Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
Later Sunday afternoon
“Mrs. M., how is it going?” Danni asked. “I’m sorry to not have spoken to you since Friday.” She’d texted the older woman to tell her about the meeting with Silas, him remembering her and Sara and his gift of the hat.
“I know you’ve been busy,” Fiona McGillicuddy said, her voice raspy. “But is there any way I can come see you?”
“I’m not at my house,” Danni said, trying to recall just how much she’d shared with Mrs. M. since this nightmare week had started. Seven days that had turned her world upside down. Who knew what the next week would bring? “But I think it will be okay if you come to where I am. Maybe you can stay for dinner and try out Patrick’s wonderful cooking. I don’t know what’s exactly in the crock pot, but it smells heavenly.”
“Someone is with you, right?” Mrs. M. demanded. “No one can get in to hurt you?”
“Hardly,” Danni laughed. Even with Patrick and Kristopher doing one of their brutal workouts in the gym downstairs, they were just a phone call away. “Here’s the address. It’s the first building out of three, but I’ll be outside to meet you.”
“Be there shortly,” Mrs. M. promised, sounding more and more chipper. “Five minutes?”
“Can’t wait,” Danni told her, ending the call. She hurried to brush her hair and teeth and pulled on socks and gym shoes. This carpeting had really spoiled her for going barefoot.
She was downstairs in minutes and stood at the head of the small sidewalk leading to the Safehouse. A few minutes later, Mrs. M.’s 2010 Toyota pulled to a stop and Danni hurried forward. “Hey, Mrs. M.,” she called. “Let me show you where the garage–”
The back door popped open just as she reached it, and strong arms pulled her inside and slammed the door.
And then came a sweetly sticky smell and all was darkness.
“But where the hell could she be?” Patrick shouted for the third time, punching the keyboard on Danni’s phone. “And why isn’t Mrs. M. answering her phone?”
Kristopher spread his hands. “You got me, Patrick. But Danni left her phone behind. If the last call she received was from Mrs. M.–”
“They’ve got her. I know they do. I feel it in my gut. Maybe they’ve got them both.” Patrick swore under his breath as he dialed Grant Miller. “C’mon, Miller. Answer.”
“Couldn’t you be jumping to conclusions?” Kristopher asked.
“No way.” Patrick glared at him as the phone continued to ring.
“Grant Miller,” the cool professional tone answered on the third ring.
“They’ve snatched Danni, Grant,” Patrick bit off his words. “I think someone used Turner’s housekeeper as bait ‘cause her number is the last one on Danni’s phone and she left it here. She must have stepped outside to meet Mrs. M. when someone grabbed her.”
“Where were you?” Miller’s question was almost a shout.
“In the Safehouse gym, but there’s no way Danni would have left the property without telling us,” Patrick defended them. “And Mrs. M. isn’t answering her phone and I’ll bet someone has disabled it so we can’t trace her that way.”
It was Miller’s turn to swear. “Get down here as fast as you can, and we’ll set up a command central. It’s getting colder by the minute, and it will be dark soon.”
“Roger that.” Patrick ended the call and looked at his friend. “Ready in five minutes?”
“To change clothing?” Kristopher was already headed for his room. “Two at the most.”
Five minutes later they were in the garage and headed toward the downtown precinct. The sun was almost gone, and Patrick was glad he’d grabbed his coat. Miller was right. It was very cold.
“Someone must have gotten to Mrs. M.,” Patrick spoke his thoughts out loud. “Made her call Danni and then when Danni told her where she was, brought her and grabbed Danni as well. If it was Ed Turner, I’m gonna tear off his balls and make him eat them.”
“Danni wouldn’t have seen any problem with sharing where she was with Mrs. M.,” Kristopher said. “They share a love for Sara so she would never suspect there was anything wrong.”
“It’s happening too fast,” Patrick muttered. “Something’s about to break or else why take Danni now?”
“I sent Griff Tyler the stuff from the board last night and asked him if he could do some digging for us,” Kristopher shared. “I’ve been thinking about what my dad said about cults and thought Griff could do some hacking on them or just plain digging. That man could find a needle in a field of haystacks. MIT has offered him a fortune to work for them, but he says Massachusetts is too cold for a Southern boy like him. I texted before we left to tell him we’d be at the police station.”
“Damn, I’m glad you’re so organized,” Patrick said. “Gives me hope.”
“We’re going to find them, Patrick,” Kristopher promised as he pulled up in front of the precinct’s front doors. “Go on in while I park this beast.”
Inside Patrick was met with a flurry of activity and quickly found a weary-eyed Grant Miller. He waited until Miller was finished talking to a female officer. When she was gone, Patrick asked, “Do you have anything?”
“We’re still working on Suzy,” Miller says. “She’s not asked for a lawyer yet, but she’s being coy. Says she can call someone who can get her out of trouble, but he won’t take phone calls for religious reasons.”
“Have you heard from Griff Tyler?” Kristopher joined them and handed him a printed photo of his notes from last night.”
“As a matter of fact, we have,” Miller said. “Just came across the fax machine. Are either of you familiar with a group called Soli Deo Gloria?”
“No,” Patrick said, and Kristopher shook his head. “My Latin is rusty, but it means ‘To God Alone the Glory’, right?”
“Right,” Miller said. “It calls itself a philanthropic organization but they’re also a church. According to the info Griff Tyler sent, they’re almost like a cult.
“Celia Masters, Robin’s mother told Danni and me her husband recently joined some philanthropic group that was almost a church. Do they have a chapter here in Knoxville or East Tennessee?”
“Most likely.” Miller joined them. “But we’ve got no record of any kind of trouble with a group by that name. They claim to be law-abiding, up to a point, are very patriarchal, believe in traditional roles for men and women, including how much education women need and they have almost no leadership positions. My fiancée would have a stroke. And get this. They encourage early marriage for girls.”
“Oh my God,” Patrick breathed out. “Danni got it right. Look at that stuff Kristopher sent you, Grant. She was thinking these girls were snatched to become breeders as soon as physically possible. Who better to do that than a bunch of crackpots who want babies to have babies?”
“And since we know Sara and Robin have families who work at La Belle Monde, it all leads back to them,” Kristopher added softly. “How much do you want to bet they had someone to take the girls? Someone the girls knew from LBM?”
“So, what’s the connection between LBM and Soli?” Grant demanded.
“I don’t know,” Patrick said. “But put Kristopher in front of a computer and we just might find out. I just hope we can find what we need by morning.”
Later that night.
“Wake up, you little bitch!” Freidman’s order was followed by a stinging slap. Danni’s head jerked away, and she would have struck back, but her hands were tied behind her.
A lone light bulb shone from the ceiling and through the gloom, Danni could see she and Mrs. M. were bound to chairs with rawhide ropes. Mrs. M. was awake and watched Freidman with anger-filled eyes.
“This is an awful lot of trouble to go to just because you don’t like my writing,” Danni commented. When frightened, go for humor her dad had always told her.
“Shut up,” Friedman raised his hand again. “This is all your fault. I never should have allowed Harris to let you write that damn Where Are the Children articles.”
The realization of what had happened all this past week hit Danni even harder than his slap. “It was you,” she whispered. “All the time it was you. You’re behind Sara’s kidnapping? Not The Cadre? I assume you know who they are.”
“Of course,” Freidman snorted. “They just find those who are willing to sell their daughters, granddaughters or nieces to The Cadre and then we buy them from them to become wives for our members.”
“We?” Danni asked cautiously around the distaste in her mouth.
“Soli Deo Gloria,” Freidman said proudly. “To God Alone the Glory. We’ve been doing it for years, but only in East Tennessee for the past few years.”
“Child brides?” Recalling what Kristopher had told her and Patrick last night, Danni nearly choked on her words. “Are you serious?”
“Younger girls can start breeding soon after their first two menarches.” Friedman adopted the lofty tone of a professor lecturing to a group of incoming freshmen. “Our ranks need new blood, new sons who will one day rule the world, so we need a constant supply of fresh breeders.”
His crazed eyes narrowed to tiny slits and in the dim light his bald head gleamed. “Then you started writing that Where Are the Children? series. You were going to find out the truth about Soli Deo Gloria and stop us from getting child brides. Our members expect to have those as they rise in the ranks.”
“You mean men like Ed Turner and Mr. Masters,” Danni accused. “All who work for La Belle Monde. What is it? Some kind of gift if they do well and reach a senior position? Why LBM?”
“My dear child,” Freidman chided. “My mother’s family owns La Belle! Perfect place to hide Soli’s activities.”
“Like child trafficking,” Danni accused again, and this time Freidman only shrugged.
“And you remembered my dad and Leo were the investigators on the Larsen Case twenty-five years ago.” A slow burning rage was building inside Danni. Even if he killed her, she wanted to know the whole truth. “When Sara went missing, Leo remembered something about the case and went looking for it. Did you put someone in the records department who saw him and told you what he was doing, so they could erase the case? Did you kidnap Nancy Larsen back then too?”
“You ask too many damn questions,” Freidman snarled. “Women have no place in journalism. They’re too damn nosy for one thing. Too curious, but we know what happens to curious cats, don’t we?”
“Did you send the notes to Leo Anderson and my father?” Danni repeated. Only rage was keeping her fear held back. Not only fear of what he might do to her and Mrs. M. but fear they wouldn’t find Sara and whoever else they might have. Fear for other girls they might grab.
And fear she would never see Patrick again.
“Oh, I had them sent,” Freidman said airily. “Never a good idea to let too much mud cling to you, you know?”
“You probably killed them, whoever they were,” Danni guessed. “Just like you killed Frank Sullivan. Was it because he failed to kill me twice?”
“No more talking,” Freidman ordered. “At least the old woman can keep her mouth shut.”
“Only because I can’t remember enough curses to send you straight to hell,” Mrs. M. shot back, sitting straight up in her chair. “My great-great-great grandmother was an Irish witch, and she would know exactly what to do with the likes of you.”
Freidman yawned. “How boring. Try to rest, ladies because tomorrow when that new batch of cyanide and snake venom arrives, and with me standing this close? There’s no way I’ll miss. Bye now.”
He slammed the door behind him, and Mrs. M. slumped in her chair. “I’m sorry, Danni,” she choked. “That bastard Ed Turner tricked me into coming to his house because he said he’d had second thoughts about firing me and wanted me to be there when Sara came home. Like a damn fool, I believed him.”
“You wanted to see Sara,” Danni said. “And you will. We will. Help will be here by daylight. Patrick and the police will be here by daylight.”
“Good man, is he?” Mrs. M. managed a saucy smile.
“If you only knew, Mrs. M.” Danni squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “If you only knew.”
Very late Sunday night.
The door creaked open, and Sara lay very still, glad her back was to the door. From their breathing, she knew Robin, Elsa and Alice were sound asleep. But Sara was too excited. By this time tomorrow, she and the others would be safe at home. She hoped that would mean with Mrs. M. or at Danni’s. She sure didn’t want to go home to her grandfather’s.
Now there was the soft, heavy tread of two men. One was Sir, ‘cause she knew what his footsteps sounded like now. He came in every night just to look at them and it was all Sara could do to keep from barfing all over him.
But this was the first time he’d brought someone with him and he kinda smelled familiar. A stinky kind of limey smell. Sara loved limes but this was different and it kinda smelled like–
“You did well, Ed,” Sir said softly. “She’ll fetch a high price when she’s ready to sell to the Elders in a few months after she’s trained.”
“Little brat,” Ed Turner growled. “I was glad to have her taken off my hands. When are you going to get rid of Danni Blake?”
“It’s being taken care of even as we speak,” Sir said. “Her and your stupid housekeeper. They’ll be dead soon enough.”
Be still! Sara commanded herself. Be still!
“Not soon enough for me,” Sara’s grandfather snorted. “But I guess with Danni’s reputation she can’t just up and vanish without a lot of questions. Where’d you stash her?”
Sir laughed. “Where, in my business, you put all dead things. The morgue of course. But I’ll keep her alive there just long enough to scare her. Maybe I’ll let you watch me kill her, after all the trouble she’s caused you. Her and the McGillicuddy woman both. Let’s go.”
Sara waited until she heard the click of the door closing and the softer sound of the padlock being put back in place.
And then she cried herself to sleep.