by Dale Mayer
"Not happening. We'll be fine here." Mark slumped lower on the hard seat, crossed his arms and leaned his head back. While Gem watched he closed his eyes as if to sleep. Not a bad idea. She felt safer catching a nap in public instead of in a private location where she could be snatched again. Waking up in a strange place was something she never wanted to experience again.
"You should still come with me." The sheriff rubbed his chin as if trying to figure out how to get them to do his bidding. "I need to get your statements. Besides, I can't leave you here alone."
"Then send a deputy to sit here with us. Or stay yourself," invited Gemma. "We could use a deck of cards, too."
The sheriff shook his head and walked back to the librarian. He pulled out his phone and started making calls. Gem grinned. That was one problem less.
"He can't leave us alone, you know," Mark said, never opening his eyes.
Gem went to the fantasy novel section and picked out a book she'd wanted to read for a while. If she were lucky it might be a decent story and she could finish before John arrived.
Just as she sat down, a young deputy walked into the library, a clipboard and a deck of cards in his hand. He stopped to speak with the sheriff before walking over to them. Gem laughed.
"There you go, Mark and Reid. That should take care of your boredom."
Soon after statements were taken, Gem looked up to see John's tired face as he walked through the front door.
"John," Gem cried out as she ran to him. She threw her arms around him in an exuberant hug. She couldn't believe how happy she was to see him.
When his arms came around to hug her back, memories of the few times she'd been held in her father's arms flooded her. That was so many long years ago.
Tears collected in the corner of her eyes. In spite of her best efforts, Gemma sniffled.
"There, there. You'll be fine now."
She smiled, blinking back tears. "Thanks for coming."
"I'm just sorry that you were in trouble in the first place." He shook his head. "Never saw the like of this mess." With his arm around her shoulder, they walked and talked their way to the others.
"Boys. You ready to go home?"
"Oh, yes." Reid hopped to his feet, a big grin on his face. "So ready."
Mark collected the cards and handed them back to the waiting deputy.
"What about the long drive home? Do you need to stop for a meal? To rest some?" Mark asked John.
John was adamant. "No. I don't want to leave Doris alone any longer than necessary. Her sister's family is with her now. So we'd best be getting back."
He turned and walked out the door. The deputy escorted them out of the library. The truck was parked down the block. But outside the truck, the Humpty and Dumpty pair stood talking to each other. As if waiting.
Gemma stopped. Mark and Reid stood on either side of her. All of sudden Gemma was pissed. These men had made her life miserable. They'd stolen her property, and kidnapped her – possibly twice. She walked right up to them.
"What's the matter, assholes? Did you lose another one of your kidnap victims? Or did you go kidnap yet another young girl? Do the people in this town know you like to tie up girls and throw them into your van? Huh? You perverts. You say you work for the EPA. That's a load of crap. You're nothing but thugs."
She was practically screaming now as she released the rage burning inside. "You lousy, weak predators. Are you on the sexual predator register? Because if you aren't, you should be. Ten years to life for what you did to me – to all of us." She waved an arm to encompass Reid and Mark.
The two men froze, obviously shocked at her attack. As she reached them, they started to back up.
"Picking on innocent kids for your own kicks. Sex offenders! Kidnappers!"
A group of onlookers had gathered around them. Gemma barely noticed. She didn't have a reverse gear at the best of times – even if she had she wouldn't be using it now. The men looked around uneasily.
"And all for the love of money. Get a job. A real job. They paid you to kidnap me – and you kidnap boys too. Money-sucking perverts."
The men turned all shades of red. They looked around anxiously at the angry crowd blocking their exit.
"Hey, that's not true," Humpty protested.
"Sure it is," Reid snapped, stepping beside Gem.
"You kidnapped me in Oxford," she scoffed." You kidnapped Mark earlier, tied and gagged him, then left him for dead in the creek. Didn't you? Didn't you!" she screamed.
"We were ordered to do it." Dumpty blustered, speaking to the tightening noose of a crowd, panic settling on his face. "It wasn't our fault. It was our job. And we're off it now. The boss man fired us. Told us to get lost. Besides you should look closer to home for the real problem. That's where you'll find the guy who caused the spill in the first place. Calls himself Fi-"
"Shut up, you fool," Humpty snapped.
Spill? Gem took note of what had been said, but she was on a roll and not ready to give it up just yet. She'd discuss the 'guy who'd caused this mess' later.
"Right. Like I said, you're just hired predators – who enjoy their work. You took money for kidnapping and abusing boys and girls." Angry murmurs rose around them. Gemma switched her focus to address the crowd. "Take a good look at the slime that lives here in Dayport."
She gazed at the crowd. "They journeyed to Oxford where they chased Reid and then kidnapped, bound and left Mark for dead before they caught me. Thank God, I managed to escape. Not that escaping did any of us any good. We were all asleep in our own beds last night and what happened? We were drugged, kidnapped, tied up and left in a house a mile or so from here."
She leveled a scathing gaze at the two creeps. "You admit to these earlier crimes, yet you stand before me free. Why does the justice system protect assholes like you and allow kids like us to be abused and blamed for all the world's wrongs?"
She stepped back and glared at the men. "They have confessed to kidnapping, abuse and so much more." She spun around, found the deputy, nailing him in place with her gaze. "Why are they still free?"
The roar of the crowd almost deafened her.
The deputy stepped up. "I'm going to need some help here."
"No problem." Several men stepped up to help. They grabbed the two men and escorted them down the street to the deputy's vehicle.
The rest of the crowd cheered.
Gemma felt like cheering herself. Nothing quite like watching those two hauled off as the criminals they were. Paychecks didn't make what they did, right.
"You go girl." Reid patted her on the back. "That was something."
Mark stepped up and slung an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a quick hug.
"You were magnificent. Remind me never to piss you off."
She laughed shakily, her heart still thundering in her chest. "Hey, that's great… Now you're both going to treat me like a princess, right?"
They both cracked up laughing.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The long drive home wore Gemma down. Which didn't make any sense. She hadn't done anything. How could sitting in a truck make her tired? She'd have understood if she'd been driving, but to be just a passenger?
The relief of finally being safe had been lost because in this nightmarish game the rules had changed. And she hadn't even gotten a handle on the original ones yet. Maybe the main players had changed, or would soon change now that Humpty and Dumpty had been taken off the streets. There had been three men at the house the first night, as well as the two in custody now, so that left one still out there. The big boss?
And bosses like him tended to have minions. There could be new ones now, too, and that couldn't be good.
"You know what I don't understand?" Gem asked quietly.
Mark looked over at her, his head lolling on the headrest. "What?"
"Why – with all the chances they had – didn't they kill us? They've worked hard to take us captive. To keep us without real harm. Why?"
; Mark closed his eyes again. "Lack of time. Opportunity? Didn't they threaten you? Thought you said they did…"
"Hmmm. Look at Misty. Trussed up for pickup at a later time. They could have done so much worse."
"Maybe they didn't want to take that final step."
"True." But Gemma couldn't help worrying over the issue. "What if they just wanted to keep an eye on us? Make sure we didn't cause trouble? Became trouble? I don't know. See if we got into trouble?" She groaned. "Who knows what's going on? I sure don't."
"We can guess all we want," Mark said. "There's no way to know for sure."
"Maybe. Yeah, I guess." She laid her head back and closed her eyes. "This whole thing is just stupid."
"Maybe it's not about what you saw, or took pictures of. What if we were also exposed to something?" Mark's voice deepened as he thought some more. "Yeah. What if we were exposed to something? And they want to keep an eye on us to see how, or if, we react? With spots or rashes. That kind of thing. Maybe we're contagious."
Gem sat forward. She stared wide-eyed at Mark then down at her hands. She turned them over as if looking for disease.
Mark made a weird sound. She looked at him suspiciously then back at her hands.
He guffawed.
"Oh you and your plots and conspiracy theories." She hit him several times, slapping him across the chest, trying to reach his face.
He laughed and laughed, batting her hands down before they could make contact. Their noise woke up Reid who sat in the front seat.
"Geeze. What's with you two? Can't a guy get any sleep around here?"
"Sorry Reid. Mark's being his usual idiotic self."
"Are we almost home?" Reid's voice echoed Gem's wishes and his tiredness.
John's gravelly voice spoke for the first time in ages. "We're over halfway now." He glanced in the rearview mirror at them. "We'll take a break in a few minutes. There's a place up ahead."
Good thing. Gem could use a bathroom too. Multiple cups of java had caught up with her.
John drove the truck into a rest stop and parked beside the brick washrooms. Everyone hopped out and stretched.
Gem headed straight inside. When she came out the guys were holding cold drinks in their hands. Mark held out a bottle of iced tea for her. "Peace offering?"
"Sure. Why not?" She snatched it out of his hands and took a long drink. "That feels good."
"Ready to keep going?" John rubbed his tired face, then ran his hand through his hair. "We've got about another hour."
Gemma watched the sun's rays make the air in front of her shimmer.
"Let's go then."
They clambered back into the truck. Not such an easy thing for Gemma to do as a large black SUV had parked close beside them. The smoked glass windows made her shudder. It was similar to many vehicles on the highway, but just looking at it gave her the creeps. She wondered if there'd come a day when she didn't look sideways at everything and everyone.
Not questioning her instincts, she read off the license plate in her mind, repeating it three times and committing it to memory. Thankfully she could memorize most things almost immediately.
It was probably nothing, but…
"You okay?" whispered Mark once they were on the road again.
"Yeah, just didn't like the look of the SUV back there." She yawned. "I'm going to see if I can go to sleep for a bit." She snuggled up against his shoulder and crashed.
***
"And again, things screwed up. Something so simple. I manage to rein in my two cousins and now my criminal uncle lets the kids get away. Jesus." He stared in shock at his desk. "How the hell did they get out?"
At this point all he wanted to do was get a hell of a long way away from those juvie kids. They were nothing but trouble. He'd said that from the beginning.
This just proved it.
He'd been trying to call his uncle for the last ten minutes too. Only he wasn't answering.
Damn.
And his uncle was a bit of a wild card. Had a temper too. Didn't take orders well. As he'd found out.
At least the last tests had been good.
Only the game had changed again. And those damn kids were free. Free to talk. He knew he should have left well enough alone.
And damn it, why didn't his uncle pick up the phone? He needed his uncle to walk away. To put a stop to any plans he had.
He began to sweat and his right eye twitched nervously.
He couldn't help but think he just might have enough money after all.
That it might be time to run – before it was too late.
***
Mark watched as Gem dropped her head on his shoulder and hit zzz-land instantly. How did she do that? He'd love to sleep. Not only did he need to but it would make the trip that much faster. He leaned back and closed his eyes.
The truck swerved suddenly.
Mark lifted his head and looked around. Everything looked normal.
"Stupid idiot," muttered John, slowing the truck down.
"What happened?"
"He cut me off. Damn drivers these days. Probably some young punk driving daddy's SUV, someone who doesn't know how big and powerful it really is. They're almost trucks. Those big ones are even on a truck frame."
Hadn't Gem said something about an SUV back there? Coincidence? Had to be? "I didn't see. What did it look like?"
"Solid black with smoked windows. Idiot. Can't see the driver well with them windows either."
"Like a government rig, or with a big corporation look?"
John frowned, looking at him in the rear view mirror.
"Yup, sorta similar. Why?" John's eyes sharpened as Mark met his gaze. Even tired, John commanded a strong presence. He'd never been pushy or aggressive, but he was sure in himself. Sure of right and wrong.
"Just something Gem said before she nodded off. About not liking the look of the SUV that parked close to us back at the rest stop." He exchanged a serious look with John in the rearview mirror.
"I'd like to hope they don't try anything again, but I suppose given the number of times they've tried and failed... John changed lanes and stayed left as the highway split off in two directions. "The SUV is just ahead of us."
Mark leaned forward slightly without disturbing Gem. "Where?"
John pointed forward where the same SUV drove at a steady speed in the slow lane ahead of them.
Mark peered through the windshield. He wished he sat in the front. Reid had crashed again, and with Gem sleeping against his shoulder Mark couldn't move closer for a better look. The traffic streamed along with them at a steady pace but the highway wasn't jammed with vehicles. Rolling hills and bare land dotted the region. Not a town or ranch in sight. He watched John slow slightly and allow a small car to move into the space between the two vehicles. The miles swept past.
"Guess Doris will be glad to see you back again."
"She'll be glad to see all of us back." John rubbed his jaw. "I'll be glad to get back to her. Can't say I liked leaving her alone like I did. Too much funny stuff going on."
Mark hadn't considered whether Doris and John were in danger. So far, all the attacks had been on the four kids. "Any idea how Misty's doing?"
John shook his head. "The doctor's aren't too happy. She's not keeping most liquids down."
"We could stop in on the way into town? See if she's any better." Mark suggested.
John shrugged. "Better we drop you off with Doris first. I'll take a run up afterwards."
"You've got to be tired. I wish I could drive." He'd talked of nothing else while in juvie, but once at the home, the reality of the expenses involved had set Mark's enthusiasm back some.
"Yup. I was driving at your age."
"I've never had a chance." He'd never had a home life that he could remember. Maybe if he'd had a father around he'd have learned to drive by now.
"We'll have to take a look at that later. All of you are old enough." John glanced over at the sleeping Reid.
"Maybe,
but we don't have the money for classes." Mark wished he did though.
"Don't need classes. I can do the training. Just need open country and wheels. The rules are online and I think there are practice tests to make sure you know the rules of the road, and the laws are there too."
"Yeah, they are. I've done the tests."
"And. How did you do?"