Chapter Twenty-Two
“I won’t be long,” Ellen said to Margery when she drove down the Mendozas’ driveway. She went as slowly as possible, but her truck bounced quite a bit and she was pretty certain Margery was uncomfortable, even with the pillows all around her. “You okay here?”
“Yes,” Margery said with a half smile. “I don’t want to go out in the rain more than I need to.”
Ellen pulled up as close to the side door as possible, but she’d be soaked even walking ten feet.
The Mendozas’ truck wasn’t in the garage, and the door was wide open, which seemed unusual.
She wondered if there was an emergency, but if there was, Avery would have called.
She saw an ATV belonging to either Avery or Bobby parked on the side of the garage, which irritated her.
It should have been stored in the barn or garage since Avery was spending the night.
Still, she was getting an odd feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Maybe Gianna had a medical emergency … but Avery would have called her. For all the times they butted heads about trivial things, Avery was a responsible teen.
Ellen jumped out of the truck and ran through the mud, up the ramp, and stood under the porch. The wind pushed the rain into her back.
She pounded on the door, looked through the window, her hands cupped so she could see in the semi-dark.
“Rose! Carl! It’s Ellen!” She shouted to be heard over the rain that pounded on their roof. “Hello!”
She listened, heard nothing.
Where could they be? The barn? All four of them? Gianna’s wheelchair wouldn’t make it through the mud, and she couldn’t walk over the uneven surface.
She tried the door; it was unlocked.
She opened it and went inside.
“Rose? Carl? It’s Ellen McKenna. Are you here?”
“Ellen!” She heard a voice in the back of the house. “Ellen, help!”
She ran down the hall and opened Gianna’s door. The girl was in her rocking chair and as Ellen approached, she saw that her wrists were zip-tied to the armrests.
Ellen ran over to her. “What happened?” She looked around for scissors. “Gianna, where’s Avery?”
“I thought they were going to kill us, three people broke in last night, and, and, and they left with Avery!”
Ellen’s blood ran cold. “Where’s your mom and dad?”
“The living room, maybe? That’s where they said they tied them up. I haven’t seen them all day, I’m so worried!” Gianna was crying.
“I’m going to find scissors and I’ll check on your parents.”
Ellen ran down the hall, past the kitchen and stopped when she glanced into the guest room and saw blood on the white sheets. There was a lot of blood, bandages, scissors, prescription drugs. What the hell was going on?
She grabbed the scissors and went to the living room.
Rose and Carl were tied and gagged on the coach. Carl had a bloody gash on his forehead that had dripped and dried down the side of his face.
Ellen pulled the gags from their mouths. “Gianna,” Rose said breathlessly, her voice a scratchy whisper.
“She’s okay.” Ellen cut their binds.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I had to lie, they would have h-hurt Gianna.”
“Where’s Avery? Where did they take her?”
“I don’t know,” Rose said as she stood. Her knees gave way and she collapsed. Ellen barely caught her before she hit the floor.
“Stay here, I’ll untie Gianna and bring her to you.”
Ellen went back to the girl’s bedroom, trying not to think about where Avery was and who had her and why.
She cut Gianna’s binds off and asked where her wheelchair was.
“They took it so I couldn’t leave,” she said.
Ellen looked in the other rooms and found the wheelchair shoved into the master bedroom. She brought it and helped Gianna get into it, then wheeled her down to the living room.
As soon as Rose saw her, she burst into tears, resting her head in Gianna’s lap.
“It was after midnight,” Carl said. “We were asleep. A man—he pulled us from bed and tied us to the chairs in the kitchen.”
“Did they rob you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. We have nothing worth much. They were waiting for something, waiting to do something, but I don’t know what.”
“How many?”
“Three. Two men and a young woman, she was between twenty-five and thirty. The younger man was injured, bleeding. He was shot—that much I overheard.”
“You must have heard something else! What are their plans?”
He rubbed his head. “They were hired to steal something, and whoever they stole from was home when he wasn’t supposed to be.”
“Greg Baldwin,” she said, realizing that the people who had her daughter were the ones who had shot her friend and left him for dead.
Rose said, “They got stuck in the rain last night and came here to wait it out, that’s what we thought, but then they stayed in the morning. I heard one of them say they had one more job.”
“The big guy left first,” Gianna said. “And then Bobby was here, he came back and saw us through the window.”
“He came back?” Ellen was confused.
“Avery told him to go home, over the radio. She said she was spending the night and he needed to go right home, but I guess he knew something was wrong. He came back, looked in my bedroom window, and then the woman saw him and chased him. But she came back pretty quick and said they had to leave before Bobby told anyone they were here.”
Bobby. Her son. He was okay, but where was he? He wasn’t at home when she talked to Jake. Was he hurt? Lost? Out wandering in the storm?
“Why did they take Avery?”
“I don’t know!” Gianna said, holding her sobbing mother. “The woman—her name is Rena!” she added quickly as she remembered. “Rena. That’s what the injured man called her, and he was Sam. I can’t believe I just remembered that.”
“What did she say?”
“They needed Avery just in case.”
Ellen pulled out her cell phone but couldn’t get reception, so she went to the kitchen phone and dialed 911. It rang and rang and rang. Someone would answer eventually, but when? People were probably calling in from all over the region because of the storm.
She hung up, dialed Rick Perez directly.
He answered on the fourth ring and told her to wait.
Several minutes later, he came back. “Ellie? You still there?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a mess out here. We just shut down County Road 371 at Mule Run, and 122 is completely impassable. I hope you don’t mind one more mouth to feed tonight.”
She rubbed her temple. “What? Are you stuck up here?”
“Not me. I got a message from Ryan, that he was up helping Jake because Bobby is stuck in a barn or shed or something. It was garbled, and I have two missed calls from LuAnne. She might know more.”
“Rick—listen to me. Please. I’m at the Mendozas and they were held captive by three people last night. I think they’re the people who shot Greg. One of them was injured. They left separately, one in their truck, and the people who have Avery are in the Mendozas’ truck. Rick, they have my daughter!”
“You’re at the Mendozas now? Are they okay?”
“They were tied up when I got here, Carl has a head injury, but he says he’s fine.
I can’t stay. I have Margery Sutton in my truck with signs of preeclampsia, I need to get her in bed and resting.
Bobby is out in the storm; I don’t know where.
I guess Jake and Ryan are looking for him? I have to get home!”
Ellen was near tears over fear for her kids.
Carl came into the kitchen. He looked older than she’d ever seen him.
“Go,” he said. “I’m getting my shotgun and handgun. If they come back, I’ll kill them.”
“Are you sure you’re okay here, the three of you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Thank you.” She went back to Rick. “Can you get here?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I have one deputy up that way because Rock Creek Road flooded, he’s blocking the exit at the highway.
He has to stay until the emergency crews can block it off.
I’ll send him to your place as soon as he can get there, but it’ll be a while, he’s going to have to come in from the south, and if he can’t get through you’re going to be on your own.
I’ll try to get up, but we have three serious accidents down here between Gainesville and Callisburg. How’s Whisper Creek?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Be careful, Ellie.”
He ended the call.
She turned to Carl. “Are you positive you’re okay? You all can come to my house, we always have room for more.” It would be crowded, but safe.
“I talked to Rose. She wants to stay. This is our home. And I couldn’t do anything to stop them.”
She rested a hand on his arm, then spontaneously hugged him. “They came in the middle of the night, Carl. You didn’t have warning. Keep all your doors locked, and Rick will send a deputy as soon as he can.”
“Go find Avery. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect her.”
Guilt watered his eyes.
“I’ll find her. Thank you.”
She ran back out and climbed into the truck. Her phone beeped, indicating she had a message. She looked; Jake had tried calling her nine minutes ago.
She didn’t want to scare Margery, so she told her the bare minimum, trying to minimize the danger, but she must not have done a good job because Margery looked terrified.
“We’ll get to the house and you’re going to take a nap and relax,” Ellen told her. “Penny has been cooking all day, we’ll fix you something.”
She listened to Jake’s message, but it was garbled, so she called him as she turned the truck around and headed toward Orchard Lane.
“Mom?”
“The people who shot Greg Baldwin have Avery,” she said. She quickly told him what she learned from the Mendozas. “And Bobby is out there somewhere.”
“He’s hiding in the old equipment shed. I’m on my way to get him.”
Thank God, she thought.
“I’m coming home,” she said.
“Hurry, Whisper Creek is backed up, you won’t be able to make it over the bridge much longer.”
“I’m already on my way. Three to four minutes and I’ll be at the bridge.”
“I’m looking at it now, I have to cross to get to the shed, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to cross back.”
“Just let me know when you have Bobby, and don’t do anything dangerous. Please. If you can’t get back across, go back to the Mendozas and stay there.”
“Not when Avery is in trouble. If I can’t cross the bridge, we’ll walk along the bank and cross over at Baldwin’s property line, or I might be able to get to Uncle Travis’s place if I go the long way.”
When Baldwin had bought the property years ago, he’d had engineers come out and put in a ten-foot pipe to go under part of his farm, to divert Whisper Creek into a seasonal lake.
The McKennas had been furious at the time because the creek used to meander back to their property and helped with irrigation on the southern portion of their crops.
But, ultimately, it had helped manage the seasonal flooding and Baldwin had allowed them to tap into his lake during dry spells.
The project had an added benefit of creating a land bridge over the creek.
She had a million questions, but she trusted Jake. “Be careful.”
“Did you call Sheriff Perez?”
“Yes. He can’t get up here, the roads are closed at Mule Run. I have to find Avery. I have no idea why they took her or where to start looking, but I have to find her.”
“We will. I’ll be home as soon as I have Bobby.”