Hidden Threat

by Anthony Tata

  The woman seemed to study the computer for a moment and then smiled.

  “No two-for-one specials today, hon. Your grandma looks like she got herself that Russell guy. They tell me he can convince a judge to make a fish walk out of a pond.”

  Unable to even politely smile at the weak attempt at humor, Amanda chewed on that fingernail again, thinking. Okay, she had come this far. This was just an unexpected chess move. What was it that her dad always said? Something about the bad guys.

  “The enemy always gets a vote,” she whispered.

  She determined that she had come here to see her mother, and so she would.

  “Thank you.” Amanda smiled at Brenda. She then nodded to the guard who had been patiently waiting while Amanda digested the new information. The guard was a tall man with a shaven head. Easily he could have been mistaken for a dark Mr. Clean, including the biceps.

  They walked through a heavy-gauge steel door into a single room with a barren table and a chair on either side.

  “This room’s usually for attorneys and the prison—uh . . . and their clients, but the main visit area is maxed out. She’ll be with you in a sec.”

  She sat nervously at the table, crossed her legs and began kicking the elevated foot to burn the adrenaline. What am I doing here? she kept asking herself. Springing forth was a new, or perhaps rejuvenated, sense of nobility. That’s what she was doing here. She wanted to look her mother in the eyes and ask her, “Why?”

  Why did she divorce her father? Why did she chase him away? Why did she love the house more than her? It was really that simple. At the critical moment when Dagus had held the gun to her head and the foyer was on fire, her mother chose to try to save her investment.

  Perhaps she would never get an answer, but she had to try.

  As much as she was prepared for the moment, her mother’s presence shocked her. Melanie Garrett came into the room escorted by the dark Mr. Clean, his hand on her elbow. Her wrists were shackled with handcuffs that seemed longer than normal ones to her. She was wearing a flat gray jumpsuit with a number on the front. She looked down as she considered the thought that her mother was now number 945473. The number for some odd reason reminded her of when she and Jake had gone to see Les Miserables. Jean Valjean’s prison number was 24601, she remembered.

  Sitting in the chair across the table, she could feel her mother’s stare locked onto her face. Slowly she looked up and their gazes fixed, mother and daughter, prisoner and escapee.

  That’s how she viewed the situation, anyway. It occurred to her that she had been the one in emotional shackles, cheated of the freedom to love her father. She weighed two competing emotions within her. First was enormous guilt about the role which she had played in attacking her father. Riley Dwyer had convinced her that it wasn’t her fault, that she had never been given the chance. She had been imprisoned.

  Second was boiling disgust with her mother’s actions. Looking at her, she could not feel pity. Without makeup, her mother looked extraordinarily normal, even plain. No blonde highlights in the hair. No lip gloss. Even the botox seemed to be wearing off, leaving sagging eyelids and deep crow’s feet around the eyes. In fact, it occurred to Amanda how well she seemed to fit right in with the population here. A model inmate.

  “What took you so long?” Her mother fired the first shot across the table.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Amanda replied. She felt no further explanation was necessary. Another few seconds of awkward silence passed until her mother spoke.

  “Well, are you happy?” Her mother’s question could have been followed by . . . with what you’ve done?

  Amanda was somewhat thankful that her mother had started out antagonistic. It might make this easier, she thought. “Truly? For the first time, I think I have a shot. But, no, I’m not happy.”

  Her mother glared at her, seemingly unsure of what to make of Amanda’s new maturity. “Sounds like that shrink has been pumping you full of it, girlfriend.”

  “Mother, I came here to ask you why you did the things you did. That’s all. If you want to fight, I’m going to leave, and I promise you I will never come back. You will never see me again except for on the witness stand at your trial when I tell the judge everything you did.”

  “Your word against mine, Amanda. Remember, someone burned your daddy’s house down.”

  “Mother, have you ever heard of a flash drive?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s about the size of my thumb and can hold about a zillion gigabytes of information. My father scanned every document, e-mail, receipt, you name it, that is proof of your insurance fraud and all the other horrible things you did to him and me.”

  Her mother watched her for a moment, and Amanda thought she saw something blink deep in her eyes. Perhaps it was the fear a thief feels when he recognizes that he left a major clue behind, having believed his tracks were sufficiently covered.

  “No judge will ever believe that computer crap. Never heard of it.”

  She ran her hands along her pants and said, “Well, Mom, I guess that’s it, then. If you can’t admit to it—”

  “What, are you wearing a wire? Is that it? You come in here trying to entrap me?”

  Amanda looked over at Mr. Clean, who had stepped toward them. Holding up her hand, she turned to her mother. She stood and lifted her polo shirt and ran a hand down her bare midriff then twirled in place.

  “See, mom, no wires. Just me. No games. All I want is for you to tell me why. I deserve that. You and Nina have screwed up at least two lives, and I can’t believe that you are so self-involved that you can’t tell your own daughter why you did it all.”

  Amanda kept her eyes fixed on her mother, who showed the first sign of cracking when she lifted her manacled hands from the gray table and covered her eyes. Accordingly, she felt herself giving in just a bit, hoping and praying that her mother would be able to give her some insight into what had driven her to the decisions that she made.

  “You come in here and demand from me, your mother, a confession!” She was screaming now. “How dare you!”

  Amanda remained calm as she gently pushed away from the table, turned toward Mr. Clean, and nodded. “I’m done with her.”

  The tall, dark man lifted Melanie Garrett from the chair while she was still screaming, “How dare you!” over and over again. Her face was contorted, veins popping out of her neck, eyes bulging, and teeth baring like a baying animal. And perhaps she was.

  “Mother,” Amanda said.

  Mr. Clean stopped as they were half way through the door that would lead her mother back into the prison cell block. By now her mother was heaving and breathing rapidly. The guard stared at her as if she had exactly five seconds to make her point.

  “Did you know that Nina has been released? Some hotshot lawyer named Russell.”

  That put Melanie Garrett over the edge. She began screaming, “Noooo!”

  Amanda watched her disappear behind the hulking man and then the heavy steel door. The pervasive latching sound had the tone of finality.

  As she departed the interview room, Amanda stared at the tile floor. Somehow she made it to the front door, never acknowledging Brenda’s call out to her to “have a good day.”

  Outside, the sun blaring in her face, Amanda looked over her shoulder at the Metro Women’s Prison. Could a man-made structure hold back her demons? she wondered.

  Inside the Mercedes she leaned into the headrest and closed her eyes. With her hands on the steering wheel, she then leaned forward, resting her forehead on the leather.

  She was overcome with sadness at the fact that her mother, in the end, was incapable of loving her. All any child, herself included, ever wanted was their parents’ love. Every child deserved that unconditional love.

  She sobbed into her hands, shaking softly in the comfortable leather seat.

  Amanda looked up from her hands as the thought occurred to her that some things were inexplicable. Just
as she believed in God, she had to also accept the reality that evil existed for its own sake—to destroy and ruin.

  And evil it was.

  CHAPTER 86

  Charlotte, NORTH CAROLINA

  Amanda drove slowly past downtown Charlotte and into Dilworth to Riley Dwyer’s house. After making one stop along the way to eat, she pulled into the cul-de-sac. Out of the corner of her eye something registered, but she became focused on Riley’s open garage door. She eased into the open spot on the left, narrowly avoiding Riley’s SUV on her right. It was a tight fit, but Amanda would leave her the keys if she needed to move the car while she was in Africa.

  It was early afternoon and Amanda did not have to be at the airport for four more hours, but she wanted to get there early enough to get through security without any issues. She had never been to Africa, and traveling there with a small group of strangers was unsettling.

  She locked her car with the key fob and then knocked on the door from the garage that led into the house. After a couple more knocks went unanswered, she opened the unlocked door and peered into the mudroom, which led to the kitchen.

  “Riley? You there?”

  Silence.

  “Riley?” She called a bit louder this time.

  Stepping into the house, she walked carefully into the kitchen. It was neat and well kept. On the kitchen table was an opened envelope which had a long piece of scotch tape on the outside. The tape had some whitish tailings on the adhesive side as if it had been used and then removed from something.

  She lifted the envelope, turning it over in her hand. On the flat side she saw that Riley had written her name, “Amanda . . . I’m terribly sorry.” Her writing was in wild, but neat, slanted cursive. Just how she imagined Riley would write, loose but in control.

  Sorry? What could she be sorry about?

  Perplexed and thinking that Riley must be upstairs, Amanda walked from the kitchen into the foyer. There were no lights on in the house that she could see. Eerily quiet, the home seemed empty, almost vacant. Looking down the long hallway into the den with the tiger-striped chaise lounge and the safari-themed plants, she saw that the mini-blinds were closed. The room was dark, save a few shards of the dull gray afternoon light sneaking past the gaps.

  “Riley?” She jumped at her own voice, its sound foreign to the still home.

  Her footsteps thudded dully off the hardwood in the hallway as she passed the lavatory on the left and the study on the right. As she approached the opening, she saw that the sofa across the den was vacant, as was the lounge chair across from the television.

  She turned toward the tiger-striped chaise that she had lain upon when she first truly opened up to Riley several nights ago.

  “Surprised?”

  Amanda jumped back against the wall as if an invisible force was pinning her against the plasterboard. She tried to move her arms as Gabrielle Hastings stood from her secluded position on the chaise longue.

  “What are you doing here?” It was all she could muster. Then a horrible thought occurred to her. “What have you done to Riley?”

  Nina walked slowly toward her. She was wearing a dark-blue denim jacket and black pants. Old aerobics shoes on her feet, she appeared nimble and ready to leap.

  “Thought you outsmarted me, did you? Should have learned, Amanda. You may have tricked me there for a minute, but I’m a survivor, and don’t you forget that. I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I know that there is no God and that the only life you get is this one. If you don’t take from others, they take from you. It’s the way life is, Amanda. Do you understand?”

  Nina’s words were the barren echoes of a despondent woman. That notwithstanding, Amanda noticed the glint of steel in Nina’s hand as one of the slivers of light shone on it like a laser beam.

  “What are you going to do, Nina, kill me? Where’s Riley?”

  Amanda remembered watching Old Yeller with her father. Her grandmother had that rabid look of a dog with hydrophobia. The only thing missing was the foaming at the mouth. No question that Nina had gone mental.

  “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do just yet. Maybe if that slut had been here I would have gotten it out of my system already. Maybe then I would be in a better frame of mind.”

  Amanda played with her purse a moment, suddenly remembering the story Nina had mentioned to her about the time she had stabbed her step-father with a pitchfork. Fear bottled up in her throat.

  She looked toward the chaise longue and saw an opened piece of paper on the coffee table. The note Riley had left for her. She felt a sigh of relief knowing that Riley was not a corpse in her own house, though the immediate danger to herself recaptured her attention quickly.

  “You’re sick, Nina. I never saw it before, but now that I’m free of you and Mama, it’s like I never knew anything else.”

  Amanda looked toward the back door where she heard a noise. Gus Randel came walking in the double French doors that led to the deck.

  “Gus, oh, am I glad you are here!” Amanda gasped, running toward her mother’s boyfriend. She hugged him hard, remembering all the times he had sided with her against her mother. As she wrapped her arms around him, she noticed that he didn’t reciprocate. She pushed away from his muscular frame.

  Looking into his eyes, she instantly knew that something was wrong. He had a thousand-yard stare, looking through her. She had never seen evil personified, but at this moment she thought that he might be a good candidate.

  “You know what to do,” Nina said to Gus. “She’s yours if you want her.” Then she said to Amanda, “Payback’s a bitch.”

  Gus’s grip tightened on Amanda. She temporarily broke free then pushed him hard in the chest.

  “What the hell are you doing listening to this crazy bitch!”

  He was unfazed and continued to come toward her. Nina was to her front now with something in her hand. Gus Randel was to her left toward the back door and moving in her direction. She reached up and tilted the sofa back, blocking Gus’s progress, then ran for the front door. Nina looked toward the door, her head moving like that of a predator protecting its kill—a T. rex sizing up its prey.

  There was a sound in the driveway. Amanda pulled open the front door but saw no one. She then turned to look as she heard two car doors slam, followed by, “Amanda?”

  After a moment, she looked back at Nina and Gus.

  Who were gone.

  The back door past the sofa was slightly ajar. Amanda remained frozen in place as Harlan Foxworth and Mary Ann Singlaub came into the house through the garage.

  “Amanda?” Mary Ann called out from the foyer.

  Amanda turned her head toward the front door as a wave of relief washed over her. “They were just here! My grandmother and Gus Randel. They did all this!”

  Harlan stepped outside, looked around the corner and then came back in. “Calm down, Amanda. The police have them in custody.”

  “What? How?” Amanda stepped outside into the humid afternoon sun. She saw a red mustang parked behind a police cruiser that was flashing its blue lights. Two uniformed cops had Gus and Nina in handcuffs. They were standing in the street. One uniform was talking on a Motorola radio.

  Amanda could see a man dressed in civilian clothes holstering a pistol.

  “Principal Rugsdale?”

  Harlan nodded. “It seems your principal Mr. Rugsdale is a reserve detective in the police force. He worked the staged crime scene at Dagus’s house for what are now obvious reasons. The memory chip they found at your teacher’s house turned out to be Randel’s. Apparently Randel had planted it there. There were several deleted pictures that the digital exploitation team was able to recover. It seems that you never really erase something from a hard drive.”

  Amanda had been looking at the stone porch, leaning against Mary Ann, who was hugging her from behind.

  “No, I guess not,” Amanda whispered. “It’s all still there.”

  “Anyway, Rugsdale reviewed the chip, an
d they found several deleted photos of Gus Randel with women, most of whom appeared unconscious. Of course, this led to a warrant to search Randel’s condo in Spartanburg. He had downloaded all of these photos onto his laptop. We also found out that he had a contract with the Charlotte Observer to use the name Del Dangurs.”

  “How did Dagus get involved in all of this?”

  “Simple,” Harlan continued. “His media watchdog group had been pursuing Del Dangurs for years for publishing bogus stories. He had been collecting Dangurs’ stories; that’s what you found. The article written to compromise your dad’s credibility finally gave him a causus belli with the editors of The Observer. The exploitation team found some talking points on his computer referencing unverified sources in the article. Dagus apparently believed he was going to be famous for using the story Randel wrote on your father as an example of journalists just making stuff up. He was fighting to show that the article was bogus when your grandmother offered him up Brianna.

  “But don’t have too much sympathy for him, either. Despite the nobility of his effort with the reporting, we have identified several fifteen- to seventeen-year-old girls he has manipulated and taken advantage of, based on his computer files. Some are stepping forward, others not.”

  Amanda slipped away from Mary Ann and sat down on the steps.

  “What chaos.”

  “These are the types of people your grandmother and mother held dear.”

  Amanda stared at the bricks, an emptiness overtaking her.

  “This was all so Dagus wouldn’t expose the article about my dad as bogus?”

  “That’s the way it seems. Your father’s house was burned down, Jake was set up for it, a man is dead, and your mother and grandmother stand to spend a very long time in prison, all because they wanted to suppress the memory of your father.

  “Hence, my advice to—”

  “Stay out of the way.” All three of them said it in unison.

  Mary Ann gave her a moment and then asked, “Ready to go save the world?”

  “Just a second,” Amanda replied as she regained her composure. Her heart was pounding like a war drum in her chest. She walked back into the house, leaned over the coffee table and picked up the note. She carried it back to the porch, where Harlan and Mary Ann looked at her. Opening the note, she read: