by Lynn Bohart
“Dylan!” Amy shouted, spinning away from us.
She sprinted towards the end of the building, following the fleeing figure of a tall, slender man wearing a hoodie.
“Amy!” Rudy yelled, taking off after her.
Amy disappeared around the corner, with Rudy hot on her heels. A moment later, Amy reappeared, almost bumping into Rudy.
“Amy, who was that?” I asked, coming up to her out-of-breath. “Who were you chasing?”
Her pretty face was screwed up in disappointment. “That was Dylan. Why would he run from me?” She seemed on the verge of tears again.
Rudy and I shared a concerned look.
“What do you mean that was Dylan? Wouldn’t he be at home?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’m sure that was him.” She stomped a foot and a tear threatened at the corner of her eye.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, right now we need to get you inside before anyone recognizes you.”
We led her to the entrance and pushed through the big front door into an enormous marble-floored lobby. We approached a large reception desk, where multiple receptionists stared at computer screens.
“We’re here to see Detective Mankiewicz,” I said to a middle-aged woman with her hair pulled into a tight bun.
“Name?” she asked, her eyes never leaving the computer.
“Julia Applegate.”
“Just a moment.”
She picked up the phone and spoke to someone. When she hung up, she had us sign in and fill out name tags before telling us to take the elevator to the second floor.
When the elevator dinged and the door opened, David and José were waiting for us.
Um, what?
“Julia!” David said. He took a step forward as if to embrace me, but stopped when my six companions flowed out behind me.
But I wasn’t looking at him.
“José, what are you doing here?”
My handsome maintenance man stuck his hands into the pockets of his Chinos and shrugged. “Detective Franks called me and said he needed me to come along.”
David turned to me. “I brought him for back-up. He is a black belt in some martial art, isn’t he?
“Yes. But…”
“So…he’s assigned to you until we catch these guys.” He cut me off as I started to object. “I know you, Julia. You’re going to go to that dinner whether I want you to or not. Am I right?”
I blew out a sigh. “Yes.”
“Then, José will be your shadow. The police and FBI don’t have any extra personnel.”
“Fine.” I reached behind me and drew Amy forward. “David, this is Amy Dunphy.”
Amy turned shyly in his direction, her pretty eyes downcast.
David reached out and took her hand. “Sorry, Amy. It’s good to meet you.” He was studying the cuts and bruises on her face. “We should have you checked out by a doctor.”
“No. I’m okay. Thanks to Julia and the others.”
David put his hand on her shoulder. “Okay. But you’re a very lucky girl. Would you like to see your mother? She’s waiting.”
Her eyes opened with anticipation. “Yes.”
A warm smile eased across his face. “Then, let’s go.”
“What about my father? Senator Owens?”
David shifted his weight and looked momentarily uncomfortable. “We haven’t told your father you’ve been rescued. Frankly, we didn’t think we could keep it under wraps if we did. He has too many people around him. But he’ll be told the minute it’s safe to do so.”
“But, I…” she started.
“Look,” David interrupted her. “We don’t want these guys to change their plans. This could be our only shot to catch them in the act. We’ve talked it over with your mom and stepdad.”
“Okay, I understand,” she said. “Is my father at least accepting protection?”
“He says he has his own private security and knows that we’ll be there tonight in full force. C’mon, your mother is anxious to see you.”
I reached out and grabbed Amy’s hand as we followed David down a long hallway. When we reached the last door on the left, David stepped past a uniformed officer posted outside and opened the door.
“Here you go,” he said, gesturing inside.
The room was small, with a large, rectangular wooden table in the middle. On the far side sat the man and woman I had trolled on the internet–Amy’s mother and stepfather.
Trina Dunphy jumped up and rushed around the table to embrace her daughter, tears running down her face. Her stepfather stood awkwardly at the table. It was hard not to look at him and think of Monty. After all, Amy had said her stepfather had a brother whose name was Martin. Could his nickname be Monty?
As I studied his face, he glanced at me and then quickly away.
Had we already told the bad guys Amy had been rescued? That made me think of Dylan. Was he actually in Chicago? Too many coincidences to be, well, coincidental.
I decided to focus for the moment on the hard-fought reunion in front of me.
Trina Dunphy had her arms clamped tightly around her daughter’s shoulders, as if she would never let go. Amy didn’t seem to mind. They were both crying and apologizing for the fight they’d had the night before Amy went missing.
I glanced over at David, and he nodded toward the hallway. We slipped back outside and closed the door. That’s when I noticed someone new had joined our group.
“Julia, this is Detective Mankiewicz,” David said, gesturing to the newcomer.
Detective Mankiewicz was as tall as David, but more slender, skinny in fact. He had a pleasant face, dark brown eyes, short dark hair combed straight back from his forehead and a pencil moustache that reminded me of William Powell in the old Thin Man movies.
“Let’s step across the hall,” he said.
We left Amy with her mother and the patrol cop and crossed into a larger conference room. As the others crowded through the doorway, I pulled David to the side.
“David, we just saw Dylan downstairs, in front of the building.”
“Amy’s boyfriend?”
“Yes. Well, we didn’t see him. Amy did–or she thought it was him. She took off after him, but he disappeared. I thought you had him in custody.”
“We had to let him go. There’s no actual evidence connecting him to the kidnapping, other than he was in the park at the same time. Give me a minute. I’ll tell Detective Mankiewicz.”
The seven of us spread out around the table, while David conferred off to the side with Detective Mankiewicz. The detective stepped back into the corridor to call the patrol officer over. He said something to him and then came back inside and closed the door.
“Okay, who wants to begin?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“I think this is mostly Julia’s story,” Rudy said in response to the detective’s prompt. “She’s the real hero here.”
There were murmurs of agreement, which I accepted with a gracious smile.
“It’s only because I’m the one who saw Amy first.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Detective Mankiewicz said.
He sat with his pencil poised to write when the door opened and a young man in a dark suit entered. Detective Mankiewicz looked up.
“Come in Agent Mathers.” He turned to us. “Everyone, this is Special Agent Mathers from the FBI. He’s going to sit in on the interview.”
Agent Mathers wore a dark suit and tie and was probably in his late thirties. I wasn’t sure I’d recognize him if I saw him in the hallway ten minutes after we left the room however; he was that bland. He gave us a brief smile and then sat at the end of the table.
I shifted my gaze to David. He gave me a quick nod. “Go on, Julia.”
I took a breath and began our tale. I described in detail the first night we saw Monty and his crew at the campground outside of Spokane and the subsequent misdiagnosis of Ponytail Guy’s death.
“We call
ed the police,” I said. “But, frankly, we looked like fools when the body and the motorhome disappeared. One officer even threatened to lock us up if we caused any more trouble. It’s one of the reasons we avoided calling the police after that.”
Detective Mankiewicz nodded and made a note. “Okay, what happened next?”
I recounted everything that happened on the Fourth of July and the next morning when I saw Amy’s face at the window.
“I was so startled I just stood there as the motorhome drove off,” I said apologetically. “To be honest, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of what I’d seen. But I couldn’t get her image out of my mind. So I started googling information about Amy’s family and became more and more convinced my first impressions were correct. But no one else believed me,” I said, eyeing my friends. “That’s why, when I saw the Jayco motorhome pass us at a gas station, I went after them. I’m really too short to drive something that big safely, and…well, I…”
A short chuckle erupted from David, prompting a sharp look from me. He quickly sucked it up and glanced down at the table.
Rudy spoke up. “Let’s just say that once we’re done here, we hope you’ll give us a copy of the formal report for the insurance company.”
Detective Mankiewicz smiled. “I get it. Go on.”
I described the close call at the railroad tracks and how that had brought everyone around to my belief that something was wrong with these people.
“Right after that we met up with Goldie and Aria again,” I said, nodding to them.
“When did you see the Jayco motorhome again?” David asked.
I paused to think a moment. “At Jake’s store. Um…well, I didn’t really see them. Rudy did.”
I gestured to Rudy to pick up the story, hoping I wouldn’t have to talk about the cops and robbers chase or about Jake.
Rudy explained how she had gone after them in the Hulk.
“Oh, oh,” Goldie said with a giggle. “That’s where Rudy left Julia behind. She watched the whole thing while she flirted with the sexy guy who owned the store. Ow!” Her head snapped around to Aria, who was sitting next to her.
There was a moment of awkward silence as David’s eyebrows lifted and those luscious brown eyes shifted my way.
“Listen, that wasn’t the important part of the story,” I said, hoping to deflect attention away from Jake.
I went on to describe how we spotted the Jayco motorhome again at the small diner early that evening, sent Goldie and Aria in to spy on them, and then found Ponytail Guy dead in the dump hose compartment.
“Why didn’t you call in the authorities then?” Agent Mathers asked.
We all turned to him at the end of the table as if he’d just walked into the room.
“Um…because they marched right over to another motorhome in the parking lot and stole it. By now, we knew they had a girl with them, we just weren’t sure it was Amy. We had to go after them.”
Detective Mankiewicz put a hand up. “Wait a minute! What exactly did you do about the dead body lying on the pavement?”
Count to three.
“We left him there,” Doe finally admitted.
Detective Mankiewicz turned toward David with a look of incredulity.
“Don’t look at me,” David said with a shrug. “I wasn’t there. But I know these women. When they’re on the scent, there’s no getting them off.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he replied. He turned back to me. “Please continue.”
“We didn’t get very far because we had to stop for gas, so Goldie and Aria continued to follow them.”
I then related how we followed Aria and Goldie to Lake Cleary, found the stolen motorhome at the small house, overheard Monty and Roy mention Yoda, and finally freed Amy.
Detective Mankiewicz gave Blair an appreciative look when I described how she’d knocked Eva out. “But you left her alive? Right?”
Blair nodded. “Yes. Her nose was bleeding, but that’s all.”
“Why did you have handcuffs?” Agent Mathers asked.
I think we all held our breaths at that one.
“I bought them at the Mt. Rushmore gift shop and gave them to her as a gift,” Rudy said quickly.
David turned a mischievous smile towards Blair.
“Anyway, we got Amy out of the house,” I interjected. “But Rudy called and warned us that Monty and Roy were coming back, so we took off into the forest.”
I explained how we heard the shots when we were down in the gully and then turned to Blair to let her finish the story.
She described how we fled up the streambed and took refuge in the barn. And then, she recounted the lie we’d concocted about leaving her bloody tank top behind when we left the barn to hide outside. There was no mention of the ghosts.
Detective Mankiewicz had taken copious notes. “Okay,” he said, putting a period at the end of his last sentence. “What did the police have to say when they found this…Eva?”
“We were there for that,” Rudy said, raising her hand. “They processed the crime scene and interviewed us. Of course, we could only tell them why we were there and what we thought might have happened, since Blair and Julia were missing.”
Detective Mankiewicz turned to me. “Detective Franks told me that you didn’t meet with the Gateway police. Why not?”
The six of us sat and stared at him. Funny how, when you’re nervous about something, things like the air conditioning can sound really loud.
“Frankly, Amy was too fragile. She wouldn’t allow it, but we have her clothes, and we took pictures of her injuries.”
Blair pulled out the plastic bag with her clothes and pushed it across the table to Detective Mankiewicz. “And here’s my phone with the pictures.”
“I’ll take that,” Agent Mathers said.
He took her phone and immediately accessed her photos.
I looked back at Detective Mankiewicz. “Saving Senator Owens has to be the priority now.”
“We’ll handle that part of it, Mrs. Applegate,” Detective Mankiewicz said.
“You don’t understand,” I said, leaning forward. “We’re the only ones who can identify these guys.”
“We’ll get a police artist up here right away to help with a sketch. But it’s far too dangerous to have you involved anymore.”
“You can’t keep us out of this,” Rudy said quietly. “We’ve all risked our lives to save Amy. We’re not quitting now.”
“We’ll be at the dinner tonight, anyway,” I said. I stuck my chin out in stubborn resignation.
“You don’t need to be at the dinner,” he challenged me.
“Too late. Graham already got us tickets.”
“And who is Graham?”
I rarely played the ex-husband card, but it was warranted here. I saw David drop his gaze to the table, as if trying to ignore my next comment.
“He’s the Governor of Washington State…my ex-husband. Rudy is doing a story on the conference. So we’re all going, whether you like it or not.”
I avoided looking directly at David. Detective Mankiewicz remained quiet, as did Agent Mathers, who was busy doing something with Blair’s phone.
“Okay,” Detective Mankiewicz relented. “Since I can’t lock you up for 24 hours, as much as I’d like to, you can be our eyes and ears in the room. Under no circumstances are you to engage with these guys, though. Understood?”
“Of course,” I replied a little too quickly.
The door opened and a female officer stepped in. “Detective Mankiewicz, Senior Agent Preston is here from the FBI.”
Mathers came to attention and handed the phone back to Blair.
“Excuse us,” the detective said standing up. “This will be a joint operation tonight. Even Homeland Security is involved since it has to do with a sitting U.S. senator. Detective Franks, I’ll leave you to prep the ladies. I’ll send the artist up right away.”
“Detective Mankiewicz,” I said, stopping him at the doorway. “What abo
ut Amy?”
“We have an officer debriefing her now. She’ll stay in our custody until after we secure her father. Detective Franks, can we have a word?”
The three men left and the door closed behind him. The rest of us waited impatiently, until David came back.
“What’d he say?” I asked him.
“That I’d be responsible for you, so you had better pay attention.” His eyes shifted to José. “And you’ll be on duty all night. Is that understood?”
“Got it,” José said with a serious expression. “Do I get a gun?”
That went over like a lead balloon.
“Okay,” I murmured. “What do we need to do?”
David grabbed a roll of papers that sat next to him on the table. They were the floor plans of the Sheraton Grand Chicago. We spent the next thirty minutes carefully reviewing them. David pointed out the front, back and side entrances, restrooms, offices and meeting rooms. He identified where stairways and elevators were and where security checkpoints would be set up.
“There’s a media center on the second floor mezzanine, here,” he said, pointing to the plan. “But it will be closed. The only media in the room will be one cable news station and the AP. Also, there’s a major construction site on the backside of the building. They’re adding a new wing.” He pointed to the area on the map.
“So no one will be coming or going through there,” I said.
“No. All those rear doors and hallways will be blocked off. There will be twenty undercover agents and police officers in the building. They’ll all be wearing these little gold leaf pins,” he said, pointing to a small pin on the lapel of his suit jacket. “That’s how you’ll be able to identify someone if you need help.”
“Okay, but what do we do if we see Monty or Roy?” Blair asked.
“Text me,” he responded. “Just the name and location. We’ll pick it up from there. We’ll distribute your sketches to all of our undercover officers.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll make sure everyone has your number.”
Aria opened her mouth to say something, but I gave her a brief shake of my head. I didn’t want her to mention the ear wigs.
“Any chance we can get two more tickets to the dinner?” Rudy asked.