Chapter 28 Taken
Taken
I doubled back for the forgotten pastries, got fresh coffee, and headed back to the house. I’d make plans to meet up with Monica later, to share the new evidence with her. Maybe she could replicate what I’d done, get to Viv’s house, and gain new samples from the debris to check for accelerants.
I pulled down the driveway, gravel crunching under the tires of the SUV.
My gaze fell on the front door of the house. It was standing open. The fox sat in the doorway, with an inscrutable expression on her face.
My breath hitched in my throat. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
I erupted out of the car, with Gibby on my heels, and advanced soundlessly across the normally creaky porch. I lurched into the kitchen, and my heart plummeted to my feet.
A kitchen chair had been knocked over onto the floor. Papers were scattered on the counter.
“Nick?” I called softly.
No answer.
I moved deeper into the house. Gibby lunged past me, growling. The hair on his back stood upright. He ignored the fox, who refused to cross the threshold.
Signs of a struggle. The lamp on Nick’s side of the bed was broken. His glasses were on the floor, under the bed.
He wasn’t there. Wasn’t in the bathroom, not in the closet.
I returned to the front door, observing that it had been kicked in. The lockset dangled from splintered wood.
Rage poured through me.
My phone rang. I picked it up, saying nothing, feeling my pulse beat a slow, deadly metronome in my temples.
“Anna?” It was Monica.
I didn’t say anything.
“Anna? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
My voice came out as a hiss. “They took Nick.”
—
I might not have had the authority of law anymore.
I might not have had my service gun.
But I was far from powerless.
I was my father’s daughter. I had the blood of a fearsome killer seeping coldly through my veins.
And the Kings of Warsaw Creek were not going to survive this.
I dug around in the back of my closet for the shotgun I’d had for decades.
I filled my pockets with shells and put the shotgun in a zippered blue case that once held a folding hammock stand.
I looked like I was out to stake out a spot to watch the fireworks from the comfort of a hammock.
I stuffed a flashlight, some bottled water, and a collapsible dog dish in the bag.
Monica arrived, and stood in the doorway of my house. “Jesus, Anna, I’m so sorry.”
I incandesced with rage. Monica came to me and wrapped her arms around me. Gibby leaned against my leg. I felt their heartbeats close to mine, the same anger, the rage.
“I’m telling you that I’m going to find Nick and I’m going to kill those men,” I whispered. I wanted to give her the choice to leave and disavow any knowledge of what I was going to do.
“I’m coming with you,” Monica said. “We are going to find him.”
I nodded.
We left the house, and I pulled the door closed behind me. It was useless, I knew. When I came back—if I came back—I wouldn’t be surprised to find a raccoon in my bed and a deer standing in my living room, looking up at the buck head mounted on a plaque above my fireplace.
The wild could take it back. I didn’t care.
We all needed to go get what was ours.
—
Monica and I rolled up on the Sumner house like a cloud shadow over the land.
There was a car in the driveway, Drema’s blue SUV. I parked beside it, and Monica pulled in behind me. I was riding high on adrenaline, and I rocked up to the front door while Monica circled around to the back.
I rapped hard. “Police. Open up.”
The door opened immediately, and Drema Sumner blinked at me.
“Is Jeff here?”
She shook her head. “No. He left about an hour ago.”
She stepped aside and I went in, with my shotgun at my side.
“I thought you were steering clear of Jeff,” I said.
“Mason’s going to be released this afternoon. I’m packing up all our things.” She gestured to suitcases on the floor.
“When did you get here?”
“Three. I was hoping Jeff would be gone, but…” She stared at the mess in the living room and wrinkled her nose.
Monica returned to the front door. “Nobody fled out the back,” she confirmed.
“Did Jeff say anything when he left?”
“Not really. I went to Mason’s playroom and started packing up his stuff.”
“Was Jeff alone?”
“He was, until a cop came for him. Much to my delight.” She couldn’t suppress a smile.
“A cop?” My brow wrinkled.
“Yeah. I peeked down the hallway and kept my lips zipped. He said he was with the sheriff’s office. Jeff pitched a tantrum, but the guy cuffed him and dragged him out. I sure as hell wasn’t going to interfere.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. Brown hair.”
That could be anyone. But the skin on the nape of my neck prickled. I pulled up a picture of the interdepartmental softball team on my phone and showed it to Drema. “Was this him?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“Totally.”
I exhaled. I looked at Monica. “That’s Fred Jasper.”
“But…Fred is dead.”
My hand slid up into my hairline. “Fuck. How did he survive that car accident?”
“Maybe…What if…what if he escaped somehow? What if that was the last straw…he finally snapped and went after the Kings?”
“What if…he finally snapped…and faked his own death?”
Monica looked at me like I was batshit.
“I mean…he’d know how to do it,” I insisted. “What if he did it so he could get his revenge and disappear into the night?”
“That sounds fabulous to me,” Drema blurted.
I turned to Drema. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave, and leave these things here. This is an active crime scene, and you need to be someplace safe.”
Drema nodded. “Of course, of course.” She lifted her hands and backed out of the house.
Monica and I swept the house quickly. I took the upstairs, found no one, and descended to the first floor just in time to see Monica open the basement door from the kitchen. She took one step on the stairs, and then her shriek was obliterated by a deafening crash.
I lurched to the doorway and flipped on the light. “Monica!”
The top steps had caved in, the treads having been neatly cut away under the carpet. Beneath the stairs, Monica sprawled on a plywood board studded with railroad spikes.
Several facts converged on me at once.
Jeff knew we had been here.
He had booby-trapped the house.
And I had to get help for Monica.
I grasped the banister and scrambled awkwardly down to the floor, avoiding the mess Monica had fallen into. There was blood, a lot of it.
I stared down at Monica. She’d landed on several spikes; one was in her arm, one in her shoulder. Another railroad spike had pierced her thigh, and her leg was twisted under her at an unnatural angle.
She was pale and sweating. She should be swearing, but she wasn’t. That was a bad sign.
“Hey, Monica, stay with me.”
She rolled her eyes toward me. “I fucked up.”
I grabbed her radio and called for help. Blood was spurting out like in a horror film. The spike in her thigh must’ve cut her femoral artery. She could bleed out in minutes.
Drema shouted at the doorway. “What happened? I heard screaming—”
“Don’t come down here!” I shouted.
I turned back to Monica. She was starting to pass out.
She was certainly going to hate me for what I was going to do.
I ripped her leg off the spike. She screamed at me, cursing a hundred words I had never heard strung together. Blood splashed.
I ripped my belt out of its loops and fastened it around Monica’s upper thigh. I wrenched it tight, with all my strength. At this point, she was going to lose either her leg or her life.
She cringed, gripping her leg. I held tight to the tourniquet.
“Stay here,” I ordered.
Monica nodded. Her lips were turning blue.
“Sing with me,” I said, desperately. I knew her favorite song, improbably, was “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee…” I began, singing in my terrible voice.
Monica joined me. Her voice was dim, but she could still carry a tune.
The end of a bedsheet slapped me in the face. Drema peered down at me. “We’ve gotta get her out of there.”
Still warbling about the woes of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I flung the end of the sheet back up to Drema, forming a sling.
I picked Monica up off the spikes, and her song wavered. None of the other wounds were life-threatening, but the sooner we could get her up, the sooner the squad could take her to the hospital.
“Have you got this?” I hissed to Drema.
She was braced with one foot on either side of the doorframe, with the ends of the sheet wrapped around her wrists.
“I do Pilates,” she growled. “Lots and lots of Pilates.”
I put Monica in the sling, supporting her from the bottom. I picked slippery footing among the spikes, pushing up as Drema pulled.
Drema was strong, far stronger than I expected. She pulled Monica up through the doorway and into the kitchen.
I climbed back up over the banister, my hands slick with blood.
“I’ll flag down the squad,” Drema said, scrambling to her feet and charging out the front door.
I yanked on Monica’s tourniquet, and she nearly slugged me. She looked at me through slitted eyes. “You know what really sucks about this?”
“What?”
“That I’m gonna be too fucked up to wear that pink leather miniskirt I ordered.”
—
The squad swept into the house, seized Monica, and swept back out of the house in moments. There were lights, sirens, and then silence.
“Is she gonna be okay?” Drema asked, wrapping her arms around herself.
“I don’t know.” My voice hitched. Monica was my mentor. My friend.
And without her, I would be totally alone.
Drema pressed her bloody hands to her face. “Jeff’s a monster.”
I inhaled, trying to break out of my mental paralysis. “You need to get somewhere safe, someplace where he can’t get to you.”
She nodded sharply. “I’ll go to the hospital, protect Mason.”
There was no use in trying to persuade her to do anything different. Sheriff’s deputies would be coming, so I had to get out of there.
Drema shoved a suitcase at me. “There are clothes in here.”