It was still early morning when he joined Melissa Banks and Sergeant Jacobs near the nursing station. “Mr. Amund, let’s go back to your garage—no, your shop.”
Jacobs had a disarming smile, “I’m new to the north, well, to central BC. I transferred here from Regina, spent some time working at Depot.” He was referring to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police training center, where recruits that could handle the intense training were turned into members of one of the best police forces worldwide.
“This will be the first investigation I lead up here. I will need your help, as I am not familiar with all the details of,” he paused, looking at them both in turn, “a logging operation?” At their nods he continued, “I would like you both to come back to the shop, and as we take a good look at the scene, give us suggestions of things to look for, or items that are out of place.”
He motioned with his head and led them down the hall toward the parking lot, asking a few questions about the town, location of the shop, and how many people the Banks employed.
The mid-November morning was chilly, and the first snow was falling in tiny flakes, swirling in the light breeze. Jacobs didn’t seem to notice the cold, parka unzipped, hands bare as he walked toward his unmarked vehicle. Mrs. B, on the other hand, shivered and zipped her jacket to the very top, the collar looking uncomfortable and stiff.
Johnny brushed the light snow from the windows with his hand. Snow was snow; he had been dealing with it for weeks in the higher elevations where he was driving and was looking forward to getting the snowmobiles ready for some winter fun. This made him think of Mary, who was usually game for a weekend ride when her work rotation allowed. He brushed the snow off the rear window of the Cadillac, yanking his hand off the glass when Mrs. B turned on the rear wiper. He turned, Jacobs was watching him from the open window of his vehicle.
“I’ll follow you to the shop,” he called, reversing to give Mrs. Banks room to exit the lot.
As Mrs. Banks accelerated onto the street, heater fan blasting, Johnny sent a quick text to Mary to let her know they shouldn’t plan to meet for lunch. Mrs. Banks turned on her radio, clicking on the Bluetooth and pushing the contact that read HunnyBunny. “Let’s see if Chet is in cell range.”
“HunnyBunny?!” Johnny was delighted. “Has Isaac ever seen that?” He chuckled, the unexpected humor feeling good.
You have reached… The familiar recording began, and she ended the call.
Johnny was still smiling, question in his eyes. Melissa could tell he did not want to be disrespectful.
“Yep, Isaac helped me figure out this whole stereo system, or whatever you call it. He is really good with electronic and computer equipment. He programs all the radios and stuff.”
Johnny was suddenly alarmed. “Hey, am I in there, too?”
Mrs. Banks caught on. “There are no ‘clowns’ or ‘hosers’ in my contacts, just real names.”
They shared a laugh as she scrolled up, his name jumping out at him. “There you are, ‘J. Amund.’”
She looked across, sobering. “I am really worried about Terry. You know, I liked her right away. She seemed like she wanted the job, and was happy to work, you know. Kind of like you, John.”
She stopped for a red light at the intersection of Highway 16, snow swirling from several eastbound chip trucks heavy with wood fiber, en route to the pulp mills in Prince George. The light changed, and she turned right, aiming the warming vehicle west of town.
“You know, Johnny, Chet and I have been talking about you. For the last few months, we have been really impressed by your responsibility, and how nice it is to work with you. Some of the guys have noticed, too, you know. Pete said you were decent to work with, and coming from him, that means a lot. Then, a couple weeks ago, Isaac was telling Chet how you are really keeping on top of your new truck, and how your preventative measures are saving time and money.” She patted his arm. “This means a lot to us, Johnny. You’ve been with our company a bunch of years, and you actually feel like family, you know, like a big kid who has grown up. And we like Mary, too. She’s good people.” She popped him on the shoulder, hoping to take the embarrassment from the personal nature of her words.
She was quiet, giving Johnny space.
“Mrs. B, this summer I realized I wasn’t the guy I wanted to be. So, I did some thinking– Well, I’m still trying to think it through. Mary and I have been talking about what we want out of life.” He paused.
“Well, not just what we want, but what we can do, and how we can be part of something. You know, a lot of the kids that work at the grocery store just love Mary, and I guess it’s because they look up to her. I want people to look up to me, too, so I need to change some stuff.
“I guess it’s time to grow up. And when I started thinking about this, I found out I really like my job and the guys I work with.”
He stopped speaking, red-faced in the cool, winter light.
“That’s fine, Johnny, I know what you mean,” she looked at him, “and don’t worry, this is between you and me.
“And Johnny, now I am going to be a little vulnerable. Chet and I are not churchgoers, but my sister is, and at her church they have something called a ‘prayer chain.’” She looked across to see if this was familiar to Johnny, but he just shrugged, shaking his head.
“When someone is sick, has an emergency, whatever, they have a bunch of people who pray for the person. I guess they call each other, and then pray. Well, I am calling my sister, and asking her if she will put Terry on their prayer chain. This is when we need all the help we can get. I don’t know what I’m going to do if Terry gets hurt.”
Johnny and Mary were not churchgoers either, even though he knew many people that were. They seemed the same as everyone else, except when they came to his door, all dressed up, with handouts and stuff, making him feel embarrassed, like he didn’t know a lot of things.
He knew some churches in town were involved with the soup kitchen, and every Christmas he and Mary liked to donate a box of food. Last Christmas, when he helped Mary deliver a pickup load of food, collected in boxes set up by the checkout lanes at the grocery store, he had been a little shaken up to see two of his childhood buddies in the food line. These were the same friends with whom he had spent countless summer hours fishing and roaming the leased land his uncles farmed which bordered the reserve, taking their catch to an auntie’s house, where she might prepare it for them, or joining his uncles for a simple hot meal of potatoes and meat, and of course, macaroni and cheese. Food that tasted just fine to starving young boys who had been running wild for hours.
His uncles usually took time to cook and eat their lunch in the small cabin on the leased property. They always gave a stern admonition to “not steal anything” when his friends left, making them laugh, as the uncles had nothing a boy would want to steal, and the food in the unlocked cabin was generously shared and free to be used at any time. Out of earshot, one of his friends would point at a farm implement or tractor and, imitating the uncles’ accent and phrases, would solemnly announce a made-up plan to come steal, “dat darn-good-John-Deere-tractor so I can go do-a-good-day-work-in-the-fields and buy more mac-and-cheese,” sparking laughter from a group of kids that wanted nothing to do with wearisome labor on the farm.
It was depressing to see some of these same friends in their current condition.
His thoughts returned to the present. Johnny had no problem if Mrs. Banks wanted to ask people to pray for this woman and thought it may even be a good idea. He wondered if the church his father-in-law attended had a prayer chain, too.
Chapter 12
Terry was gaining strength in the trunk. Her nausea was also growing. The ether was still strong on her skin, it smelled like starting fluid to her. No wonder she felt so sick. She willed herself to be okay.
She thought of Blake, in the front seat, and knew her instinct to leave Alberta was correct, but she had badly miscalculated the response from Joseph, and whoever else was involved. T
hey had to be smuggling drugs, or something, and frozen meat seemed like a way to do it. With the thousands of trucks on Canadian highways, how could any policing agency stop the movement of prohibited items?
What was around her neck? Something cold that rattled when she moved, not a chain; her hands moved swiftly in the dark, touching, feeling. With horror she pulled at the macabre necklace of sockets, the weight impeding her movements. Working with shaking fingers, she untied the rope and freed herself from the heavy coils, the sockets rattling slightly in her desperate grip.
She carefully turned, and struggling onto her stomach, vomited into the corner of the trunk, her feet tangled in the backpacks. Weakly she turned on her side. Feeling no better, she turned her head and vomited again, shivering, almost losing consciousness.
She shook her head, pain exploding behind her eyes. Summoning her strength, she turned, her movement rocking the car slightly. The radio went silent and she froze, the car slowed somewhat. It resumed its speed, and the radio came back on, tuning to a hockey game. Head pounding, Terry reached for the greenish glow from the emergency trunk release. Getting a firm hold, she pulled. The trunk released, bouncing up slightly, the slipstream holding it down but not preventing the cold air from rushing in.
This time there was a shout from the front, and the driver slammed on the brakes. Terry rolled forward to slam into the seat back, unable to resist her momentum.
When the car stopped abruptly, the trunk lid rising on its springs, she struggled toward the opening, but before she could get over the edge, the two men had bolted out of the front seat. Pushing her harshly down, they slammed the lid, narrowly missing her right hand.
There was some heated conversation, and then the trunk opened again. Terry scrambled forward, but her legs were pinned together at the ankles with some sort of tape. A fist glanced off the side of her head, and she collapsed back into the trunk, pain soaring into lights and sounds and then blackness.
Terry was not unconscious, but thinking was difficult with the pain behind her eyes. The hockey game was turned up loud, or so it seemed under the rear speakers, and it was dark. Her thoughts were coming clearly now, the cold air and fear cutting through the sluggishness.
Terry accepted the danger she faced, she needed to act swiftly. From the advertisements on the radio, she knew she was near Prince George.
Okay, when we get to a town, I’ll climb out of this trunk and fall on the road, she thought. Getting run over in traffic is a much better risk that whatever these guys have planned.
Her heart sank when the car slowed, crunching to a skidding stop on the gravel shoulder, then reversed hard. As Terry tried to stabilize herself, the driver roughly shifted back into drive and accelerated into a right turn off the highway. The vehicle bumped onto a side road, then slowed to a more cautious pace.
Terry made a new plan: when they stopped again, she would try to get into the back seat through the narrow opening. Maybe they’d leave the car running and might not be expecting this. She worked furiously on the thin tape holding her ankles together, head reeling, the hot, awful nausea sapping her strength.
It was shipping tape, probably from the partial roll that had been lying behind the seat in her truck cab. She had used it to hold her new BC license plate inside the front window of her Dodge pickup until she could mount it properly.
The tape was easy to cut with something sharp. Checking her fingernails, which she had painted bright red several days ago, she found a nail broken in her struggle to escape and began to work. She was able to puncture the tape and tear it. Then she turned her attention to the trunk lid, carefully trying to write with the red nail polish using the edges of her short nails, breaking off her efforts when she thought to search the backpacks for clothing. She found a folded T-shirt in the bottom of the first backpack, and awkwardly pulled it on, revelling in the feeling of being covered. Feeling deeper in the bag, she came out with a set of swim trunks with a drawstring and tied them on with a strong double knot.
No more than a few minutes had passed since turning off the road, and Terry was interrupted in her search for more clothing. She discarded the backpack when the vehicle slowed, accelerated, and then slammed to an abrupt stop, sliding briefly on the sealcoating, then skidding a few feet on a downhill gravel slope. The jerky movements caused her to vomit again.
There were curses and shouting from the front of the car. She tried to think– What was going on now? Where was she? I want to live! she screamed inside her head. Someone scored in the hockey game, horns blaring, the announcer’s voice rising.
The car rocked, interior light coming on as the doors opened, and when the men got out of the car, Terry squeezed through the opening, pulling her feet into the warm interior just as the trunk opened. There was more shouting, and Terry couldn’t understand the language.
She screamed, hoping someone was nearby. She reached frantically for the door locks, but the rear door on the passenger side was yanked open, and Joseph’s friend Blake slid in, covering her mouth with his hands, his eyes wide and frightened under the dome light.
She struggled, and he twisted her head around. She was in an awkward position, and stopped fighting, hoping he wouldn’t break her neck. He shook her head in both hands as she gripped his wrists, and told her to shut up, pulling her roughly to a sitting position. Her ankles scraped painfully on a heavy object with rough edges in the foot well behind the driver’s seat.
Dogs began barking, and Blake swore in English, then switched to another language. In Blake’s grip, Terry could see forward out of one eye. The view in the headlights’ glare was terrifying. The car was parked by a lake, glassy with new ice. Her feet were touching a heavy cement block; a roll of duct tape was cradled in the otherwise empty front console. The conclusion was obvious. They are going to drown me—I must escape.
Terry was small, but a fighter and now had nothing to lose. The fear in Blake’s eyes was worse than anger; something was going very wrong.
The driver slammed the trunk, and as he rushed to the open front door, lights came on in a house that had been unseen through fifty meters of bare trees, several dogs barking aggressively. With any luck they were waking the neighbourhood, if there was one.
Terry began to fight, but Blake put her in a headlock, choking her. Head throbbing, she stopped squirming, arms going slack by her sides.
The driver screamed at Blake and reversed up the road, slamming the car into a sliding J-turn and botching it, ramming from reverse to drive and back until he turned the car on the narrow road.
“You idiot! You stupid idiot! “Curses followed. “The lake is frozen. How can we throw someone in a lake that’s frozen?” Blake was silent.
The car slid back onto the highway and accelerated east. Terry could see the compass reading on the digital display, could see the destination punched into the GPS, could see the name of the rental car company, could see the distance to their destination, could see that her kidnappers, or whatever they were, were making many mistakes.
“You idiot!” the driver shouted again, his voice too loud in the car. He thumbed open a phone. A flip phone? Terry thought.
He dialed a number as the car wandered across the center line. He jerked the car back, putting the phone to his ear, and spoke quietly in the language Terry couldn’t understand.
The car slowed to speed limit, the driver taking deep breaths, visibly calming himself. Terry was shivering violently. She hardly noticed her lack of real clothing – survival was much more important. She wanted to say something, but her head hurt too badly.
The driver angrily snapped the phone closed and addressed Blake. Look, idiot,” he snarled, “I think someone saw us. Now we have to dump this car, get another vehicle, and drive back to Alberta. We’ll, uh, lose her on the way.” He turned back, fat neck creasing. “I will never work with you again, idiot, and they are going to give me your share of the job.”
She felt Blake tense, but again, he made no reply. She held still, hoping
they would not notice she was hearing everything, hoping the stress they were under would continue to cloud their judgment, giving her a chance to escape.
The driver tapped the brake, cancelling the cruise control. Idiot yourself, Terry thought, driving with the cruise control on winter roads. The professional driver in her recognized the inferior skill of an amateur; she began looking for a way to exploit it.
The situation changed much sooner than she expected as the car slowed, pulling up behind a flat deck work truck. A large, slow-moving man with long, gray hair and beard wearing a torn plaid insulated shirt and dirty pants was hefting a tire onto the flat deck, then bending down to retrieve a jack and tools. The angry driver parked and glared menacingly at the two in the rear seat. He exhaled, and got out of the car, shutting his door. He swaggered up to the man, hand raised in friendly greeting, the interior light of the rental car slowly dimming.
Blake tightened his grip on Terry, forcing her head down. She fought the impulse to struggle, waiting for a chance …
Then, Blake grabbed her wrists, yanked open the door, and dragged her from the car, bruising her knees as they bumped over the door sill onto the cold gravel. She slid and stumbled, her feet sliding over the edge of the road. It was a very steep slope. Terry racked her mind, searching for details of the still unfamiliar stretch of Highway 16.
She heard an angry bellow and then swearing from below the embankment. The man from the work truck had been pushed over the edge. She hoped he had not been hurt. She tried to throw herself over the side, flailing her arms, trying to escape Blake’s grip, but he simply forced one arm behind her back, flinging her forward into the hard, metal deck. She gasped, holding her bruised ribs, falling back and down, head slamming into the frozen ground.
She was vaguely aware of being pushed into the cab and gears grinding as the driver struggled with the unfamiliar vehicle. Then Terry lapsed back into unconsciousness.
Chapter 13
Always a Brother Page 7