“Is that a Camel non-filter?” Logan asked, pointing to the cigarette in Ben’s hand.
“Yeah, so?” Ben replied as he held the cigarette up and looked at it.
“So? So where were you when the fire started?” Logan asked him.
“What? Why would you ask me that? Who do you think you are, a cop?” Ben asked in an annoyed tone, standing up a little straighter than he'd been.
“Why were you in the staging room the other night? And where were you coming from the day I saw you out on the loading dock?”
“What are you trying to get at?” George asked gruffly.
“What I’m getting at is your buddy Ben here has been screwing around with things, causing issues for Gertie. And, you might be doing it too. In fact, you were the only one not accounted for during the fire.”
Logan nodded his head as he saw them both move nervously after he made his statement, the two of them looking at each other.
“That’s right, I’d be nervous too if I were you. And, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll spill the beans right now and tell me what’s going on. If you speak up now I can help you both, otherwise, all bets are off and you’re on your own.” Logan stepped closer to them as he said this, and he could sense their panic. Their facial expressions gave them away.
“Okay! Alright already! I lied about smoking that day. Yes, I smoke. But that’s not where I had been coming from when I saw you. I was feeding the homeless. I sneak food to them,” Ben said.
“What?” Logan asked incredulously, not prepared for the explanation Ben had just given him.
“Uh yeah, that’s also why I wasn’t around when the fire alarms went off that day. I was taking food to them. The homeless people, I mean,” George chimed in.
Logan stared at the two of them, at a loss for words.
“We sneak the food out of the kitchen. That’s where I was when the fire started, the kitchen. I was getting it together to give to George. We only use the food that’s going to be thrown away, though. We didn’t think anyone would mind, but if it’s that big of a deal then—”
“You were in the kitchen when the fire started?” Logan asked as he cut Ben off.
“Yes. You can ask that new chef lady, Sarah, if you don’t believe me. She was helping me out because her brother was homeless before and she knows how hard they have it.”
“Does anyone else here smoke Camel non-filters?” Logan asked. He'd already determined after years of questioning suspects these two weren’t guilty of anything aside from feeding the homeless.
“Um, what? I’m not sure. Not too many people that work here smoke besides us two. One of the servers, Christina, does, but she smokes those long brown cigarette things,” Ben said, making a face.
“What about Noah?” Logan asked.
“No, Noah doesn’t smoke,” they both said in unison.
“I’m pretty sure I saw him out here before, though.” Logan looked back and forth between Ben and George.
They both shrugged, and Ben tossed his cigarette down, grinding it out with his heel.
“Well he’s never joined us to smoke. As far as I know, he doesn’t smoke at all. And we see him a lot during the day. So, are we in trouble for the food, we will cover the cost.”
Logan wasn’t hearing a word Ben was saying, he was too busy putting new clues together. Ben had just stubbed out his cigarette with his foot. Like everyone else who smoked did. Yet, when he'd seen Noah the other day, he'd been leaning over to put his cigarette out with his hands. Except that wasn’t what he'd been doing, that’s what Logan had assumed he'd been doing.
What he'd really been doing was picking one up. He'd picked up one of Ben’s cigarette butts and there could only be one reason for him to do that. He wanted to frame Ben for the fire. And there’s only one reason he would want to do that. Noah had been the culprit all along.
18
Harper opened her eyes slowly, the back of her head throbbing. She felt groggy, and when she went to rub her head she found she couldn’t move her arms. As she became more alert she soon realized she was taped to an old wooden dolly, unable to move her arms or legs.
Looking around she could tell she was in an old mill. Where the mill was, she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t O’Rourke’s. The inside was a large wide-open space and had deteriorated badly. There were windows that had broken through the years, allowing the outside elements access to the inside. Some of the wood had rotted because of this, and there were weeds growing in random cracks in the floor. The large windows were fogged with dirt built up over the years, a few of them cracked and others had holes in them.
She told herself not to panic and tried to remember what had happened before she'd passed out. Work. She'd been at work, downstairs in the basement. Looking for Gertie.
She suddenly heard some movement towards her side and jerked her head as far as she could to try to see what it was, barely making out a dark shadow walking towards her. She could tell it was a person.
“Why are you doing this, Ben?” she asked loudly, refusing to let her fear come through in her voice, even though she was scared.
A male’s laughter echoed throughout the large open space, making her head pound even more.
“Ben? Is that who you think is behind all this? That’s the best news I’ve heard all day! That means my plan worked. Let’s just hope that nosy IT moron thinks it’s Ben, too.”
Harper was too shocked to say anything, immediately recognizing the voice.
It wasn’t Ben, it was Noah.
She slowly started to piece together the clues from the past few days. Looking back, she realized she should have known it was him all along. Noah had been the one with the blueprints the day she'd seen he and the others downstairs. And he also had access to the computers and could have generated new plans for the runway to be reconfigured. He'd done plans for the inventory and if he knew how to do that, then he could have accessed all the files. He’d played dumb when she asked, but of course he would if he were the culprit.
“Why are you trying to ruin Gertie’s business? What did she ever do to you? And what do I have to do with any of this?” She watched as he paced around aimlessly.
“I did it because that old bat deserves to be ruined. She’s a horrible person and now there’s no hope for my mom. Gertie’s gonna pay for it. And you? You snooped around too much. With your stupid GoPro and your stupid questions. And trying to find her, why do you care so much about her anyway? If you had just minded your own business, you wouldn’t be here. But instead you got in my way.”
Harper had no idea what he was talking about. He sounded unhinged, and judging by his frantic pacing, he was at his wit’s end. Maybe he was delusional. What did his mother even have to do with anything? She immediately thought the worst for Gertie and knew she needed to get herself free, so she could find her. Hopefully, Logan was looking for her, maybe he'd already figured out it was Noah that had been doing the sabotage all along. She looked around again, realizing wherever she was it wasn’t at work. How would Logan even know where to find her?
“What do you mean, there’s no hope for your mom?” she asked him, wriggling her wrists behind her, and trying to get them out of the duct tape while keeping him busy talking about his mom.
“My mom is sick. Real sick. She’s been in the hospital for months. She needs a transplant.”
Harper feigned sadness, trying to sympathize with him.
“Oh no! That’s horrible. But, what does that have to do with Gertie? Does your mom know her?” Harper was still clueless where this was heading. She knew Gertie didn’t have any kids, and she'd never really talked about any family either. She’d always referred to the employees as her family. Clearly, Noah was nuts. He'd always seemed normal to her when she'd dealt with him at work, but it hadn’t been very often.
“Ha! She never told you, huh? Wow, what a shocker. Yeah, she was always ashamed of us. But that’s gonna change. I’m gonna show her. She’s about to see what it feels like
to wish you were dead. It’s been a long time coming! You wanna watch?”
Harper tried not to look horrified as she looked at him, sweat dripping from his hairline onto his forehead. Was he really talking about killing Gertie?
“Err, no I don’t want to watch. Are you saying Gertie is your—”
“Grandmother. Yep, she’s my grandmother who abandoned us, and now my mom is gonna die. And none of this would be happening if Gertie had stepped up. You guys all act like she’s this nice old lady, and she isn’t. She’s a bad person who threw my mom away when she was a baby like she was a piece of trash.”
“I’m still a bit confused, Noah, but I know if my mom was still alive I would be at the hospital with her, not kidnapping people! She needs you, doesn’t she? What if something happens to her and you aren’t there?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Red! I can’t help her! Don’t you get it?!” Noah yelled, obviously irritated as he kicked at a piece of wood on the floor, sending it skittering across the room, the noise echoing eerily throughout the mill.
Harper didn’t get it, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. At least not how she wanted to, which was by whacking him like he'd done to her. Noah was a big guy and she knew she couldn’t take him.
“Why can’t you help her?”
“My mom needs a kidney, and I’m not a match.”
Harper still couldn’t piece together what this had to do with Gertie. Was Gertie really Noah’s grandmother? How was that even possible? He must be delusional, and this was some story he'd made up in his mind. Despite how crazy it all was, Harper realized this could be her ticket to freedom if she played her cards right.
“Hey, wait a minute. If Gertie is your grandmother then she could donate a kidney, couldn’t she? She would be a match, right? I’m sure she would do it! She likes me, and I can talk her into it if she isn’t sure. But we need to hurry, I’m sure time is really critical for your mom.”
Noah stared at her, his big arms crossed at his chest. He was such a big guy, and Harper had no idea how she could get away from someone who probably weighed twice as much as she did. She might be able to outrun him, but she also knew Gertie was in this mill somewhere and she couldn’t leave her here with this nutjob.
“You think she would listen to you, huh?” he asked her, staring at her intently.
“Yes! She would listen to me! But, she would be mad if she saw me like this. She isn’t going to focus on what I’m saying if I am tied up. So, let me go, and let’s take care of this.”
19
Logan stormed into Gertie’s office calling out her name. He weaved through the array of flowers and plants that had been sent to her and made his way to the window, looking below to see if she or Harper were outside. His instincts told him Noah had them both. He still didn’t know the reason why, but he was positive it was Noah who had been causing all the problems.
As he rushed out of the office he ran into Tanner.
“Is she here? I have been calling her for hours!” Tanner brushed by Logan and stepped into Gertie’s office, making a face at all the flowers inside.
“No. Have you talked to her at all since she left this morning, did she call you after she left?” Logan watched Tanner’s facial expression when he realized Gertie wasn’t there. He knew something was wrong, Logan could see it on his face.
“What is going on? Harper has been telling me someone was sabotaging things, are she and Gertie okay? Where are they?”
Logan hesitated to tell Tanner the truth. He didn’t want to assume Tanner could help him out with this. He knew he'd caused problems before for Gertie, but he also knew he'd tried to fix what he'd done. And, he knew he loved his niece, Harper. He was also pretty sure he had a thing for Gertie too.
“Logan, I know every trick in the book when it comes to trying to ruin a business. If something’s going on, I might be able to help you,” Tanner said.
Logan explained to Tanner everything he knew as they walked downstairs to the basement area. They weaved their way around the storage rooms and hallways and ended up on the loading dock, with no sign of Noah or the two women.
“So, right now we need to figure out where Noah could be, and hopefully that will lead us to Gertie and Harper,” Logan said, looking around the empty loading dock.
Meow!
The cat jumped up onto the loading dock and trotted over to him, winding itself between his legs as it purred.
“Sorry, buddy, I don’t have time to feed you now,” Logan said absently. The cat jumped back down and scurried through the hole under the fence, trotting towards the decrepit old mill that loomed in the background.
Logan watched it weave through the grass towards the abandoned mill. He started to feel uneasy, his instincts kicking in.
“Is that mill abandoned?” Tanner asked Logan.
“Yep.”
“Oh no.” They broke into a jog after the cat.
Logan shivered as he remembered the last time he'd been inside that building, back when he was on the force. It was isolated, and no one could hear what was going on inside. He recalled the creepy water wheel, the water still inside the building. That building was dangerous in more ways than one.
20
Big T paced around the old abandoned mill, second-guessing his decision. He'd been so focused on himself being the only person who could donate a kidney to his mom, he hadn’t even thought about Gertie being able to do it. Of course, Gertie could donate her kidney, it was her own daughter that needed the kidney, they had to be a match!
But what if Gertie refused to donate? She wouldn’t refuse. Now that Harper knew about it, of course Gertie would donate, she wouldn’t want anyone thinking she was a horrible person! Besides, what Harper had said was true, Gertie liked her. She could probably talk the old woman into donating her kidney. Things had finally fallen into place for him! He would make sure his mom got the kidney now, no matter what. Things were looking up!
He ran over to Harper and moved swiftly behind her, grabbing at the duct tape on her wrists and tearing it off, then did the same with the tape around her legs and upper body.
“Follow me!” he yelled at her as he ran across the large room then went to the right, heading off through a wide opening.
The room had a giant water wheel inside, which had seen better years. It was made of wood and run by huge mechanical metal gears that were now rusty and looked as though they would break in half at any moment.
Big T’s heart lurched as he looked at the giant wheel. He'd balanced Gertie’s wheelchair on one of the huge paddles. His intent had been to make the old bat suffer, to sit and look helplessly at the dark water below her, and not be able to get away. But the wheelchair now sat empty. They were too late; either she'd jumped or fallen into the water below.
“What have you done?” Harper screeched.
“Hey! Is someone up there? Get me out of here! Noah Timmons!”
Harper and Big T looked at each other with their mouths wide open then ran to the edge of the water wheel where the water was. About ten feet down in the black water was Gertie, floating around and looking up at them.
“What the hell is wrong with you people? I have a show to run! Get me out of here, now!”
“Gertie, you’re alive!” Harper yelled excitedly.
Big T, or Noah Timmons, as Gertie called him watched as Gertie bobbed around in the murky water below them, amazed at the woman’s feistiness. He'd just wanted to make her pay for all the years of misery he and his mom had endured. Hopefully, she wouldn’t hold that against his mom now.
He could see Harper walking closer to him from the corner of his eye, shouldn’t she be trying to help with getting Gertie out? This wasn’t a time to mess around, he'd let her go so she could help. He turned towards her to remind her what they should be doing.
Thwack!
Sparks flew inside his head and the cold wooden floor rushed up to greet him as everything faded to black.
Harper d
ropped the giant piece of old rusty metal she'd just hit Noah over the head with and rushed over to the hole to save Gertie. She glanced back over at Noah, unsure if she'd hit him too hard and possibly killed him. She couldn’t see his chest moving. Was he dead? She didn’t want to kill him, she just needed to disable him, so she could help Gertie. Whether Gertie was his grandmother or not, the guy needed some serious therapy!
“Hello! Is someone going to help me out of here or not!” Gertie yelled out in an agitated tone.
“I’m coming, Gertie!”
“Get my chair first! Don’t let it fall into the water for crying out loud! That chair was custom-made just for me!”
Harper struggled with the wheelchair that was teetering on one of the massive paddles, being careful not to have it, or herself, go tumbling into the water below. Gertie continued yelling instructions at her, her arms flailing around. The old woman really was a piece of work!
She moved to the back of the wheel and slowly turned it by leaning on each paddle until the wheelchair reached her and she could safely remove it. She pulled it towards her and pushed it off to the side then ran over to the hole where Gertie was. She laid down on her stomach and stuck her hand down for Gertie to grab.
“Here, try to grab my arm!” she yelled down, realizing that getting Gertie out of the hole was going to be much more difficult then she'd thought. Her arm wasn’t long enough to reach Gertie.
“Hold it right there!”
Harper shrieked and jumped up on her feet, holding her hands up in the air as she turned around. It was Logan and Tanner, both of whom immediately ran over to her.
“Oh, for crying out loud!” Gertie’s voice drifted up from the hole.
Careful What You Wish For Page 11