No Refunds No Exchanges: A Hudson Family Series- Book 4- Matt and Ali

by Chontelle Brison

  “No, Pepper. I don’t want to scare you, but I don’t want to lie to you either. Can you handle this?” I asked in a serious tone.

  Her eyes grew wide and then a mask of calm determination settled over her young face and I was never more proud of this beautiful teenager than I was right now.

  “I can handle it, Aunt Ali.” Her voice was steady and calm as she nodded.

  Looking around for any visible signs of Richard and quietly relieved that there were none, I caught Pepper’s steady gaze with my own.

  “Listen, I don’t know what I’m walking in on up there. I’ve got my recorder in my back pocket, a baseball ball and no idea where Trevor and John are.” I waited for her to nod her head that she was following the seriousness of the situation. “I need to get Richard on tape. I need him to admit that he killed my parents, Pepper.”

  “Okay, I’m with you. I’m kind of thinking we should have brought something with bullets instead of a bat, but I’m totally in,” she told me smiling.

  I had to grin. Yeah, I wasn’t much of a gun person. Sure, I had one at the house, and I knew how to use it. My father had spent a lot of time improving my aim, and I had no doubt I could hit a target. However, I had never used a gun except in rare occasions that it was necessary to protect me or someone from a lethal animal. Yet, when it came to actually having a weapon for self-defense from people, I was not eager to have one. It was kind of an odd stance. I guess it made me a pacifist-kinda but not quite.

  Still, Pepper was right. In my anger, I hadn’t considered the fact that Richard would be lying in wait for me. Oh, I knew he’d come eventually and I every intention of asking him to meet me. However, that was after I had secured the transport of Baloo and the others and Trevor and Pepper were safely out of reach. It seemed the man was always one-step ahead of me, willing to stoop lower than I would or could even humanly bring myself to. The man had no boundaries, and nothing was off limits, even killing the parents of the woman you profess to love.

  Shaking my head to clear the thoughts that were closing in on me, I tried to steel myself against what was coming. I wasn’t that stupid girl that idolized that man. I was a smart, independent woman who had both animals and people

  “Yeah, I probably should’ve stopped and thought this through.” I conceded with a tight laugh.

  “It’s not too late, we can call the police or Matt or Synclair, I know she’d help us!” Pepper rambled in a high voice filled with fear.

  I pulled Pepper into a comforting hug and when I pulled back she was smiling.

  “I know. Synclair really likes you, and I can tell you took a shine to her too. I can’t ask Matt to get involved, not now. It wouldn’t be fair after I ran out on him this morning. I’m not sure calling the police would help either if that Nathan Philips is still on the Las Vegas Police force then I could be bringing more trouble.”

  “What can I do? I really want to help you Aunt Ali, but I screw up everything, I always get in trouble.” Pepper cried as her shoulders slumped.

  Lifting her chin with my fingers, I gave her a huge smile. “You…my lovely niece are my secret weapon. There was a reason I told you to keep your cell with you. The reception can be shaky, but it’ll work. I’m going to drop you off about a mile down from the gates and then I’m going to go up the drive alone.”

  “Why? What if Richard is waiting with men or guns, you’ll be outnumbered.” Pepper raised a valid point. One I had already considered. There were only two people that Richard would risk exposing his crimes to, anyone else would be more loose ends. My guess was that Richard was either by himself because he didn’t see me as much of a threat. Of course, why would he? I hadn’t been much of an adversary over the last decade and a half or so. However, if he did bring back up it would be either that weasel, Ollie or the crooked cop, Nathan. I would love nothing more than to get all of them on tape while they confessed to their crimes.

  I hadn’t exactly worked out a plan yet. I was hoping to play off Ricard’s massive ego and his belief that I was some disabled cream puff that was all bark and no bite. Other people in the mix put a slight kink in the plan I had hastily made on the drive here.

  “I can’t leave Trevor. I need to find out if he’s okay. Plus, Baloo and the others hate Richard. Richard won’t waste time tormenting them if he thinks it will hurt me. I can’t leave them alone with him, Pepper and I can’t wait for Superman to come save me.

  “Okay. You are going to drop me off a mile outside the gates but why? As soon as I get near the gates the cameras will pick me up and if Richard is anywhere near the control room where the monitors are, I’m screwed.”

  Damn. She was right. Pepper would be spotted without question by one of the several cameras on site. Not to mention, I would be giving Richard, and whoever else was with him plenty of time to ambush me if I came driving up through the gates like nothing was wrong. Okay, time for plan B.

  “Okay, we stop the car and hide in the trees about a mile before the gates. You know this property like the back of your hand, just like I do. We’re going to use that to our advantage. I know where the dead spots are in the camera coverage, I need to make it over the wall and down the back path to the power grid on the outside of Trevor’s place. Hopefully, Trevor will be there, and he’ll be safe.”

  “Okay, so you’re going to cut power to the security panel? Won’t that cut power to the gates and habitat doors?” Pepper asked.

  I smiled, the girl missed nothing. “Yeah, it will, but they’ll stay closed as long as no one opens them. But that’s not what I need you for. Once I’ve cut the power to the cameras, I need you to be extremely careful and very, very, sneaky,” I told her.

  “Oh! I can be sneaky! I can do sneaky! Hell, if sneaky were a sport, I’d be Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps,” Pepper boasted proudly.

  That was exactly what I was counting on. The girl had snuck out of more boarding schools, camps, and even some very guarded military schools without ever being caught.

  “Okay my little Olympian, focus.” I waited until the silly goon has stopped thanking her pretend fans. “Once the light goes off on the pole above the gates. You know, the little red one that sits way up?” Thankfully she nodded. “Once that goes off, you wait fifteen minutes and then with all the sneak you have in you, get to Trevor’s cottage. If he’s there, I need you to get him off the property and to safety. You take him far down the road and if I don’t meet you back at the car in two hours, you called everyone. Police, fire, Army, Navy, the whole University of Las Vegas basketball team and have them come running.” I told her trying to lighten the heaviness around us.

  “You want me to leave you there? With that asshole?” Pepper asked in disbelief.

  My first instinct was to correct her language, but I bit my tongue. “I need to get him to confess, Pepper. I’m not leaving him near my animals. Everyone has suffered enough at that man’s hands, and I won’t let him hurt anyone else that I love.” I told her.

  “Can you do it, Pepper? I can’t do this if I am worried that yor and Trevor aren’t safe.” I told her honestly. It was about then that I really wanted to smack myself for letting her come along in the first place. I was putting this young girl in so much danger, and here she was, willing to dive in headfirst.

  Pepper nodded, and I turned back, put Matt’s car in drive, and proceeded down the road. About ten minutes later, I came to a spot where the land leveled out, and it seemed like a good place to stash the car. As I retrieved the bat out of the trunk and made sure the recorder was set to automatically record when it detected voices, I checked my phone to make sure cell signal was present. Sighing with relief when I saw three bars, I hugged Pepper and took off.

  My walk started out fine but by the time I reached the wall that surrounded the Sanctuary, my leg was screaming from the effort, I was thankful that I had shoved two pills in my pocket and had grabbed a bottle of water before I left Pepper.

  Usually, I would have rested my leg and waited the thirty minutes f
or the muscle relaxer to begin the unclenching of my knotted muscles. Yet, when I thought about how much pain I was in and who was to blame for it, I decided I would push through the pain.

  I walked around the southwest corner of the six-foot high wall. The brick wall had nothing in the way of footholds for me to climb. Yet, I knew it was my best chance of getting onto the property without being seen. Thinking back to a time when I was young, I remembered climbing trees, walls and anything else that I felt needed to be scaled. I quickly took off my shoes and socks and forced myself to remember how to climb with feet while pulling with my hands. It took some effort. Okay, it took a helluva lot of effort. Once I reached the top, I pulled myself up and collapsed on my back. Thank goodness, my father had made the top of the wall flat and wide enough for my ass to fit.

  It took several minutes for me to catch my breath, which only attested to my desperate need to join a gym. Finally, when I felt like I could breathe without busting a lung, I hung by my fingers and dropped to the other side. The path I would take would be in the shadows of the towering pine trees that covered the property. I knew where every camera was and every weak spot so I had every confidence that I could make it to Trevor’s cottage without being detected. As I slid along the back wall with my but pressed firmly against the brick, I grimaced as my feet encountered pine needles and rocks. Another part of my brilliant plan, I had not considered what I would put on my feet once I got over the wall.

  As I moved quietly, I felt my leg cramp. Please, please, don’t give out! Don’t make me face plant, not today! We finally have a shot at getting the asshole that did this to us, but I need you not to give out on me.

  It probably sounded weird to anyone else, but I wasn’t above begging my own body parts to cooperate. I had asked a lot of my hip and leg already. And I conceded that my pace had slowed slightly as I began to limp. However, if my leg gave out, I was screwed. I would be a heap of nothing on the forest floor, unable to help or save anyone. I couldn’t let that happen, not now, not today.

  For all the weirdness I may have felt at begging my body to cooperate, I was rewarded when the cramping stop and my muscles relaxed slightly. Probably due more to the meds kicking in then my pleading, but I wasn’t picky.

  As I passed behind the main house, I noticed all the lights were on. I smelled the distinct odor of cigarettes and wrinkled my nose. Staying out of sight, I leaned out from the wall as far as I could without being picked up on camera and tried to make out the figure sitting at my patio table. It didn’t take me long to recognize Ollie Pierce. He looked exactly like the picture in the file. The same dark hair slicked back, same short but stocky build. Even in the fading daylight, I could make out his cold, beady eyes. The black jeans, black shirt, and black leather, motorcycle jacket just rounded out his, up to no good, outfit. By the look of several beer cans that appeared empty and scattered on the table, he’d been there awhile. Apparently waiting. For Richard? For me? I didn’t hear any voices coming from the house, and I wondered if maybe Ollie was waiting for Richard to arrive. No matter what, at the very least I would be telling the cops where they could find this asshole. Maybe, if Ollie was found guilty of cutting his wife’s brake line, then I could tie him to Richard and my parents.

  Happy with my plan, I looked up and realized that Ollie was staring right where I was standing. My heart froze with fear as I imagined him dragging me out of the tree line. I didn’t move, I didn’t breathe. I only hoped that the tree cover and the shadows were enough to conceal me. After a few more heart-stopping seconds, his eyes traveled back to the beer in front of him, and he mumbled something as he lifted it to his lips.

  Not willing to risk being discovered I began silently moving along the wall again. By the time I reached Trevor’s dark cottage the ball in my stomach was so hard that I thought I’d be sick. Trevor never kept his porch light off, the fact that there was no smell from his fireplace and his cottage was pitch black, gave me an ominous feeling. Shaking off my fears, I forced my feet to ignore the tiny cuts as sharp rocks dug into the soft flesh of my soles. Looking around for any sign of being discovered, I came to the back of Trevor’s cottage and cringed when I opened the metal power box with a loud screech. After waiting about five minutes, I realized the only sound was my heart and my labored breathing. Grabbing my phone, I switched on the flashlight app and typed in the code to access the box. As soon as typed in the manual override and cut the power to the security system, I waited. I walked about a hundred steps to my left and used the camera eye of my phone to get a close up of the nearest camera.

  A sigh of relief escaped my lips when I saw that the red light was off, meaning the cameras were disabled. Now, if someone was in the control room that was located near the gate, they would immediately know something was up. There was also a way to access them through the house on my television, but no one knew that but me.

  Deciding I needed to check if Trevor was inside, I took a deep breath and walked carefully around to the steps that led to his small, wooden porch. Deciding I had wasted enough time, I took the three steps easily and turned the knob his front door. Once the door opened, I felt around for the light switch and thought the better of it. Instead, I hit my flashlight app and began walking through the small cabin. As I reached Trevor’s room, I heard a low moan coming from his bed. Racing to the bed, I fell to my knees as my light shone on a beaten and bloody Trevor.

  “Oh my God, Trevor!” I exclaimed. They had hit a sixty-year-old man? How much of threat could this poor man have been for men far younger than himself? I shook my head with disgust and focused on looking for the wounds on Trevor’s head.

  “Ali?” Trevor’s voice shook as if every breath he took pained him.

  “Yes, yes, I’m so sorry Trevor. I’m so sorry this happened.” I fought the tears that were threatening as I grabbed his trembling hand.

  “It was that crazy Richard Taggart, I’m sorry Ali. He and this man busted in here late last night and worked me over. I think I passed out. You need to get out of here, go get help.” Trevor insisted gripping my hand with strength beyond that of most sixty-year-olds.

  “Shhh,” I whispered not wanting to him to get any more upset. “Pepper’s coming to take you down to the car. Do you think you can walk?” I asked, not sure how Pepper would get Trevor out of here if he couldn’t stand on his own two legs.

  “Trevor smirked and even through a black eye, I saw that stubborn streak that I loved so much. “Ain’t never been carried out of somewhere before, won’t start now. Just got a few good hits on my face is all, then they knocked me out with a stick. I can walk Alison. Hell, if you need to me to I could dance a jig.” Trevor swore as a cough wracked his body, and I was immediately worried that he had internal injuries.

  “No jigs, I just need you to wait here for Pepper. When she gets here, you both be as quiet as you can and get to the car. You’ll be safe there.” I assured him as I kissed the back of his hand. Trevor had been with me forever, now he’d been hurt because of me. This had to end, I had to stop it.

  “What about you?” He asked giving me a hard stare that told me he knew exactly what I was planning.

  “Listen, Trevor, this is my Animal Sanctuary, these are my animals, my responsibility. My daddy was an excellent Naval Commander, and my mother braved the most ferocious animals in Africa to pursue her passion. I come from a long line of ass kickers, and it’s time I stopped being such a pussy and took my place in that heritage.” I told him calmly. I meant every word that I had just said to him.

  My father had raised me to be fearless, and my mother had raised me to be compassionate, now it was time to stop hiding behind all the scars, the pain, the insecurities and make my parents proud. It was the only thing I had left to give them. I couldn’t give them back their lives, but I could honor the people they were and remember what they taught me.

  “Where’s Richard? Do you know if he’s still here?” I asked Trevor. Trevor looked away, and I immediately felt a sense of panic.


  “He was here about an hour ago. I pretended to be unconscious. I heard him talking on the phone to someone, he was gonna head down to the habitats.” Trevor said softly.

  “Did he say which one?” I asked. I didn’t need Trevor to confirm what I already knew. I stood up and grabbed the bat that I had dropped when I had rushed to Trevor’s bedside.

  Trevor’s eyes grew wide, and I could see that he didn’t want to tell me.

  “Baloo. He went after Baloo.” I felt my stomach clench as I spoke the words. Trevor nodded and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Just promise that you and Pepper get out of here Trevor,” I told him as I began to feel a strange sense of calm come over me, replacing the panic that had been welling up inside me only moments before.

  “Whatcha gonna do Alison? You can’t go after Richard. The man is dangerous! Dammit Alison…Baloo wouldn’t want you to be in danger.” Trevor argued as he leaned back against his headboard.

  I walked to the door of his room and turned around to smile at him. “No, he wouldn’t. But he’d do it for me, Trevor. Baloo would come for me, and I’m not going to let him down, I made him a promise, and I intend to keep it.” I gave him a slight wave as I walked back into the twilight.

  This time, as I walked, I gave no care of how loud I was or who knew I was coming. I should’ve have known that Richard would go after Baloo. Shit, Richard was the reason Baloo was terrified of guns. I let my calm, anger fuel me and I didn’t even feel the pain in my leg, I didn’t even limp as I moved steadily down the path toward Baloo’s habitat. I knew that Richard would have the code to get inside and now that the power was cut, he’d be able to just pull open the heavy sliding gate to gain entry.

  The cries of pain and fear echoed through the forest, and I knew who they belonged to. Baloo, I’m so sorry baby. Don’t worry I’m coming, and that man will never hurt you again!

  My feet seemed to have a mind of their own and for the first time in forever, I was running. No! I was sprinting! I wasn’t run-limping or walk-limping, I was full out running with both legs pumping as if they had never been injured. I barreled around the corner and saw my worst nightmare. Just inside the door of the habitat was Richard; the man I had worshiped, adored and blindly idolized and he was waving a handgun around my cowering Baloo. Baloo’s eyes were round with fear as Richard backed him into a corner of the fence. Baloo’s cries were so loud that Richard didn’t hear me enter the habitat, and it wasn’t until Baloo’s cries suddenly stopped and his brown grizzly ears perked up and twitched that Richard turned around right into the swing of Synclair’s baseball bat.