by Nina Wright
The guy returned his wallet to his pocket. “Maybe some other time,” he mumbled, and they moved off.
“Thanks,” the pilot said acidly. “Your micro-charter just got more expensive.”
“Fine. Here’s my deposit. We’ll put the rest on my credit card. On all my credit cards, if necessary. Let’s go!”
The pilot insisted on taking not only my cash but also my Visa. As a down payment. I was all right with that, provided we got off the ground right away. Of course he made me wear a flotation device.
“I guess you know how that works by now,” he said into his headset; I was wearing one of those, too. Even though he didn’t seem to like me, he let me ride in the seat next to his, which promised a truly panoramic, puke-inducing view.
The take-off was so smooth that the copter seemed to levitate. My stomach lurched as the earth dropped rapidly away, so I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing. By the time I was ready to see the world again, we were straight up in the sky, high above the Jamboree. Below us, the cross-country snowmobile race had begun. Dozens of machines were zooming out of town on a disused service road. The Chamber of Commerce had laid out a thirty-mile course made up of old roads and railroad beds, farmers’ fields and woodland trails.
“Where to, Deputy?” the pilot asked.
It took me a moment to get my bearings. Flying from downtown Magnet Springs to the Broken Arrow Motel was a whole different matter than driving there. Simpler, yes, but completely disorienting.
“Can we fly at a lower altitude?” I said. “From up here the people look like dots.”
“No problem,” the pilot said and promptly dropped us about five hundred feet.
I must have shrieked into my mouthpiece because he told me never to do that again. I promised not to scream if he promised not to make me feel like I was falling from the sky.
“This craft is very responsive,” he explained. “Whatever you want it to do, I can probably make it do. In a heartbeat.”
I directed the pilot to fly north along the coast until I spotted a large flat rock on which a child’s parka was spread. From the air, it looked sickeningly like a murder victim’s chalk outline. Nearby was Deely’s abandoned snowmobile, meaning the teen-age kid who’d lent it to her was in trouble with his uncle, for sure.
“Turn right!” I said. As the pilot tipped us too sharply, I revised my command. “Easy, please! Try heading toward two o’clock.”
“Now you’ve got it!” He grinned at me, and I decided he was cute when he wasn’t being a dickhead.
“Do you have a name?” I asked.
“Todd.”
I told him my moniker. “Where’re you from, Todd?”
“I grew up in Kissimmee, Florida,” he replied, “but when I was in the Army, I was stationed at Fort Grayling, and I liked having four seasons for the first time in my life. So after I got out, I stayed. Now Michigan feels like home.”
I thought about Nash Grant, lately of Florida, too. He was willing to call Magnet Springs home for the short term in order to have access to his kids. I didn’t believe Nash had had anything to do with Leah and Leo’s abduction. Whoever took the twins wanted to exchange them for Abra and Prince Harry, but only if Avery made the switch. Nash wouldn’t toy with his own children or torment their already agitated mother. Who on earth would? And why?
Spotting the Broken Arrow Motel from the air proved easy enough. Not only did the sprawling scarlet one-story building have a large sign in front—featuring a broken arrow—but it was located right on the highway less than a mile from the Lake. How Chester had found it from the shore was the mystery. He would have had to trudge mostly uphill through pine woods and scrub. I could hardly imagine my diva dog enduring that hardship, except in pursuit of the boy she loved. Was it coincidental that Chester had come ashore so near the Broken Arrow after falling through the ice? Or had he known where he was?
Probably because I’d seen too many cop shows on TV, I anticipated arriving in the middle of the action. Sure, I knew that Jenx was no longer at the scene, but I expected some police authority to be there, guns drawn, lights flashing. At the very least, I thought I’d see Deputies Deely and Abra.
Nobody. Nothing. Not even Dr. David’s Animal Ambulance. Just a few tourists’ cars were left in the parking lot. Most of the Broken Arrow’s guests had gone to town for the Jamboree.
I checked the back of my hand for Jenx’s police-radio frequency and then asked Todd to tune it in. We were circling the motel when my headphone crackled.
Todd said, “Your chief’s on the line. I’m patching her through.”
“Jenx!” I shouted. “We’re above the Broken Arrow. Where is everyone?”
“Brady’s on his way. The State Boys are slow, as usual—”
“Hold on!” I said, leaning as far to the right as my seatbelt would allow. The door to one motel unit had opened, and a woman had emerged. Shielding her eyes with her hand, she peered up at us. The sun glinted off her bright auburn hair.
“Evelyn Huffenbach is down there!” I cried. “She’s waving at us!”
Chapter Thirty-four
Over the radio, Jenx asked, “When you say Evelyn Huffenbach’s ‘waving’ at you, do you mean as in ‘Hello there!’—or as in ‘Help me!’?”
I considered the question. “I’d say Mrs. Huffenbach’s inviting us down, wouldn’t you, Todd?”
My pilot agreed and tipped the helicopter to return Evelyn’s wave.
Assuming that Jenx was about to tell us to get down there, I scanned the parking lot for a good place to land. Suddenly Todd shouted, “Over there! Look!”
He pointed toward a break in the pine woods bordering the motel. A small boy with a pale blue blanket over his shoulders appeared to be running for his life.
“That’s Chester!” I shrieked. “Jenx! I see Chester!”
“Forget about Evelyn!” Jenx said unnecessarily. “Go pick up the kid!”
I looked at Todd, who was already pulling away from the motel.
“We need to get him out on the road,” the pilot said. “I’m going down to treetop level. Whiskey, you’re going to tell Chester what to do.”
The copter dipped as promised, and my body lifted ever so slightly from my seat. We were skimming the pines now, accelerating toward Chester. Todd flipped a couple switches on his radio console and pointed at me. “You’re on loudspeaker! Go!”
I peered at the blanket-cloaked form below. His white-blonde head down, Chester pressed onward. He must have thought the “bad guys” were above as well as behind him.
“Hello, Chester! It’s me, Whiskey! It’s okay! You’re okay! We’re going to take you home!”
When he looked up, my heart soared. We were low enough to see the sparkle of his glasses and the smile creasing his round face. When he waved, he dropped his cape and stumbled. The poor kid lay buck naked in the snow.
“Chester, this is Todd, your pilot, speaking. We’ll have you warm and dry in no time, buddy! Just do what we tell you. Okay?”
Still grinning, Chester gave the thumb’s up sign.
“Brush yourself off, bundle up, and go to your left—out to the road!” Todd boomed. “That’s it. To your left, Chester! We’ll pick you up there in a minute! Follow me!”
I’m sure Chester was still smiling, but I could no longer see his face for my tears. I, the gal who never cries, was letting the dam break apart. Without comment, Todd handed me a box of tissues. He wasn’t a jerk, after all. And he was a damn fine pilot. He nodded the copter at Chester, then slowly pivoted toward the road. Aircraft and boy proceeded apace, with Todd broadcasting steady encouragement.
When we touched down, Chester was running toward us, his small body carnation-pink from cold. Todd handed me two wool blankets. I stepped out onto the road ready to envelop Chester as he launched himself into my arms.
“We’re six minutes by air from CMC,” Todd said, referring to Coastal Medical Center, the nearest hospital. I’d checked myself out of there the previou
s morning . . . after meeting C. Richards, R.N., now a Coastal Med patient himself under his real name, Thomas McKondin.
En route, we swathed Chester in additional blankets and cranked up the cockpit heat. I held him on my lap, my arms around him, my cheeks damp with tears. As soon as his teeth stopped chattering, Chester started the story of his remarkable seventy-two hour adventure. The details would have to wait until after he was treated. But I heard enough during the six minutes we were in transit to know what I needed to do next.
“I only went with Bibi because she said she had dog problems. Like you do, Whiskey,” Chester began. “Bibi read about me in the Chicago papers, so she knew I could handle Abra. She said her Saluki had behavior issues. She wanted to hire me as a canine consultant.”
“You’re good at that,” I assured him.
“Bibi took me to her car, to meet her Saluki. But there was no Saluki. She pushed me and Abra and Prince Harry into the car and locked the doors.”
Repelled though I was by that image, I had to admire Mrs. Gribble’s dog-handling chutzpah. At home I could hardly push Abra through the doggie door.
“Abra didn’t like Bibi,” Chester said. “When we got to the casino, Abra bit her. That’s how she got away!”
“Is that why you mouthed the word ‘Abra’ to the cocktail waitress when Bibi yanked you off the casino floor?”
“I didn’t do that. I was trying to yell ‘Help me!’ But Bibi had my scarf so tight around my neck it was like a noose. I couldn’t get the words out.”
“I’m still confused,” I said. “If you were kidnapped, why did you send a note saying you were ‘on a mission’?”
“Bibi made me write that.” Behind his thick lenses, Chester’s eyes were shadowed. “She’s not a nice lady . . . even though she kept telling me she was.”
“She held you prisoner!” I exclaimed. “How could she call that being ‘nice’?”
“Because she let Prince Harry go when I asked her to. And she left messages for Roy Vickers at your office to tell him where he could find my notes and also Prince Harry.”
“Mrs. Gribble kidnapped you,” I insisted. “That’s a federal crime.”
Chester shrugged. “She said it was Cassina’s fault for keeping us apart my whole life. Bibi’s my grandmother.”
“No, Evelyn Huffenbach is your grandmother,” I said.
Chester screwed up his face. “Who’s Evelyn Huffenbach?”
“The red-haired lady at the motel? You were in her room.”
“Ohhhhhh.” Chester pondered the new information. “Well, that would explain the pictures.”
“What pictures?”
“Her motel room is full of pictures—of me: baby pictures, school pictures, pictures backstage with Cassina. I thought she was a stalker. That’s why I went out the window, and why I was only wearing a blanket.”
“I was wondering about that . . .”
“I fell through the ice. So I took off my coat to dry.”
“What about the rest of your clothes?”
“It’s a long story, Whiskey,” Chester sighed. “Let me tell it my way, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I was planning to come back for my coat, but first I needed help. I started walking toward the highway. There wasn’t a trail, so I followed car sounds when I could hear them. Finally, I saw the motel! I knocked on doors, one after another. Nobody answered till I came to the red-haired lady. When she saw me, she went wild—laughing and crying. She wouldn’t stop hugging me. She called me God’s gift. The answer to her prayers. Then she pulled off my wet clothes and wrapped me in a blanket from her bed. She started running my bathwater.
“‘Uh-oh,’ I thought. ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’ So I told her I had to pee. I locked myself in the bathroom and climbed out the window. I was almost too cold to keep going. But no way was I staying with a crazy lady!”
Todd had radioed ahead to CMC, and while Chester was talking, he set us down on the helipad. Two men with a gurney dashed out to meet us.
Over the helicopter’s roar, one shouted, “Is this Cassina’s kid?”
Jenx must have given someone a head’s up.
“Yes!” I yelled back. “His name is Chester!”
“Relax, Chester,” the orderly said. “You’re fine, and your mom is on her way!”
I squeezed my favorite neighbor’s hand. “See you in a little while, Big Guy!”
He waved as they rolled him away. I wished I could stay with him, but I had to go find Leo’s grand-babies. Hastily I used my mittens to wipe my cheeks and nose so that nobody would know I’d been crying.
“Call coming through for you,” Todd announced in my headset.
“Hello?”
“You’ve been crying,” Jenx declared. “I’m at Vestige, with Avery. The State Police are here, and our favorite Fibbies are on their way. So’s an ambulance.”
“An ambulance?” My heart wobbled. “What happened?”
“Just what you expected: Avery lost it. She’s hysterical—can’t talk, can’t think, can’t breathe. No way she can exchange the dogs for the babies.” Jenx exhaled heavily. “No way we can meet the kidnappers’ demands.”
I had an idea.
“Can we find Deely?” I said. “I looked for her around the motel but didn’t see her.”
“That’s because I brought her and Abra back here with me,” Jenx said.
“Avery will calm down if she knows that Deely will stand in for her.”
“Say what?”
“Jenx, haven’t you noticed? Deely looks like Avery! Take off the glasses and put her in a parka like Avery’s, with the hood up. I swear to God, you can’t tell them apart.”
“Yeah?” Jenx sounded doubtful.
“Yeah! And Deely can do anything. Except wear fur. Can you talk to her?”
I heard a phone ringing in the background—my phone at Vestige.
“Hang on,” Jenx said. “This could be another call from the kidnapper. Let me get back to you.”
“Where to next, boss?” Todd asked.
“Don’t you have to return this thing?” I said, indicating the helicopter. We were sitting on the helipad, blades churning.
“Sure, but what’s the rush? I’ve got your credit card. . . .” He grinned lazily.
Jenx’s voice came through again. “Okay, Whiskey, she’s up for it. Deely Smarr is reporting for duty!”
“Was that a call from the kidnapper?” I said.
“Yup. Deely wrote down the instructions. And here’s where you come in. . . . ”
Jenx talked fast. I listened. When she had finished, I checked my watch and turned to Todd.
“Let’s go get us a pair of sky-box seats for the cross-country snowmobile race!”
Chapter Thirty-five
As the roof dropped away from us, I pointed out a vast expanse of snow to our west: the Shirtz Brothers’ farm. A thousand acres devoted to corn and soybeans in season, it was the last family dynasty in Lanagan County.
“If the race is on schedule, the lead snowmobiles should be crossing those fields any minute,” I told Todd.
We tied with the fastest contenders, flying in from the east just as three motorized winter chariots darted out of the woods to the south. Their brightly dressed drivers bounced across the undulating white landscape below us.
“Take her down a bit!” I said. My pilot obliged as four more snowmobiles exited the woods. Now that their route had widened, the vehicles tried to pass each other.
“What are we looking for?” Todd said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I’ll know it when I see it. I just hope I see it.”
A few minutes later, we both saw it: another snowmobile running parallel to the racers along a low ridge about a half-mile to the west. The outsider vehicle appeared to have more than one occupant.
“Hey, they’re cheating,” Todd said. “Looks like they’re taking a shortcut!”
“No, they’re running a different race.”
“What now?” Todd said.
“Find the missing chariot.”
We whirred across the fields and over the ridge. Between the high ground and Lake Michigan lay a swath of naked deciduous forest. I recognized it as part of a state preserve. A wide trail intended as a firewall had been carved through its center, parallel to the shore. I squinted and leaned forward in my seat, straining to decipher a detail farther north along the trail. Without speaking, Todd passed me a pair of binoculars. Once I had adjusted the focus, I identified Deely and the dogs. Abra appeared to sit upright like a human passenger while Deely carried Prince Harry in a mesh backpack. I recognized the snowmobile, too, by its bright blue MR inscription. Deely had managed to start up the Mattimoe Realty snowmobile that my late great Leo kept in our garage. When Jenx had told me that the strange voice on the phone ordered Avery to use a snowmobile, I knew I owed Roy Vickers a debt of gratitude for servicing it.
The Coast Guard nanny veered off onto a service road that led away from the preserve. We kept her in sight while climbing higher and hanging farther back. I was sure Deely could hear us; yet we kept enough distance between us to avoid attracting the kind of attention that might broadcast her approach.
“Mind if I ask what this is about?” Todd said.
I took a deep breath and told him what I was sure of: that the woman below was on her way to exchange two dogs for two missing babies.
“You mean, they were kidnapped?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Todd said, “Are the dogs valuable, like ransom?”
“Not really. The puppy’s cute enough, but the older dog’s a pain in the ass.”
Suddenly it hit me that we were about to give away Chester’s pup. And we’d only just rescued Chester. The poor kid had been traumatized enough already. How long till he insisted on seeing Prince Harry? How could I justify sacrificing his dog?
I assumed Jenx had a plan in place for rescuing the dogs after we rescued the babies. But what if she didn’t? Or what if her canine recovery plan failed? Would Chester forgive us? Would Prince Harry? I knew Abra wouldn’t. If anything went wrong, the Afghan hound would haunt me the rest of my days.