by Camy Tang
Poozy: Aunt Tessa, r u there?
Tessa typed in a message:
TSLan: Hi, P.
Poozy: Grandma found old children’s clothes that aren’t pink, purple, or flowered, and asks if Elizabeth wants them for Daniel.
Tessa laughed. Elizabeth, reading over her shoulder, said, “Sure.” Then she tilted her head. “Do you think we can go over to your mom’s house to say goodbye tonight?”
It was ten kinds of dangerous, especially when they were so close to being safe — well, safer, anyway. “I don’t know …”
“We’ve been really good,” Elizabeth said. “Daniel and I have been going stir-crazy in this house, but we haven’t gone out or let anyone know we’re here.”
“It’ll only be for a couple hours,” Vivian said, walking into the living room.
“Plus it’s still light outside,” Elizabeth said, sensing Tessa giving way.
“Plus we have Charles’s car,” Vivian added in triumph.
“We do?”
“He took the train to work this morning because I told him I needed the car to go grocery shopping.”
“The store is just around the corner. I don’t think he would want us driving all the way down to Mom’s house in San Jose.”
“If he didn’t want me driving it, then he shouldn’t have let me borrow it,” was Vivian’s logic.
Tessa’s logic was saying, “Nonononono.” But some weird feeling made her want to take them. And not just Elizabeth and Daniel, but Vivian too. “Vivian, want to come?”
“Oh, I’d love to meet your family. And I haven’t added the shrimp yet to the creole, so it can wait.”
“Okay, let’s go.” Tessa sent an IM to Paisley before she changed her mind.
They had a momentary problem when they didn’t know how to get Daniel’s car seat into the Audi, but Vivian figured it out and they were on their way.
She may think Charles was a piece of flotsam on an ocean of snot, but his car was a pure dream to drive. Tessa still paid attention to the traffic to see if they were being followed — it had become second nature to her whenever she drove anywhere, with or without Elizabeth — but she didn’t see any cars. She almost wished they had a tail so she could pit the Audi against them.
They were nearly there when Vivian said, “Oh, I forgot. Eddie was going to come over tonight for supper. I’ll call him to tell him it’ll be late. We’ll be back in a couple hours?”
The way the Audi drove, Tessa might be able to make it to Mom’s house and back in less. “Sure.”
Vivian dialed her son on her cell phone. “Hello, Eddie? Yes, supper’s … You’re already pulling up to the house? Oh, I’m sorry about that, we’re in San Jose … Yes, yes, if you’re hungry, throw the shrimp in, let it simmer until they turn pink, and then go ahead and eat. Just save some for us. We’ll be back in a couple hours.” She hung up.
Soon Tessa was introducing Vivian to her mom, sister, and niece. Mom made green tea for all of them and pulled out some Japanese cookies for Daniel.
“I’m so sorry you’re leaving,” Mom said as they sat in the living room. “We so enjoyed having you here.”
Tessa sipped her tea. Maybe she just wasn’t someone her mom would ever relate to. It was probably for the best that she find a job soon — one that paid real money — and move out.
Paisley, who’d been texting with Maria, suddenly frowned at her phone and knocked it against the coffee table a few times.
“Hey, hey,” Alicia protested. “We don’t have the money to buy you a new one.”
“It’s broken. It just suddenly said, ‘No Service.’”
A chill raced through Tessa. No, it was probably nothing to worry about. But better to be safe than sorry. She immediately picked up the landline phone, which was sitting on the end table near her.
No dial tone.
Her vision suddenly expanded, and her skin became sensitive and tingly. Had that been a shadow at the window? She shot to her feet. “Everybody, my bedroom, now!”
“Tessa, really —” Mom started to say, but Tessa hissed, “Move, Mom!”
Paisley was the first to move. She sprinted down the hallway just as Elizabeth rose to her feet and Daniel, sensing the changed atmosphere in the room, began to cry.
“Follow Paisley,” Tessa told her. She grabbed her mother and propelled her toward the back of the house, and Mom didn’t even protest the tight grip on her arm. Alicia and Vivian hastened after her.
Paisley held the door open. “Hurry.” As soon as everyone was inside, she slammed the door shut.
Years ago, when she’d had her private collection in this room, Tessa had installed multiple locks, although she’d never had to engage any of them before. She and Paisley scrambled to close all the locks. Next to the door was a metal security door bar that she grabbed and jammed under the knob.
Tessa had stored boards, nails, and a couple hammers in the room to board up the large picture window, if ever needed. “Paisley.” She handed her niece a hammer and pulled out some boards. Now she wished she’d been smarter and had reinforced the window with security film and steel rods and security bars.
“Really, Tessa,” Mom said, now that her initial alarm was fading. “This is overreacting.”
Tessa nailed a board across the window, Paisley working directly below her. “If I am, then we’ll just unlock the door in a few minutes and get a good laugh out of it.”
She’d been a fanciful teenager, which had fed her tendency toward paranoia and conspiracy theories. Plus, once she had acquired that AR – 15, she’d wanted to protect her weapons stash. She had never thought she’d actually use these fortification measures.
She knew she wasn’t being paranoid now.
Because of Paisley’s help, they finished quickly. If they were under attack, the intruders would know by now that they were in here because of the sound of pounding nails. Well, it couldn’t be helped.
Then the creak of a floor board reached them through the thick walls.
Mom turned white. Alicia put an arm around her and held her close, her own expression tense and terrified. Elizabeth wrapped her arms around Daniel and crushed him to her, while Vivian huddled close to her.
Another creak.
Then someone tried the doorknob.
“Paisley,” Tessa whispered. She crouched down on one side of her bed. “Help me move this night stand. Quietly.”
Alicia moved to clear the stand of the lamp and clock radio. Then Tessa and Paisley grasped each end of the large stand and lifted, carrying it a few feet to the side.
A dark, spiderweb-filled hole gaped at them from the floor.
Mom’s mouth fell open. “When did you do this?” she demanded in a whisper.
Paisley’s shoulders had risen to touch her ears. “Aunt Tessa,” she said, her voice shaking.
“I’m sorry for the spiders, but it’s the only way. I made this hole when I was a teenager, and I don’t fit in it anymore. It comes out under Grandma’s azalea bush.”
“No wonder that bush never grew well,” Mom groused.
“You need to get out — but carefully, don’t let them see you — and go to Mrs. Fleming’s house next door and call the police.” Tessa glanced at Elizabeth, who was holding a softly whimpering Daniel. “Should we try to send Daniel with Paisley?”
“I want to, but I don’t think he’d go down there,” Elizabeth said. “And he might cry and get Paisley discovered.”
Paisley had screwed up her face as she crouched in front of the hole. Then Alicia came to her with a bandana and wrapped it around her head. “This’ll help.”
The knob was rattled again, louder and harder.
“Hurry,” Tessa said. “Be brave.”
“Be smart,” Alicia added. “Don’t get caught.”
With a disgusted squeal, Paisley dove into the hole. Alicia grabbed the covers off the bed and piled them up over the hole to hide it.
“Now what?” she whispered.
The attackers sta
rted banging on the door. It wasn’t going to hold forever.
“Get under the bed,” she ordered them.
“We won’t all fit,” Elizabeth said.
“Just try.”
Vivian, Elizabeth, Daniel, and Mom squashed under the bed, but Alicia stood next to her. “Please tell me you left a few weapons in here.”
Tessa shook her head.
More banging. Then a man’s voice spoke in Chinese to someone.
Triad.
A pair of fists twisted and wrung out her stomach. This was not good.
No, no time for self-pity or worrying. She had to think! No weapons? No problem. They’d just improvise.
Bam! Bam! came the pounding on the door.
She scanned the room, depressingly empty. She had taken most of her belongings with her when she first moved out, and since getting out of jail, she hadn’t accumulated much.
She pulled out a drawer from the nightstand, dumping out its contents. Nothing useful unless she wanted to squirt Neosporin in the attacker’s eye. But the drawer was small enough, not too bulky.
Handing the drawer to Alicia, she said, “Swing it at anything that moves. Try to hit with a corner, not the flat panel.”
Alicia nodded.
Bam! Bam!
Tessa grabbed another drawer. How long had it been since Paisley left? Did she escape? How long before the police would arrive?
The wood in the center of the door started to buckle from the repeated pounding. They couldn’t break the locks on the edge, but she had never thought to reinforce the center panel.
“Stay back.” She sent Alicia to the far corner and she stood a few feet away, waiting for the attacker to get through.
Suddenly a crash from the window, and the boards splintered. Alicia screamed, but gamely swung at the foot kicking in the wood. There was a sound of cursing that Tessa couldn’t understand.
Then a figure appeared, only just visible in the closing darkness, and a hand reached in through the window and grabbed Alicia.
Leaving the door, Tessa surged forward.
Alicia struggled, swinging the drawer, but he held on.
Dropping the drawer she held, Tessa got between the man and her sister, then spun so her back was to the window. She grabbed his wrist, tucked her other forearm under his elbow and yanked her forearm up. The arm- bar move dislocated his elbow with a pop. He screamed in pain and snatched his arm back.
The other man kicked in the center panel of the bedroom door in an explosion of splintered wood. Tessa could see him through the narrow vertical hole in the door, saw him raise his hand, saw the barrel of the gun.
She shoved Alicia out of the way as he fired.
One, two, three shots. The first two zinged past her, burning the air in their wake.
It almost seemed like she felt the pain from the third bullet before she heard the shot being fired.
It was a red hot poker stabbing into her liver. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cry out, couldn’t move. Fire engulfed her, radiating from that spot low on her abdomen.
Someone shouted, “Tessa!”
The slap of the floor against her back. The water-stained ceiling above her.
They were unprotected, now.
She had failed them.
Chapter 28
Charles had come home early … he didn’t know why. Pain and torture? Stupidity?
But all he found was an empty house and a still-warm pot of creole, sans shrimp, on the stove, which was thankfully turned off. Where was everyone?
He reached for his phone to call Mama when he heard Eddie’s key unlocking the front door.
“Mama and company are on their way to Tessa’s mom’s house in San Jose,” Eddie said by way of a greeting as soon as Charles opened the door. He waggled his cell phone. “I just got off the phone with her. But Mama says I can eat —”
It was a bare blur of movement behind Eddie, but it caught Charles’s eye. He glanced over his brother’s shoulder.
A hulking Asian man ran up and slammed a meaty forearm into the back of Eddie’s head. He stumbled forward into Charles, and the two of them staggered into the house.
The Chinese Hulk strode into the foyer, followed by a slender Asian man who looked like a whip of licorice — dressed all in black, narrow body, narrow face, long arms and legs. Licorice Whip immediately grabbed Charles by his shirt front and dragged him into the kitchen, where he threw him against the corner of the cooking island in the center of the room.
The edge of the counter hit him above his ear. Pain arced across his vision. He fell to his knees at the base of the cooking island. His palm flattened against the cold tile, and then he saw drops of blood falling down.
He registered movement to his left. The Chinese Hulk had thrown Eddie to the floor next to Charles. There was a darkening bruise over his right eye.
He let them lie there, towering over them. Charles dimly heard Licorice Whip heading up the stairs.
They were looking for Elizabeth.
But they weren’t here.
What had made Tessa take Elizabeth and Daniel and Mama with her to San Jose? Thank God. Thank God. Or else they would have been here.
What was the use of having a security alarm when these two men had been able to muscle their way in through the front door with nothing more than a heavy hand and good timing?
Licorice Whip ran down the stairs and entered the kitchen. He immediately reached down and grabbed Charles’s right hand.
Charles fought him, but the pain of the gash in his head made him dizzy. Licorice Whip put a hand to Charles’s right shoulder and twisted his arm sharply so that Charles’s hand lay palm side up on top of the cooking island’s countertop. He tried to rise, but Licorice Whip’s hand leveraged on his shoulder kept him completely immobile, at his feet.
“Elizabeth St. Amant.” Licorice Whip had only a trace of an accent. “Where is she?”
“Shopping,” Charles ground out.
Licorice Whip grabbed Charles’s pinky and broke it.
Charles shouted out. It felt like an awl pounded into his hand, even though he knew it was only his pinky bone.
Only.
“Where is she?”
Charles hesitated this time rather than simply snapping out where Licorice Whip could stick it. The pain radiated down his arm from his hand like his blood had turned to battery acid.
Licorice Whip wrapped his fingers around Charles’s right ring finger. “Where is she?”
“Federal prosecutors,” he gasped. “Putting you away for life.”
He broke his ring finger.
Charles hadn’t thought it could hurt more, but this felt like a sledgehammer turning his finger into powder with one blow. He screamed.
Licorice Whip started speaking to the Hulk in rapid Chinese. The Hulk pulled out his cell phone and dialed even as Licorice Whip continued talking. Charles heard the words “San Jose.”
Oh no. They’d figured out where they were. Or were they simply going to pick up Tessa’s family so they would have leverage and make her turn Elizabeth over to them?
The Hulk got off the phone, then gave Charles a nasty smile. “They’re already —”
But suddenly Eddie swept a leg out, making the Hulk’s legs fly out from under him, toppling him to the ground. In a second Eddie was on top of him, looking like an ant trying to crawl up a molehill. The man twisted and grabbed at his brother, and the two rolled across the kitchen floor.
But … no. Eddie had managed to trap the man’s mutton-sized arm and watermelon-shaped head between his legs. One of Eddie’s feet hooked under his other knee, and the Hulk’s shoulder pressed against his jaw with the pressure. The Hulk flailed his arms, kicked with his legs, but couldn’t escape Eddie’s hold on him.
Licorice Whip’s hold on Charles loosened.
Charles jerked himself upright and swung a left hook into the skinny jaw.
His knuckles crunched like he’d hit a concrete wall, and for a moment he wondered if they w
ere broken too. Spit flew from Licorice Whip’s slack mouth as the blow sent his head flying sideways. Even as he fell to the ground, his eyes rolled back, showing the whites.
Charles curled his body inward, cupping both hands close to him, but unable to ease the throbbing pain. Yeah, his right hand definitely hurt more than his knuckles.
Eddie unlocked his legs, and the Chinese Hulk fell back onto the tile floor, unconscious. “Whoa. That really worked.”
“What was that?” The question came out a little louder than a moan.
“Triangle choke.”
Maybe that mixed martial arts stuff was useful after all. Then again, he doubted most MMA fighters ever had to contend with a home invasion.
“Quick, get the large zip ties from the garage and tie these guys up. I’d do it, but …” He held up his swollen right hand.
In minutes, Eddie had tied their wrists together behind them, and then used rope to tie their ankles to their wrists in a hog tie.
“You have to call the police. Not just to come here, but tell them to send cars to Tessa’s mom’s house.”
“You think they sent more guys there?” Eddie stumbled to the phone on the kitchen wall.
“I heard him say ‘San Jose.’” His stomach heaved, and he wondered if he was going to cast up his accounts.
“Well, they’re definitely not going to a Sharks game.”
While Eddie called the police, Charles twisted his less-injured left hand around and dug his cell phone out of his pants pocket. His fingers shook as he brought up Tessa’s mom’s house address. He shoved the phone toward Eddie as he told the officers about being invaded by two men, and how they’d tied them up.
“The men mentioned this address.” Eddie rattled off the Lancaster address as he read it from Charles’s phone. “They’re friends of ours. You’ve got to send police cars there right away.”
Charles grabbed his phone and dialed Mama’s number. He’d barely put it against his ear when it went straight to voice mail.
His stomach became a wadded up piece of paper, pressed tighter and tighter into a hard ball. He tried again, but the same thing happened.
He called Tessa, but it also went to voice mail. He searched his address book and found Tessa’s mom’s home phone number, but the operator’s voice immediately came on: “The number you have dialed is unavailable. Please check the number and dial again.”