Show and Tell

by Amy Shojai

  September sat down on the wet floor, hardly noticing the burning cuts. She put her face in her hands, but had no more tears. Numb was good. Numb didn't hurt. If she started feeling again, her heart would shatter.

  At least the kids were safe. She had to let Combs know and tell Claire she found Tracy. She wondered if Nikki's folks knew where she was. Happy endings for some, numb for the rest.

  Her phone still had no signal. Even if it didn't go through, she sent a text to both Combs and Claire.

  One of the wardrobe boxes, nearly as tall as Tracy, toppled as the little girl pulled threadbare clothes off the hanger bar inside. Rattling pill bottles spilled out all over the floor. Tracy crowed and danced around the loft with Grooby. "Told you so, Willie, told you told you. Magic pills."

  Chapter 37

  Claire sat statue still in the passenger side of Sunny's green truck. The woman hadn't said a word since leaving the convenience store. Finally, Claire could stand the silence no longer. "Where are we going?"

  "Shut up. I'm thinking." Sunny stared at the sky, clearly worried. She finally glared at Claire. "I know you heard. You were in the bathroom."

  Instead of terror, the weight of uncertainty lifted and a calm clarity descended. She lied, and prayed the near truth would suffice. "I only heard the last part, something about a barn and the kids. And dropping me off somewhere." Claire puffed herself up, knew she had to play this right. "I won't get in the way. I don't care about anything except getting my daughter back."

  Sunny's face darkened. Claire wondered how she'd ever thought the woman beautiful. Sunny’s high cheekbones could slice skin and her snarl bared feral teeth, but she only pressed harder on the gas.

  Claire recognized the sign for Rabbit Run Road. Within minutes, the big truck pulled up behind Claire's ramshackle car parked outside of September's gated drive.

  "Get out." Sunny sat stony faced.

  "I want to go with you, and find my daughter. And Lenny. They're out of medicine by now. You can't handle both at the same time." She unbuckled her seatbelt, gambling the woman wouldn't hurt her. She had no choice.

  "Go. Now. Before I change my mind." A small vein throbbed in Sunny’s neck. "That wall cloud’s ready to birth serious weather. Take my advice, and get under cover."

  Claire spoke earnestly, but her nostrils flared. "If you had kids, you'd understand. A mom does anything for her kids to keep them safe. Anything."

  Sunny reacted as if slapped. A flush climbed her throat.

  Claire didn't stop. "You wouldn't know about that. TV star and model perfect, probably everything comes easy for you. Okay, fine. I'm going, I'm going." She climbed out, slammed the truck door and ducked her head against the returning rain. After thumbing the key fob, she climbed into her car, and shouted over the rising wind. "You can't stop me from following in my car."

  Sunny rolled down her window and pointed a gun with a barrel the size of Texas. "You don't know me, bitch."

  Claire wailed. She slammed the door, and covered her head with both hands. Stupid, stupid. She fumbled for her phone. Two shots popped, not nearly as loud as she expected. Her car shifted. Sunny had shot the tires.

  Another shot and the driver's window shattered, spraying glass over Claire's crouched form. The fourth came with an explosion of white-hot pain that bloomed below her right shoulder and came out her front. Claire screamed, screamed again, and waited for the final shot that would end her life.

  "Shit." The truck's engine roared, and it raced away.

  She didn't move. It hurt to breathe, so she knew she wasn’t dead. Her phone. Call the cops. Stop Sunny, or she’d hurt the kids.

  Claire grabbed the steering wheel with her left hand to lever herself upright. Slicing heat traversed her chest. The bullet had entered her back and exited below her right breast. Blood soaked her coat. It smelled raw and rich, a meaty aroma that made her gag. Retching, nothing coming out. Gasped until she caught her breath. Claire wadded and rolled the bottom of her jacket, picked up her right hand and placed it over the wad, commanding herself to hold it tight.

  Her phone pinged, blinking on the seat between her knees. She picked it up, read the text message from September, and began to cry. Claire didn't question or care how it happened; only that Tracy was safe.

  She coughed, and tasted blood. She might die. She might never see Tracy again. Claire had to speak to her, hear Tracy's voice, one time, that's all she wanted. Carefully, Claire balanced the phone on her knee, scrolled to find September's number and dialed.

  September answered at once. "Claire? Claire, thank God the phone's working, don't know for how long. You got my text? Tracy's fine."

  "My daughter, want to talk to her." Hard to breathe or to speak. The whole side of her body weighed a million pounds. It didn't hurt so badly now, though.

  "I need you to call the police. Ask for Detective Jeff Combs. Tell him—" The connection filled with static before again clearing. "...barn loft. Don't know how long it'll stand, the tornado hit us hard. Hello? Hello, are you there?"

  Hail the size of gumdrops pattered the windshield, quickly growing in size and velocity. The sky blackened and temperature dropped twenty degrees in the space of ninety seconds. No wonder Sunny raced away. "Tornado. Coming at me."

  "Claire! Where are you? Take cover."

  "My car. At your house."

  "Get out, get out, cars are deathtraps, go to the house. Damn, you'll never get inside, I made that house a frigging fortress."

  The shattered window glass fell from her lap in a glittery heap as Claire stepped from the car. She thumbed the phone onto speaker, and dropped it into her coat's breast pocket. September's frantic voice continued to yell instructions. "The garage, go to the garage. Hurry."

  "Need to tell you." Claire held both hands over the bloody hole beneath her breast, amazed she could still move or speak or breathe. "Sunny works for the Doctor. She's coming to the barn to get the pills. Tell Tracy I love her." She reached the side of the house, and leaned there to catch her breath. And couldn't. "Can you hear me?" She staggered against the wind, no longer ducking or even acknowledging the hail. "Sunny shot me." Another push, the garage over there, only a little farther to reach safety.

  The tornado hit, taking the entire garage and half of September's house with it. Roses lifted into the air with clods of black, and swirled in a delicate dance. Claire's car sat untouched.

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  September redialed when the connection failed, but Claire's number went to voice mail. She prayed the woman reached cover on time. Her garage, actually an old-fashioned carriage house, had withstood nearly a century of weather, after all.

  Sunny Babcock's involvement made no sense. September didn't know the woman, had only briefly met her after the debacle involving the hog hunting reality show. Combs met Sunny there, too. And when she reached out to Combs this morning for P.I. help—had it only been this morning?—he sent Sunny.

  A horrible idea reared its ugly head. When Combs arrived at BeeBo's, he'd been angrier than she'd ever seen, more than her presence justified. Last year, the Doctor and his mother had an insider on the police force, Combs's own partner. . .

  The kids surrounded the stacked boxes of Damenia pills, chattering with excitement, especially Tracy. The bounty would relieve Claire’s financial worries, too.

  Steven no longer took Damenia. She hadn't wanted to know about his treatment, wanted nothing to do with the child. He reminded her of an ugliness she’d never erase, but it wasn’t Steven's fault. Too late to make it up to the boy—or herself.

  According to Claire, Sunny could show up at any moment. She’d have no compunction about eliminating witnesses, even kids. September squared her shoulders. Too late for Steven, but saving these kids might save her soul, if God even listened anymore. After losing Shadow, she doubted the Big Guy had any time for her. It was all on her.

  For now, they were safe from the flood. But with no way out of the loft, they might as well have taped bullseyes to their ba
cks.

  It worked both ways, though. Sunny had no way to get into the loft, and didn’t know they were here. They could hide. Claire’s call to the police would bring Combs to the rescue.

  "Tracy, leave that alone. It's evidence." The little girl stuffed a double handful of pill bottles into her jacket pockets, while Boris Kitty sat inside the open box, batting vials around.

  "It's her medicine." Nikki sounded defensive. "That's why she and Lenny drove all the way from Chicago. Finders keepers." She put her hands on narrow hips.

  Tracy ignored September and stuck several more vials in her pockets. "Eighty-four pills per bottle times 30 bottles, two pills a day, 1260 days 180 weeks 45 months 3.75 years. Not enough." She abruptly sat on the dusty floor of the loft, and pulled out her tablet from an inner pocket. "Internet is up." She fiddled with the screen.

  No need to argue. Let her keep the medicine, for now. Hiding the kids took priority. "The man who made the medicine—"

  "The Doctor." Nikki had appointed herself spokesperson for the little group. "That's what Tracy said." Her gaze shifted up and to the left, telling September the girl fudged the truth. As if to cover sudden nerves, Nikki fished Boris Kitty from the box and draped him over her shoulders.

  September didn't care how or where Nikki got her information. "Tracy's mom called. Someone’s coming to collect the pills. We need to hide, or it could get dangerous." She scanned the loft. A pair of ramshackle bookcases, one against a wall and the other shattered across the floor, spilled back issues of Sporting Dog Journal and Certified Contender Report across the loft. Illegal as hell, the publications recorded which dogs won and tracked winning bloodlines. A few cardboard cartons filled with who knows what sat nearby. None were large enough to hide one kid, let alone the whole group.

  "The storm blew everything to smithereens." Nikki scratched under the cat's chin. "Only place to hide is behind the stack of boxes. Or inside them." She rolled her eyes.

  Smiling, September hugged Nikki. "You're brilliant."

  "Careful of the cat." Nikki turned away, incredulous. "You don't mean actually get inside the boxes. We won't fit, they're full of stinky old clothes and Tracy's medicine. We can't throw it out, or she'd see." She pet the cat, defiant.

  "She? You know who's coming?" September grabbed Nikki’s arm when she tried to walk away.

  "Uh, no. How could I know that?" Nikki looked away again. "She, he, whoever. There's nowhere to dump the clothes so the person wouldn't see and suspect something."

  "Sunny “The Babe” Babcock. It's a she. Will be here in six-and-a-half minutes. That's 390 seconds." Tracy kept fiddling with her tablet.

  September stared, then grabbed the tablet from Tracy, expecting a CSI-like satellite view of a car speeding toward them. Instead, she saw a rudimentary BBS where posters could message each other. It reminded her of early days on the Internet.

  Nikki snatched it back before she could read anything. "That's private." She returned it to Tracy. "It's a kid thing, our secret club. We're not allowed to go on Facebook. We're not hurting anything." She spoke too fast, and blushed.

  She dismissed the childhood angst. She had no clue how Tracy knew about Sunny, but the fact she did lent credence to the predicted arrival. September stared toward the road. It sat thirty feet away, and nearly level with the loft elevation. Six more minutes and Sunny would be here.

  "Everyone, quickly dump clothes from the boxes out the back of the loft into the water. Hide the pills in these magazine cartons. That'll make room for you to get inside." The Doctor transported the medication in mislabeled wardrobe boxes so nobody would search past the musty clothes.

  "There are five boxes but six of us if you count Kinsler." Willie stuck out his jaw and she could see his dad in his belligerent pose. He clutched the dog and looked ready to argue his cause if anyone suggested leaving Kinsler behind.

  "Kinsler goes with you. I'm too big for the box. It's getting dark, she won't see me. I've got a plan." She didn't like it, but had no choice.

  September upended the two shabby cartons. Medical supplies spilled from one, including syringes, hemostats and suture material probably used to patch up dogs. The other carton contained a dozen or more plastic dagger-like objects, some with bite marks and blood on them. Break sticks, inserted behind the gripping dog's premolars to persuade him to release, usually were made from wood. September dumped them onto the floor with distaste.

  The pill bottles overflowed the empty cartons, testament to the many customers the Doctor still controlled. September set the cartons atop the toppled bookcase, scooped the remainder into the prone shelves, and scattered armfuls of the fight publications to cover them up.

  "Quickly now. Inside, everyone inside." September lifted Tracy into of the first box. "Turn off your tablet. If it makes noise and Sunny hears, we're sunk." She shut the lid, and reused the old tape to secure it closed.

  "You next, Willie. I'll hand Kinsler to you once you're inside. Promise to keep him quiet." Willie folded himself into a Buddha pose and she handed the subdued dog to him.

  Nikki and Melinda hopped into their respective boxes after September cupped hands for a boost up. "You sure this will work?" Nikki stared up at her from the bottom of the box, thin arms hugging her knees. "Where will you hide?" Worry etched her brow.

  "I'll hang out. Literally. I want to try out that homemade ladder. Y'all got to climb it, and now it's my turn." September tried to smile, but quickly gave up. "I don't know what sort of equipment Sunny has. I'm banking on her taking the boxes one by one."

  Clouds finally had started to break apart. The nearly full moon offered the only illumination, streaking the loft with sinister gloom. Good.

  "Sit real quiet, like mice. Cover up your mouths if you need to when she moves your box." September shivered. "Melinda, she’ll probably leave keys in her truck. Once everyone's out and Sunny comes back for the last box, y'all take off."

  Nikki shook her head, and started to pop back out of her box. "Leave you? That's not happening." Her lip trembled.

  "That is SO happening, Nikki. Go to the police, drive like your lives depend on it." September shut their boxes and loosely taped them shut like the others, so they could easily get out.

  From inside the closed wardrobe, Nikki yelled. "What about the cat?" Boris Kitty meowed, and hopped onto the top of the highest box.

  Headlights pierced the gloom. "Too late, she’s here." September stage whispered, not sure how far her voice would carry, now the storm had passed. A green truck with a high rack-hunting rig tooled down the road, and jerked to a stop.

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  When the big truck rumbled down the road toward the barn, Shadow followed Steven and hid with his-boy behind a stand of scrubby trees until it passed. He poked his long, black nose out to scent-test the wind. The engine sounded familiar and made Shadow's hackles rise, but he didn't know why.

  Shadow wanted to race back to the barn. September waited for him there. She'd be worried, and he grew more anxious the longer they stayed apart.

  The water had carried them a long way. They'd only walked back a short distance because Steven couldn't run as fast as dogs. Boys don't have as many paws. But September wouldn't want him to leave Steven, and above all, Shadow wanted to please her.

  Steven found a big rock and sat on it, shivering in his wet clothes while he stared and poked at the shiny Frisbee-tablet. Shadow whined, wanting to follow the truck. Maybe the driver would find September and the other kids. That would be a good thing. Still, the wet fur on the back of his neck itched and quivered, increasing his unease.

  He put a paw on Steven's knee, but the boy nudged it aside. Shadow whined again, and then woofed sharply.

  "Shhh." Steven made the hush-sound again.

  Yawning with nervous frustration, Shadow peered from Steven to the distant barn. September waited for them. Why was his-boy sitting there, shivering? Going back to the barn meant finding September. She always knew what to do. His tummy grew warm when he thought o
f her, even though his wet fur chilled him in the wind. With exasperation, Shadow nose-poked Steven, using his muzzle to lever his-boy's hands away from the device. September always laughed when he did that. It was his job to tell her when she needed a break.

  "No-no-no! Like I say, go away." Steven clutched the tablet before it fell. "Ready to yell for show and tell. Go away, right now, today." He slapped Shadow's nose.

  Shadow squeezed shut his eyes. The slap didn't hurt. But it reminded him of Steven in the long ago time, when his-boy got so angry Shadow had to lie down and hold him and never flinch away from his fists. September taught him what to do. Now when September cried out and flailed at invisible threats, Shadow did the same to keep her safe.

  He debated what to do. His-boy was safe, out of the water. And Steven said go away. It was a good-dog's job to do what people said. He still didn't feel right about leaving.

  In the distance, the truck door slammed and a woman cursed. That decided Shadow, and raced to reach the big truck.

  It sat at the edge of the broken car path, a short distance from where water cut the road in half. The driver stood in the brightness of the truck's eyelights, talking into her phone. Her voice sounded familiar, but only when the wind shifted and he caught her scent did Shadow recognize the woman. She'd visited that morning, smelling of gunpowder and death.

  Chapter 40