Ratio: A Leopold Blake Thriller (A Private Investigator Series of Crime and Suspense Thrillers) (39 page)

“But we can go out the back garden gate with less trouble. You just have to take me along.” 

“Why?”

“At the gate, the control panel is low on the wall, so you don’t even have to untie me for it. That’s the only way it’ll work,” June explained. “It really was a mistake closing the door like that.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The deal was okayed by Reagan, the man in charge, also the one least at ease. She could tell he was trying to hide it, but he showed all the earmarks of losing his nerves. It meant he was most likely to use his gun, but was also most easily tricked with confusion. June had to rely on that.

Georgie helped June to a standing position. She eyed him close up and saw he wasn’t any bigger than her, and probably not as strong.

He took his pistol out of his pocket and used it to push her toward the back door.

“Kids, stay on the couch,” she said over her shoulder. “No talking.”

She waddled as she led him out the patio door and around the side of the house, turning the corner in silence. With Georgie right behind her, he couldn’t see her work a hand loose from the zip ties, freeing up one hand. When they got to the gate with the old potting shed next to it, she stopped and turned toward Georgie.

He looked around at the wall and fence. “Where’s the box?” he asked.

“Right here.”

She swung her arm at the gun, which went flying into the garden. Before he could react, she swung up again, catching him under the chin with her forearm. While he was still unsteady, she took a cross at his face.

That last blow put him on the ground. Since her legs were tied together, she couldn’t finish him off with her favorite weapon, a heavy stomp to the chest. Instead, she landed a hammer strike to his throat.

George’s head flew back and hit the corner of the potting shed with a bounce. When he settled, he laid motionless on the pathway.

“Stupid dick head.”

She had to hurry. Not visible from the patio windows, she got the potting shed door open and found rope. She was able to awkwardly lash the man’s arms and legs together, and then pulled the rubber mask from his face. She had never seen him before. Without delay, she shoved an old rag in his mouth, wrapping the last of the rope around his head as a gag. Using only one hand, she dragged him into the potting shed.

Just before closing the door, she had a thought. June poked through his pockets, found the last of the plastic ties, and stuffed them in her pocket. She could use them later. She didn’t bother with the cash stuffed in another pocket.

June found the gun in the garden and considered going back to the house with it. She could cut the ties with garden shears, freeing up her arms and legs. Buthaving a shoot out with two armed men that acted as though they had nothing to lose seemed like a bad idea. Plus, with her nieces right in the middle of the group, there was no way she would risk their lives. Especially since she had never been a good shot with a gun.

Still, she could also cut the bands and run to call the police from a neighbor’s house. If it were only her, she would give it more consideration. But abandoning the kids was out of the question. She had to go back into the house.

She removed the magazine from the pistol and discovered it was empty. She tried a couple times to eject the cartridge already loaded into the gun, but there wasn’t one. In the end, the gun never was a threat to her or the kids. She tossed all of it into a small grove of bamboo at the side of the shed. Just as she began waddling back to the patio, she heard the back door bang open.

“What’s going on?” Clinton said from the far end of the walkway.

“Nothing.” June just had the chance to get her hand stuffed back through the plastic ties while waddling as fast as she could. “Your friend had a problem with the code number is all.”

“He left?”

“Yeah. He decided to walk since it’s so close.”

“That dumb shit.” He looked beyond June toward the far end of the yard. “This ain’t no picnic.”

She got up to him. “You could go get him if you want. It looked like he was going at a pretty good pace though.

He pushed June into the house and slammed the door shut behind them. June took an immense amount of pleasure knowing one of the three had been eliminated, even if Georgie was the dumbest one of the group. 

“While we’re waiting for him to get back, can the girls go in and lie down for a while?” she asked Reagan.

He was fully engaged in the TV, which had been changed from the Disney movie to a men’s programming channel. She looked at the two girls on the couch, who looked either bored or emotionally stunned, June couldn’t tell.

He nodded them toward the side of the house with the bedrooms.

With little prompting, she followed the four year olds into the guest room and watched as they tucked themselves under the top blanket. Clinton watched from the doorway.

“Be quiet, okay?” she admonished them with kisses. “We’ll have lunch in a little while. But stay in here until I come get you, okay?” She pecked kisses at them several more times. “And please please please be quiet.”

With the door closed, she went back to the living room and stood facing Reagan, still plunked down on the couch intently watching the TV. She stood in his line of sight.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Park it somewhere.”

“Can I use the bathroom?” she asked.

“How ya gonna get your pants down?” Clinton asked with a leer.

“I can do it,” she said back with a hard glare at him.

She didn’t need to go, but she had another idea in her mind. It was working already.

Reagan nodded her off again. “Go with her, Clinton. Make sure she stays out of trouble.”

June waddled to the bathroom next to the master bedroom, Clinton following right behind. She heard the bedroom door shut behind them. It was exactly what she wanted.

When she got the toilet, she struggled to get her jeans button undone and the zipper down because of the plastic ties. Just as she was getting the button open, he reached for her.

“I’ll help with that, doll.”

He tugged on the zipper, lowering it slowly, his gaze intent on her eyes. When the zipper hit bottom, his fingers dallied a moment before giving the slick nylon of her panties a gentle stroke.

June tried to hide the shiver.

“Let me piss and you can have more,” she whispered.

“Finally coming ‘round to seeing things my way,” he said back with a grin. He took a step back and let her do the rest. Before she pulled her pants down, she looked back at Clinton, leaning against the doorframe watching with a new smile.

She pushed her pants down and sat. “Enjoying the show?”

 “Oh yeah.”

She waited for a moment then stood again.

“Stage fright?” he asked with a laugh.

“Just looking forward to knowing you better.” She waddled to the door, pretending to have a hard time getting her pants back up. “Come on.”

“Let me do that, little missy.”

He reached for her pants, and she let him take hold. She let out a gasp. He started to tug them further down, then stalled. She watched his thick fingers tremble, and for the first time smelt the scent of old tobacco on his breath. What he hadn’t noticed about her was that she had worked her hand loose from the ties again. 

As he began tugging at her pants again, she reached up between his arms and grabbed him under the jaw. Using the element of surprise, and with as tight of a grip as she could muster, she pushed him backwards into the bedroom. Only able to scurry her feet a few inches at a time, she shoved as hard as she could when they got to the doorway. He stumbled backward, pulling her with him.

His gun fell to the floor when he was pushed, landing far from his reach. 

They both landed on the bed. By then Clinton was fighting back, but she was straddling him. Keeping as much of her body weight on top of him, she landed hammer strikes to his collarbones, mixed with punches to his face and neck. With the last strike to a collar bone, she felt it snap, a grunt gusting from his throat. That arm fell away, useless to him. Just as she felt his one useful hand get a grip on her chest and push her away, she landed one last fierce blow to the center of his masked face.

He fell back, landing motionless on the bed.

She waited for Reagan to burst through the door, but he never did. Instead, he called out from the other room with a laughing tone to his voice.

“Not so rough in there, Clinton! We still need her later!”

“Shove it, jerk…” June muttered, panting quickly.

She looked down at the unconscious man sprawled on her bed. A shiver flew through her, and she felt the replay of his coarse hands on her body, pulling at her pants, stroking her panties. Her hand still balled into a rock-hard fist, she raised it to her shoulder, hesitated for only a moment, and sent it into Clinton’s Adam’s apple in a crushing blow.

June squirmed off him. She dug into her pocket for the plastic ties she got from Georgie and zip tied Clinton’s wrists and ankles, using two at each place. She ripped the rubber mask from his head, and didn’t recognize him either. 

From being punched in the face so hard, blood was welling up from both his nostrils and overflowed his cheeks. She knew if she left him on his back, he could easily choke to death on his own blood. Gagging him would risk suffocation. She would have to turn him on his side to allow the welling blood to flow away from his airway. It was emergency medicine at its most basic, to keep his airway open. But that would require compassion.

Instead, June dug through his pockets. All she found was a cell phone and a pocketknife. She gave the knife a stare, and looked at Clinton.

“Not worth it…” she mumbled.

She cut her own thick plastic ties with the knife, releasing her left arm and both legs from their prisons, working her joints loose again and some blood into her limbs.

Clinton’s breathing sputtered through his blood. 

“Looks like I’m still the one making the decisions around here, huh?” she muttered.

She turned him onto his side, allowing the blood to flow away from his nose and mouth onto her bedding. It was her bed he was on, and one of her favorite spreads. That could be easily replaced; her freedom couldn’t. His breathing improved to a soft snore as blood soaked into the bedspread. 

June was down to only one intruder, an ex-con with a loaded gun and a bad case of frayed nerves. She knew it would take more than détente to deal with Ronald Reagan.

CHAPTER SIX

She listened at the door and heard only the TV playing. Reagan should still be on the couch watching TV, facing away from the bedroom door. It would be easy enough to walk out the door, aim Clinton’s gun at the man’s back, and pull the trigger. She wouldn’t have to be an expert shot to accomplish that, and the girls wouldn’t be in the way. As soon as that was done, she could call the police and be done with the ordeal. Surely, no one could blame her for defending herself and the girls with a gun one of the intruders had brought.

Did she have more courage than to shoot a man in the back?

The pistol was still on the floor where it landed during the fight. Giving its use one last consideration, June picked up the pistol, feeling the weight of it in her hand. She turned it from side to side, inspecting it closely. She watched her finger pull the trigger, heard the loud crack, a splat of pink mist as the bullet hit its mark at the base of his neck, Reagan’s instantly limp body slumping forward. She made her decision.

As serious as the situation was, she couldn’t bring herself to shoot a man in the back. She removed the clip and looked. It too was empty, just like George’s, and she could only assume they were unloaded to prevent a major crime from being committed in the heat of the moment. She dropped the gun to the floor and gave it a kick it under the bed. 

She took several calming breaths while rubbing the raw spots on her wrists. Not that those breaths were particularly calming. Two men were down and out, hopefully remaining out and thoroughly tied. But there was still one more to go. 

And two hungry, scared nieces only steps away.

There was no phone in the bedroom, and her smart phone was in Reagan’s hand the last she saw. With Clinton’s phone, she could call 9-1-1 for the police, but risked being overheard by Ronald in the other room. She had no door to the outside, only a window to shinny out. But she wouldn’t abandon the kids in the other bedroom.

If she went out and crept to their window, they would make too much fuss when they saw her peek in the window. There was no way she could get them out of the house without being heard.

She had to hurry with some sort of plan. With no better idea of what to do, June took Clinton’s phone to the bathroom. She opened it, and dialed those three numbers that have been so troublesome for her in the past. Ignoring the emergency operator when she came on, she wrapped the phone in a towel and set it in the tub, closing the door behind her as she left.

She figured the operator would stay on the phone for at least a couple minutes, talking louder and louder. The towel and closed door would have to be enough to drown out whatever noise the 9-1-1 operator would make, or a ringing call back. Maybe, just maybe, there was a GPS chip in the phone to locate its where-abouts, and police would eventually be sent to her home to check on the call.

She went to the door and listened again without opening it. The TV was still playing, only now a game show of some sort. June wondered what sort of weapon she could use against a man with a loaded gun. She still had the pocketknife she got from Clinton’s pocket. Small and flimsy, it wasn’t much of a fighting weapon. 

She went to the nightstand and slid open the drawer. There was nothing inside but a romance paperback, a nail file, and antacid. She had nothing else in the bedroom to use as a weapon.

Her only other option was to get to the baseball bat from next to the front door and use it on the man before he knew what was happening. Thinking of the area she would have to cover to get to it, she would be exposed to him for several steps before she could even get to the bat, let alone attack him with it before getting shot. He had already fired off one shot, so she had to assume the gun was fully loaded, unlike the others.