Ripping Abigail, a Quilted Mystery novel

by Sullivan, Barbara

  For those of you in the know, even the iPad doesn’t guarantee WiFi connectivity everywhere. But of course Gerry had the upgraded iPad WiFi+3G. And she’d spooled on and on about having easy Free WiFi Radar, so with all the extras and frees, we were tuning into to live television just about most of the time. But then, this was Southern California.

  Only once did I try to call Matt, but I hung up quickly when I thought about what he would say when he discovered we were on the way. I didn’t want to hear his objections. They were undoubtedly correct.

  I was going in anyway.

  It’s the fifth gene on my motivation chromosome. I see a problem. I get involved. I take charge. I don’t sit and watch others do anything and nothing. I do!

  Funny how I was just discovering this gene…after a lifetime of taking orders and being a (mostly) passive librarian-type. Funny how I turned out to be a heroine, at least in my own mind.

  Dark rivulets began running down the windshield about halfway to our destination, and Hannah’s racing drive turned to a creep. Another of Southern California’s road-kill fogs was settling in.

  Gerry said, gazing out the western side window into the darkness of pre-dawn, “You know, more people are slaves today than ever before and the numbers are increasing. And worse, children and women are the most often targeted. That’s because even though slavery exists as forced labor and indentured servitude, most of the victims of this vile crime are used for sex and pornography. These girls we are going to save are children. Maybe not very young children, but they are all freshman in high school, and they are still children. I know.”

  Gerry was referring to her teaching experience, on the high school level. She was also thinking about the kind of individuals we would be encountering when we finally reached our destination. My belly shark leapt for joy, and I now knew the names of two of my stupid butterflies, Svetlana and Igor. They were doing Le Corsaire, most of it en pointe, on my stomach walls.

  She continued, as if speaking to herself, “I think I need to do a fundraiser for this issue. Maybe connect with Demi and Ashton. They’re doing great work in this area.”

  I woke up. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher? The cougar and her cub?

  Matt and I definitely have to get on the Patrone’s guest list.

  “You better hurry.” Hannah.

  As in, the marriage won’t last? But she wouldn’t expand on the statement, even if I was dumb enough to ask. Hannah was too much of a lady for that.

  The fog rivulets turned into rain streaks. I was praying we’d reach our target before the sun came up, because using the iPad, we’d watched the television coverage and there were police cars, black FBI SUV’s, green Homeland Security vans, and giant white buses I knew to be SWAT Team transports--and maybe even ME vans--multiplying like maggots all around the area to the east of the little house.

  It was lit up like a football stadium—like an early sunrise. Surely the kidnappers knew they were about to be attacked.

  And just down the road to the south a media convention was setting up with enough satellite dishes to cover the Olympics. How did they get them there so fast?

  The iPad grabbed my attention again.

  “…Hidalgo, the horrific Mexican drug gang that controls most of the illegal trade in Tijuana now, is run by someone who calls himself Antipapa. The locals are terrified of him. His first born son is his emissary to the United States.

  “His son is nicknamed ContraCristo. Nice family, huh, Bret? I hope he gets as good as he’s given. My version of biblical vengeance.”

  “Everyone’s, Geraldo.”

  I guessed Greta had gone to bed. I was wishing I could do the same. The heat in the car was so high I was doze-viewing. Gerry’s fingers flashed around her iPad in a blur as she changed channels for more info—or was she researching something?

  I said, “Maybe we should turn down the heat so you don’t fall asleep at the wheel, Hannah.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I’m not, I wanted to reply. But she was driving. Then my brain kicked in despite it all. “You know, they’ve got this place surrounded….”

  “That’s what I was wondering. How are we going in?” Hannah.

  She was hyped on adrenaline--the joy of danger. Her other life was homeschool, kids, homeschool, cleaning, homeschool, farming….

  “Except for the south and west sides. It looks like it’s all open fields next to the house on those two sides. Let me see if I can find anything more current….” Gerry said. She was working her iPad, changing Google views of the mostly vacant land around the little house.

  “But what about your XLX? I don’t want the billionaire calling me up in the middle of the night.” I said.

  “It’s a rental. Don’t worry. He doesn’t behead horses.”

  Okay, I didn’t say that, she did.

  So that was why she had so many expensive cars. Probably wrote the rentals off as a business expense.

  “You know what I’m wondering…” Hannah said. “…how did these Hidalgo guys know about Abigail and her friend? And why did they go out of their way to attack her? And Buddy. How did they know about Buddy?”

  “Good question. But we know that the Hidalgos had infiltrated the Pintos. So they were present when Abigail pissed off the Pintos. Maybe that’s when they decided to add to their intended prey, the Indian girls. To escalate things. Maybe they’d been sampling too much of their own drugs to think straight; to remember that stealing a white girl would bring the wrath of the American government down on their heads.” Me.

  Gerry said, “But why would they go north of the border to kidnap Indian girls when they are more easily available in Mexico? I’m thinking the Hidalgos now messing around in America were under orders to do something very different, something more exploratory, in the area of drug trafficking. And maybe there’s something about these particular Indian girls we still don’t understand. Something that connects them to Abigail, something that makes these particular girls more valuable in the sex-slave market.

  “Brains. Abigail is very intelligent, and an artist. What do we know about Betty and Rosalia?” Me.

  “Unfortunately, not much,” Hannah.

  “Listen to this.” Gerry.

  It was Geraldo again. We listened.

  “Folks, I’ve just received an email from some people in the Pintos Springs area. They claim to be members of the local high school gang, the Pintos, the one that was infiltrated by these bad dudes across the border. They’re saying that they’re really sorry about what’s happened to these three women….”

  “I bet they are, Geraldo, two of their boys have been found murdered so far,” Bret said.

  “Three, Bret. I know. But the point I’m trying to make here is they are telling me they’re getting a posse together to go down to this little house south of Donovan Prison and rescue these girls.…”

  “Uh-oh. That will complicate things, won’t it, Rachel?” Hannah.

  But I wasn’t listening. I was planning.

  “Look up Donovan prison, Gerry,” I said.

  She did. The mission statement of the Richard J. Donovan Correction Facility listed its primary facilities and functions. The facility is a medium-high level prison.

  Gerry. “Look at this. It’s got some sort of ‘sensitive needs yard.’ What do you think that is?”

  Hannah. “Maybe for the mentally challenged.”

  “More likely for the violent-impulses challenged,” I offered.

  Gerry. “Oh, and look, Donovan prepares non-citizen inmates for release to US INS for return to their native lands. How nice.”

  Hannah made a humming noise. I was thinking they were being insincere.

  Gerry. “Maybe it’s a safe house, for the gang.”

  Then I wondered, “Why would a criminal gang set up a safe house right outside such a big law enforcement program? Aren’t safe houses usually for the recently incarcerated, a place where parolees adjust to real life again? ”

  Gerry. “Exactl
y. Maybe not a safe house. Maybe a hideout.”

  Hannah. “Maybe it’s just a vacant house that the gang has confiscated. But why? Unless they’re planning on breaking someone out later in the day, maybe while that someone is out in one of the low level security areas.”

  “A vacant house with electricity working….” I mused aloud.

  Hannah hummed again. Was she doing something Zen-like?

  Gerry. “Okay, then what are all those law enforcement types doing just sitting around near the little house? Why don’t they go inside and rescue the girls?”

  Exactly what I was thinking. And then Geraldo answered some of our questions.

  “Listen to this Bret. It turns out this little house belongs to one of the top guards at the prison. Apparently he and his wife have lived there for thirty years or more. Cue the map, boys.”

  The view on the iPad switched from Geraldo-by-the-road to a fairly detailed aerial shot of the house in question.

  “Good grief. They’ve got helicopters flying directly over the house. I guess it’s not going to be a sneak attack, after all.”

  Gerry was kidding. The football stadium lighting had already squashed that idea. I was studying the layout of the house.

  Hannah. “Can you see the surrounding land?”

  “Yes. We’re looking at it now,” I said.

  Hannah. “Maybe the cops are waiting because the house wasn’t vacant. Maybe they don’t want to do anything to get the guard and his family killed. Or, maybe…because they don’t know who it is the Mexican gang is waiting to break out of prison. Maybe it’s both situations, and they’re waiting for the actual escape attempt so they can identify this big bad boy that is sitting in a medium security facility when he should be in solitary confinement in a high security facility.”

  So there could be a family caught up in the middle of all this?

  Gerry. “Look, is that a dirt road leading up from the south? It’s hard to tell in the dark, but maybe it is. Maybe that’s how we can at least get close.”

  Hannah. “And then what?”

  Exactly. I had a semi-plan, but I wasn’t sharing it with my two apprentices. I didn’t want either of them getting hurt.

  Then the aerial view swooped around to the east side of the house where the cop convention was being held.

  Gerry. “But…God. I can’t stand this. It’s like they’re…they’re unable to decide what to do.”

  Hannah. “They’re wasting time! They should rush the bastards.”

  Gerry. “Probably taking a vote. Probably a bureaucratic work slow-down is in progress. Probably the union wants overtime for everyone before they proceed.”

  Our collective rage was boiling.

  Me. “Okay. Okay, let’s keep calm. Let’s map this out.”

  Gerry picked up my thread. “We’ll take 805 to 905, and then go east on Otay Mesa. Then find that little dirt road, and….and, hey! Look. Is that a hill to the north of the house?”

  For the next eleven minutes we blundered in and out of fog patches searching for turnoffs.

  Chapter 85

  Matthew Lyon’s LIRI Journal

  Sunday, Nov. 2, 5:05-5:20 am dictated outside the Main Line house

  I was doing all I could to hold my temper in check. But we were stuck in one big cluster-fuck.

  Nobody was taking charge. There were no generals.

  Check that. They were all generals.

  Everybody was posing for promotion pictures. I hate political gamesmanship—screws up the world. Which is probably why I never made general.

  And then we heard that a contingent of Pintos were on their way down the mountain to add to the chaos.

  I remembered the comment one parent had made during this long night: “Our boys aren’t like that. They’re like the Marines, man, they suffer and die and go to prison in defense of their homies, and they protect each other. We’re all about protection…not selling the women and girls.”

  Okay, I could buy that they thought of themselves as like the Marines. But we didn’t need them coming down here to enlist.

  Will Townsend pointed out that if we waited much longer the Hidalgos would figure a way out of their little mess. I agreed.

  He wanted to know why we didn't just go in and I asked him what plan he had in mind. I was frustrated. But the truth was, there was nothing we could do now.

  Will pointed out that the house was out of view. "We could just slip around the corner while these morons are all arguing with each other and take the house by force.”

  It's not like I hadn't thought of it. I just wasn't eager to die tonight. "They aren't going anywhere. We have them surrounded," I told Will. At least I thought we had the little house surrounded.

  I spotted a brief splash of light illuminating the hill to the immediate north of the house where the Hidalgos were presumably holding the girls. It was gone just as fast as it arrived.

  Probably searchlights from the chopper-soup flying around over our heads. But then another thought crept into my brain and my eyes returned to the now dark ridge.

  I asked for the binocs from Will. Night Hawk A-222s. They were damn good, which they should be, at just under three grand a pair. That was why we had only one pair.

  I began scanning the scrub covered hilltop.

  My first thought was tell me that isn’t Rachel. Tell me she didn’t’ drive down here to do something stupid.

  My second thought was maybe she’ll do something that will force our hand.

  But I couldn’t see any movement. I tried speed dialing my wife’s cell again. Again it went straight to voicemail. Maybe it was dead.

  Everything was fucked up.

  Chapter 86

  We’d bounced from crevice to crater for almost three miles across an “open field” to the west of the house, moving from bump to bigger bump, until we rounded behind the house. My teeth were rattling by the time we found our target—a small hill to the north of the hideaway house.

  Gerry had discovered on her iPad that the name of this modest mound was Snakebite Hill. And I hoped all the snakes were already hibernating.

  We skirted Snakebite until we located what looked like a road up. At least it seemed like it was, until we were fifty feet in, when the road disappeared. Then we pushed our way to the top like a snowplow climbing an avalanche.

  Hannah protested all the way; Gerry insisted she keep going. She was a billionaire’s wife.

  By the time we crested to level ground the front bumper and grill of Marshall Patrone’s XLX970 rental was holding enough fodder to feed a whole hopping herd of Australian Red Kangaroos.

  I was thinking maybe Matt and I would finally get to meet the owner of the local soccer team—and maybe one of his lawyers.

  And then we thought to turn off the headlights.

  “Do you think they saw us?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Hannah. They’re too preoccupied with their infighting to pay attention to a probable reporter finding his way to the top of the ridge. Have you got the flashlights, Gerry?”

  I needed them to remain calm.

  But I was worried. After the mess of media we’d passed on the way in, I knew the cops would be chasing us out soon, if they’d seen us, no matter who they thought we were.

  Hopefully they hadn’t.

  I was also hoping it would be the cops chasing us, not the bad guys.

  Below us, we knew, was the entire event, the cops, the FBI, unmarked cars, cruisers, crime scene van, SWAT team vehicle, and behind them the television vans and a gaggle of geese I knew were reporters there to protect the rights of the criminals as well as the victims. This whole mess was to the left, or east, of our real target however.

  On the way down I’d begun to think the long green vehicle visible on Gerry’s iPad wasn’t what I thought it was. Who knew what new agency might have joined this circus.

  Gerry said, “Let’s get the lay of the land. Turn the light switch all the way counter clockwise, Hannah, so the interior lights will b
e killed. That way we won’t light up like a Christmas tree when we step outside.”

  Hannah did as she was told. Our resident genius was still shaking in her boots from the goat-climb up Snakebite Hill.

  Then the three of us piled out of the XLX and let our eyes adjust to the moonlight, which was fairly strong. The fog hadn’t reached this far inland. We could easily make out four- and five-foot-high bushes all around us.

  We were standing in a bush forest, for cripes sake.

  That was when I noticed Gerry still had on high heels. They were gold lame sandals, actually. What was she thinking--we were going to a cop party? At least I knew she wouldn’t go far in them. I wanted my apprentices staying up here where it was safe.

  Hannah, on the other hand was wearing well-worn professional hiking boots, probably eco-friendly. I was dressed for a night jog, all in L.L.Bean colors. We were a sight.

  “There’s scrub everywhere up here. What’s the plan?” Gerry.

  “Find a coyote path?”

  “Good idea Hannah.” I wondered if I’d missed her sarcasm. She was hard to read sometimes, and I was very nervous. “Now be sure to keep your flashlights aimed at the ground while we observe.”

  For the next ten minutes we searched for a break in the underbrush while Gerry ouched and eeked with every half barefoot step. Finally we found a small clearing from which we could see the dimly lit safe-house about a quarter mile down, four football fields. I pulled out my binoculars and began studying it. Much later I would learn that Matt was searching for me around the same time.

  “You know, I don’t understand these guys kidnapping Indian girls. White girls I can see taking out their revenge on, but aren’t Mexicans a mixture of Spanish and indigenous?” Hannah.

  “Sure, but like any human society there’s a pecking order. Besides, the indigenous people have been fighting with the Mexican government on and off for years.” Gerry the former Spanish the teacher.

  “Well, that’s been settled right? I mean the latest war. And those people down by Guatemala are Mayans, aren’t they? As opposed to Aztecs, or any of the other indigenous groups sprinkled around Mexico?” Hannah the brilliant student, honing her knowledge.