by Peg Herring
“Now let’s get the rest of my money,” Luther said cheerfully.
Robin led the way into the open unit, which was lit by a small lantern. It was half full of the things she’d left behind in Cedar: her bedroom set, her living room furniture, and a tall bookcase filled with her mother’s hardcover set of Books That Changed the World. She noted a few new items that must be Tom’s. One was a weight bench that had ropes attached to it. Mottled with dark stains, the ropes had recently been cut. A small pool of something that looked like blood had settled under the bench.
“I haven’t got all night, lady.”
Though her throbbing face made it difficult, Robin tried to think. Her right eye was almost swollen shut, and her scalp burned where Luther had pulled out strands of hair. Still, she had to stall. Maybe Hua had called the police by now. Maybe Em would return for them when she realized they were late meeting her in town. Neither of those things was likely to save her or Cam.
Searching through the items as if unsure where to look, she said, “It’s in a black gym bag. You might have to get him out of that trunk and have him show you where it is.”
“Or I could put a bullet in there and see if that makes you any better at finding things.”
“I’m trying!” she said angrily.
As she moved to explore the back corner, Robin noticed the hole Hua and Cam had cut to get Tom out. Could she dive through it and escape before Luther caught her?
“Don’t even think about it.” He took her arm and pulled her backward. As she went, Robin caught sight of an eye and a shock of black hair behind the headboard of her bed. Hua.
“There it is!” she said, pointing in the opposite direction. “Behind the bookcase.”
As Luther leaned in to look, she twisted out of his grip. At the same time, Hua leapt out and swung at him with a softball bat Robin recognized as her own. Luther’s instincts provided a warning, and he turned at the last moment. Hua’s blow landed on his shoulder, and though he bellowed with pain and staggered backward, he was able to raise the gun and aim at Hua, who stood so close there was no way Luther would miss.
Whatever it takes.
With a swift motion, Robin pushed the bookcase, tipping it toward Luther. His eyes widened and he tried to step back, but he was too slow. The case fell forward and its weight carried him to the ground. Books tumbled out, burying him in philosophy, history, and economics. As Luther struggled to roll out from under them, Robin put a foot on his neck, holding him down. Hua hurried forward and took the gun from his hand.
“Are you all right, Hua?”
His chest heaved with exertion as he said, “I had to run very fast to get here before you, Robin, but your decision to bring Luther inside was very wise indeed. Now can you find some things among your possessions to tie around his limbs? If I had known we would need it, I would have worn my Elvis scarf.”
“Hua, Cam’s in the trunk of their car.”
“No, I’m not,” Cam said from the doorway. I told you there’s a release button in most cars now, Robin. You forgot, just like Luther did.”
***
“Get three rooms somewhere north of Cedar and message me the address,” Robin told Hua and Cam as they got into the van. “I’ll pick up the others and be right behind you.” To their great relief, she’d received a text from Em with a simple ok.
Robin drove the RAV to the park, where Em and Bennett stood next to the rental. “Everybody’s okay?”
Em frowned as she got a glimpse of Robin’s face. “We’re good. You look a little worse for wear.”
“You should see the other guy. Where’s Tom?”
“Under that tree. Bennett and I will return the rental car and walk back here while you get him situated in the RAV.”
“Is your hip going to let you do that?”
She looked offended. “It’ll be good for me.”
“Does Tom need a doctor?”
Em donned cotton work gloves and began wiping fingerprints off the car’s surfaces as she spoke. “I did some triage. He doesn’t seem to have a punctured lung or anything. It’s probably best if we get out of Dodge and see a doctor later.” Satisfied with her work, she let Bennett into the rental, followed him in, and drove away.
Taking a flashlight from the van, Robin found where Wyman lay on the ground. Though someone had wiped the worst of the dirt and blood from his face, he was a still mess. “Oh, Tom!”
He raised a hand almost to her face. “What happened to you?”
“Let’s just say I’ll live. Luther will too, if he’s lucky.”
“He didn’t believe I couldn’t tell them where you were. I’m not a good liar, but apparently I’m not convincing when I tell the truth either.”
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “It’s my fault.”
He laughed. “Hey, I got blown twenty feet in the air by a roadside bomb and lost a few pieces in the process. A little beating isn’t going to kill me.” He licked the split in his lower lip and winced. “Sorry about mentioning your, um, bed. It was the only way I could think of to let you know where I was.”
“Hey, it worked.”
Tom looked away. “Look, I know you and Cam are together, and I want you to know I won’t make any trouble. Not that I don’t find you attractive, but, I mean—”
“What makes you think Cam and I are together?”
“I’m a detective, remember? Shared apartment. Shared hotel rooms. Now that I’ve seen him, well, what girl wouldn’t want a guy who looks like that?”
When Robin giggled he asked, “What?”
Putting on a serious expression she said, “The guys are waiting a few miles north of here. Can’t wait to introduce you.”
***
They reached the motel with a pets welcome sign out front at 2:00 a.m. Hua and Cam had been watching for them from a second story balcony and came down to help Tom out of the car. They half-carried him into one of two rooms they’d reserved on the ground floor.
Once he was situated on a queen-sized bed, Tom explained his capture. “They must have followed me to the lot. One minute I was carrying my weight bench into the unit, and the next I was on the ground with my face smashed against the concrete.” He added, “They were going to put Robin and me in my Mustang and sent it over a hillside somewhere.” He made a rueful grimace. “The car was a goner either way.”
“Loss teaches us the worth of things,” Em responded, “but I wish I hadn’t been part of that lesson.” She made a washing gesture with her hands. “Now we need to make our sleeping arrangements and get some rest.”
That was tricky, but eventually it was decided that Hua and Cam would take one room while Robin, Mai, and Jai would take the second. Em would stay with Tom in the room they currently occupied. “I’m a decent nurse,” she told Tom, “and I promise not to try to jump your bones.”
Robin had noticed Tom’s gaze resting on Cam from time to time. The fact he’d be sharing a room with Hua seemed to interest him more than casually, and he turned his eyes to hers. She responded with an impish grin, and before he remembered his split lip, he smiled back at her.
Chapter Twenty-six
“The kid’s good at a lot of things, but driving isn’t one of them,” Em told Robin when they stopped to eat the next afternoon. “I told him: if at first you don’t succeed, maybe failure is your thing.” She spun her coffee cup a quarter turn. “Hua behind a steering wheel makes me more nervous than you the day before a caper.”
“Tell him you want reports on the arrests of Luther and company. He can’t drive and stare at his phone.”
“Good one!” Em patted Robin’s arm. “How’s the patient?”
“He’s okay unless the driver ahead of me forgets what a turn signal’s for and I have to brake suddenly.”
“Cracked ribs make you wish you’d died, at least for the first few days.” It sounded as if Em spoke from experience. “We’ll make him comfortable when we get home.”
“We haven’t even got beds for Mai an
d Jai yet. Where can we put an injured man so he’ll be comfortable?”
Em made a tsk of irritation. “We’ll figure it out, Robin. Worry never changed a single thing.”
When they arrived at the house around four in the morning on Monday, Robin helped Tom up the front steps and into the empty room at the front of the house. Cam and Hua moved Em’s futon there while Jai and Mai collected sheets, pillows, and blankets. As they stood expectantly around him, Tom claimed his temporary bed was perfectly comfortable and he intended to get some real sleep. There was a flurry of activity as one or another of his hosts thought of something he might need. Soon he had within reach a glass of water, a box of tissues, a can of mixed nuts (for protein), a magazine (for gamers, but ‘really cool,’ according to Cam), and Em’s extra cane, in case he needed to make a trip to the bathroom. When he’d assured them several times that he could think of nothing more he might need, they retreated to their own rooms to rest or sleep, as individual personalities allowed.
Robin rested but didn’t sleep. As usual, her mind went over and over things. She was relieved she’d had no fainting spell after the events at the storage lot, but negatives nagged at her anyway.
We ruined that storage unit. Need to pay for repairs.
The police think Tom’s been murdered. How will we explain it when he’s alive and well?
What are we going to do with the twins?
Luther and the others must have told the police something. What was it?
And the most pressing question of all as she touched her bruised face: Should we give up KNPs before we all get killed?
Don’t think about that right now. Think of peanut butter cups and snowmen.
Despite snowmen and Reese’s, the questions circled endlessly in her head. The answers eluded her.
***
The next council meeting was held in Tom’s room, in deference to his injuries. He looked a little like the king of Siam, with his subjects seated on the floor around him. Cam brought in a kitchen chair for Em, who sat next to Tom, her posture as erect as always.
They began working on solutions to the questions that had kept Robin awake. Em suggested Mink could arrange an anonymous payment for repairs to the hole in the unit wall. As the listed renter, Robin had been informed of a break-in by email that morning. She’d written back expressing dismay at the crime, relief that nothing was missing, and her intent to move her things to a more secure facility.
Next was a discussion of who needed to know what. “Luther and the others claim they were attacked by unknown assailants for unknown reasons,” Hua reported.
“They’ll take their medicine and keep their mouths shut,” Em predicted. “Anything they admit makes them look incompetent, and in their line of work, incompetence isn’t tolerated.”
The next step was to let the police know Thomas Wyman, Private Investigator, was still among the living. Tom called the sheriff’s department in Florida, gave his name, and said he had information for the person in charge of investigating Cynthia Tinker’s death. It took a couple of transfers, but he finally heard, “Edgars, homicide.”
“Detective Edgars. My name is Thomas Wyman.”
There was a pause. “We’ve been looking for you, Mr. Wyman.”
“I’m aware of that.” Tom gave the account they’d prepared, claiming his partner, Cynthia Tinker, had learned of slaves being held in Florida. Though he’d tried to talk her out of it, she’d gone to investigate. “We had already ended our partnership,” he explained, “since I’m moving out of state. I’m not sure what happened, but I was loading some stuff in a friend’s storage unit when someone attacked me. Three men wanted to know how Cynthia had found out about the operation.” He paused. “I didn’t know the answer, which made things uncomfortable.”
“How did you escape?”
“A woman came to store stuff in a unit down the row. She was a talker, and while my guard was distracted, I used some tinsnips I found in the unit to cut my way out. I circled the building and begged the woman to help me get out of there.” He chuckled. “One look at me and she knew I wasn’t kidding about the danger.”
“But one of them came after you.”
“In my own car, which I would guess is totaled.”
“It is. Where are you now, sir?”
“A hospital in Frankfort, Kentucky. Mrs. Cabot brought me here.”
“That’s the woman who rescued you?”
“Yes. I can give you her phone number, and she’ll verify what I’ve said.”
Edgars wrote it down. “I’ll give her a call. What we’d really like to know, Mr. Wyman, is who beat the heck out of those traffickers sometime around midnight that same night and then called the police to come and collect them.”
Tom grinned at Robin. “I guess it’s your job to figure that out, Detective. I was long gone by then.”
“Let us know when you’re well enough to make the trip down here, Mr. Wyman. We’ll need a deposition.”
“Sure thing. I’m just sorry I can’t tell you anything more about what happened.”
When he hung up Robin asked, “Wasn’t that a bit much?”
“I am sorry I can’t tell them more,” Tom said. “I’d love to brag to the whole world about my inventive vigilante friends.”
“But you won’t, will you?” Cam asked. “Robin says we have to keep it a secret, and Robin’s usually right.”
***
Cedar County Commissioner Barney Abrams was nervous. His morning newspaper reported the body of a private detective had been found in the Gulf of Mexico north of Tampa, Florida. Scanning the article, he found her name, Cynthia Tinker.
Damn!
Just after nine, his cell phone vibrated. Abrams set aside the doughnut he was eating, licking jelly off his thumb as he answered.
“Abrams.”
“Commissioner, it’s Thomas Wyman. I have new information on your case.”
“I was under the impression you’d given up on it.”
“We never like to give up, sir. It makes us look bad.”
“What have you found, son?”
“I picked up the trail of a woman who befriended Carter Halkias. I think she knows where Halkias is.”
There was a long pause. “If you get me that information, I’ll double what we agreed on originally.”
When Tom ended the call, he turned to Hua. “Do your magic. We need to hear Abrams’ next call.”
In seconds they heard Abrams’ voice. “I have a job for you.”
With grim expressions, they listened as Barney Abrams negotiated a deal with an unknown man for the murders of two people, a man and a woman. “I’ll get you the details later. Just be ready to travel when I call.”
“No problem.”
“I want it to look like a mugging. Can you do that?”
The reply was a humorless chuckle. “Let’s just say it wouldn’t be the first time.”
“I can’t believe it,” Robin said when the call ended.
Folding her ever-present knitting in her lap, Em rested her hands on the soft yarn. “Most of the time, the leopard doesn’t change his spots.”
Cam asked, “What do we do now, Robin?”
“We get him,” Em replied for her. “We make your recording of Honest Abrams’ confession public.”
“Is that enough?” Robin asked. “He’ll say the confession was forced and he lied to save his life.”
Hua raised a finger. “But how will he explain the recording I just made of him hiring a hit man?”
Chapter Twenty-seven
After giving his deposition against Luther Billings, Tom Wyman took their evidence against Abrams to a friend in the county sheriff’s office and also to an acquaintance at the local TV station. Between the deputy’s eagerness to be part of a big case and the reporter’s thrill at having a scoop, the investigation moved forward quickly. Abrams hadn’t been as careful as he should have, and with the scrutiny of police and the press, his secrets soon came to light. Investigators di
scovered multiple property deals in which he’d partnered with his cousin to take unfair advantage of information he got in the course of his job. The cousin, sensing his more eminent relative was a shinier target for law enforcement to chase, turned state’s evidence and admitted everything.
Most of Linda Billings’ money went to Amnesty International, anonymously of course. In another interesting note, Em reported that an old friend in the FBI had launched an investigation into the affairs of Senator “Buck” Buckram. He’d left rehab after only a few weeks but had caught the attention of the Justice Department. The wolves were circling, both governmental and media, and questions were being asked that Buckram couldn’t answer.
“Did you have anything to do with Buckram’s downfall, Hua?”
He didn’t look in the least ashamed. “I might have switched some private files to public. I made it appear his security man did it, so the two of them are now at each other’s throats. The truth will come out.”
“But we promised if he behaved we wouldn’t—”
Cam looked up from launching torpedoes at undersea monsters. “Robin, the guy bought a little kid and kept him locked up for nine years. Besides, Hua didn’t promise Buckram anything.”
Tom asked, “When you made that promise, did you know he had a personal slave?”
“Well, no. His owning another person never entered my mind.”
“He had sent a request to Linda Billings,” Hua said softly, “looking for my replacement.”
A wave of defeat washed over Robin. “We haven’t changed a thing. It’s all been a waste of time.”
“No.” Em was knitting a sweater for Mai, and she pointed a needle at Robin like a threatening sword. “We’ve accomplished a lot.”
“Really?”
Em looked to Hua. “Tell her about the preacher.”