Fatal Deduction (36 page)

“Are you…?”

“I am.”

Hope bloomed once again, fragile and alluring.

“So,” Luke said, “you plan to what? Kill us?” He indicated Drew, me, and himself. “And that will make it all better?”

“It will make it even!” Suzy screamed.

“Killing me and two totally uninvolved strangers will make it even? Huh.” He frowned like he had to think about that one.

“We didn’t know they’d be uninvolved strangers.” Suzy looked at Drew and me, resentment clear on her face. “It was supposed to be Tori.”

When everyone shifted their gazes our way, I froze. I was one step behind Drew but at least two steps from that piece of metal. I probably looked scared to death, but hopefully they’d assume the fear was over my impending demise, not over getting caught before I was free.

Drew stood with his hands behind him as if still bound. I was the only one who could see the blood flowing from the gashes he’d gotten as he worked to slice the tape, the crimson liquid dripping from his fingertips.

“So killing Tori was supposed to make me get all upset?” Luke drew the attention back to himself, and I wondered if he realized what Drew and I were about.

“You love her,” Suzy said.

“I do?”

“I’ve seen you two together. I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

Luke’s eyes hardened. “You’ve been spying on me? On us?”

“You’ve got to know your enemy to know his weakness,” Eddie said.

Yikes, Eddie. Keep your mouth shut
. Using the word
enemy
in reference to Luke didn’t seem like a wise thing to me.

“And Tori’s your weakness,” Suzy said smugly.

“Then I guess I’m glad you got the wrong woman.” He smiled.

Thanks a lot
, I thought as I began rubbing my wrists over the piece of metal on the fender. I flinched as I caught the side of my hand on a ragged edge. The metal sliced into my flesh, and I felt the gush of warm blood.

“But the right woman’s here,” came a voice as the front door flew open. Tori stormed in, looking glorious in her anger. “Nobody hurts Libby without dealing with me.”

Chloe looked up just in time to see Aunt Tori disappear into the gray building.

“Aunt Tori, no! Wait!”

She ran toward the door, an automatic response because she wasn’t certain what she could do.

“Stop her, Carl,” Mr. Mowery called, and Carl grabbed Chloe’s arm, pulling her to a halt.

Chloe felt desperate as she tried to free herself. “My mom and my aunt are in there!”

“Yes, dear,” Mrs. Mowery said. “So sad. But that doesn’t mean we’ll let the kidnappers harm any of them.” She smiled sweetly, all her wrinkles dancing on her face.

She reported the latest news to the dispatcher, then listened. “ETA five to ten minutes,” she told the circle in the parking lot, and Chloe’s heart sank. That was forever!

Mrs. Mowery looked at her husband, who nodded decisively.

“We’re going in,” Mrs. Mowery told 911 and flipped her phone shut. She dropped it in her purse, then pulled out her handgun and handed it to Mr. Mowery. Chloe watched in horrified fascination as he fiddled with it.

“Putting a bullet in the chamber,” he explained. “Now I want you girls to stay out here and wait for the cops. We’ll go in and see what we can do for Drew, Libby, and Tori.”

Mrs. Mowery reached inside her bag again and pulled out a cylinder that she handed to Jenna. “Pepper spray. If someone runs out, push down here and aim for the eyes.”

She reached back in the bag and pulled out something about the size of a big old cell phone. She slapped it in Chloe’s hand. “It’s a stun gun. Turn it on, and if any of them comes near you, just touch him with it for a few seconds. He’ll collapse.”

Chloe glanced at the device in her hand, then at Jenna who seemed as bemused and scared as Chloe felt.

Back in the purse Mrs. Mowery went. This time she pulled out a wicked-looking knife.

“Where’s the sheath?” Mr. Mowery asked. “I told you to keep it in the sheath.”

“It’s in the purse. I don’t want it at the moment, James.” She
set her purse on the ground. “Don’t let me forget that when we leave.”

Chloe blinked as Carl and Mr. Melchior suddenly began swinging baseball bats.

“I always carry a couple,” Carl explained when he saw her staring. “I drive some very wealthy people, and I want to be able to protect them. I can’t carry a gun, though, because of my record. So I carry these.”

“Stack up behind me,” Mr. Mowery ordered. “Carl, Andrew, Tinksie. Remember, if you don’t get closer than twenty feet to those men, they can’t hit you with the Taser.”

Chloe’s stomach was jumping all over the place, and her palms were so wet she could barely hold on to her pink stun gun. “You can’t just go barging in there! They might be dangerous!”

“So are we,” Mr. Mowery said, and Mrs. Mowery, Mr. Melchior, and Carl all nodded.

“What you don’t know, Chloe, is that James was career Army,” Mrs. Mowery said. “He was in Korea, fresh out of West Point, and then he served two tours in Vietnam. He retired as a lieutenant colonel.” She smiled at him with pride. “He knows what he’s doing. And so do I. I’ve had every self-defense course known to man, and I’m a better shot than James.”

“Besides,” Mr. Melchior said, “they can’t kill all of us before we get them.”

Chloe frowned, not sure whether that was logic or wishful thinking.

All eyes turned to my sister as Tori strode into the garage. Her gaze went straight to Luke, who shook his head in gentle rebuke.

“Tori, Tori, Tori. What am I going to do with you?” he asked. “I’d just been feeling pretty good because you were safe.”

“And I’d been feeling terrible because you and my sister weren’t.”

I glanced at a thunderstruck Suzy. How did Tori’s presence complicate things? Another person to kill? Another body to dispose of? I felt the tape give a bit at my wrists and did my best to ignore the lactic acid gathering in my arm muscles from the quick, repetitious sawing motion. One thing I was determined about: if Eddie Mancini was going to try and kill me, I would make it as difficult and as look-me-in-the-eye-Eddie-you’re-killing-your-kid’s-mother as I could.

“Go stand by your sister,” Suzy directed Tori.

Tori smiled at her and walked to Luke. She slid an arm around his waist and turned defiantly to Suzy. Luke put an arm about Tori’s shoulders and gave her a little squeeze.

Suzy glared at them, furious and frustrated. Prisoners were supposed to cower, to do as you wanted, not defy you. Her team might have the guns, but Luke’s team had the upper hand.

“So, four people to kill and dispose of,” Luke said, still as cool as if we were at tea with the Queen. “I figure with two, it was to have been a lovers’ quarrel. Three would have made a nice lovers’ triangle. But four gets complicated, doesn’t it?”

“I probably should tell you that the police are due momentarily,” Tori said.

It
was
her in the limo that followed us! “Where’s Carl?” I called.

Everyone ignored me, and Drew looked pained as he eyed me over his shoulder.

“The idea,” he growled to me out of the corner of his mouth, “is not to call attention to ourselves. Remember?”

“Nobody paid any attention anyway,” I muttered back. “Not
vivid
enough.”

He gave a totally inappropriate bark of laughter that he tried to turn into a cough. Now everyone did turn to us, and it wasn’t the least bit difficult to appear scared.

Suzy snorted at us in disgust and turned back to Tori. “How did you get here?” She turned to the van driver. “How did she get here, Jay?”

Jay, Taser still in hand, looked most unsettled.

“Know that limo behind you?” Tori smiled sweetly at Jay.

Jay flushed, as did Bud, turning a strange color in the yellowish overhead light. “But there were kids in it,” he whined. “I saw them.”

Kids? Not my kid! Not Jenna!
Oh, God, that terrifies me!

“Not only were there several of us inside, but we talked to the cops the whole way here. We gave them the address of this place. They’re on their way.”

“I’m out of here.” Eddie turned on his heel and made for the door.

The sound of the gun firing in the close confines of the garage was ear shattering.

W
HEN THE GUNSHOT RANG OUT
, Chloe thought she’d puke right there in the parking lot. A wave of cold washed over her, immediately followed by a flash of heat.

“Mom!” She raced toward the door, Jenna on her heels screaming for her dad, but the Old Guys Rescue Team beat them to it.

Oh, God, please, please let Mom be okay! Please! I’ll be a missionary! I’ll go to hot places without water and cold places without summer! I’ll do whatever You want!

I dropped to my knees, my ears ringing. Drew grabbed me and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me under him to protect me as glass from a light fixture rained down.

“You will stay where you are, Suzy. You too, Mancini.” The voice was strong and as cold as an alpine winter. “Next time I won’t shoot a light.”

I glanced up and saw Luke with a gun in his fist.

“You were supposed to search him!” Suzy yelled at Eddie.

I shook my head at her foolish recrimination and at a strange new noise. I thought I could hear babies wailing.

“I did!” Eddie protested weakly, staring in disbelief at a cut on his arm where a piece of the ceiling light had sliced him. Blood bubbled up, and he turned as white as Princess after a bath.

“He can’t stand blood,” I yelled. “Remember?”

Drew leaped to his feet and rushed Eddie, grabbing the gun hanging limply in his hand.

The outside door flew open, and in rushed James, Carl, Tinksie, and Andrew, armed to the teeth and blinking in the dimness. James leveled his gun at Luke.

“Not him,” I called as I climbed to my feet. “Her.” I pointed to Suzy.

James changed targets. “On your knees!”

Suzy dropped.

The babies continued to wail.

Chloe and Jenna rushed in, yelling, “Mom!” and “Dad!” at the top of their lungs. They looked terrified.

“Over here, Chlo.” I held out my arms, and my daughter flew into them.