by Susan Kohler
She was also tired of the daily drills John and Bob both gave her in self-defense. John knew martial arts and Bob, she was shocked to learn, stayed in shape with a combination of weight lifting and boxing! It seemed he had two old friends, one of whom was a bodybuilder and the other a retired boxer. He worked out regularly with both of them.
Aside from the drills, Kate was armed with pepper spray and a whistle. She still knew that if Jerry wanted to get to her, he could. After all, with less than a week of instruction she was still a novice in self-defense. Also, she sensed that Jerry must be clever since he had not gotten caught. In fact, there had not been a trace of him since he’d vandalized their homes.
Kate felt it was time for her to get on with her life, even if he might make an attempt to get her. Despite her caution, just as she unlocked her car door suddenly, from out of nowhere, Jerry was there. He was standing about ten feet away, hidden in some bushes, and had a gun pointed directly at her. It was almost exactly what John and Bob had feared.
They had instructed her on how to act, and had given her a set of signals for her to let the guards know what was going on. They had both discussed ideas with her, ways to protect herself, ways to deal with Jerry, and things to watch out for. Since she knew they were being watched, and since Jerry was armed, she decided to go along with him. All of her workouts had not shown her how to disarm a man who stayed cautiously out of reach, and it was too windy for the pepper spray to be effective.
It wasn’t that she was being used to bait a trap so much as the fact that all of them were aware that she was the bait, the focus of Jerry’s bitter anger, frustration and hatred. No one seemed to want to say it outright, but she was the target for his hatred. He blamed her for his problems: The loss of his job and his future, and the fact that there was a warrant out for his arrest. He was blaming her and denying that he was in any way to blame for his situation. She was his way of diverting the responsibility for his ruined life away from himself. They had known he would come after her. He had to try to get his revenge.
Kate tried to keep herself from looking around for the security guard she knew John had assigned to protect her, but she was too terrified to keep her eyes straight ahead. She knew she had to stall for time. If Jerry panicked or realized he was being watched, he could shoot her on the spot, and no guard alive would be able to save her.
She willed herself to relax and think but with only partial success. The one thing that scared her the most was Jerry’s obvious fear and anxiety. The man was clearly coming unraveled.
“Hi Jerry.” She failed miserably in her attempt to sound normal and relaxed. “How are you?”
“Shut up and get in the car, you stupid bitch, or I’ll kill you right here. Not another word,” Jerry said in a rough voice.
This man was a stranger who bore no resemblance to the gentle, jovial man she knew from work.
“Get in and drive where I tell you to go, and keep your stupid mouth shut.”
“Why are you doing this?” she choked out. “You can’t get away.”
“I can and I will,” he spat back at her. “I was doing fine until you stuck your nose in my business. You’ve ruined my life.”
“You ruined your own life, Jerry. I only found the theft,” she said softly, “you committed it.”
In an attempt to stall for time and to avoid getting into a car with Jerry, she had been told to try to get him to talk to her. As a plan, it was logical but in practice it proved difficult given the state of near panic she was in.
No words came to mind and her throat was so tight she knew if the words did come she couldn’t get them out. The reality of the situation was that Jerry refused to talk to her unless she got into the car and started driving.
It was against everything John and Bob had told her but she finally did get into the car. He sat in the passenger seat, pointing the gun at her. He turned the rearview mirror to watch for any cars following them. Then, finally, he opened up and relaxed his vigilance enough to talk to Kate.
“You ruined my life! What right did you have to go nosing around in my business? Did it make you feel powerful to cause me so much trouble?” he accused her, shouting.
“I didn’t ruin your life! You did that all by yourself.” She refused to take the blame for the fiasco he had made of his life. “I was brought in just for that purpose, to find a thief. I did not force you to steal and point suspicion on others. Take some responsibility, Jerry. It was you who stole money from your employer. It was you who tried to divert the blame to others. It was your crime and it’s your responsibility. Only your responsibility. Why should I feel any sympathy for you? What about the people who were fired for something that you did? Did you enjoy ruining their lives and their futures? Did that make you feel powerful?”
“They were only clerks. Female clerks. They can get jobs anywhere,” he grimaced, “or find a man to support them, that’s what you women do best, isn’t it? But I was more than a clerk, I worked hard for years and I had finally worked my way up to a management position.”
Her curiosity got to her. “Jerry, how did you know that I was the one who figured it out? How did you find out I was the auditor?”
“I knew Bob was suspicious, he was sure the thefts were not being done by the accounting clerks. I knew he was getting nosy, investigating some of the others in the firm.” He grinned, a sly grin. “I half expected him to bring in an auditor or an investigator when all of a sudden he hired you. I broke into his office and found several file folders that seemed out of place so I followed him a couple of nights. He always went to your house. At first, I thought it was just an office affair but then I saw him taking boxes containing those files into your house.”
Kate remembered John telling her repeatedly what to do if this ever happened. Keep Jerry talking. That would do two things, hopefully: It would force Jerry to see Kate instead of a hostage; it would also lower his guard, keeping him distracted from anybody following them or setting up a trap to catch him.
“How did you do it?” she asked him, even though she knew most of the details.
“It was easy. I just duplicated some of the purchase orders, but I altered the vendor’s name and address. Then I doctored the receiving slips enough to match the phony purchase orders. I sent invoices for those purchases using a post office box as a return address,” he explained. “When you paid the phony invoices, the checks would go into a bank account I had set up.”
“Then,” he continued, “I got some false identification with Bob’s name and address. Using the ID, I withdrew the money from the fake accounts and deposited it into a second account with another phony name and ID. When I needed it, I made cash withdrawals. Some of the money was in a safe deposit box in my real name, and I sent some out of the country, too.”
“You went to a lot of trouble, at least two sets of fake identification and signature cards supposedly signed by Bob and Laura. Phony corporate papers for false companies, forged purchase orders, shipping receipts, and invoices. Was it worth it?” she asked. “Getting hold of some of those things must have been difficult and very expensive.”
“I cleared over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars over and above my salary and the costs of getting phony documents,” he bragged, “in just over a year.”
“You’ll never get to spend it,” she told him. “Not another dime.”
“All I need to do is use you as a hostage to get out of the country. I have a lot of the money in a numbered account in the Cayman Islands and a lot of cash,” he snarled at her. “Besides, I already spent a lot of the money trying to keep my wife from getting beat up or killed for her gambling debts. They were even threatening to come after me.”
“You must love her a lot,” Kate said softly. “That was what made it so hard to track you. We couldn’t find any reason for you to have such a great demand for money. You don’t have large credit card debt, no kids in college, no sign of drug use, and no woman on the side. It was hard to figure out why you need
ed so much money. It wasn’t you with a hidden vice, it was your wife. She gambles. You must love her. You risked your lifestyle and your future to save her.”
“Love her, hate her,” Jerry’s voice trailed off, “what’s the difference? She ran off and left me when she found out I was embezzling. She called me a dirty little thief.”
They drove to a small, cheap motel just off the main highway. Kate pulled the car to a stop in the parking lot at the front in full view of the street, but Jerry told her to move the car around back, out of sight. He already had a room and a key. As they entered the small, tacky motel room Kate fought herself to keep from looking around for one of John’s men or for a policeman. She felt a dread that surpassed all of her previous terror as she stepped into the room. Her worst fears were realized when Jerry forced her to sit on a plain wooden chair.
“Please don’t tie me up, Jerry,” she pleaded as she saw him pulling a length of cord out of his pocket.
“Shut up!” He slapped her and threatened, “Or I’ll gag you as well.”
He tied her hands together behind the back of the chair, then he tied her feet to the legs of the chair.
As he tied her hands Kate struggled and fought him hard enough to sprain her wrist, but he managed to get the knots tied. Then he did the one thing that broke her completely. She screamed as she saw him pull out a roll of duct tape that he used to cover her mouth. For a long, terrorizing moment she saw something cold mingled with the madness and hatred in his eyes, she saw the temptation to use just a little more tape, not much, just enough to cover her nostrils along with her mouth.
Kate had long since realized that Jerry was insane but now she knew, with dreadful certainty, that if she wasn’t rescued he would kill her. She began to shake as tears ran down her face and she sniffled behind the mask covering her mouth.
She kept reminding herself that John had men watching her. They had been aware that sooner or later Jerry would make some kind of attack on her. They had planned to capture Jerry before he got this far with her. Why had they let him take her? The gun, she realized, they hadn’t counted on him getting so close to her with a gun. There was no record of him owning a gun and embezzlement was a white-collar crime, not a violent crime. They hadn’t taken his fury, his madness, his unbalanced state into account.
Kate sat there, finally going numb, terrified and cold. She thought about her kids and Bob. She tried to will herself to concentrate on everything loving and beautiful in her life. She reassured herself with the knowledge that John’s men had followed them, and had already contacted the police.
She even fought the mundane battle of trying to avoid thinking about how much she wanted to go to the bathroom. That small distraction was almost a blessing, an annoying blessing.
It seemed like she was tied there for hours but it was only about thirty minutes before Jerry, who was constantly staring out the window, began to see activity outside the small motel.
“Something’s up,” he told her, for the first time using an almost conversational tone as he spoke to her. “The other guests are leaving their rooms.”
Outside the window, that was exactly what was happening. It was like a weird migration, all the hotel guests leaving quickly and quietly, without any luggage. One or two of the guests were only partially dressed as they scurried out and got into their cars and drove out of the motel’s parking lot.
“They’re leaving but no one seems to be driving away. They seem to be going across the street,” he said with a nervous laugh. “I’ve seen some of the cars pull into the shopping center and park in front of the supermarket facing the motel.”
He paced around the room for a while. At one point he walked over and slapped Kate hard enough to knock her over, chair and all. She felt the scrape of the cheap carpet and smelled the faint hint of dirt and mildew in it.
While he paced, he kicked her several times as she lay on the floor catching her in the ribs and on her thighs, although she tried to roll up and prevent him from getting a good kick to her stomach.
Soon he returned to the window, cautiously standing to one side as he watched the final guests depart. The departure of the other motel guests almost diverted his attention from the legion of police officers creeping up to surround the room. Nothing could divert his attention enough to make him fail to notice the fleet of squad cars parked all over the street.
“There’s enough police cars parked around the motel to catch the whole Capone mob and Bonnie and Clyde all at once,” he complained.
Kate heard an unusual car horn. It was her signal to try to divert Jerry’s attention. She began to make as much sound as she could in spite of the tape over her mouth. Finally, exasperated by the collection of groans and whimpers coming from behind the tape, Jerry pulled it off her mouth. Kate yelped from the pain of the ripping tape, then began to argue loudly and petulantly that she wanted to be untied because she had to go to the bathroom! It was the first diversion that came to her mind, and it had the dubious bonus of being the truth. He refused to untie her but he did lift her enough to set the chair upright again.
Her ploy failed to get Jerry far enough away from the window, and did not stop him from peaking out to watch the activity in the street. She couldn’t think of another plan. She gritted her teeth and, like a scene from an old movie, began to rock the chair. It was a struggle but she managed to tip the chair back over onto its side. She gave a loud yelp as she tumbled to the floor once again, and finally got some of Jerry’s attention away from the window. He came over to jerk both her and the chair upright again but she wanted to stay down. She resisted him by going limp and causing him to contend with her dead weight.
As soon as Jerry had moved away from the window the police shot teargas into the room, shattering the window. The thick cloud of caustic fumes immediately filled the room. Jerry tried to withstand the gas and fumes but dropped his weapon and collapsed to the floor.
Several officers in gas masks entered the room. Two of them quickly secured the weapon and handcuffed Jerry. The other two grabbed Kate, chair and all, and carried her from the room. Bob and John ran over to where the officers set Kate’s chair down. As soon as Kate was cut loose from the chair Bob enfolded her in his arms. He kissed her tenderly, and she knew it was finally over. Bob rode with John in the car behind the ambulance as she was then transported to the nearest medical center to be treated for any effects from the tear gas, as well as checked for any other injuries from Jerry’s rough treatment.
While she waited impatiently for the emergency room doctor to treat her Bob stayed by her side. She was shaking violently with delayed reaction, and there were tears streaming down her face. She knew that not all of the tears were from the teargas. She also felt nauseous. When the doctor came in, she sent Bob away while she worked on Kate.
Before leaving, Bob took the doctor aside and made a small request. Then he went to use the phone to make a few very important calls. The last call was to Ida.
As usual the doctor’s first question was a blunt, “Are you pregnant?”
Kate shrugged, biting her lip and trying to count in her head, “I suppose it’s possible, barely possible, but it’s far too soon to tell.”
“How long?” she asked in a clinical tone.
“Three weeks,” Kate answered, “but it’s doubtful, there was only one time that we forgot to be careful.”
“And how many times does it take?” the doctor chided gently.
“With me, I get pregnant even thinking about it,” Kate admitted, managing a small grin. “I have three kids already.”
“I’m going to treat you as if you are pregnant but I don’t see any reason to test you yet. Unless you want to know right away?” the doctor asked.
“I’m not worried about it. If I don’t find out in another week or so, I’ll take a home test.” Kate smiled. “I told Bob that we’d have quadruplets because twins run in both our families.”
“Oh, you wicked woman. Did he buy that?” the doctor asked,
smiling.
“No, but he can’t totally dismiss it either,” Kate told her. “He shrugs it off and then gets this weird look on his face.”
“Good,” the doctor smiled wickedly, “keep him guessing.” She got down to business. “I know he kicked you, did he manage to kick you in the abdomen?”
“Not a hard kick, I curled up the best I could,” Kate told her. “He got my ribs once pretty good though.”
Now that some of her good humor had been restored Kate underwent the rest of the exam and treatment with quiet patience, although it was unnerving that Jerry had been handcuffed and brought to the same hospital. Part of her brain kept screaming, he’s here!
Gradually she began to feel better aside from a few bruises, some sore ribs, and the lingering effects of the teargas. When the doctor finished with her the police asked her a few questions. She made arrangements to go to the station for a full statement the next day. Bob drove her to his house and took gentle, loving care of her.
There was a gift-wrapped box about the size of a shirt box, only quite a bit deeper, waiting on the steps to his house. It was wrapped in all-occasion paper, a colorful floral print, and had a large pink bow on it. Bob picked it up and handed it to Kate.
“I’m really excited for you to open this. In fact, I can’t wait for you to open it, but I have to tell you first that I had to have a lot of help getting it put together.” He kissed her, draping an arm around her shoulder. “Come inside and open it. Then I’ll tell you about all the people who helped me put this together.”
She went into the house with him. The gleam in his eye told her it was a very special gift, and she was so excited by it that for once she had no patience with the dogs as they greeted her. The puppies were fenced into the kitchen, but Teddy and Charger could jump the barrier and roam throughout the house.