He scrunches his nose up and makes a funny face. “I don’t think so, Aspen. He’s a pretty good guy.”
“Just drive,” I command, proceeding to tell him about the white roses.
“Maybe it was just a strange coincidence.”
“Maybe monkeys fly out of my butt, too.”
“Really? Let me see,” he jokes.
“I’m serious, Rand. I know it’s him.”
He searches my face, then nods. “If you feel that strongly about it, we’ll check him out.”
I dig through my backpack and pull out our school directory. This thing is really coming in handy this week. After I find Mr. Lowe’s address Rand heads in that direction. Comfort is so small that we pull up to his house in less than two minutes. His house is a typical bi-level, nothing fancy. His red Chevy S-10 sits in the driveway. Rand pulls off to the side directly across the street from his house and turns the lights off. The downstairs of Mr. Lowe’s house is dark, but I can see his outline against an upstairs bedroom window. He is sitting in front of a glowing computer screen.
“See? He’s probably just grading some papers.” Rand says, turning the headlights back on.
“Kill the lights, Rand,” I demand, grabbing the leather case out of my backpack. He shakes his head, but turns the lights back off. I unzip the case and pull out my night-vision binoculars.
“I don’t want to know why you have those, do I?” Rand asks.
“I used them last year when I was stalking this guy I was dating.”
He looks horrified. I put my hand on his arm and squeeze. “Hey, you don’t have anything to be jealous of. That guy was history the minute I found out his primary mode of transportation was the city bus.”
Rand starts laughing hysterically.
“There’s never going to be a dull moment with you, is there?”
“God, I hope not.” I put the binoculars up to my eyes and aim them toward the upstairs bedroom. The only thing I can see is the back of Mr. Lowe’s head. I wonder if he knows he’s got a couple of bald spots back there?
“Can you see anything?” Rand asks impatiently.
“Nope, just the back of his desperately-in-need-of-Hair-Club-for-Men head.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s losing acreage as we speak.” A few more minutes go by and I still can’t see anything. I get an idea. I pull out the directory again.
“Rand, block your cell phone number, then call this phone number.” I rattle off Mr. Lowe’s digits.
“Woman, you are so freaking brilliant,” he says, dialing Mr. Lowe’s number.
“That’s why you love me.” I smile. I put the binoculars back up to my eyes and hope that this works.
“Is it ringing?”
“Yeah, first ring.”
Mr. Lowe rises from his chair to answer the phone. When he does my eyes feel like they are burning in their sockets.
“Oh. My. God,” I yell, jerking away from the binoculars.
“Did you see them? Does he have Angel and your mom?” Rand asks frantically.
“I don’t know yet, but he wears thong underwear.”
Rand is laughing so hard he forgets to hang up the phone. We both hear Mr. Lowe yelling hello over and over. Rand clicks off and I hurry to see if his computer screen holds any clues.
Pay dirt. Mr. Lowe is surfing bondage websites. I knew that freak was behind this. I meant what I said to Channel Seven News. If he hurts my mom, I’m going to rip his balls off and I can be pretty tough if I want to be.
“Can you see anything?” Rand asks anxiously.
“Yeah, he’s into S and M.” Mr. Lowe’s hairy butt cheeks come back into focus and I drop the binoculars. I glare at his house and notice a light coming from a basement window.
“I need to see what’s down there,” I say, pointing toward the window. I move to open my door and Rand grabs my arm.
“Hold on a sec, Dirty Harriet. Don’t you think we should call Detective Malone?”
“I just want to peek in that window. Mom might be down there. I can’t just leave.”
“I’ll go,” he volunteers. “You just keep an eye on him, and if he moves honk the horn.
I don’t argue with him because I know he’s right. If something really bad is down there, it wouldn’t benefit my mental health to see it.
“I just need to tell you something completely insensitive. Once we find your mom, I’m going to ravage your body in about a thousand different ways.” He bolts into the darkness, leaving me speechless.
I watch him run across the street and disappear into the shadow of the trees. I aim the binoculars at the back of Mr. Lowe’s head and concentrate on watching him. I refuse to think about why his head is bobbing back and forth or why he has a jumbo box of tissues next to his computer.
Rand jumps back in the car nearly giving me heart failure. He hits the lights and takes off flying down the street. He is visibly shaken.
“What did you see?” I ask, not really wanting to know.
“Nothing. We need to go talk to Detective Malone,” he says, driving toward the police station.
“Did you see my mom?” I scream.
“No. But I saw enough.”
I decide not to interrogate him since he’s so upset. I’ll hear it all when he tells Harry anyway.
* * * *
A uniformed officer shows us into Harry’s office. He tells us that he is on the way. Rand sits stoically in a beat-up leather chair. I pass the time checking out his personal photos. He and the blonde were quite the world travelers before the mini-blondes came along. There is one of them on a cruise, at a Vegas show, snorkeling in Aruba. One of Harry crashed out on a couch with a sleeping baby on his chest. Another picture is of him with no shirt on (yikes!) sitting in a kiddie pool with his three little girls. Maybe I’ve been too hard on him. He looks like he’s a pretty good dad.
He stumbles in with a serious case of bed head.
My mute boyfriend suddenly develops a serious case of diarrhea of the mouth.
“He’s got posters, rope, duct tape, chairs, whips … ”
“Whoa there, big guy. Take it easy,” Harry says, settling into his chair. “First of all. Who are you talking about?”
Rand is about to start babbling again when I touch his shoulder.
“We have reason to believe that Mr. Lowe is the Beauty Bandit.” I announce.
“Your accounting teacher?” he asks, bewildered.
“Yes, and we have proof.” I’ve got his full attention now. I explain about the roses, the sex note, the S and M website he was surfing, and his thong panties. Rand adds what he saw, which apparently included several disturbing dominatrix posters, a roll of duct tape, a chair with ropes wrapped around it, and a male mannequin wearing a complicated-looking leather ensemble complete with matching face mask and zippered mouth.
Yikes! No wonder he didn’t want to talk about it. To think the school board trusted Mr. Lowe to mold our impressionable young minds. Just wait until Miss Hott finds out about this. Leatherface is going to be so fired!
Once Rand finishes Harry calls someone and is talking about judges and emergency search warrants. I feel like I’m on an episode of Cops. It’s kind of cool. I just hope we aren’t too late to save Mom.
The detective hangs up the phone and says, “I want you two to head straight home. I’ll let you know as soon as we find anything out.”
As if! I’m the one who figured out who the Beauty Bandit is. This is my bust. I totally have the right to be there when they take him down.
Harry immediately senses my attitude and raises an eyebrow. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ll just give him what he wants so that I don’t end up with a police escort home.
I flash him my sweetest smile. “I feel so much better knowing that you are handling everything. I can’t wait to give Dad the good news,” I pull a dazed Rand out of his chair.
“Okay, see ya.” I wave and shut the door behind the shocked detective.
C
HAPTER TWELVE
Safely back in the car Rand starts toward my house.
“No! Go back to Mr. Lowe’s!” I shout.
“Hell, no! I’m not going anywhere near that freaky house of leather again. I’m telling you, Aspen, I’m scarred for life.”
I start to stroke the back of his neck, then run my fingers through his hair. “Please? For me? I just want to see them get him.”
“Damn you, Aspen Brooks. You’re like my kryptonite.” He laughs, turning the car around toward Mr. Lowe’s house.
* * * *
We’ve been sitting down the street from Mr. Lowe’s house for twenty minutes and not a single car has driven by.
“He freaking blew us off. He thinks we are just stupid kids who don’t know what we’re talking about!” I scream, my blood boiling.
“Sweetie, calm down. These things take time. They can’t just go busting in there or they might never find your mom,” Rand says, rubbing my arm.
I know Rand is just trying to make me feel better but I can’t help thinking that things could be speeded up a little. And I think I know just what I can do to help. I grab my purse off the floorboard and start riffling through it like a maniac. My fingers finally find the small white square of paper they were frantically searching for. I dial the phone number listed on the card and Lindsey Waters’s annoying voice comes on the line.
“This is Aspen Brooks. If you want an exclusive on the Beauty Bandit, get to three twelve Sycamore as fast as you can.” I snap my phone shut before she can bore me with her undying gratitude.
“Oh, no,” Rand groans. “Aspen, that was a really bad idea.”
“I don’t have bad ideas.” I inform him.
He just keeps shaking his head, which is getting seriously annoying. We are just about to get into our first official fight as a couple when two unmarked cars with their headlights off roll past us. I recognize Harry in the passenger side of one of the cars.
They come to a silent stop in front of Mr. Lowe’s house and six men in plain clothes jump out. Two immediately head for the backyard and two more split up and each take a side of the house. Harry and a very tall accomplice head to the front door. Harry raises his fist to knock on the door and I can see he’s holding a white piece of paper. A few seconds later a light in the upstairs window goes on.
Just as Harry raises his fist to knock again the front door swings open. A groggy-looking Mr. Lowe with bed head and the shortest terry cloth robe imaginable stands staring at Harry confused. Harry thrusts the paper at him and babbles for a good two minutes. I roll down my window to try and hear but they are too far away. Mr. Lowe nods and then Harry starts to lead him to the unmarked police car.
This whole scene is such a letdown. Why didn’t they bust his door in and give him some street justice? And where is the SWAT team? Comfort PD doesn’t ever have to worry about Cops coming here to film. Boring!
But then a white van skids to a stop right in front of Mr. Lowe’s house. Lindsey Waters jumps out with a cameraman blasting Harry and Mr. Lowe with a million watts. Now this is more like it!
Mr. Lowe tries to use the bottom of his robe to cover his face and accidentally flashes his thong at Lindsey and the cameraman. I think Lindsey is going to have to blur out part of that video to make it acceptable for her viewing public. Rand is laughing so hard he’s practically snorting.
A huge vein in Harry’s neck pops out as he screams, “Get out of here or I’ll arrest you. You’re disrupting a police investigation.”
I see Lindsey shrug, then get back in the van and speed down the road.
Harry and his partner help Mr. Lowe into the backseat then disappear around the corner. The other four detectives disappear inside Mr. Lowe’s house.
A huge weight has been lifted because I know it’s just a matter of time before Mom is found. I just have to find something to take my mind off of her for a while.
“What was that you were saying earlier about my body?” I ask Rand, running my hand up his leg.
* * * *
It’s six in the morning and I’m trying to sneak back into my house undetected. What kind of daughter stays out all night when her mother has been kidnapped? A horny one.
After seeing Mr. “Leatherface” Lowe do the walk of shame in his teeny terry cloth robe, we snuck into the guest cottage on the Bachrach estate. I’m not the kind of girl who goes into graphic detail about her sexual escapades because I think that’s white trash. But, if someone forced me to rate my three sexual experiences I do have my own special rating system. On my sexual rating system Bryce (the guy I stalked last year) would be a pair of two-dollar Target flip-flops. Lucas would be a semidecent pair of Steve Madden Mary Janes. Rand is a pair of impossible-to-find vintage Jimmy Choos. All girls like wearing flip-flops and Mary Janes until they have a pair of vintage Choos in their closet. But once they have a pair of Choos in their closet they can’t ever go back to flip-flops. Translation: I won’t ever need to have sex with anyone, but Rand, ever again!
Luckily, Dad is still crashed out on the couch. I suppose I should feel guilty about being out all night fornicating while Mom is still missing, but I know that my brilliant detective skills in bringing down Mr. Lowe will get her home soon.
I creep into my bedroom and shut the door. I slip into my Nick & Nora pj’s and climb under the covers. I am so not going to school today. I’m exhausted from the excitement of Mr. Lowe’s bust and the mind-blowing sex. My eyelids flutter shut only to fly open again when I hear someone banging on the front door. I pull back my blinds to see Harry’s unmistakable truck. He’s got news about Mom; maybe he even brought her home. I fly down the stairs and nearly tackle the detective.
“Did he talk? Did you find her?” I ask him, breathless.
“Aspen, what are you talking about?” Dad asks, confused.
“Come and sit down, you two,” Harry says, wearily leading us to our dining-room table. I don’t like the look on his face one bit and Mom definitely didn’t come home with him.
All three of us take a seat. I notice poor Dad’s hands trembling as he pulls his chair out. He knows it’s bad news, too.
Harry takes a deep breath, and then finally speaks. “I’m sorry, but we don’t know anything more than what we knew yesterday.”
“What do you mean? What about Mr. Lowe?” I shout.
He holds his hand out for me to stop. Dad hangs his head in his hands.
“Aspen, I appreciate that you want to find your mom, but I can’t have you and Mr. Bachrach meddling in our investigation. We arrested an innocent man last night. And now because of that ditzy news reporter you called his life is ruined. “
“What about the rope and the duct tape and all the weird leather stuff?” I interrupt him.
Dad raises his head back up and asks, “What the hell are you two talking about?”
“I take it your dad knew nothing about your adventures last night?” Detective Malone asks.
I shake my head no, knowing that I’m in for it.
“Could someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” Dad asks again, his voice raising.
I decide to plead the fifth on this one. Let the hairy jerk bust me out if he wants to. All I care about is finding Mom and it sounds like I’m going to have to start all over.
He starts explaining to Dad my white rose theory. Then he describes how Rand and I “Peeping Tom’d” on Mr. Lowe.
I can’t stand it anymore and interrupt. “Last night you agreed with us. You even had guys searching through his house. So why are you trying to act like this is all my fault?”
Harry gives me a dirty look and I realize that I just outed myself about hanging around watching the bust go down last night.
“So does Mr. Lowe have something to do with my wife’s disappearance or not?” Dad asks, angry and confused.
“It seems that Mr. Lowe has some questionable sexual habits, but he is not a kidnapper,” he answers.
“What about the chair and the rope?” I interject.
“He paid a prostitute to tie him up and cover his mouth with duct tape while whipping him.”
Eww … that is one mental snapshot I don’t need.
“Jesus, this man is a teacher?” Dad asks, horrified.
“I’m getting ready to pay a visit to the principal about that right now. School has been cancelled this week due to the kidnappings also.”
“What about the roses? Did you ask him about the roses?” I can’t let this go.
“Aspen, it’s not him. It was just a coincidence.”
“Did you ask him?” I insist.
“I didn’t need to. I’ve been doing this a long time, Aspen.” He lowers his voice to a soothing tone. “I’m going to find her, but I can’t have you running around starting fires for me. I have to focus on this investigation.”
Dad pipes up with, “Don’t worry, Harry. She’s going to be under lock and key. She won’t be causing trouble for anybody.” He gives me an angry look, and I feel about two years old.
“I’ll let you know the minute we find out anything,” Harry says, rising from the table. He lets himself out the front door.
Dad and I just sit there staring at each other. When he finally speaks, he says, “Aspen, I’m so disappointed in you.” Jeez! Think how disappointed he’d be if he knew about all the hot premarital sex I engaged in last night, too.
Hello! I was trying to save the freaking day while everyone else was sitting around feeling sorry for themselves. I want to scream at him, but I don’t because I can hear Mom’s voice in my head saying he doesn’t really mean it. He’s just messed up because he’s so worried about her. When I don’t bother to defend myself, he turns and walks back upstairs without another word.
* * * *
“Hi.”
“Hey, there. I was starting to wonder if maybe I was just a one-night stand.” Rand answers, laughing.
“Puhlease! Your lovin’ is like crack and I’m developing a twice-a-day habit.” I tell him, meaning every bit of it.
“Don’t tease me. When can I see you?”
“Like never. I’m totally on house arrest. Detective Gorilla Arms came over and blamed me for his bogus arrest.”
“Yeah, he came over here, too. I don’t know what was worse, him chewing me a new one, or explaining to my mom what a dominatrix is.”
Revenge of the Homecoming Queen Page 16