Keep It Simple (MMG Series Book 4)

by Hilliard, R. B.

  With light weekend traffic it took only ten minutes to get across town, instead of the twenty-five it took yesterday. We did a drive-by first to see if there were any cars parked in front.

  “Shit. The garage door is closed. It was open yesterday,” Sally said, as we passed by.

  “That doesn’t mean he’s there. He might have closed it on his way out,” I told her.

  Sally pulled three houses down on the opposite side of the street and parked in front of a run-down house. “I’m going to peek in the garage window and then check the perimeter. While I’m doing that, you move over to the driver’s seat. That way, if something goes wrong, we can blast out of here,” she instructed.

  I did not like the sound of this. “And what if he catches you sneaking around and decides to do something about it? I can’t let you go alone, Sally.”

  “Hold your horses, Annie Oakley. I’m not going in with guns blazing. I just want to make sure no one is home before we proceed. I promise I’ll be right back.”

  I warily eyed her before giving in. “Fine, but if you aren’t back in five minutes, I’m coming after you.” Sally shut the door and I crawled over to the driver’s seat and waited. Three and a half minutes later, the passenger door opened and Sally’s face appeared.

  “The coast is clear. There’s a tall fence in back, but we can scale it without any problem.”

  I held up her cell phone, but she shook her head, no. “We won’t need it. All we are doing is looking for anything that will give us a possible name and address as to who the guy is, and then we’re getting the hell out of dodge. Let’s go.”

  The fence was over six feet tall and I wasn’t sure I could climb it by myself, so I got Sally to boost me. When I reached the top, I tossed a leg over and straddled it. Why, of all days, I picked to wear cut off jean shorts, I will never know. At least I had Converse on and not sandals. Once I was situated, I lowered my hand to Sally and helped pull her up beside me. Dusk had officially settled in and shadows of tree branches and weeds eerily danced across the yard. I tried not to think about how creepy they were. Sally dropped to the ground and then bolted across the yard towards the back door. Not wanting to be left behind, I swung my back leg over and accidentally lost my balance. As I started to fall, I latched on to the top of the fence and felt one of my legs scrape across a sharp object, as I scrambled to get my balance back. Breathing heavily, I slowly lowered myself down and let go. With a loud thud, I landed flat on my back onto the hard ground below the fence.

  “That was graceful. Are you okay?” Sally asked. She was staring down at me with an amused look on her face.

  I assessed the damage before answering, “That fucking hurt.” I sat up and winced. From my upper thigh down to my knee was one long, bloody nail scrape.

  “Here, let me help,” Sally said, and held out her hand. Grasping it, I tried to stand and my left ankle buckled under me.

  “That bloody hurts,” I hissed.

  “Stay here. I’ll be back in a flash.” Sally started back across the yard.

  “Wait! Don’t leave me!” I harshly whispered, and hobbled after her. There was no way in hell I was staying in this creepy yard by myself.

  Sally waited for me to catch up before continuing the trek to the house. Just as we reached the bottom step to the patio, the porch lights popped on. Blinded by the light, we both froze in our tracks. Fear and adrenaline pumped through me as I turned to see what Sally wanted us to do.

  “Run!” she shouted.

  Like a bat out of hell, she sprinted off the porch and around the side of the house. Having no idea where she was going, I hobbled after. My ankle screamed in pain but I ignored it. The hell if I was getting buried in the cellar with the old lady. Sally grabbed my arm as I limped by and slapped her hand over my mouth to stifle my shriek of surprise.

  “Shhhh, it’s just me,” she whispered in my ear.

  I took stock of our surroundings and realized we were trapped. With the house behind us and the fence in front of us and directly to our left, we had nowhere to go, except back the way we came. “We’re trapped,” I whispered.

  “Did you see anyone come out of the house?” Sally quietly asked.

  I thought about it for a second, before answering, “No. You screamed run, so I ran.” Sally started laughing. Not finding a speck of humor in our situation, I snapped, “What?”

  “Motion sensors,” she answered. When I didn’t say anything, she started to explain and suddenly I found the whole thing hilariously funny. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “You should have seen your face,” I howled.

  “Ha-ha,” she mocked, “let’s do this, so we can get the hell out of here.”

  I followed her back around the house, where it was now dark. The second we stepped onto the porch we were once again bathed in blindingly bright light. Sally plastered her face against the window and said, “Kitchen.” I watched her pull something from her back pocket. It reminded me of Piper and her nail file.

  “Is that a nail file?” I asked. I heard a “Pop” and the door sprung open.

  “Nail files are for amateurs,” she said. “Cas gave me this baby a few weeks ago and I have been practicing.” She held up a skinny metal object. Just the mention of Cas made my heart hurt. I wondered if he was hanging out at his house with Alexandria and getting sucked in by more of her lies. I thought he was smarter than that, but after this morning, I wasn’t so sure. “We are looking for something that tells us who the guy is. Try not to touch anything, though. We don’t want to leave fingerprints,” Sally quietly instructed.

  I could feel blood running down my leg from where I scraped it on the fence and was worried about tracking it through the house. “Before I come inside, I need a paper towel or something to wipe my leg with.” I could imagine Max’s face when I got arrested for breaking and entering. How do you know it was my sister, officer? Well, son, it wasn’t that difficult, as she left bloody shoe prints all over the house. The outside flood lights illuminated the kitchen enough for Sally to see her way to the counter and the paper towel rack. She ripped off a handful and brought them to me.

  “How bad is it?” she asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” I told her, wiping it away. The second I stepped inside, the flood lights turned off and we were shrouded in darkness.

  “Damnit!” she exclaimed.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  Snatching one of the paper towels from my hand, Sally placed on the drawer handle and pulled it open. On drawer three, she said, “Bingo,” and held up a flashlight. Since we only had one, I followed her through the house while she searched for something that would tell us who the mystery man was.

  After searching the front of the house and finding nothing, we stepped into a hallway with four doors. Two led to bedrooms with nothing in them and one was a bathroom. The fourth was a flight of steps leading down to a cellar. Sally shot me an evil smile before heading down the stairs. I seriously wanted to throw up. Visions of the dead granny played through my head.

  “This is a bad idea,” I whispered from the top step. I really did not want to go down there.

  “Stay there, you pussy, I’ll be back in a second,” Sally teased. With a sigh of relief, I silently thanked her for letting me off the hook. As I strained to hear what Sally was doing, the floor creaked behind me. I turned to see what it was and something hard slammed into my head. I must have screamed, because suddenly Sally was bounding up the stairs in front of me. I was too stunned to warn her, until it was too late.

  “Stop right there,” a deep voice behind me said.

  Sally stopped on the top step in front of me. “Are you okay?” she asked. Suddenly, a light above our heads flicked on.

  I closed my eyes at the brightness and touched the side of my head where he hit me. Damn that hurt. “I think so,” I answered her.

  “Did you have to hit her so hard? She’s bleeding,” Sally scolded.

  “Get up,” he ordered. Sally helped
me stand. Before I could turn and see who hit me, I felt something press against the side of my head. “One wrong move and I will blow your head off,” he growled in my ear. My eyes darted to Sally and I saw fear. If Sally was afraid, I knew we were in deep trouble. “At the end of the hall is a door. Start walking,” he told us. He pulled me back so Sally could pass by. As she did, she squeezed my hand for reassurance. Too bad it didn’t work. “Go,” he told me, and I followed after Sally. Paralyzing fear coursed through me. What was he going to do to us? When we reached the door at the end of the hall, he told Sally to open it. I had never been so scared in my life. Sally’s hand reached for the door knob and I closed my eyes. Please don’t kill us. “In,” he said, and gave me a big shove through the door. As I fell over Sally, he slammed the door behind us and locked it.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” Sally said.

  “Bloody, fucking hell, Sally, he had a gun to my head!” I harshly whispered. The last thing I wanted was him showing back up for a repeat performance.

  “Yes, he was most unhappy,” she muttered.

  I felt her moving around the room, but could not see a damn thing. “What are you doing?”

  A light across the room flicked on and Sally smiled. “I am getting us out of here.” For the next ten minutes she searched for a way out, but there was none. We were trapped in a laundry room with no windows and only one door. The air vent was too small to fit through, as was the dryer vent. We were stuck. “Well fuck a duck!” Sally exclaimed, as she took a seat on the floor beside me. She inspected the bloody lump on the side of my head for a second and stated the obvious. “That looks like it hurts.” I just stared at her. I mean, what was there to say? We were trapped in the laundry room after breaking into some guy’s house. How in the world were we going to get out of this one? “Voila,” Sally said, pulling something from her back pocket. She held it out and said, “Read it.”

  I snatched it from her hand and began reading, Curtis Filpot – 2300 Merrick Street, Charlotte North Carolina 27232. “Curtis Filpot?” I asked.

  Sally’s eyes danced with amusement, and I tried not to laugh, but failed miserably. We both busted out laughing. Here we were, trapped in a laundry closet by a pissed off guy carrying a gun, laughing like loons. Pretty soon my laughter turned to tears. Nobody knows we are gone so they won’t know to look for us. Our only way of communicating we are in trouble is sitting in the car. How did something so simple go so horribly wrong?

  Sally wrapped her arm around me and the door swung open. Curtis stepped in with his gun raised. I memorized his features in case I had to describe him later. Stringy, dirty brown hair fell to his shoulders. I couldn’t tell the shape of his mouth under his full beard, but he had brown eyes. He was tall and thin, but I couldn’t tell much more from my perch on the floor.

  “Who sent you here? Who are you?” he asked.

  Without blinking an eye, Sally answered, “I’m Petra and this is Kayla.”

  “Did Stan send you or was it Big Eddie?” he asked.

  I glanced over at Sally for help, but she refused to look at me. Instead, she blurted, “We are friends of Alexandria’s. She told us to stop by tonight, but when we rang the front door, no one answered. We thought we’d try the back. She said to come on in.”

  A conflicted look appeared on the guy’s face. After a few seconds of weighing what Sally said, he turned and walked out. I waited for the lock to engage, before tearing into her. “What are you doing? Why did you tell him we are friends of Alexandria’s?”

  “Think about it. Would you rather he call Stan and Big Eddie or Alexandria? I’m thinking Alexandria is the better choice here,” she stated. After thinking about it, I had to agree.

  A few minutes later, he reappeared. In one hand he held the gun and in the other plastic zip ties. My heart slammed in my chest as an overwhelming sense of panic took over.

  “Funny, I just called Alexandria and guess what? She’s never heard of Petra or Kayla. Stand up and turn around,” he ordered.

  “Why?” Sally challenged. What was she doing? I bumped her with my arm to shut her up.

  He pointed the gun at her head. “Because I said so,” he replied. Thankfully this shut her up.

  Once he had our arms secured behind our backs, he took us into the living room and sat us on the floor with our backs against the wall. “Looks like your lucky day, ladies. Alexandria is on her way. I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait for the big reunion. In fact, I think I’ll go pop me some popcorn.”

  After he was gone, I turned to Sally, “Petra and Kayla?”

  Sally shrugged. “Those are the first names that came to mind.”

  “Do you happen to know a Petra or a Kayla?”

  “Petra is my older sister and Kayla is my younger.” I mulled this over for a second and realized how very little I knew about Sally. “Well, it looks like we are fucked,” Sally dryly stated.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Cas

  ‡

  “Where in the hell is she going?” Bobby asked.

  I floored it through the yellow light and mentally cursed Alexandria for driving so fast through a residential area. “I have no clue, but wonder if Sterling is aware she left the condo?” Chances were she told him she was going to bed, then stole his keys and ran. I glanced over as Bobby pulled out his phone and punched in some numbers. “Who are you calling?”

  “Bubbles is going to be pissed,” he said. Bubbles was a giant pain in the ass. Of course, I didn’t say what I was thinking out loud.

  I made sure to hang back as we followed Xan across town to ensure that she wouldn’t bust us on her tail. When she whipped the Jaguar across four lanes of traffic to get to the next exit, I thought it was over. Bobby cursed up a storm as I wove in and out of cars, but I managed to get to the exit as well. We made it to the bottom of the ramp in just enough time to see her hang a right at the light a few blocks away.

  “There!” Bobby shouted, “She just turned right.” I knew she was up to no good as we followed her to a seedy part of town. What the hell are you doing, Xandria? “She just turned down that street.” Following Bobby’s instructions, I slowed down and drove past the street she had pulled onto. “On the right hand side, middle of the street, she just pulled in to a driveway,” Bobby informed. I turned down the next street over and was slowly backtracking to the house she’d pulled into when Bobby shouted, “Stop!”

  “For shit’s sake Bob!” I yelled, slamming on the brakes. I glared over at him, but he was busy staring out his window.

  “Look,” he rolled down his window and sat back in his seat in order to give me a perfect view of Sally’s car.

  “What the fuck?” I whispered.

  “That’s what I want to know,” Bobby said.

  Shifting the truck to reverse, I backed up and then pulled in behind Sally’s car and parked. “I’ll check it out,” Bobby said. A few seconds passed and I heard him curse. I rolled down my window to ask if he found anything.

  “You have to see this, bro,” he replied. The tone of his voice made me tense.

  Please don’t let it be Sally, I thought, as I joined him at the car. At first I didn’t see what had him concerned, but then I spotted it in the floorboard and my chest seized.

  “That’s Sarah’s purse.”

  “And Sally’s phone,” he said. We both turned and stared at the house Alexandria pulled into. “Maybe they aren’t inside. Sally’s gotten better. Even you said so,” Bobby pointed out. I didn’t know who he was trying to kid. Sally was a hot head with a God complex, which is why we hesitated for such a long time before finally deciding to hire her.

  “If one hair on Sarah’s head is harmed, I’ll kill her,” I warned.

  Bobby nodded in agreement. “What do you want to do?”

  Worry for Sarah could cripple me if I thought about the situation for too long, so I shook it off and focused on our task at hand. Sarah and Sally came to warn me about something, but stopped when they saw Alexandria in
my house.

  “They knew,” I said.

  “Who knew?” Bobby asked.

  “Sarah and Sally came to my house to tell me something about Alexandria, but when they discovered her there…”

  “They took off without saying a word,” Bobby finished. He dragged his gaze from the front of the house to my face and waited for me to decide what to do.

  “You call Garrett for back up and I’ll call her dad. I bet my left nut he has no clue she is gone,” I told him. We both stepped away to make our calls. Five minutes later we met back at the truck. “It turns out I was right. Alexandria told her dad she was turning in for the night and took off with his car right under his nose. He is furious and wants us to come get him, so he can rip her a new one. I promised I would call him when I had any information.”

  “Garrett and Tut are on their way,” Bobby confirmed.

  Twenty minutes later, Garrett and Tut drove up. After talking it over, we decided Bobby and I would go through the front, while they approached from the back. With a nod, we split up and went our separate ways. Bobby and I ran across the front yard and crouched down in front of the porch. I pulled out my gun and motioned for him to stay down before checking if I could see anything through the front window.

  I waited for my eyes to adjust, but after a minute or so of not being able to make anything out, I squatted back down. “I can’t see shit,” I whispered.

  “What do you want to do?” Bobby asked. Suddenly, we heard Alexandria shouting inside the house and I made a snap decision.

  “We go in.”

  With guns raised, we busted through the front door. Alexandria screamed and a gun went off. Bobby and I both dropped to the floor as the bullet shot over our heads and pierced the wall where we had been standing.

  “Drop your weapon!” I shouted at a guy with a gun. Instead of dropping his gun, he turned and aimed it at something behind him. Slowly, he stepped to the side and revealed a wide-eyed Sarah and a pissed off Sally. They were huddled together on the floor. Both of their hands and feet were secured with plastic ties. I scanned Sarah’s body to make sure she was okay and noticed blood on her head and legs. Anger surged through me as I stood back up and trained my gun on the guy. “I said drop your gun.”