Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc. (33 page)

“Just his legs,” insists Dawson, aiming low as the door starts to open.

With his mind reeling with concern for Daisy, Bliss has no thought for his own safety as he rushes out. But the zinging of shells slaps him back inside. Chunks of wood splinter into the air as a trail of bullets zips across the door, and he slams the heavy bolt into place before backing off and rushing to the bathroom.

“Okay, that's enough. Let's go,” says Dawson, standing and preparing to run, but Bumface raises his gun.

“Just a minute,” he says, and he rakes a line of shells across the hood of Daisy's car. “Let's see how far they can walk.”

A few seconds later, with a wet towel hastily wrapped around his face and a fire extinguisher gushing foam from his hands, Bliss crashes through the wall of fire onto the blazing balcony. “
Daisy!
” he yells as he stumbles blindly through the smoky darkness, but her chair is empty.

“
Daisy! Daisy…
” he continues to yell as he attacks tongues of flame, but the smoke and steam from the rain-soaked wooden decking sting his eyes as he desperately searches for her in the gloom. Then the nearby sound of a vehicle rocketing off through the silent forest stops him in his tracks. “Oh my God,” he gasps, and he is about to make a dash for Daisy's car when a thin voice breaks through the crackling of the burning timber and starts him breathing again.

“
Daavid,
” cries Daisy weakly from somewhere in the bushes beneath the deck, and Bliss feels his way to the edge, yelling, “I can't see! Where are you?”

“I'm down here,” she calls, spying him ten feet above her, his hazy figure silhouetted against the moon. “I jumped.”

“I zhink zhat
je me suis foulé la cheville,
” says Daisy once Bliss has scrabbled down the smouldering timber supports, but one look at the crazy angle of her
foot in the moonlight tells him a gloomier tale. “I think it's a little more than a sprained ankle,” he says. However, while the fuel may have exhausted itself in the initial explosion, hot spots of burning timber beg his attention. “You'll be safe here for a minute,” he continues, and he breaks off a verdant cedar branch to flail at the burgeoning fires.

“Who are zhey,
Daavid?
Why did zhey do that?” Daisy wants to know, once he has beaten out the last of the flames.

“I don't know,” he says darkly, although he has a few faces in the frame, but he pushes them to the back of his mind while worrying about her ankle. “Let's get you to a hospital,” he starts, as he bends to lift her, but she screams at the pain.

“
Shhh,
” he warns, fearing that an attacker might have been left behind to clean up the evidence. “They could still be around.”

“Sorry…” she whispers in his ear, and she clutches him tightly as he scrambles up the slimy embankment with her cradled in his arms.

The laneway where the car is parked is more exposed, and Bliss hunkers low as he carries her. “It shouldn't take long to find a hospital,” he reassures her as he opens the door and places her on the back seat. “I'll just get the keys,” he adds as he heads for the cabin — then he has a sinking feeling. “Oh, no!” he sighs, realizing that the solid wooden front door, now perforated by a trail of bullets, is firmly bolted on the inside. Then he turns and spies the run of holes across the Toyota's hood.

“Bastards,” he swears.

Bumface is still laughing as they hit the highway and head south. “
Whoosh!
It went up like a freakin' rocket!”
he roars, using his hands to demonstrate an explosion, but Dawson answers him coolly.

“It's over, Steve. Let's just forget it, okay?”

“I'd love to see his freakin' face when he tries to start the engine…” he is continuing, when Dawson interjects nastily.

“I said,
forget
it.”

“Don't worry. I'll call for an ambulance,” Bliss says as he carries Daisy into the cabin a few minutes later. Then he places her on the settee and stokes the log fire before picking up the phone.

“Dead,” he says worriedly, but hasn't time to explore the cause before Daisy shrieks at the sight of blood oozing through his trouser leg. “You've been shot!” she cries.

“Just a scratch,” he claims, then confesses that, in his rush to put out the fire, he'd hardly noticed the flesh wound.

“Show me,” she insists, and tears well in her eyes at the sight of the ragged gash.

“Don't worry,” says Bliss, as he grabs a handful of tissues, slaps them over the injury, and applies pressure. “I'm a first-aider.” And to prove his point, ten minutes and one ripped-up bed sheet later, Daisy's ankle is professionally splinted to a wooden cheeseboard, and his leg wound is neatly bandaged.

“Look at us. One good left leg and one right,” he says lightly, hopping to the couch and slumping beside her. “We'd make a good pair…”

A very good pair,
he thinks to himself, then steps back twenty minutes and rummages through his pockets, knowing that he has some unfinished business.

“What is zhe matter?” asks Daisy, noticing him blanch.

“I'm worried they might come back,” he stalls, but his mind is whirling with the sounds of gunfire and conflagration as he retraces his movements at the start of the attack.
Did I put it somewhere safe? Back in the suitcase, perhaps… No, it was in my pocket.

“I'm just going to make sure they've gone,” he says and struggles to the window. One glance into the darkness tells him that if the ring, bequeathed by his great-grandmother through his mother, has fallen in the scorched undergrowth or in the mud of the embankment, he'll probably never find it.

Is this just another sign?
he wonders as he slumps back onto the settee, realizing that fate has been against him all week, from the very moment he'd first been delayed at the border and had shown up late to meet Daisy in Seattle. But if fate is taking a hand — whose side is it on?

“I'm sure they won't come back,” he says, taking her into his arms and comforting her in the warmth of the log fire. “We'll be safe enough, and the maid will be here in the morning.”

“I've a good mind to go back and get my bloomin' hat,” muses Daphne at Trina's breakfast table early Saturday morning.

“Great idea!” exclaims Trina excitedly. “But I'd better not tell Rick. He worries about me. Though I don't know why.”

“Don't be silly. I was only joking,” laughs Daphne, but Trina has got her teeth into the scheme.

“No, I mean it,” she enthuses. “It's not like they're going to do anything to us now.”

“I don't think so…” Daphne is continuing, but Trina isn't listening. “We'll just drive up to the gate and tell them we want it,” she explains confidently. “The worst they can do is to say no.”

“I suppose we could…” says Daphne hesitantly.

“I'll make sure my cell phone is working, and we'll just ask nicely. We needn't even get out of the car.”

“But what about your children? You've hardly seen them since Tuesday.”

“I think Rob's still disappointed that Daisy didn't come back,” laughs Trina, sounding unconcerned. “And Kylie's been telling her friends that she was adopted at birth since that picture of us in the paper in the Kidneymobile. Anyway, they're teenagers.”

“So?”

“It's Saturday!” she explodes, as if Daphne should have figured it out. “They won't be up before lunch.”

“And Rick?”

“Oh, he was happy enough to see me last night, but I expect he'll sleep for a week.”

“Well… maybe,” says Daphne, still equivocating.

“You could always check with David,” suggests Trina, offering Daphne a phone.

“It's no good asking him,” she chortles. “He's a policeman — he was born saying no. Anyway,” she adds meaningfully, “I don't expect he'd be thrilled if I got him out of bed too early this morning.”

“Oh, Daphne!” shrieks Trina.

However, bed has not been an option for Bliss. The heavy wooden bedstead that should have given him and Daisy a pleasurable night now barricades the splintered front door, while its king-size mattress blocks the light from the glazed balcony slider. Bliss wouldn't have bothered for himself — “They won't come back,” he assured Daisy — but as the night wore on she became increasingly alarmed at the possibility. And now, despite the sun rising high over the mountains, they cuddle under a duvet in front of the log fire, dead to the world, pooped by a sleepless night of pain and discomfort.

The Saturday-morning officers at the U.S. border show little interest in Trina's Jetta as the two women join the throngs of families streaming to Washington for the weekend.

“We're only going to ask at the gate,” Daphne reminds Trina resolutely as they take the highway south. “We're not going in.”

“I agree.”

“After all, it's only a bloomin' hat.”

“I know that.”

“I can easily make another one.”

“Don't worry,” says Trina, “we're not going in.”

“Good. As long as we've got that straight.”

“We have.”

Steam rising off the treetops vapourizes into the clear blue sky above the Cascade Mountains as the VW turns off the highway, but while robins and chickadees twitter cheerfully in the forest, fresh memories of the ill-fated expedition in the Kidneymobile begin to weigh more heavily as the women drive the twisty road towards their goal. They drive in silence, neither of them admitting any apprehension. The road that had taken them several hours to navigate in the mechanical bathtub takes only fifteen minutes by car, and they arrive at the gates before they have a chance to change their minds.

“Here we are,” says Trina in surprise as she slows in the shadow of the high gates, although she is momentarily confused when she sees that the mission's signboard has gone, replaced by a more sinister one that warns that the premises are the property of the federal government and that trespassers will be prosecuted. “Is this the place?” she asks, turning to Daphne.

“It looks like it,” says Daphne releasing her seat-belt. “Pull in over there.”

But a chill comes over Trina as she views the high fence topped with a roll of razor wire. “I'm not so sure about this…” she begins, and she readies to drive on.

“Don't worry. I'm not going in,” repeats Daphne as she catches hold of the door handle. “They can bloomin' well bring it to the gate after all the trouble they've caused. You just keep the engine running and we'll take off at the first sign of trouble.”

“You be careful…” cautions Trina as Daphne heads for the entryphone.

“Are you sure they've gone?” whispers Daisy as Bliss drags himself to the balcony's glass door and eases the mattress aside.

“Don't worry, love!” he calls. “It's broad daylight. The maid should be here soon…” Then he pauses. “Oh, no!” he sighs with the sudden realization that it is Saturday, the projected day of Daisy's departure, and he had declined cleaning services. “The maid might as well wait until I've left on Sunday,” he had told the operator when booking.

“You are going to miss your flight,” he tells Daisy as he checks the bandage on her swollen ankle, once he's explained the situation.

“
Maman
will worry.”

“I'd better try to get to one of the other cottages and find a phone…” he starts, but Daisy stays his hand. “
Daavid,
” she queries, with something that's been on her mind for several hours.

“Yes?”

“Last night. Before zhis happened. You said you had something for me.”

Now what?
he questions himself.
Admit that I lost the ring; admit that Sarah was probably right — that
I did usually put the job before her; admit that I might do the same again with Daisy?
“It'll keep,” he says with the realization that his vacillations had kept him awake almost as much as the pain in his leg and his concern over the attackers' return.

Daphne stands at the gate with her finger on the entry-phone's call button, but she turns and shrugs to Trina when there is no response.

“Come on, let's go,” says Trina with growing uneasiness. But Daphne spots the surveillance camera and stares at it openly.

“Halloo,” she trills. “Anyone there? I've come for my hat.”

A flock of gulls takes off from garbage bins inside the compound, and their shrieks of alarm make her jump as they pierce the silence. But once the birds have flown, peace returns and she again yells, “Halloo…”

“Daphne…” calls Trina, but the older woman waves her to be quiet. “I think I heard someone,” she says, but Trina is doubtful.

“Are you sure?”

“Listen,” says Daphne, then she loudly shouts, “Halloo! Who's there?”

“Maybe I should call Mike,” suggests Trina. “He's a policeman. He'll know what to do.” But her face falls when she pulls out her cell phone. “No service,” she says, dropping the car into drive. “We'd best go. I'll treat you to another hat.”

“Trina,” Daphne reminds her sternly, “I made that hat with my own hands.”

“Sorry…” starts Trina, but the other woman has set her sight on the fence. “Where are you going?” Trina demands as Daphne begins to kick a path
through the undergrowth at the side of the gate.

“Don't worry,” says Daphne, “I'm not going in. I just want to get a better view. I'm sure I heard something.”

“Daphne… Come back!”

“The place looks deserted,” she calls over her shoulder as she peers into the grounds.

“We'd better go, then,” advocates Trina, but Daphne is tugging speculatively at the wire.

“Have you got a towrope?” she asks roguishly.