Once numbers were picked and the first round of contestants headed to the grills with their gear, I slipped over to Hank. “How are you doing?”
“I got it covered,” he said.
“Let me know if you need help.”
He nodded.
I then went in search of Mac, only to find he was nowhere to be found.
An arm reached around my waist, molding me against a nicely formed male physique.
“Everything’s turning out perfect, sweet thing,” Brett spoke low into my ear. “Why do you look like you lost something?”
“Not something. Someone,” I said. “Mac left.”
“Maybe he went home.”
“No. He went to go find Bob.” I bit my fingernail. “Where is T?”
Brett craned his neck to scan above the sea of heads. “He’s over there.” Brett pointed to the tent corner.
“Come with me.” I started in T’s direction. “I might need your help.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Brett said. “Where do you think Mac went?”
“I know where he went, but I don’t want either of you to follow . . . unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
Veering around a beer-chugging contest between a keg-bellied man and a petite woman who looked like she was winning, I found T standing guard. He must think he’s on duty.
“What’s going on?” he asked in his official I’m-on-duty-don’t-mess-with-me voice. Eh, that might be his normal voice.
“T, I’m worried about Mac. I think he went to the gambling bar to find Bob. He’s tried to contact Bob several times, and Bob never showed up for the cooking competition. Something is wrong.”
“What would you like me to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. You and Brett are the experts. I thought between the two of you, you could find Bob and Mac and make sure they don’t do anything stupid . . . especially Mac. Well, I guess Bob too.”
Silent information passed between Brett and T with just a single look.
“Well?” I asked.
“We’ll head to the bar and see if Mac’s bike is there,” Brett said.
“But we aren’t going to charge in there,” T added.
“I don’t want you to charge in,” I said. “Call the cops if you find Mac’s bike. Last time, the bartender tossed him out, but he doesn’t seem the forgiving sort. Mac might not be as lucky this time.”
T’s eyes flicked to Brett. “Let’s roll.”
“Promise to stay here,” Brett said to me.
“Why would I leave? I have to manage the competition.”
“You tend to get yourself into trouble, sweet thing,” he said, brushing my cheek with his fingertips.
“I’ve heard that nonsense uttered before. I’m not the one who gets into trouble. It’s everyone else that drags me into it.”
He smiled and placed a light kiss. “Just stay here.”
“I will. In fact, I have to check on the competitors.”
Brett nodded and followed T to his car. “Stay safe,” I whispered when they disappeared from view.
Chapter 21
An hour later, the event was progressing smoothly, except for one significant problem.
“We’re in a deadlock,” Mrs. Janowski announced.
“We can’t decide between three contestants,” Edna said.
“And none of the judges will concede to the other,” Ida added.
I scratched my head. “Are you sure you can’t pick a first-place winner?”
“No!” they all said.
At that point, I couldn’t even taste the food since the contestants had cooked in stages.
“Who are the three?” I asked.
“Jack, Andrea, and Fritz,” Edna said.
Oh brother.
Of course I’d like Jack to win since he’s my friend and bar comrade. But Fritz has to keep my dad safe on their ride to California, and Andrea, well, if Jack wins, she might rip into Jack. . . or me.
Let’s get this over with.
“Can I have Jack, Andrea, and Fritz over at the judge’s table?” I called.
“Are you announcing the winners?” Jack asked. Andrea and Fritz trailed behind him.
“Not yet,” I said. “The judges are in a deadlock and so there will need to be a tie-breaker.”
“What do you have in mind?” Andrea asked.
“One more round,” I said. “I will be the final judge, and it will be a blind tasting. You’ll have another fifteen minutes to plate your best grilled dish.”
“But I used my seasonings in the first round,” Andrea said. “I can’t make the same thing.”
“If you can’t grill without seasonings, then you’re a pretty poor chef,” Jack taunted.
She glowered at him. “I can out grill you any day!” Andrea snapped.
It’s begun.
I leaned over to Fritz. “I don’t suppose you’d want to take a grill between them?”
He eyed the arguing couple. “Not on your life.”
I straightened and raised my voice over the bickering. “Your time begins now!”
The trio went straight to their grills of choice, leading Andrea and Jack to the same grill.
“This is the grill I had last time,” Andrea stated. “I want it again.”
“This is my grill.” Jack’s mouth grinned, but his eyes were jagged ice. “I’ll use it.”
Before they could break into an all-out fight, I said, “We’ll flip a coin. Winner takes the grill.”
I reached into my pocket to find it empty. Typical. “Fritz, do you have a coin?”
He pulled out a quarter and handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I said, positioning the coin on the tip of my thumb. “Heads or tails?”
“Tails,” they both said.
“I’m always tails,” Andrea said.
“So am I,” Jack gritted.
“Can’t someone be heads for today?” I asked.
“No!” they both shouted.
I give up, I thought, returning the quarter to Fritz.
“Can I have your attention,” I called to the guests. “Fritz is the winner of the grilling competition!”
Edna hurried forward with his first-place medal to a riotous round of applause from his friends.
“What about us?” Andrea asked.
“You two are disqualified,” I said.
Andrea turned on Jack. “This is your fault!”
“My fault?” he questioned with surprise. “You’re the one who can’t stop arguing.”
“I’m not arguing. I’m stating a fact: This is your fault!”
“How?” he ground.
“You . . . you . . .” she let out a strangled cry and stomped away.
Jack stomped in the other direction.
Leaving me amazingly alone.
Much better.
* * *
“What’s wrong?” Mrs. Janowski asked.
It was the end of the night, and the event was wrapping up. Hank and Ida were busy shooing away the stragglers, one of which Sylvia was flirting with. Poor Edna was drooped in her chair, snoring.
“I’m sure your dad will be fine,” Mrs. Janowski said and patted my arm.
“It’s not that,” I said. Although, witnessing Fritz bungee strap my dad to Pothole on the bike was rather disturbing. For the first time in his life, my dad was drunk. I had been on the verge of offering to drive him home when the Comets took charge and stowed him on the back of Pothole’s bike, complete with helmet and bungee cords.
My dad was the least of my worries.
Brett, T, Mac, and Bob, on the other hand, worried the hell out of me.
“I haven’t heard from the boys,” I said. “They’ve been gone for hours and I can’t reach any of them.”
“Where did they go?”
“I’ll tell you, but you have to promise to not go charging in like a bull.”
“A bull?” she scoffed. “I’d never.”
My brow rose.
“Perhaps like a matador, but never a bull,” she amended.
“Absolutely no charging of any kind,” I said firmly.
“Oh, all right.”
“I think they’re at the gambling bar.”
“Why would they go there?”
“Mac couldn’t get in touch with Bob. I think he went to go find him.”
“Oh. That’s not good.”
“No. I sent Brett and T to go look for them, but now I can’t reach either of them.”
“That’s definitely not good,” she said, extracting keys from her purse. “We’ll just have to investigate.”
“No,” I said firmly. “There will be no investigation. We’ll call the cops.”
“I only promised not to charge in,” she said. “I can still drive by and see what’s what.”
“What’s what?” Edna woke with a start. She rubbed her eyes. “What’s goin’ on?”
“We’re going to take a little drive,” Mrs. Janowski said.
“Home?” Edna perked. “Good. I can’t stay awake a minute longer.”
“No. To that no-good gambling dive.”
Edna’s sleepiness vanished. “We can’t go there!”
“Mrs. J.,” I protested.
“Try to pry Sylvia off that poor man, and let’s get going,” Mrs. Janowski said. “We’ll just drive by. I promise.” But as she walked past, I could have sworn she added, “For now.”
* * *
Mrs. Janowski idled her car past the bar, her face pressed against the side window. Edna’s face, however, was squashed against my shoulder as she slept, giving her puckered fish lips. And Sylvia sat like a statue. She was still cross with Mrs. Janowski’s interference. She swore she was a minute away from stealing a kiss . . . or more. Ida had howled with laughter at that.
“Is that Bob’s bike?” Mrs. Janowski asked.
“I think it’s Mac’s,” Ida said. “I don’t see Bob’s bike here.”
“What about Brett and T?”
“No. None of their cars are here,” I said.
Mrs. Janowski pulled into the arcade parking lot. She turned into a space facing the bar and cut the engine. “Do you think Mac is in there?”
“If he is, we aren’t going to go in and find out,” I replied.
“We have to do something. Those goons beat the tar out of T. Can you imagine what they would do to Mac?”
That was the only reason I was sitting here with Mrs. Janowski. And Edna, whose nose started to whistle.
Ida elbowed me in the ribs as she dug for her flask.
“Let me try calling everyone again,” I said. “I don’t know why they aren’t answering my calls.”
A few failed attempts later, I shoved my phone away.
Dammit.
“No one answered, huh?” Ida clucked her tongue.
“No.”
“Well, there’s . . . Hey! Do you see that?” Mrs. Janowski pointed to the back of the bar. Illumination from the arcade lights spread to a corner of the bar’s back lot where a car was parked. There were too many shadows to see what was going on.
“What are they moving?” I asked, squinting.
“It looks . . .”
Edna had chosen that moment to wake up. She shrieked, “It’s a dead body!”
“We don’t know if it’s a dead body,” Sylvia said. “It could be a roll of carpeting.”
“Right,” Mrs. Janowski agreed. “Bad guys are known to redecorate in the middle of the night.”
Sylvia shot Mrs. Janowski a look. “You don’t have to be sarcastic. I’m just saying we don’t know what it is.”
“Not for long,” Mrs. Janowski said, turning on the engine. “We’ll just have to follow them.”
“Follow them?” Edna squeaked.
“We’re Madison’s Security Squad. That’s our job,” Mrs. Janowski stated. She slowly backed out and waited for the men to stow the “carpet” into the trunk and drive out of the lot.
“We shouldn’t do this,” I said, although the bad feeling that was creeping through told me that we had to. Mac was in the trunk. I knew it as soon as I saw the lump.
“Poppycock,” Mrs. Janowski responded. “This has villain written all over it. We’re following!”
I sunk back into the seat.
Edna turned to me. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Don’t follow too closely,” I told Mrs. J. “Your car is recognizable.”
“That’s it?” Edna sputtered.
I nodded and tightened my seatbelt as Mrs. Janowski pulled onto the road.
“Oh dear,” Edna squeaked and tightened her belt as well.
“You’re following too closely,” Sylvia complained.
“I am not.”
“I can read the license plate without my glasses,” she retorted.
I scrambled to dig a pen and paper out from my purse. “Give me the plate number. I’ll call it in to the police.”
“Four, nine . . . Turn! Turn!” Sylvia shouted as the car took a hard right.
Mrs. Janowski nearly missed the turn, tires biting against the pavement.
“Slow down,” I said. “They think we’re following them.”
“We are following them,” Sylvia said.
“Yes, but we don’t want them to know. They’ll end up doing something rash.”
“Like start shooting,” Edna added.
Where are Brett and T? They said they would look for Mac. And it seems we’ve found him. Shouldn’t they be in the chase too?
Mrs. Janowski slowed the vehicle down, but we were still too close for comfort.
“Ladies, we need to come up with a plan of attack,” Mrs. Janowski announced.
Edna paled.
“We can’t attack,” Sylvia stated. “I have my good heels on.”
“Well, we can’t be caught off guard.” Mrs. Janowski plowed ahead. “Those men will have weapons at their disposal. What do we have?”
They pondered in silence.
“Edna, do you have your knitting needles?” Mrs. Janowski asked.
“I always carry them in my purse, you know that.”
“We’ll have to use those as weapons. What else do we have?”
If Edna could have paled further, I’m sure she would have. She clutched her purse with trembling fingers.
“Heels,” Sylvia said. “If I’m close enough, I can jab a heel into a foot. But I’d rather not. They are my good shoes, after all.”
“What we need is a long-range assault weapon,” Mrs. Janowski said.
“I think you’re out of luck on that one,” I said, adding a silent thank goodness.
“They’re turning again!” Sylvia called as Mrs. Janowski whipped the car around another neck-breaking corner.
Ida lost control of her flask. It flew across the car.
“Damnation!” Ida cursed. “Did you see where it went?”
“They have to know that we’re following them by now,” I said, ignoring Ida as she groped the floor. “We have to call the police. There’s nothing more we can do. Did anyone get a description of the two men?”
“No, it was too dark,” Sylvia said. “But they were both big.”
“Huge,” Edna said.
“All right,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Mrs. J., stop following them. I’ll call the cops right now.”
“No can do,” she said. “Call the cops, but I’m going to keep the trail alive.”
“Look!” Sylvia pointed. “They’re heading down a dirt road.”
Dirt road?
Oh, Lord. Horror movie music had to be playing somewhere. Dead bodies . . . poor Mac. A lump would have formed had not panic taken over.
“Mrs. J., don’t you dare follow that car!” I ordered.
It was too late. Mrs. Janowski skidded around the corner and blazed up the narrow road. Fields were on either side, blocking any chance to veer off.
After a full minute of hot pursuit, the car disappeared.
“Where did they go?”
I shouted.
“There’s no road to turn on,” Sylvia said. “They can’t be far.”
“But why can’t we see them?” I questioned.
“The dirty cowards shut off their lights,” Mrs. Janowski answered. “We’ll find them.”
“I don’t want to find them,” Edna cried.
“This feels like a trap,” Ida said. “Turn around.”
“They’re running,” Mrs. Janowski said. “They’re too cowardly to try to trap us when they have damaging evidence.”
“That’s the perfect reason to trap us and kill us,” Sylvia said.
Edna crumpled lifelessly.
“Edna passed out,” I said. “We have to turn around to make sure she’s okay.”
“Bah!” Mrs. Janowski scoffed. “She faints once a week. She was due any moment now. Get her needles out of her purse in case we need them.”
“Are you trying to get us killed?” Sylvia squawked. “Because I still have plenty of life left in this body.”
“I’m not trying to get anyone killed,” Mrs. Janowski said. “We’ll just follow and report to the police. I just want to be prepared in case anything should go wrong.”
“With you, everything goes wrong,” Sylvia retorted.
Lights flashed on in front of us.
“Headlights!” Sylvia exclaimed. “The road isn’t wide enough. Pull over!”
“They aren’t moving,” I noticed. “It is a trap! They blocked the road.”
“I’ll turn on my high beams and blind them,” Mrs. Janowski said.
By that time, we were only twenty yards away from the vehicle and there was no possible way to turn around quickly.
Mrs. Janowski squealed to a stop and flipped on the high beams only to shine into an empty car.
“Where are they?” Sylvia screeched, scrambling to lock her door. I followed suit and locked Edna’s and my doors.
“They can’t be far,” Mrs. Janowski said.
“I see shadows,” Sylvia pointed into the dark field.
“Back up the car,” I said.
Security Squad Page 17