The Widows of Sea Trail-Tessa of Crooked Gulley

by Jacqueline DeGroot

  I dreaded the call I had to make when I got home. But first, since I had such a long drive ahead of me, I began to plan Amy’s breakout. She could not be anywhere Carlos could find her, not until she was back to normal and could look after her own welfare. Until then, I supposed I was her new caretaker.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Saint Roman Bring her.”

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “If my choices are to have you here with Amy, or for

  you to not come, I am deadly serious. I’ll arrange another ticket and send you confirmation so you’ll have it in time.” “Roman, you don’t have to do that, I can buy her a ticket. Hell, when she’s better, she’ll have control of her money again, and can reimburse me.”

  “I don’t want to worry about either of you. Just accept the ticket and confirm the e-mail when it arrives.”

  “Are you sure you still want me to come because it’s going to be a different trip with me having to watch over her and all.”

  “I will not hear of you not coming . . . and coming, and coming,” he teased. “Just give me her full name and in the meantime, find her passport and driver’s license.”

  “Oh yeah, that would be helpful.”

  “When do you think she’ll be lucid enough to call on her bankers and her attorney?” he asked.

  “According to my pharmacist not for a few weeks.”

  “That’s too long, once Carlos gets wind of the fact that she’s out of the nursing home, he can move her funds very quickly. You’re going to need to type some letters for her. One for her bank, one for her attorney, and one for the local police, and maybe even one for the realtor. Even though she’s not ready to stand up in court and vouch for herself yet, she can, by her legal signature put a temporary hold on all her funds and on the sale of the house. She can call back the medical directives, her will, and her power of attorney. At least until her husband can regroup and fight her.”

  “Oh my gosh, I wouldn’t know how to go about doing all that.”

  “I do. And I know how to affect a red herring at the same time. I have some wonderful stationary from Burano I can use.”

  “Isn’t that in Italy?”

  “Yes, a remote island in the Venice Lagoons. If he goes looking for her when he discovers everything has dried up, he’ll just waste his time and money. My friend Mick is a barrister; we can work on the letters right away. Get me the names and addresses to put on the letters along with her account numbers at the bank and we’ll get the letters scanned to you so she can sign them and then you can post them by overnight mail. By the time he finds out he’s out of funds, she’ll be ensconced with us here. When the bank provides him with a copy of the letter, he’ll assume she’s in Italy. It could take him a week to get to that hotel in Burano. With luck, by the time he gets stateside again, Amy will be a raging bull ready to lock horns with him.”

  “You are so sweet to do all this, to help me with her like this.”

  “She’s your friend, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she’s mine, too. Besides, I can’t have you stressing over all this while you’re here. It’ll muck up my plans for you.”

  “And just what are you plans for me?”

  “To put my cock into you as many times as humanly possible . . . in a variety of places,” he said in a low voice.

  “I’ll uh. . . go get those things you need.”

  “I need you, plain and simple. My cock’s growing just hearing your voice. Do me a favor and touch yourself and tell me if you’re wet for me.”

  I did. I was. “Yes, very slick, and very wet.”

  His groan was delightful.

  “Thank God you don’t wear underwear because I may have to take you up against the wall in the airport restroom.”

  “What about Amy?”

  “She can watch or find her own randy cock.”

  “Yeah, the last four years all she’s had is a prick.”

  He chuckled, “You are priceless, now get busy and get your sweet pussy over here.”

  “Yes, Commander, anything you say, Commander.”

  “I’ll remind you that you said that, G’night luv.”

  I danced around practically singing as I collected all of Amy’s papers and e-mailed the information to Roman. Then I gathered my gear for the breakout tomorrow morning.

  At six o’clock I got a call from Carmelita’s mother thanking me for not turning her daughter in to the police or to the nursing home, and expressing her shock and disapproval over her pregnancy. She spoke broken English but I got the impression that she was going to the Sheriff’s office tomorrow to file molestation charges against Carlos. Her daughter had just turned sixteen last month, so when Carlos had seduced her she was fifteen to his thirty-three and as far as she was concerned no honorable Mexican man would disrespect a young lady like that. She sounded as if she was out for blood. Well, she would have to get in line.

  I called Cat and Viv and filled them in on the events of the day and arranged to meet them both for a late dinner. I would need fortification before springing Amy out of the nursing home.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Me and my screwball friends We drove to Christopher’s Pizza on Route 17 at the end of Carolina Shores. I had a hankering for pizza and they made one of the best vegetarian ones I’d ever had. Greek, with Feta cheese and loaded with olives and peppers, it made my mouth water just thinking about it. Of course Viv and Cat had theirs all the way—the meat lover’s. I always ended up with leftovers this way, but that was generally a good plan. It made a great breakfast when I was rushing to make a tee time.

  While chomping on the crisp crusts we came up with a plan. What with all the Amber-type alerts they were now doing for missing seniors, we knew Amy’s disappearance wouldn’t go unnoticed and unheralded. In essence, I was kidnapping her, committing a crime for which I could get jail time. The thought that I might have to wear screaming orange polyester and go without makeup and hair treatments indefinitely caused me to shudder. But I couldn’t see any other way. Short of blowing the whistle on Carmelita and creating an uproar at the nursing home, her doctor wasn’t likely to help and neither was her attorney. I really could see no alternative here, she had to get off those pills and she had to get away from the place that was unwittingly allowing her to degenerate further, and she had to avoid the man who had caused it all, the man who had seized her lively spirit four years ago and now only wanted her money.

  But Cat and Viv would not allow me to do this by myself. Even though it was dangerous, and if we got caught it wouldn’t be pretty, they insisted things would go better if we worked as a team to get Amy out and away and hidden until I could get her on the plane to St. Thomas.

  “You drive there in your scrubs as you always do, exercise her legs a bit and then coax her to take a walk until you can get her to the rear exit. I’ll be waiting in my car at the door, you slip in the back with her, and we’ll drive off. Viv will drive your car home for you. She’ll leave first so they won’t think it was you who took her, at least not right away. You can keep Amy calm in the back seat, and just in case they know what car the therapist drove, when or if they pull it over, Viv will be driving and no one will remember ever having seen her. But it won’t take long to link Amy to you after everyone is questioned, especially if they get in touch with Carlos, so she should stay with Viv that first night. Then after you get all her stuff packed along with yours, we’ll drive you to the Hampton Inn at Broadway. You can stay there for two days, you’ll be able to walk to everything from there, shops, restaurants, movie theaters, and then on the 19th, you’ll take a cab to the airport. Maybe by then you can disguise her a bit, get her a hair cut or a dye job or something.” Cat, always mindful of the details, was doodling on the list of things to remember to pack as she outlined a plan.

  “What if someone sees us getting her into the car?” I asked.

  “Just act like normal and maybe it won’t make an impression on an
yone. The thing you have to do is to keep Amy walking despite her fatigue and keep her from acting up.”

  “What if they get your tag number? Matt will not like you doing this.”

  “I’ll smear some mud on it. And we’re not going to tell Matt about this, right?”

  We all clicked ice tea glasses. “Right!”

  Chapter Thirty

  I’m too old for this Iwas up early the next morning, too keyed up to sleep any longer. I had already packed my stuff, Amy’s stuff, watered her plants and mine and even considered calling the electric company to turn her power back on, but then I thought, that might make it easier to sell. If people thought the house was abandoned and couldn’t check out the appliances, maybe they would pass on the house. I vowed next time I went over to trash it up a bit. I should have left the perishables I found defrosting in the freezer in the trashcan under the sink instead of putting them out with my trash. That would have turned them off for sure.

  Shortly after nine Roman called. The papers he and his barrister friend had drawn up had just been scanned to my e-mail account. I just needed to print them out and then have Amy sign them. I would overnight them on the way back home. I felt a bit guilty about that, it was like telling a three-year-old to blame the cat for something the dog did. I knew she wasn’t in her right mind now, but I knew if she was in her right mind, exactly what she would want. And since she wasn’t, the papers wouldn’t be valid if we got caught before she was. It was all so confusing. And on top of it all, I wasn’t sure I could cope with someone who was even remotely prepubescent. Hell, I knew I couldn’t, there was a good reason right there why I hadn’t had kids. Although that was nowhere near the real reason I hadn’t— women having affairs shouldn’t have a child as a form of leverage and I’m glad I hadn’t done that; and women who marry late in life and marry an older man feel their biological clock give up the ghost when they walk down the aisle.

  I sighed, my mind was rambling—flitting here and flitting there. Amy was going to ruin my time with Roman. I had every reason not to be kidnapping her this morning, and only one good one why I should. I sighed and almost changed my mind, I wasn’t sure I could do all this. But she was my friend, and she had no one else. It was the right thing to do. But if I got caught, I doubted that the law would agree with me.

  Cat called and we went over everything again. I arranged to text her when I got Amy up and ready to leave the room. We would take nothing with us. I already had her drugs and I had bought some diapery kind of things for the almost constant diarrhea she had due to the medication. It promised to be a fun time in St. Thomas. Roman was going to kill me.

  I arrived in time to watch Amy finish her morning snack and to try to get her to remember my name and who I was so she wouldn’t be too out of whack and scream bloody murder as I was pushing her into Cat’s car. The prayers I’d said on the way over were apparently working for she said, “Hi, Tess!” as soon as I walked through the door.

  I looked over at Janie with a questioning look. “That mexicali mopper with the swishy sashay hasn’t shown up since you left, so she’s not getting the extra dose if’n you know what I mean.”

  Shit! I had forgotten about that. I hoped it wasn’t going to be detrimental to Amy to already have dropped two .5 mg doses just like that. Well, what was done was done; they were overdose doses, so maybe it wouldn’t be a problem. After getting her cleaned up from breakfast and making sure she was clean down under, I began exercising her limbs and telling her about a magical place we were going to go to one day, a place called . . . I bit my tongue, it would be foolhardy to mention where we were going to anybody, especially Amy, who didn’t have the vaguest notion what a secret was right about now. “We’re going to go to Paradise someday, a wonderful place with lots of coloring books and crayons that never lose their point.” She giggled and I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk outside. Janie gave me a knowing look. She was one of the bright crayons in the box.

  “Today is a fine day for a walk, it’s fall now and the leaves are falling, but it’s not too cold, and the sun is shining bright. I found a duck pond and if you want, we can take the toast you didn’t eat that’s on your breakfast tray and feed it to them.”

  Her eyes lit up and I knew I had hit a home run, so did Janie.

  “Well you guys should get movin’ if you’re going birding. I hear at the desk that the charge nurse has been questioning who you are exactly. They’re supposed to talk to you when they do rounds. She looked at the clock on the wall. You got about fifteen minutes. When they get here, I’ll keep ‘em as long as I kin, it’s my lumbago, you now. And I got this awful cough, too. She practiced for me and I smiled over at her. Then I walked over and gave her a hug. “When all this is sorted out, we’re going to come visit you.”

  “Better hurry, I might have TB you know, there’s been a few cases lately.” More fake coughs.

  “We’re out of here.” I took Amy’s arm, hooked it in mine and led her to the door. At the same time I hit the send button for the text message I had already programmed into my phone. Amy and I began the long journey to the door where Cat would be waiting. Viv should have already used my extra set of car keys and taken off in my car.

  A nurse passed us in the hall and called over to me, “Hey, Matilde wants you to check in at the desk before you leave, I think she’s impressed with your work and has another patient for you.”

  “Oh, wonderful. I’ll see her in a few minutes, then.” Great, just what I need, another patient. I was getting out of Dodge just in time. I shouldn’t even have the patient I had!

  Amy’s “uh-oh” caused me to freeze in my tracks. I’d heard that very same thing a few times before. It usually preceded a much needed diaper change. And I didn’t have time for that right now. I pulled her along and then when I got her a few steps ahead of me I looked at her legs sticking out of her nightgown. No telltale problems so far.

  “What’s ‘uh-oh’Amy?”

  “I gotta go.”

  “Can’t you hold it?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Nope, I didn’t.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t?”

  “I doodied. We have to go back.”

  “No, it’s okay, you’ll be all right. We’re almost at the ducks; I’ll clean you up after you give them the toast.” She was holding onto the toast, wrapped in a napkin in her tight fist and I dreaded what was going to happen when I told her that there were no ducks.

  “I have to go back!” she hissed, “it’s on my leg!”

  I looked behind her and sure enough, there was a brown trail making its way to her ankle. I could see the door and the car with Cat in it waiting not twenty feet ahead of us.

  “It’s faster this way, this is a new way back to your room, follow me and I’ll get you cleaned up.”

  Dear God, don’t let me panic now, we’re so close and this is my only chance. Today I would be found out, whether I showed up to see the charge nurse or not. Ten more feet to the door.

  A group of doctors chatting amicably gave me the once over and smiled. I smiled back and patted Amy’s hand, “So what pictures did you color for me last night? Do you remember?”

  Amy stopped to think. This was not good. Five feet to go, I could see Cat looking at me through the door.

  “I’ll go get it and show you, she turned to go back and I yanked on her arm just as two nurses came in the door I was so looking forward to going out. I spotted a restroom. “Here we go Amy, I can change you here.”

  “Okay.”

  I pushed open the door and dragged her inside. I couldn’t change her, I had nothing to change her into, and I didn’t have time for that anyway. Cat was waiting in a no parking zone for me to get there. I grabbed a handful of paper towels and wiped what I could off Amy’s legs. Cat was going to kill me. Her car was brand new.

  I washed my hands and checked outside the door. There was no one to be seen. I poked my head out and looked toward the door. Cat was waving frantically for me to co
me on.

  “C’mon Amy, I have a friend I want you to meet. But we have to hurry before she has to go.” I grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her out the bathroom door and then out the exit. I opened the rear car door and quickly pushed Amy partway in, then I slid in beside her, pushing her into the center seat with my hip.

  “Go!” I hollered. And go she did, jerking forward so fast I had to grab Amy to keep her from falling off the seat.

  “There’s a security man over there who’s been eyeing me, I think he was just about ready to come over and ask me what I’m doing here.”

  “Great! So he’s been looking at your front tag for ten minutes?” I knew it said Sea Trail in bright teal colors.

  “Yup,” she said with a smile as she looked over her shoulder. “The Lakes of Lockwood Folly tag I got when we did the Parade of Homes tour last year. I put it on this morning, and I doctored up two numbers on the back one with fingernail polish. Hey, what’s that smell?”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  On the lam We met Viv at the Hardee’s at 211 and fortunately I had thought ahead and put a few diapers in the trunk. But Amy’s dirty diaper wasn’t our only problem, Amy was wailing about the ducks and didn’t seem to remember Cat at all, so she wanted to go back, wherever back was. As far as I was concerned we were going back. Back where she belonged—Sea Trail.

  “Well we can’t just go into the ladies room and change her here,” Viv said.

  “Especially with her in her nightgown, that’s bound to attract attention,” Cat added.

  “Amy, will you let us change you in the car?”

  She wagged her head from side to side.

  “I didn’t think so. Hey, you got any idea where we can find a few ducks?” I asked Viv.