Like a wounded animal, I approached the one back window of the place that permitted me to see inside. Once I discovered that I had closed the drapes during my last sleep over, I was angry at myself. I pressed my ear to the window. I could hear nothing inside.
I climbed onto the back porch and eased the door open. There was a low growl coming from another room. Since I had no weapon except my now useless cell phone, I entered the kitchen and took a chair to keep between me and whatever it was that was growling. I hoped that it was coming from Sam.
The growling became louder as I watched for something to appear in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Sam came crawling into view.
“Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said to him. “I mean that literally, too.”
His countenance changed abruptly as soon as he realized it was me. With head down he approached, as if to say he was sorry for growling.
“It’s okay. I would have growled, too. I’m just glad it was you. Good to see you.”
I rubbed his head and scratched the back of both ears. As soon as this ritual ended, he made me follow him to one of the bedrooms.
“Say, how did you get inside the cabin?”
He basically ignored my question as he continued on to the bedroom. He stopped in the doorway and peered into the room. I approached and stopped behind him.
Rosey was asleep on the bed.
I ran to the bed and shook him a few times, but he was in deep sleep and I could not rouse him. I tried for several minutes without success. Hunger overtook me finally and I left Rosey in his deep slumber.
“Come on,” I said to Sam, “I’m famished. We’ll wake him in a few minutes.”
Those few minutes turned into two hours. I ate enough food to feed a small army. Despite the cumbersomeness of my wrist bracelets, they were no detriment to my feeding frenzy.
Off and on I tried to wake Rosey and get him to talk to me. At some point in my failed attempts to revive him, I decided that he must have been drugged and that he would have to sleep it off.
After I had staved off my fierce hunger, I remembered the cell phone attached to the homemade bomb in the small box outside. Since it had not blown up when I had dialed the cell phone two days back, I figured that the bomb had been a fake, a ploy by Saunders to fool me. However, since the woman was the personification of evil, I walked outside to the box, disconnected the phone from the bomb and cut the wires running from the bomb back into the house.
It was dark outside by the time Rosey opened his eyes and was aware that I was sitting on his bed. Sam was staring at him as well from his sitting position next to me.
“Where am I?” Rosey said.
“Where do you think?”
“I have no idea.”
“It’s your cabin.”
He sat up and looked around the room. His puzzled look spoke volumes.
“This is not the room I usually sleep in.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, nothing. What am I supposed to say to that?”
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Why are you sleeping in this room then?’”
“Okay, why are you sleeping in this room then?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Well, that was certainly a revealing exchange. Where have you been?”
“Can’t say. Don’t know. Wish I did.”
“I came here two days ago looking for you. I had not heard from you in two weeks.”
“Two days ago?”
“Yes.”
“Where have you been for two days? And,” he said, rubbing his eyes vigorously, “you look like hell. What happened to you?”
“Long story. Let’s have you answer some more questions before I tell you my sad tale,” I said.
“Ask anything you wish. I promise to have little if any light to shed on what is happening.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
He fluffed his pillow and placed it between the back of his head and the headboard. He studied Sam for a few moments, surveyed the room again, and then looked at me with a lot of frustration.
“Some old mountain geezer came by the cabin selling apple cider. The last thing I remember is that I bought some and sat down on the couch to drink it.”
“Powerful stuff, I’d say.”
“Truly.”
“What’s the next thing you recall?”
“Seeing you.”
“When?”
“A few minutes ago.”
“Are you kidding me? You’ve been out for days?”
“I guess, maybe longer. I don’t know what day…. wait a minute. That old guy came by on the first day of the second week I was here.”
“Is that the way you mark time?”
“Not really, I was just trying to figure out … I remember thinking that I had been enjoying my stay here and doing absolutely nothing for a whole week. I had planned to do a little hunting during the second week. That’s why I knew it was the first day of the second week. I had planned to go out scouting around later that afternoon to reacquaint myself with the lay of the land.”
“So you have done a cheap imitation of Rip van Winkle for … what, some eight days now?”
“If you say so. I have no recollection.”
“No other waking moment, huh?”
“Awareness of that is absent.”
“How do you feel?”
“Thick, foggy, not ready to use a firearm in the next few minutes.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if the need arises.”
“I’m hungry, too,” Rosey said. “And weak. I feel extremely weak.”
“Well, chief, if you haven’t eaten anything in the eight days, I’d say you have a right to be both hungry and weak. Follow me. There’s some grub in the kitchen.”
I watched him engulf three sandwiches, four cans of beans, and some stale chips left in the cabin. He also downed several glasses of water along with his food. It was good to watch him dine sumptuously on sandwiches and the like. Between the two of us, we finished off his whole loaf of bread.
“So, tell me your sad tale. You arrived here two days ago. What have you been up to for that period? And, I’m just a tad curious about those handcuffs you’re wearing.”
I told him my long, painful story.
“I wondered about the blood on your clothing … and on your face.”
“And you didn’t ask?”
“You’d tell me when the time was right.”
“So trusting.”
“So thick-headed. If you are correct, that I have been out for several days, then we need to get the drug out of my system, whatever it was that they used to keep me sedated.”
“Think you can help me get rid of these bracelets?” I said as I held up my cuffed wrists in front of him.
“You have any tools in your Jeep?”
“Tire things,” I said.
“I think I have a tool box in the hall closet. Screwdriver and hammer will likely do the trick. Say, you think that Saunders did this to both of us?” Rosey said.
“I know what she has done to me. It’s only reasonable that she was the one who doped you.”
“That means that at some point during the last several days, you and I have been at the mercy of that mad woman.”
“That would be the short of it.”
“Why didn’t she kill us?”
“Been wondering that myself.”
Chapter 14
Two days after I had found my way back to Rosey’s cabin, the three of us were relaxing in front of a fire in the early evening. The day before we had the local law guys and girls out scouring the hillsides looking for Saunders and her dimwitted friend named Dooley. Except for the remnants of my scars and the ever-present leftover pain, I had nothing to show the legal beagles concerning my captivity.
Rosey, Sam and I rode with them as we searched for signs of Saunders and her partner in crime. We found the house where I had b
een held prisoner, but there were no signs or clues left by my kidnappers. The house was immaculate. Imagine my surprise.
When I asked them to check for blood with their luminol solution, they looked at me as if I had changed from English to some Eastern European language they knew not. It made my nose throb to think that they couldn’t do any trace work.
Rosey was completely clueless as to where he had been held. When I asked them to run a drug screen on him, they told me that we could go to Richmond for that. I was bumfuzzled and flummoxed, for sure.
We had decided to take a few days for some R&R and allow his system to clear and my wounds to continue healing. My legs and back were almost well. I managed to smile without my nose hurting, but deep breaths were still an issue from my broken ribs. I forgot to mention that Rosey reset my broken nose. It was a momentary pain that I could have done without except for the cosmetic necessity of wanting a straight nose once more. My twin shiners gave me the appearance of a recovering boxer who has gone twelve rounds and lost. Fitting metaphor.
We had contacted all of the people who had been aware of my search for Rosey. Relief was the order of the day for all concerned.
The phone rang and interrupted Sam’s active dream.
“Clancy here.”
“I must say that you do sound rather chipper for one who has undergone such trauma of late,” the woman’s voice said.
“I wondered if you would call.”
“Oh, I had to stay in touch. I wanted you to know that you both are still very much in my thoughts and plans,” Saunders said.
“Plans?”
“But of course. I have great plans for you both. This little episode was merely a test to see how you might perform.”
“And how did we do?”
“Well, Mr. Roosevelt Washington was an easy mark. I had absolutely no trouble with him from day one. But you, well, you were a different animal from beginning to end. We shall have to work on your attitude and compliance. I might need to sedate you with the same wonder drug he consumed. But, for the sake of the game and my utter enjoyment at toying with you, I’d prefer to devise something other than medication to restrain you.”
“Why didn’t you kill us?”
“Certainly like you to ask such a thing as that, Clancy Evans,” Saunders said as she laughed into the receiver. “I did not want to kill you. That’s an easy question. Had I wanted to kill you, you both would be … well, in a word, dead.”
The realization struck me hard. She was right. We both had been at her mercy, vulnerable, captives, exposed, at least for sufficient time to allow her to end our lives. She could have literally done anything she wanted with us at one point or another. It raised several questions for me. It also helped to explain why she left me my cell phone when she took my weapon the first time she captured me.
“So tell me, Saunders, why did you not want to kill us? I thought revenge was sweet for you.”
“Ah, yes. Sweet revenge. But revenge does not have to be the ultimate deed of murder. In fact, the best revenge is to watch your enemy suffer. I want you both to suffer for what you have done to me. Death would be too easy, too quick, and too over-and-done with. I don’t want that at all. I want you both to have to think about me, worry about me, and wonder what is going to happen next. And when. That’s a lot more fun for me.”
“But you have now alerted us and the advantage has fallen into our court.”
“You think. Good luck with that. Listen, sister. I’m smarter than you could ever be. I will out-think you at every turn just like I did for those two plus days I had you, and then let you escape. You think I didn’t know that you would get away from Dooley. Come now, let’s be reasonable. He was no match for you. I knew that. I simply used him to help you feel better about yourself. I didn’t want you to become too discouraged. That would be no fun. I want you out there working hard, fighting, trying to out-figure, out-think me. I want you thinking that you can win this little game. But of course you cannot. You will ultimately lose. I will determine when. I simply want you to suffer along the way and know that my revenge is extremely sweet. Oh, so sweet.”
She hung up. That was it. The conversation was over. I had answers, but I also had a lot more questions. I related the gist of the conversation to Rosey.
“The hell you say,” Rosey concluded.
I understood his anger, but Saunders was correct. We both had been under her complete control. Scary proposition.
Chapter 15
I was convalescing on my couch in Norfolk. Rosey and I decided that we could heal our battered parts better if we left the environs where the ordeal happened. Sam seemed to be happy that we were home; but then, he was happy most of the time wherever he was as long as I was around.
I was enjoying my third cup of coffee. Black, no sugar nor cream. I’m a purist when it comes to Java. Rosey was asleep in my bed. No doubt he was still feeling the effects of the drug. Since we had returned to Norfolk, he was sleeping nearly sixteen hours a day. By his standards that was double.
We had the Norfolk Crime Lab test him for drugs so we would know what Saunders used to sedate him so soundly. No word from them as yet.
Baldacci had my attention while I sipped my Colombian coffee. My peripheral vision caught something lumbering towards me. Rosey was wearing a large blanket around his shoulders as he waddled to the couch and plopped. I moved my feet and legs just in time.
“You shouldn’t plop on the furniture,” I chastised him.
“What?” he muttered, half awake.
“I said you shouldn’t plop on the furniture. My grandfather used to chide me for plopping on beds, couches, chairs, etc. whenever I visited with them. He said it was bad for the furniture.”
“My bad.”
“Is that it?”
“What?”
“Your total repentance?”
“Pretty much. Is this a revival or something?”
“You should feel more remorse when you say you’re sorry.”
“How could you possibly know what I am feeling?”
“I’m a woman. Intuition. I know things.”
“Get a life and leave me alone. I’m sleepy and I want to wake up, but my body refuses. This drug hangover is killing me.”
“The lady at the crime lab said it should be out of your system in 10 days to two weeks.”
“She didn’t even know what it was. How could she know how long it would last inside of me?”
“Experience, I suppose. One of those average things. Surmising.”
“I hope she’s right. I can’t stand much more of this. I wake up long enough to eat something, shower, shave and get dressed and then go back to bed because I’m so sleepy.”
“Sounds like a good life to me.”
My last comment lingered a while. I returned to my book half expecting Rosey to say more. The next thing I knew was that he was snoring at his end of the couch. Sam stood, stretched, came over to me, yawned, and then walked into my bedroom without returning. Males.
Late in the afternoon the crime lab called to tell us that the drug in Rosey’s blood was chloral hydrate.
“I don’t see it that much these days, but it was popular back in the late nineteenth century,” Charlene Chandler said. She was a good source for discovering substances.
“Back when you were a little girl,” I said.
“A little before my time, thank you. They used to call it ‘knockout drops’ or ‘Mickey Finns.’”
“Used as a date-rape drug at some point.”
“Would work magic, if you were into that crap.”
“What form is it in?”
“Liquid, at least that’s the only form you can get it in now,” Charlene said.
“Lethal?”
“If you give enough, or you combine it with alcohol. That would really do someone in; otherwise, just a teaspoon of this in some liquid like water would make you sleep like a baby.”
“A little each day would keep a person in dream land on
and on, right?”
“To a point, but the person administering this drug would have to know what they were doing, or the recipient would lapse into a coma and eventually die. On the other side, a person taking this drug could easily build up some immunity to it over an extended time.”
“Eight days long enough for either of those cases?”
“I doubt it. Is that how long Washington was asleep?”
“Working estimate.”
“How’s he doin’?” she asked.
“He’s coming around, still a little groggy, but developing an attitude. I think he’s coming around.”
“Glad to hear it. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thanks, Charlene.”
I waited until the following day to relay the information.
“I can’t believe I was so careless,” Rosey said the next morning. His regular self was beginning to show.
We were sitting at my kitchen table looking out the window on the alley below. Rosey had surprised me by cooking a full breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, grits, pancakes, and cooked apples. It was more food than I would normally eat in a week.
“Sometimes we let our guard down,” I offered as some kind of consolation.
“Can’t do that,” he said between bites of toast and egg. It seemed that he was addressing himself more than he was talking to me.
“We’ll do better next time.”
“Our lives depend on it,” he said.
Sam was sitting next to Rosey waiting for a handout. He wasn’t picky about what he might receive. Anything was worth the wait. Rosey gave him a piece of toast.
“Maybe more than just us,” I said. “She knows where my mother lives.”
“Call her.”
“And tell her what? Be careful?”
“We need to go there,” he said as he stood, handed Sam a whole pancake, and walked away from the table.
“Now?”
“You call her and tell her we’re coming today.”
I let Rosey drive so I could ride in his Jaguar. We were two hours out of Norfolk on Highway 58 moving westward at a rapid clip. Sam was looking out the back window on my side of the car. Normally from the backseat he preferred to sit in the middle of the seat so he could see out the front windshield. I figured he liked that spot because he liked to know what was coming.
Revenge: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 4) Page 7