“Deputy Ben!” CeCe almost screamed.
Luke shook his head, “No police, remember.”
“But he’s off duty today,” CeCe elaborated. “He wanted to take me to the Aquarium of the Americas, but I made an excuse to get out of it. He was being so sweet I was feeling guilty about pumping him for information. He’s just so wonderful, you know?”
Guess the crush is back on.
“Well,” Luke reasoned, “I do only have a few hours to round up someone. Do you think you could get him over to your place now? Can you trust him not to report it?”
CeCe bit her lip, unsure of how to answer that.
“I think he’s our best shot on such short notice,” I said. “He fits your requirement, and I’m sure CeCe could turn on the charm and get him to our place now. Once he’s there just lay it out for him. You can be pretty convincing, and I should know,” I smiled at him.
Luke flashed a wicked grin as he commented, “Maybe, but not convincing enough at times. Okay, it looks like he’s our best chance. CeCe, give him a call and have him come to your house as soon possible. We’ll meet him there. Make sure he wears his civvies, no uniform. Oh, and ask him to wear a baseball cap, if you can work it in.”
Luke headed back to our house, and since I was driving, CeCe was able to concentrate on working her magic on Deputy Ben when she called him on her cell. When she hung up, she had the strangest look on her face.
“What?” I asked trying to keep my eyes on the road.
“I think he might actually really like me,” she swooned as she looked at me bug-eyed. “I mean, since we’ve been spending time together he’s been really sweet. He told me over dinner the other night how he’d just gotten out of a strange relationship that ended badly a few months ago, so he was doing his best to keep his distance from me and every other female. He said he really enjoyed spending the evening with me at the sisters’ Neighborhood Watch meeting, which is why he asked me to dinner. You know, I thought he was going to pump me for info about Luke, but he never mentioned him. He didn’t ask anything about you, didn’t even mention Fry, or Fry’s on again/off again tail. Do you know that he just agreed to everything I asked him? He’s coming over at a moment’s notice, he totally swallowed my lame excuse, and he agreed to wear a baseball cap because I told him he looks cute in one.”
“It was only a matter of time. You are completely irresistible you know,” I said with a big smile.
“I hope he forgives me for this later,” she said sadly.
“Of course he will,” I said lightly, but I wondered the same thing. It was kind of a rough way to start a relationship.
“We’ll get Fry back, and then I’ll deal with it,” CeCe said firmly.
Once we were back at our house, I quickly put in a call to the sisters to beat our 30 minute deadline. We didn’t want the sisters to follow through on their threat to call the police if they hadn’t heard from us following Luke’s chat with the kidnappers, and we had no doubt that the sisters would do just that. I assured them Luke had everything under control, and when they sounded skeptical about keeping quiet, I told them he had asked for help from Deputy Ben. Since they felt it was a smart move to include Ben, who was able to call in the police at a moment’s notice, they agreed to keep their original agreement and let Luke handle it.
We didn’t have to wait very long before Deputy Ben arrived. I have to admit he really is an extremely handsome guy. CeCe greeted him at the door, and he looked so happy to see her. Nice.
He saw me in the background. “Hey, Maggie. Feeling better?”
Huh? Oh, right.
“Yeah – yeah, thanks,” I said weakly, knowing he was about to discover our lie. CeCe had her arm linked in his as she walked him into the living room where Luke was waiting. The deputy’s face hardened as soon as he saw Luke sitting on the sofa.
Luke stood to shake his hand, but Ben’s hands went to his hips as he said, “When did you get back?”
“Yesterday,” Luke answered honestly. Ben’s eyes flashed to CeCe suspiciously.
“You’re wanted for questioning,” Ben advised him. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you in.”
“Wait,” I said probably a little too loud.
“It’s okay, Maggie,” Luke said to me calmly before turning to Ben. “I’ll go with you to the station and answer all your questions if that’s what needs to happen, but first there are a few things you should know.” Luke sat back down on the sofa and motioned to a chair. “Please,” he said. Ben didn’t move.
CeCe took his hand and looked pleadingly into his eyes. “Please, Ben,” she said.
Oh, now it’s Ben.
“Just let us explain,” she encouraged. “We need your help.” She batted her eyelashes at him on the last sentence. I cringed, but he seemed to melt. I will never underestimate the power of her lashes again.
“My help?” he repeated more than a little confused. He sat in a chair, “What’s going on?”
We started at the beginning trying not to leave anything out. He seemed to be catching it all even though we were talking on top of each other a lot. Well, CeCe and I were anyway. When the story ended up where we were at that moment, we sat back to let him digest everything. Ben sat motionless staring at the floor. You could practically see the wheels turning in his head. Eventually, he looked up at CeCe who was sitting on the arm of his chair and said, “I’m going to have to verify this story before I make a decision. You can understand that, right?”
CeCe smiled, nodded, and batted her eyes again. This so unnerved him, he almost dropped the phone he was pulling from his pocket.
Hah! Go ahead, CeCe!
Ben waited for someone to answer on the other end and then said, “Hey Danny, it’s Ben. Look, man, I need you to pull some information and arrest records for me on two guys.” Ben looked down at the pictures and information in his lap that we had given him and read it off to his buddy at the department. When his friend confirmed the connections we had told him about, Ben said, “All right, thanks a lot. No, that’s it. Just following a lead. Later.”
Ben looked around at all of us, “I hate to say it, but you were right not to involve the police. If they’ve already killed twice to get that painting, I doubt they’ll hesitate to take out Fry if they suspect you aren’t following their instructions.”
I involuntarily gasped at his words, and CeCe’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Sorry,” Ben said, quickly taking CeCe’s hand.
“That’s what I thought too,” Luke said seriously. “If I can count on your help without police involvement, I think we can get this all wrapped up in the next hour or so.”
“I’m in,” Ben said thoughtfully. “Let’s walk through it again.”
“I’ll be waiting at the contractors loading dock at the Build-N-Fix-It,” Luke said smoothly, “with you milling around outside like a customer. They show up at noon with Fry in their car. One of them walks over to me to get the painting and the other one stays outside with the car and Fry. The guy with Fry will be waiting for the word that they have the painting, and then he lets Fry go. Since we don’t have the original painting, we have to take them out before the trade gets that far. I’ll take the guy by me, and you handle the guy by the car. Once they’re both out, Fry’s free, and you can call it in. Pretty straight forward.”
Ben nodded.
Um, I think they forgot something.
“What do CeCe and I do?” I asked eagerly. Luke shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Ben cleared his throat.
“We’re probably lookouts,” CeCe offered. “You know, backup in case they need us to jump in and help take out one of the men.”
I nodded solemnly at her, and we both looked back and forth between the guys waiting for confirmation.
Still waiting.
Luke smiled at me and said, “Would you two mind getting us something to drink while we hammer out the details?”
“Sure,” CeCe said sweetly.
“Sure,” I
said suspiciously. Once we were in the kitchen, I whispered to CeCe hysterically, “They’re going to tell us to stay far enough back that we don’t get involved in the rescue. I just know that’s what he’s going to say. These are the men who kidnapped Fry, and he doesn’t even want to let me get in one good groin kick? How will I sleep at night?”
CeCe tried to calm me down. “If they think we should just be lookouts, we probably should listen to them. They know what they are doing, especially Ben. If they think we should let them handle it and just be there to back them up if anything goes wrong, then I say that’s what we should do.”
I looked sullen.
“And no whining,” she added.
“I guess,” I said reluctantly.
We arrived with the drinks, and Luke smiled his most charming smile at me. Too charming. “What?” I asked.
“We’ve agreed,” Luke began all charming, “that you and CeCe need to stay here while we go to the Build-N-Fix-It. It will be . . . .”
“Forget it!” I angrily cut him off.
“Just let me explain,” Luke said calmly.
“I don’t want an explanation,” I argued. “I want to come. I can’t just sit here. If anything happens to Fry or you, I just....”
“Or Ben,” CeCe added sincerely.
“I couldn’t handle it,” I ended and unexpectedly burst into tears. This probably wasn’t helping my case, but I couldn’t stop.
“Maggie,” Luke said softly. “I’m sorry you’re upset, but you’re not coming. I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to you.”
“Or CeCe,” Ben added.
“Don’t leave us here!” I blubbered. “Fry needs us!”
Luke put his arm around my shoulder and firmly pushed me down on the sofa.
“We’ll call you as soon as we have Fry,” he said as he moved towards the door motioning for Ben to follow. Ben moved quickly to follow him, but CeCe was faster. She jumped in front of him and planted a big one right on his kisser. When she backed away, his face was shocked and then overly pleased with himself. He put his arm around CeCe’s waist.
“Take care of Maggie, and tonight we’ll celebrate,” he said, and they were gone. The silence after they left was deafening and evidently paralyzing, because I couldn’t seem to move or speak for a good solid minute. On the bright side, at least I stopped blubbering.
“Maggie?” CeCe said tentatively.
“Did he really say take care of Maggie?” I exploded. “I don’t need to be taken care of. I’m fine! I just cry sometimes. So what!”
“Don’t attack Ben,” CeCe said defensively. “He was just trying to help.”
We stood there glaring at each other with our hands on our hips for a few beats, and then I said, “We’re not really staying here are we?”
CeCe snorted, “Of course not.” We did a sweeping low five and headed for the door.
CHAPTER 21
CeCe and I drove across town at a slow crawl to make sure we gave Luke and Ben plenty of time to be out of the parking lot before we arrived. We parked by the entrance farthest away from the loading docks.
As we walked through the big automatic sliding doors, I turned to CeCe, “Now remember, we’ll get as close as we can without being seen and just wait to see if they need our help.”
We had discussed our game plan on the drive over, and that was our plan in its entirety. Uncomplicated and right up our alley.
“They’re going to see us. I just know they’re going to see us,” CeCe said nervously through clenched teeth as we walked across the store.
“No, way. We’ll stay out of sight. Besides we blend, so no problem,” I assured her.
Just then we were serenaded by a wolf whistle from a guy on top of a stack of lumber. CeCe turned to me with clenched fists as she glared. I looked around. Okay, so I didn’t see a lot of other women in the contractors section. All right, not another woman of any kind.
“Hmmm,” I mumbled. Then I saw it. There was a long line of hooks next to the break room door with green aprons and caps hanging on them. “This way,” I said pleasantly to CeCe. I walked up and put on one of the apron/cap sets hanging on the wall.
“Oh, unh-uh,” CeCe said looking at me as if I had lost my mind.
I didn’t have time to reason with her, so I hissed, “Just do it!”
CeCe rolled her eyes but quickly donned a matching green apron and cap. We were still shoving our hair up in the hats when a clock on the wall caught my eye. Noon.
“Hurry!” I whispered as I began speed walking toward the loading dock. We were about to walk outside onto the ramp when I saw Luke standing on the ground level parking lot with his back to us. CeCe saw him too.
“Where’s Ben?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. I don’t see him,” I answered. We peeked around the corner of the opening for another second.
“There’s nowhere to hide out there! It’s all just open! What are we going to do?” CeCe asked frantically.
I made a snap decision.
“We’re going to climb up in that bucket lift thingy,” I said. CeCe peered around the corner again and then jerked back inside.
“That crane thing?” she asked, maybe a little more bug-eyed than usual. “Are you crazy?”
“We can duck down in the bucket thing on the top and peek over the sides,” I explained. “We’ll have a bird’s eye view. It’ll be perfect! Besides, there’s really nothing else out there to hide behind.” I tried to make it sound like my idea actually made sense.
“And how do you propose we get there without being seen? It’s got to be a good 40 feet of open space to get to the thing,” CeCe said dramatically.
There were some big boxes stacked next to us. I picked up one and handed it to CeCe.
“Here, this is light,” I instructed. “Hold it up in front of your face, and we’ll just walk right over there. We look like employees. No problemo.”
“Brilliant! Sometimes I love your devious little mind,” CeCe said with an evil laugh.
I picked up the box that was stacked under CeCe’s box and held it up in front of my face. Oh, Lord. This one was not light. Actually, it was extremely heavy. I started to tell CeCe to hang on a minute and let me find another box, but she was already walking toward the lift thingy. Crap. Muscles don’t fail me now. We didn’t have that far to go. I could make it. Please God. Oh, dear Lord! I broke out in a sweat, my arms started to shake, and I think I might have passed a little gas. We made it around to the far side of the machine. I decided to sneak a peek at Luke. He was still staring intently at the road.
CeCe was looking too. “Ben?” she mouthed at me.
I shrugged and motioned up with my thumb for her to climb up the steps into the bucket part. I followed her half carrying, half pushing the ridiculously heavy box. Once we were out of sight and had given each other a little high five, we stealthily peered over the side of the bucket. We were about 15 feet up and a little too far back to be in Luke’s peripheral vision. Perfect. I checked my watch. It was 12:05pm but still no kidnappers.
“Where are they?” I whispered to CeCe.
“They’ll be here,” she whispered back.
I’d always been bad at waiting, and curiosity got the better of me. I looked in the boxes. CeCe’s had light bulbs and mine had metal pipes. Figures.
“Here comes a car,” CeCe said excitedly.
I popped my head up next to hers. It was a small tan car with Fry in the back seat on the passenger’s side. The car pulled up about 20 feet from Luke with the driver’s door directly in front of him. Hoss and Little Joe got out of the car. Hoss sauntered over to Luke, while Little Joe stood outside next to Fry’s car door, scanning the parking lot suspiciously. Luckily, he didn’t look up.
My heart started to beat a wild rhythm when I saw both men had guns drawn. This had been a mistake. We should have called the police. I felt the panic swelling in my throat. Luke pulled the cylinder with the fake painting from his jacket. That was the signal for
Luke and Ben to each take down their guy. I squeezed CeCe’s hand. At that moment, a young man dressed in an apron and cap like us pointed a gun into the back of Luke’s head. I saw Hoss laugh as he said something to Luke. A third guy on the kidnappers side and still no Ben. My adrenaline was pumping, and I felt half-crazed.
“We’ve got to do something!” I whispered hysterically and dug my fingers deep into CeCe’s hand.
“What?” she whispered frantically. “They’ll see us coming if we try to run over there.”
My eyes shot to the boxes.
“Throw something at their heads,” I hissed.
“It’s too far,” CeCe said.
“Now!” I snapped at her.
CeCe grabbed two light bulbs, I grabbed a pipe, and we chucked them with all our might at the men who had guns on Luke. Of course, all our might actually amounted to not very much might at all, so my pipe clanked uselessly on the ground and CeCe’s light bulbs smashed into a thousand pieces a good 10 feet from the men. Both men did turn their heads toward the noise, though, and Luke made his move. I held my breath. Luke turned his body to the side in a flash. One guy got an elbow in the throat, and the other guy got a fist. Then a few more things happened so fast, I’m not exactly sure what they got, but then they were both kissing the concrete.
We looked out at the car and saw that Ben not only had his guy on the ground but also already in cuffs. Where did he even come from? He’s what my eldest Uncle would call a sneaky little son-of-a-bitch. CeCe and I couldn’t quite find our vocal chords, but we grabbed each other around the neck and started jumping up and down. All of a sudden there was a loud beeping sound, and we seemed to be moving. At first CeCe and I didn’t stop our celebration, but then it became clear we were actually moving. Feeling a little conspicuous because of the loud beeping, I glanced at Luke. He barely glanced in our direction, saw two employees and returned to helping Ben cuff the two gunmen on the ground.
“Turn it off,” CeCe said offhandedly to me.
“Where?” I asked.
We both turned to look at the control panel thing. There were lots of knobs and buttons, but no words or arrows of any kind. Not good. We looked up to see exactly where it was that we were going, since we seemed to be picking up speed. If we kept on this course, we would go straight across the parking lot and into a big, deep ditch that was between the parking lot and Oakman’s busiest street.
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