be visible to the camera. “We’d like to speak with Ms. Travis and someone she calls, ‘Cook,’ someone named Juanita something. We don’t have the last name.”
“I’ll ask her. Just a moment,” the woman answered.
The detectives waited while their car ran for a couple of minutes. After a bit, a voice was again heard from the intercom. This time the voice belonged to Estelle Travis.
“Well, gentlemen! What a pleasant surprise! You didn’t tell me I was to be honored with a visit out here in the country so soon. Come in! The gate should be opening now. Is it?” she asked.