Need to Know

by Fern Michaels

  Maybe he could plead with Nala to take him back. Nala had money. What a stupid thought that was. That bus had already pulled away from the curb.

  All he had to do was sign his name, and, hopefully, those ugly, hateful people would turn him loose. God, how he hated them.

  Forrester wondered what time it was. He looked down at his wrist, only to see that it was bare. The damn thieves had even stolen his Rolex watch. He looked around, but there was no way to tell if it was night or day or how many hours he’d been here. It seemed like an eternity. Maybe their plan was to keep him here till he went insane and was a drooling idiot. Freedom never looked so good. He would never take it for granted ever again. Providing he got the chance to savor it after this.

  There had to be a way out of here, some way to trick them into letting him go. There just had to be. He felt a sob catch in his throat as he realized it was all wishful thinking on his part. They would never let him go until he did what they wanted. His gut told him that even then they were not going to let him go. He wondered what plans they had for him, since they didn’t kill people. He’d probably end up in some third-world country in some gulag. Who would mourn his disappearance? No one, that’s who. Not Nala, not his kids. Not his grandchildren, whom he hardly knew. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

  Forrester lay down on the hard bunk. He brought his arm up to cover his eyes, to shield them from the blinding light, as Garland Lee kept singing about her man and unrequited love. If she were within arm’s reach, he’d stick his hand down her stringy throat and yank her tonsils out. That would shut her up, once and for all.

  He cried then, the way he’d cried when he was five years old and one of his brothers had called him a pissant. His brother had mocked his curly hair, which his mother loved. He had mocked his crooked teeth, which his mother promised would be beautiful when they all came through as he got older. He’d mocked his big ears, which he called elephant ears. His mother hadn’t promised anything in regard to his ears. It was the ugly nickname of pissant that bothered him the most. Even to this day, that brother still called him pissant. He hated him almost as much as he hated Garland Lee and the name partners at the Ballard law firm. He realized in that moment of time that there wasn’t one single person he loved unconditionally, not even his children or grandchildren. The only person he loved was himself. And look where that had landed him.

  Forrester cried then because there was nothing else for him to do. Except wait, and he could cry while he waited. When the first tear rolled down his cheeks, he knew he’d made a mistake, as the salt in his tears was eating at the rosy patches on his cheeks. He howled in pain as he beat the brick walls with his bare fists. Another mistake, he realized when he looked at his bloody knuckles.

  “Just let me die already,” he moaned. “Just let me die.”

  Chapter 19

  Annie looked at Myra’s kitchen clock. In fifteen minutes, it would be the witching hour. “I think it’s time to head downstairs and get the promised festivities under way. It’s almost midnight. The perfect time to get a party in motion.”

  “Where’s the galvanized tub?” Yoko asked.

  “Nikki fetched it from the barn earlier. It’s in the laundry room. We are forgoing the apples, aren’t we? Or are we going with the charade of bobbing for apples?” Alexis asked.

  “Bring some if it will make you feel better. Personally, I don’t see the point, since we already alerted Forrester to the waterboarding,” Isabelle said as she rooted around inside the vegetable bin for some apples. Finding some, she tossed them into a grocery sack. She wiggled her eyebrows and rolled her eyes, just for the fun of it.

  “If luck is with us, we might not even need any of this,” Myra said, motioning to the galvanized tub and the sack of apples Isabelle was holding. “By that, I mean he’s had almost seven more hours of bright lights and blasting sound. If we’re lucky, he might be ready to give up the ghost by now. I’m pretty sure I would be if I were in his shoes.”

  Maggie scoffed. “That guy is going to hold out until the bitter end. Part of it is us. He got skinned by a bunch of women. Right now, in my opinion, his greed is secondary.”

  “He’s got to be one huge mass of pain. It must be true what they say, that greed is the most powerful motivator in the world. I know I couldn’t handle what he’s going through, and I’m no wimp,” Nikki said.

  “What choice does the man have? Really, think about it. He signs off and he’s got nothing left, except a few dollars and his Social Security, and I do believe he has a pension. That’s it. He assumes he’s going to be set free, so he’s looking at living in a one-bedroom garden apartment and driving a pickup truck. How would he explain that to his very wealthy brothers? That’s his thinking. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so,” Myra said.

  “Then let’s put it to the test,” Annie said. She picked up the tub and headed for the secret stairway.

  The time on the digital kitchen clock read: 11:55.

  Arthur Forrester heard them coming. His stomach muscles started to spasm. Garland Lee turned silent just as the lights were lowered. Hardly daring to breathe, he waited for the women to approach. The moment he saw the huge, galvanized tub, he grew light-headed. He noticed the handsome legal briefcase one of the women was carrying. Ostrich skin. Ostrich cost a fortune. He should know, since he’d actually priced them last year. Plus, his brother’s medical bag was made out of ostrich skin. She must be a lawyer was his second thought. They were talking, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. One of the women pointed to her ears. He felt stupid when he reached up to remove the toilet-tissue plugs he’d jammed into his own.

  Kathryn unlocked the cell door, told him to step aside, then attached a hose to the faucet. She threaded it through the bars. Maggie turned on the nozzle, and the tub started to fill with water.

  Forrester’s mind raced. He’d read somewhere that a person could die in just a few inches of water. He wondered if it was true. It looked to him like they were filling the tub to the brim. He blinked when he saw one of the women drop four apples into the water. He’d always liked apples. Nala said apples were good for you, something about the pectin in them. When it came to health and vitamins, his wife was usually spot-on. I’d give anything right now, Nala, if you were here right next to me. What totally stunned him was that he realized he meant it.

  He waited; then he flinched as he watched the tall, mouthy female turn off the faucet. This was his moment of reckoning. He sucked in a deep breath.

  “When was the last time you dunked for apples, Mr. Forrester?” Nikki asked.

  Forrester didn’t respond because he simply couldn’t remember if he’d ever dunked for apples or not. What he did say, and he said it with no authority, was “It’s against the law to waterboard a person.”

  As one, all eight women pointed to the apples bobbing up and down in the tub of water.

  “Flexicuff his hands behind his back,” Isabelle said. “Otherwise, he’ll try to fight it.”

  In the blink of an eye, Alexis had Forrester’s hands secured behind his back. She jerked him forward.

  “Wait!” Nikki said. She unzipped the ostrich briefcase and withdrew a sheaf of papers. She advanced and waved them under Forrester’s nose. “All you have to do is sign your name. And this will all be over.”

  “And you’re going to let me walk out of here, wherever here is, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Annie lied with a straight face.

  “Bullshit.”

  “So that’s a no?” Nikki asked.

  “Goddamn right that’s a no. And all you will get out of me from now until doomsday is a no. Go ahead, do your waterboarding. But you better know this, I am not going to hold my breath, so I’m going to drown. You crazy people said you don’t kill people. I guess I’ll be your first kill. Let’s just get this over with.”

  The sisters looked at one another.

  Kathryn moved faster than a streak of lightning. “It’s instinctive to hold your breath,
” she said as she shoved Forrester’s head into the water. “Count, Yoko!”

  Kathryn yanked him out of the water on the count of ten. She waited until he stopped sputtering and gulped in a huge mouthful of air. His head hit the water immediately. Yoko counted again. Kathryn let her get to eleven before she pulled him out. He was shaking as he sputtered and spit out water. He struggled to take deep breaths. “Give up?” Kathryn asked.

  Forrester cursed. Down went his head. Yoko did the number count in a singsong.

  This time, Kathryn yanked him out on the count of twelve. The lawyer slipped out of her grip and fell to the floor, where he coughed and sputtered, spitting out water he had inadvertently swallowed.

  “Okay, I give up,” he gasped. Alexis removed the flexicuffs. He rolled over, vomiting water.

  There was no moment of joy among the women.

  Isabelle tossed Forrester a towel. “Dry your head. Be careful because you are bleeding.”

  “We brought ointment for you to put on your head where the tape was. It’s not looking good, Mr. Forrester. Your face appears to be raw. We’re going to allow you to use your medicine. The moment you sign the papers we have for you, the stereo will be turned off. Garland Lee will just be a memory. The lights will be dimmed. We’re going to give you a decent meal, and then you are going to be permitted to sleep. When you wake up, we’ll tell you all about what will happen next. You did the right thing, Mr. Forrester,” Myra said quietly.

  “Sit him upright, Kathryn,” Nikki said as she held out a clipboard and pen. “Sign your name where you see an X. Make sure your signature is legible. We don’t want any signatures that look like a doctor’s signature when he writes out a prescription. Don’t screw up now. We can wait a few minutes if you feel your hands are too shaky. Alexis is a notary public. She will witness Annie’s and Myra’s signatures as witnesses, and then affix her stamp to all the documents.”

  Ten minutes crawled by before Arthur Forrester reached for the pen Nikki was holding out to him. He signed his name six times, making sure his signature was legible and met with the women’s approval. Annie and Myra signed their names just as carefully and handed each document to Alexis, so she could fill out her information and affix her notary stamp.

  “We’ll bring your dinner down in a few minutes. And then you can sleep, Mr. Forrester,” Annie said.

  Forrester sighed. “Don’t bother. I’m not hungry.”

  Kathryn’s touch was gentle when she led the lawyer to his bunk. She eased him down gently. “Sleep well, Mr. Forrester. We’ll see you in the morning.” She exited the cell, locked it, then checked it by rattling it to see that it was indeed securely locked.

  “We’re done, girls.”

  There was no hand clapping, no high-fiving. No smiles, no laughter. Instead, the women simply turned and made their way to the war room, then out to the stone steps that would take them to the main floor of the house.

  The time was one-thirty, and it was a new day.

  The girls sat around the table while they waited for Myra to get glasses and a full bottle of her favorite Kentucky bourbon out of the overhead cabinet. Annie dropped ice cubes into the glasses as Myra poured generously.

  “Here’s to the completion of another successful mission. Well done, girls!” Nikki said.

  Eight glasses clinked against each other. It was a pleasant, successful sound.

  * * *

  The sisters straggled into the kitchen, one by one, to find Maggie making breakfast. “Pancakes and bacon. I’m not Charles, guys. I can only do two things at a time. Coffee is ready, and so is the juice. There is blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup.”

  “That sounds lovely, dear,” Myra said.

  “Anything sounds lovely to you, Myra, as long as you don’t have to cook it,” Annie said, tongue in cheek.

  “You should talk. If it were your turn to make breakfast, you’d call IHOP and have them deliver it,” Myra snapped in return.

  “Are we serving breakfast to Mr. Forrester? I still have some batter left,” Maggie asked.

  “Yes, we’ll take it down with us. He passed on dinner last evening. I’m sure he’s hungry, unless he plans on going on a hunger strike,” Nikki said as she dived into her stack of pancakes.

  Kathryn waved her fork in the air as she posed the second question of the morning. “We need to make a decision here. Do we call Mr. Snowden for the relocation, or do we go with our original plan?”

  “I, for one, have given it a lot of thought, since I didn’t sleep well. I think we should finish up on our own. That’s a personal thought, however. My reasoning is that I think our original intention was to prove we didn’t need Mr. Snowden to complete our mission. We can still do that, even though we had to pivot and apologize. We should take a vote, and, as always, majority rules.”

  The sisters stopped eating. Even Maggie. “Raise your hand if you want Mr. Snowden to . . . um . . . relocate our guest.” No hands were raised.

  “Raise your hand if you vote to finish up on our own.” Eight hands shot high in the air.

  “Well, all right, then. Who wants to make the call?”

  Kathryn grinned. “I will!” The sisters groaned good-naturedly. “As soon as I finish these delicious pancakes.”

  The sisters started to giggle as they watched Kathryn psych herself for the upcoming call.

  Five minutes later, Kathryn got up and carried her plate to the sink and rummaged in her rucksack for her cell phone. She scrolled down until she found what she wanted and punched in the numbers. She had the sisters’ undivided attention.

  The phone rang five times before there was a response. The response was guarded, cautious. “Pearl! This is Kathryn Lucas. I’m out at Pinewood with the girls. We need your help. Like right now.”

  As if on cue, the sisters took a deep breath. They all knew about Kathryn and Pearl’s contentious relationship. They all leaned forward to hear Pearl’s response.

  “Define what you mean by ‘like right now,’ Kathryn?”

  “Right now means right now. That means you get into that SUV of yours and head on out here to Pinewood. There are no excuses that will be accepted. Are you locking up and getting under way?”

  Pearl Barnes knew better than to argue with Kathryn Lucas. “I am. I have to stop for gas. I should get there in ninety minutes, give or take a few.” Kathryn looked down at the phone and laughed out loud as she clicked END.

  Years ago, Pearl Barnes had retired from the Supreme Court to organize an underground railroad network that, instead of transporting freed slaves, protected abused women and children. Pearl had left the Court after her only daughter had been threatened by her vindictive and abusive husband. Working on her own, Pearl had secretly transported her daughter and her granddaughter to a safe haven. Since her son-in-law had legal rights to his daughter—Pearl’s granddaughter—she knew that what she was doing was illegal, so she’d resigned from the Court. Within a year, she had established a workable network, which was now in its twelfth year. To date, over that period of time, she had managed to arrange a safe haven for over seven thousand bruised and battered women and children.

  The only problem with Pearl and her very successful network surfaced when she approached Myra and Annie for help when things got too dicey for her to handle on her own. When they asked for records and background, Pearl refused to divulge any details and said it was all in her head, saying the reason her underground worked was because she couldn’t trust anyone but herself. To Pearl’s dismay, the sisters refused to help her, saying they didn’t work blind. Kathryn took it one step further and threatened to turn her in to the authorities unless she gave up the records, so she could be helped. Pearl took one look at Kathryn and buckled. The records had been produced and were at that very moment locked in Charles’s safe.

  “She’s going to have a bird when she sees what she is transporting,” Alexis said.

  “I don’t think any of us cares about that. Right now, she’s working on credit with us.
We bailed her butt out on three separate occasions. To put it in plain and simple language, she owes us,” Kathryn said. The sisters all agreed.

  * * *

  Maggie finished the last of the pancake batter and fixed a plate for Arthur Forrester. The sisters got up and, with their usual efficiency, had the kitchen looking in record time as good as if Charles had left it.

  “Time to check on our guest,” Annie said gleefully as she led the parade to the secret staircase.

  “It’s so quiet,” Yoko said as she turned on the lights.

  They approached the spacious cell to see Arthur Forrester sitting on the edge, staring at his feet. “We brought you some breakfast. You need to eat something before your trip.”

  Forrester was about to say he didn’t want any breakfast, when it dawned on him what the woman had said. “Did you say a trip?” His voice sounded like he had a frog in his throat. “Are you releasing me?”

  “In a manner of speaking. It won’t be till tonight, however. We work best in the dark. I’m sure you understand that.”

  Kathryn opened the cell. Maggie set the tray down on top of the lone metal chair, which was bolted to the floor. Kathryn relocked the cell door. She followed the sisters to the war room, where they all saluted Lady Justice, before they headed back upstairs to the main part of the old farmhouse to wait for Pearl Barnes. Pearl was as good as her word and arrived in eighty-seven minutes.

  * * *

  Pearl Barnes was a slim woman, wiry, actually, with a crop of curly gray hair. One look at her, and you knew she was a capable person, up to any task she undertook. Annie said it was in her DNA. There were no hugs, no special greetings, because, as Pearl said, she did not cotton to displays of affection. The only thing she did was make certain she was nowhere near Kathryn Lucas.

  Annie poured coffee as Nikki explained the situation. “We’ll bring him to you tonight. Just tell us where to meet you. He’s never to return here—that has to be understood. We don’t care if you ship him out of the country or not, and we know you have contacts who can handle that end of things. Are we clear on this, Pearl? If he ever surfaces, we will come after you and show you no mercy. So, are we clear?”