by Amy Shojai
Kelvin recognized the caller and answered immediately. He quelled his first impulse to rip her a new one. Sunny should have checked in long ago. The plan had been flawless, until she screwed it up. He’d grown more and more flustered the longer he sat with the Doctor virtually breathing down his neck. The crazy-eyed bastard had begun polishing his gun twenty minutes ago.
“Who calls?” The Doctor moved from his post in front of the closed office door, to hover like a vulture spying a meal. He leaned on the desk, the gun dangling from the other fist.
“Sunny.” Kelvin struggled not to shrink away.
The Doctor held out an imperative hand, but Kelvin shook his head and turned away to talk. He could still salvage the situation. Maybe she had good news. He forced himself to speak calmly. “I want you to—”
"Kelvin, I don't care what you want.” Wind buffeted Sunny’s phone. “Is the Doctor there? Tell him there's no way to retrieve the product.”
Done, screwed, over and out. Kelvin shouted into the phone. “Tell him yourself.” He switched the phone to speaker, clunked it down on the desk and backed away, distancing himself from Sunny’s failure.
She spit the words, a cornered cat with claws extended. “I'm at the barn. Correction, I’m parked on the last bit of road, at least 20 feet away. The road washed out, it's all under water. No way to get to the barn.” She laughed bitterly. “There’ll be no big show tonight, sweetheart, not with all the dogs drowned. Everything’s under water. Hell, half the loft is gone. Tornado probably took the drugs, too."
The Doctor’s free hand rose to his scalp, grasped a lock of silver hair, and twisted. “Promises made,” he whispered.
Kelvin parried with persuasion and sympathy. "Sorry about the dogs, Sunny. But we made a deal. You don't have a choice.”
"Forget the dogs.” She snorted. “Hell, most were has-beens, only a few good prospects. Kelvin, there's always more dogs. And the Doctor can make more pills."
“Find. A. Way.” Had they been fists, Kelvin’s words would have bloodied her face. “If it’s there, get it out. That's why you're being paid." She had no idea what tightrope they walked. The venal bitch cared most about money, so he’d use the only leverage he had.
"I already got paid. Most of it, anyway." She paused, amusement in her voice. "The Doctor’s making you all flustered. Take a chill pill, Kelvin. Maybe he’ll loan you some meds."
"Sunny “The Babe” Babcock, you have been paid for services not yet rendered." The Doctor yanked a twist of hair from his head, and idly painted the gun with the hank.
"Yeah, well, the tornado had other plans." Her sarcastic retort made Kelvin’s stomach drop. She thought distance kept her safe. He took another step backwards.
Twist, yank. Another silver lock fell. "You will arrange for another event to fulfill our agreement. And you will secure the product for this future event, at your own time and expense."
"Why should I?” She taunted the man, clearly enjoying herself. “It's your party, Doc. Give me one reason I shouldn't pack up and leave you to clean up your own mess."
Kelvin took another step backwards. If he could reach the door . . . He stopped when the Doctor raised his gun.
"I'll give you two reasons, Sunny Babcock. Reason number one. Do this and I will pay you Kelvin's share as well."
Licking his lips, Kelvin slowly shook his head as the Doctor pointed his gun. No chance to change his mind. He could see the Doctor’s decision in his pale eyes.
For the first time, Sunny sounded cautious. "Kelvin might object. What's the second reason?"
In concert with the gun’s "pop-pop-pop” Kelvin’s knees unhinged. The triple-punch blazed fire into his middle. He pressed both hands to his gut, wobbled, and then keeled over. His face smooshed against the floor. The carpet smelled of mouse turds.
"Reason number two. The police will discover you killed Kelvin for his share, unless you finish the assigned task.”
Another “pop-pop” sounded, followed by the opening squeak and rattle of the top desk drawer dumped to the floor. Kelvin’s money-stuffed yellow sock rolled under the desk. From his vantage, he watched the Doctor scoop up the blood money he’d never get to spend. The money never mattered, not really.
The Doctor picked up the phone, talking as he walked, until his fancy snakeskin boots stood inches from Kelvin’s face. He closed his eyes and held still when the man’s toe nudged his neck. Possum time.
"Since I no longer have confidence in your trustworthiness, Sunny Babcock, I will meet you at the event destination. You will transfer the rescued product into my safekeeping. Don't disappoint me." The Doctor’s pointed boots moved away, then the office door opened. “Broken promises reap punishment.” He tossed the phone at the desk, and slammed the office door.
Kelvin’s eyes flew open. His phone. He’d be dead soon. But there was still time. To do what mattered most. To be a hero.
***
Shadow watched the woman’s back stiffen. Her fist clenched and she shoved the phone back into her pocket. Then her shoulders slumped, and she paced back and forth in the eyelight beams, looking first at the barn and then at her big truck.
Shadow watched curiously when she backed the truck dangerously close to the road's chewed up edge. She got out and climbed into the back of the truck bed, and began adjusting things. Metal pings and thunks made loud clattering and he slicked down his ears. She squatted and with a grunt, lifted a metal rack contraption upward until a clacking sound locked it in place.
Shadow cocked his head and he huffed beneath his breath when she climbed the platform sprouting from the truck's bed. A long metal ladder was heaved upward, too. Shadow knew about ladders.
But she didn't prop the ladder against anything. Instead, she balanced the ladder on the top platform and then tugged and pulled a rope contraption until the ladder grew. Shadow nearly barked with surprise when it kept expanding, sticking out like a tree limb. It clanked down with a muted thud on the top of the open dumpster, but kept growing longer and longer.
Shadow had never seen a ladder move sideways through the air instead of up against a wall. It stopped growing when the end touched the cement wall just below the open side of the loft.
The woman at the truck took a careful step onto the ladder, balanced herself, and then hurried along the metal pathway she'd created, graceful as a cat on a fence. She reached the end of the ladder, grabbed the edge of the loft, and hiked herself inside.
Chapter 41
Combs sat in the passenger side of Doc Eugene's SUV, bracing himself as Gonzales pushed the car’s limits. The veterinarian sat in the back, probably wishing he hadn't insisted on coming.
The GPS idea to find Shadow should have worked. Should being the operative word. They'd arrived at Teddy William's house in good time only to discover several days' worth of newspapers stuffed in the front door. Combs had his cell number, but with the towers down, no way to reach him. Without someone like Teddy massaging the technical side, they'd wasted their time.
Gonzales slammed the brakes, and both Combs and Doc Eugene stifled curses. Half a bois d'arc tree blocked the road. He shoved the SUV into a lower gear, cranked the steering wheel, and plowed off the road around the barrier, scraping up the car's side on his way around.
"Sorry, Doc. Now you've got matching scratches." Gonzales took off again.
"Insurance covers storm damage." Doc hung onto the back of Combs's seat. "Lucky we didn't slide into the water, though."
The county road barely cleared runoff that surged alongside the drainage ditches on either side, spilling over the road in each low spot. Combs stiffened every time they slowed to clamber through one of these runoffs. It didn't take much to hydroplane off the highway.
Somebody's phone buzzed. "Hey, that's my phone." Doc Eugene answered, and quickly shut it off with a grimace. "Robin checking in. She’s heading out to check on a friend."
Combs dug out his phone to call September. He looked at messages first. One from Kelvin, the P.I. he'd referred to Septembe
r, but nothing from her. He scrolled through text messages next.
Gonzales's phone beeped. "Yeah this is Gonzales." He pulled the phone away, and whispered, "It's Doty."
"Tell her to—" Combs cut off the rude comment when he saw September's text. He read it again, and then a third time, suddenly realizing he'd stopped breathing. Without a word, he reached out a hand to grip Gonzales’s shoulder. His face split with the biggest, sappiest grin of his entire life.
Gonzales mouthed, what? "Uh, hold a minute." He held his phone against his thigh. "Willie?" He took his foot off the gas, letting the car coast.
At first, Combs couldn't speak. "Text from September. Don't know when it came in, but she says Melinda and Willie are with her. They're fine. The dog, too." Combs thought he might cry, and didn't care. "What is Melinda doing with her?" He didn't care about that, either. His kids were okay. Safe. And so was September. That mattered, too. A lot.
Doc Eugene leaned forward to pat Combs on the arm. "Where are they?"
"Didn't say. Her house, I guess." Combs leaned back, and felt his tightly wound spine crack and relax for the first time in hours.
The car drifted to a stop, and Gonzales shoved it into park in the middle of the county road. No danger with the highway deserted. Residents knew to stay inside during tornadoes, and the clouds hinted the weather might return.
"Let me get back to Doty before she chews me a new one." Gonzales slapped the steering wheel. "Now we won't have to kill ourselves to find this barn. Hell, we're already in the neighborhood." He picked up the phone.
While Gonzales dealt with Doty, Combs tried to call September but only got voice mail. He left a brief message. Later, he'd show her the extent of his gratitude. Curious, he thumbed the voice message left by Kelvin, and frowned when he only heard a long silence followed by heavy breathing. "That's weird. I got a heavy breather call from Kelvin." Gonzales’s pissed expression stopped the banter before it began. "What?"
"Doty was at Kelvin's office. He's dead. Shot."
"What the hell?" The euphoria over his kids' safety evaporated.
Doc Eugene leaned forward again. "Do I know this Kelvin fellow?"
Gonzales ignored the veterinarian. "Kelvin always aspired to get ahead. This time, he must have sucked up to the wrong players." He put the car back into gear. “Doty said they found a dog tag in BeeBo’s hand. Belonged to Kelvin’s mutt.” He smoothed his mustache. “He was up to his BVDs in this dogfight stuff. Kelvin had a wadded up map in his fist, with directions to that same barn our tipster shared."
Combs grunted. Didn't sound like the dog-loving Kelvin he knew. "Money makes people do crazy-ass evil. Let’s drop Doc Eugene somewhere." Now his kids were safe, he could focus on the job.
"No, I'm fine. I'll ride along. Won't get in your way. Robin locked up the clinic, but nobody's coming by with this storm." The veterinarian leaned back and crossed his arms. "Besides, it's my car."
Much as Combs liked Doc Eugene and appreciated his help, they couldn't worry about a civilian and work, too. "We’ll leave you with September and I can check my kids. It's on the way."
Gonzales chewed his lip. "Where'd you say she they holed up? Hope it wasn’t her house. That whole area got hit by the storm."
Combs’s gut clenched.
Gonzales wouldn't meet Combs’s eyes. "We'll swing by. Like you said, it's on the way."
Chapter 42
September watched Sunny through a crack in the loft wall. The streaming headlights sparkled the water, and revealed an insurmountable path from the barn to the truck. She'd nearly decided to let the kids out of the boxes—no way Sunny could collect them without a fire truck—when the hunting rig rose and a hunter's spotlight turned twilight to day.
The ingenious jerry-rigged affair looked precarious. Sunny somehow had secured the foot-end of the extension ladder to the top of the hunting rig. From there, it stretched horizontally toward the loft, supported at the midway point by the dumpster’s rim. The ladder extended further from there to reach the barn wall, ending about three feet lower than the loft opening.
That meant the boxes containing the kids must drop off the loft floor, land on the horizontal ladder, and be scooted the entire length back to the truck. Missed aim at any point would send the boxed kid into the floodwaters, below.
What a stupid idea, to hide the kids in the boxes! Even if Sunny had a gun, it would have been better to surprise ambush her.
Sunny's balance beam performance rated a perfect ten as she danced along the ladder toward the loft.
Crap. Too late to change plans even if she wanted to.
Just before Sunny reached the barn, September climbed down the makeshift wire ladder. As long as Sunny focused on the boxes, she'd be safe.
But almost immediately, footsteps approached September's hidden roost. She clambered around to the other side of the grillwork, putting the floor between her and a clear sight line. Her arms trembled, making the grate shimmy back and forth.
Sunny focused overhead, though, and grabbed twine that still hung from the hay trolley. She rolled it along the overhead tracks probably back to its original position over the wooden pallet of stacked boxes.
The woman muttered and cursed. Moving straps creaked and the metal rollers squealed. "I ought to shove the whole mess into the water. That'd show him. Blackmail me, will you?"
Alarmed, September climbed higher and cautiously peeked over the edge. Sunny shed her jacket, flung it angrily across the floor, and her truck keys spilled out and scattered the collection of break sticks.
So much for Melinda driving the truck to safety.
Boris Kitty lounged on the highest box, a feline king surveying his domain. "Shoo, cat. Get the hell away." Sunny poked at the cat until he hissed and jumped off. "Hate cats. Even BeeBo had a stinking cat."
Sunny's back strained with each tug on the rope she'd strung from the leather harness cradling the pallet. As she pulled, the pallet shifted, tipped, but finally rose enough to clear the wooden floor. Sunny booted the pallet to swing it over and out of the loft.
It took four tries before the pendulum swung far enough, and Sunny let the rope drop. The pallet thudded against the outside of the cement wall on the backward swing. September heard a muffled yelp. She winced, prayed Sunny hadn't heard, and that Willie could keep his dog quiet a bit longer.
Sunny kept working. Her bare arms flexed as she slowly lowered the pallet onto the ladder. Once in place, she released the rope, and bent, hands on her knees to catch her breath. September saw three parallel red stripes on her neck. Cat scratches.
The truck keys glinted. Teased. She had to get them to the kids.
Sunny gingerly stepped off onto the ladder. September heard her grunt again, and the soft scree of the wood pallet shoved across metal.
"Screw this. One by one, then."
September peeked out, and started when Boris Kitty stared at her, front paws tucked under and sitting only a few feet away. She continued to sneak peeks as Sunny nudged the first box off the pallet, and shoved it steadily on metal ladder “tracks” to reach her truck's platform. September pulled herself up onto the loft floor to be out of sight when Sunny returned, and worried there wouldn't be room for all of the boxes on the high rack platform. Sunny confirmed her worst fears when she bent her knees, lifted and then dropped the box into the truck bed several feet below.
One gasp or scream from inside the box, and Sunny would know. September held her breath, but whichever kid hid inside the first Trojan box must have stayed silent.
Sunny hurried back up the ladder to retrieve the next box, and September timed her descent to stay out of sight. Back and forth the woman toiled, tugging and pushing boxes and dumping them into the bed of her truck. The cat crept closer to the opening in the loft floor until he peered down at September, tail flicking. She hoped Sunny’s obvious dislike of cats would keep her from investigating Boris Kitty’s interest.
September's up-and-down exertion made her biceps throb and hands sti
ng from clutching the thin wire. The truck keys rested well out of reach. Maybe she could climb up and grab them the next time Sunny went to the truck. But if caught, she couldn’t match the athletic woman, and the gun would come out. No, better to wait until the final kid-in-the-box reached the truck. She couldn't fail these kids, the way she'd failed Lenny and Steven. And Shadow.
Boris Kitty stared at her. His tail thumped, jostling one of the break sticks so it rolled a few inches along the floor. Maybe the cat could help.
September grappled in her pocket for her SUV keys. She switched on the laser light Macy loved. Aiming the red dot at the floor right in front of the cat, she held her breath and then smiled when Boris Kitty followed the lure, pouncing and chasing it across the dusty floor. Once he reached the far side of Sunny's keys, September jiggled the laser on them. He obliged by pouncing and swatting the rattling bundle across the loft closer to her. Another paw-swipe like that, and she'd be able to snag them.
Not winded in the least, Sunny ran lightly up the ladder toward the final box. Instead of the repeat of past efforts, she vaulted back into the loft and crossed to collect her jacket. And keys. Sunny saw the cat, and aimed a foot to boot Boris Kitty off the loft into the floodwaters below.
The cat spit and dodged, the kick missed. The laser light fell into the water. September lunged and grabbed Sunny’s ankle, toppling her to the floor.
Sunny shrieked, caught herself on her palms, and immediately rolled onto her shoulder and back to her feet.
September grabbed for the truck keys.
Sunny kicked them. They slid and jangled across the loft, and stopped near the final wardrobe box. The cat chased them down, and crouched over the keys, growling. Sunny straightened, ignored the cat, and drew a knife from her boot.
September scrambled to stand. Her hand closed on one of the breaking sticks, and she crouched low, jabbing it toward the other woman.
Sunny laughed. "When I bite, I don't let go." She feinted with the knife, smiling when September twisted and fell as her knee failed. Sunny moved in quickly, grabbed a handful of September's hair, and shook her like a dog worrying prey.