Stealth Moves (28 page)

“I don’t hear voices,” Officer Vogel said. “Ever. Keep walking.”

He ushered her into a bedroom with pink everywhere—pink fabric walls, pink drapes, pink swags and pleats behind a hospital bed. The bed held the fattest person Liv had ever seen. A brown-haired woman lay half-propped up, studying a computer screen on an overbed table. Her shoulders and arms were bare. The rest of her was covered by a pink satin sheet, her bulk filling the bed from side to side. The features of her face sank into folds of skin. Liv struggled not to let her jaw drop as she watched Mrs. Tinsley push the table away and eye her from head to toe.

“So young,” the woman said sadly, “to be a thief.”

“I’m not a thief.” Liv stood tall. “I’m on a mission, a rescue mission. Do you know you have kidnap victims in your house?”

The woman pressed a remote and the top of the bed rose higher. Beneath the sheet, her body sloshed like water in a tipping bowl. It was eerie. Liv had to force her eyes away from the body to the face when the woman said, “Absurd. There’s no one here but me and my sons.”

Sons?
Were there two of them?
No. At school, Miss Tinsley talked about a brother who died. “Didn’t one of your sons, um…didn’t he have an accident?”

Mrs. Tinsley nodded. “An accident…yes. A long time ago, there was an accident, but he’s better now. My Brandon’s spirit is strong as ever, though he has to share a body with his brother. It’s a very convenient arrangement, really. Quite neat.”

Liv’s jaw dropped.

“Strange clothing…delusions. Is the girl—” The woman drew a circle in the air near her temple. “All there?”

Officer Vogel shrugged. “I don’t know, ma’am. That’s for the professionals to decide, but with your permission, we’ll tour the upper floors of your home.” He looked at Liv. “To settle her mind before we go to the station.”

“Good idea,” Mrs. Tinsley agreed. “And Dan, don’t be so formal. We’re almost family. It’s time you called me ‘Mother’.”

“Mother?” Liv echoed.

The huge woman beamed. “He’s marrying my daughter. Won’t be long now.”

Liv turned to the cop. “You and Miss Tinsley?”

Officer Vogel smiled.

Day 14—Friday night

Holly felt scratchy wool against her cheek. The smell of dust filled her nose. She opened her eyes to Oriental rug, dark paneling and a metal scissor gate a few feet from her face.

The impulse to sit up landed her back on her side. Her wrists were tied behind her, and her ankles were bound together. She struggled against the restraints.

“Easy,” Mike’s voice whispered.

Holly rose on an elbow, spotting his bent knees and then the rest of him propped up in the opposite corner. Mike’s torso and ankles was mummy-wrapped in flesh-colored tape. Holly pulled her legs forward to see tape wound around her own ankles. She bent her knees and rolled onto her shins, asking, “What’s going on? Where are we?”

“Tinsley elevator. High up in the house, I think, because it’s stuffy. The gate locks between floors. We’re trapped.”

“But why—” And then Holly remembered. “I saw the boy. I saw Kyle Blake!”

“So did I. Stupid bastard wandered into the hall from the kitchen, eating ice cream out of a carton.” Mike made a face. “Piggish thing to do.”

“Mike…” Holly warned, to keep him on track.

“Yeah, well, I was handing the boxes to Brent when I saw Kyle Blake. Shock must have shown on my face. Brent hauled me inside by my broken arm and shoved me into the dining room. I swung at him, but he shot some weird weapon at me. I felt—”

“Breathless, scared, stupid?” Holly interrupted. “Then you blacked out.”

“Yes!” Mike looked astonished.

“Same here. The garage was awful,” Holly told him, “but I found the bike.”

“That’s something, at least.”

“Before I could get out, Kyle opened the door. He wouldn’t set foot in the garage. Told me there was a sound generator—an inferred… infrared…?”

Mike frowned. “Infrared is light. Was it infra
sound
?”

“Yeah, could be.”

“Ultra-low-pitched sound. Below human hearing. Whales use it to communicate and to attack prey.”

“Great,” Holly said, not interested in a science lesson at the moment. “I’m going to slip my legs through the ring of my arms and get my hands in front of me. I’ll gnaw at the tape and pull it off. Good thing they didn’t gag us.”

“No need. We could scream our heads off and only one bedridden woman would hear.”

“There’s Kyle. He’s not tied up. Maybe he’ll help us.”

Mike gaped at her. “Boy’s here by choice. When he saw me, he looked scared—of me, not Brent.”

“Oh!” Holly huffed. “Rotten kid. We were all so worried
about him. Dan suspected Kyle was a runaway—Dan! I called him. He’ll figure out where we are.”

“Don’t hold your breath. Keep working yourself free,” Mike urged.

Holly rocked side to side, moving her hands under her butt up to the back of her knees. There, she was stuck. She couldn’t bend far enough to pull both feet through her arms with her ankles bound together. “I have such damned long legs,” she moaned.

“I noticed,” Mike said. “Portsmouth. Sunday morning. You, in your underwear.”

Holly tried to muster a comeback until she remembered she’d checked him out, too. “Okay, so, uh, so…” she rambled, “how about you push against my feet with yours? Maybe we can force my legs through my arms if we work together.”

Mike nodded and shifted position. Holly braced her back on the wall.

Something bit her in the ass.

She yelped and jerked forward to her knees, turning so Mike could see what it was, bound hands flailing to bat the thing away. “Get it off me! Get it off!”

“Stop!” Mike spoke too loudly. He lowered his voice. “It’s not a bug; it’s a piece of glass. Used to be a mirror in here. You sat on an edge piece. Don’t knock it out. Hold still.”

“But it hurts,” Holly wailed, instantly sorry to sound like a wimp.

“I can use the glass to cut your hands free.”

Still facing the wall, Holly pictured Mike in his Invisible Man wrappings. “How?”

“With my teeth. This surgical tape isn’t too thick. Just don’t laugh, don’t talk, and for God’s sake, don’t jiggle.” Holly looked over her shoulder. “Hey, I’m human,” Mike admitted. “So just, uh, lean against the paneling and think of England.”

Holly frowned. “Why England?”

“That’s what they told Victorian brides on their wedding nights.”

“Wonder what they told the grooms.”

“Keep your pecker up,” Mike said.

“Pretty crude.”

“Pecker means chin in England.”

Holly asked, “Are you always this chatty in dangerous situations?”

“My first time.” Mike grunted as he struggled to his knees. “Can’t expect performance. Get ready.”

The strange sensation of Mike nuzzling her backside threatened to burst out as nervous giggling. Holly sent her mind to its meditation place and stayed there until the spot where the glass pierced her skin stopped burning. Mike had the shard. He nudged the small of her back.

Holly held her hands away from her body, wrists straining against the tape to keep it taut. Mike’s efforts to saw through plastic were halting before he found a steady rhythm. The tape separated, releasing her hands. She turned, flexed her fingers, and took the splinter from him to slit the bindings on her ankles. After she freed herself, she reached toward Mike’s legs, which had the fewest layers of tape.

“Don’t waste time. I’m staying. Can’t climb with one arm.” He nodded toward Holly’s left. “Up there, on the ceiling, is a maintenance hatch. Hoist yourself out. I’m guessing we’re between floors four and five. Fifteen feet to the roof. You can make it, even with only moonlight to see by. Machine room up top has windows and a door.”

“No, Mike! I can’t leave you here.”

“Just cut my good arm free. I’ll do the rest.”

Holly sawed the tape between Mike’s right arm and his chest. “Get help,” he said, “and, uh…when we’re out of this, you want to have coffee?”

“Coffee?” Holly finished the last cut. “I’m buying a bottle of champagne and drinking it all.”

“You’re missing the point: You want to have coffee with
me
?”

“Like a date?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“Well, no, not really. I mean—”

“Uh-uh. I’ve had enough not-really dates for a lifetime.”

“Real date it is.” Mike’s grin was lopsided, a bit silly, a bit shy. Holly saw fear in his eyes and how hard he was trying to hide it. She wondered why she wasn’t afraid.
I’m
too angry
. She’d use her anger to save them both.

“I’ll hold you to that.” Holly did her best Arnold impression. “Ah’ll be baaaach.”

The elevator’s ceiling was an easy reach. Holly lifted the panel and shoved it open. She pulled herself out of the car onto its grimy top. With the panel back in place, she waited for her eyes to adjust to moonlight.

There was no big, central rope to climb like she’d seen in movies. Three narrow cables ran between guiderails set close to the back wall. Brackets supporting the rails stuck out far enough to make steps. Holly was reaching for the nearest bracket just as the elevator car started moving up.

Oh, shit!
She sprawled flat on the car roof, afraid of being crushed when the elevator reached its highest point. The car stopped, leaving a sizable gap between her and the machine room, but Holly held still. Ear to the hatch, she heard the metal gate slide open, and Kyle Blake’s voice.

“He wants you,” Kyle said. “Hey! Where’s the chick?”

“Caught another ride. She’s probably having cappuccinos with the cops by now.”

Kyle swore. “It’s your fault! If you hadn’t screwed things up, we’d be okay.”

“You can get out of this,” Mike said. “It’s not too late. Claim you were brainwashed— Stockholm Syndrome. People will buy it.”

“And do what—go home? They have my whole life planned. They don’t understand me at all.”

“I know how it is,” Mike sympathized. “My dad decided I’d be a lawyer—no ifs, ands or buts.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Kyle demanded. “You let him push you around?”

“My father’s dead. Too late to work things out with him. Your parents are alive, and they paid big money to get you back. I’d say they care.”

“
My
money,” Kyle raged. “Mine! Grandparents gave it to
me
. Couldn’t get at it for years and years, though, because of legal stuff. But why the hell am I telling you this? You’re just trying to stall, to waste time. I’ll bet the chick didn’t get away—she’s in the elevator shaft, right? Come down!” Kyle yelled. “Now. Or…or I’ll break his other arm.”

You’ve trained for this all your life
, Holly told herself.
Get the timing right.
“Don’t hurt him,” she pleaded, hoping she sounded terrified. “I’ll do what you say.”

“No!” Mike shouted.

But Holly already had the ceiling panel open. She looked through it at Kyle standing in the doorway, a hammer-shaped weapon in his hand. She’d have to be fast.

Holly let herself down on bent arms, then shot out her legs, hitting Kyle square in the chest with both feet. In the terrifying second of her reverse swing, she watched him stagger and thought he might recover enough to shoot her with the hammer thingy. But Kyle wasn’t in shape, and when she dropped onto her left foot to front kick his jaw with the right, his body smacked into the hall wall, skull impacting plaster with a highly satisfying thump. He sat down hard, looking stunned, before his eyes closed.

Zarah’s words came back to her: “Trust no one, especially an enemy you think you’ve defeated.”

Holly pounced on Kyle, twisting his arm to control him if he was faking. He didn’t stir, even when she shoved his shoulder to turn him face down. Kyle was heavy, but adrenaline gave her strength and made her mind race. Foot on his neck, ready to stomp if he moved while she pulled off her belt, Holly risked a moment of vulnerability until her knee was over his kidney. Kidney blows were nasty, disabling. If Kyle woke, she’d hurt him; he wouldn’t be able to grab her before she tied the belt around his hands. As a final safeguard, she turned him face up, yanked off his shoe and used his sock as a gag. Holly was stripping off Kyle’s belt to tie around his legs when he began to groan.

Mike had been silent through all of this. Holly heard him ask, “Is he down?”

“Yes,” Holly whispered, ducking her head around the elevator door. “I’ll find something better than a piece of glass to cut you free.”

“Hurry! We don’t know where Brent is. Or the girl.”

Holly was shocked. “You think she’s
in on this?”

“No way to tell. Step it up.”

There were three doors on this floor. Holly went toward the open one.

It seemed part workroom/part bedroom. In the middle of the space, a wooden table held metal parts, papers and a computer. An armchair below the one high window faced an old-style TV with a game console. Holly found a plastic knife next to a rumpled bed and night table littered with take-out food containers.
So this is where Kyle’s been hanging out
, Holly thought. Where was Ariel Kelly?

Nearby, a door hinge creaked. Footsteps in the hall. Holly stepped behind Kyle’s door.

A man said, “What the hell?”

Not Brent’s voice. Dan’s!

Holly dashed into the hall crying, “Thank God, you got my message!” Her relief was so great, she wanted to throw her arms around him, but Dan was bent over Kyle, checking the belt binding his wrists. He looked up. “Holly? Why are you here?” and then, “What message? Mrs. T. called me. Said she had an intruder.”

“Wasn’t us,” Holly said. “We didn’t get anywhere near her. We were looking for the motorcycle. It’s in the garage.”

“Who’s ‘us’?”

“Mike’s here. He’s tied up in the elevator.”

“That’s not good.” Dan took the sock from Kyle’s mouth. “You okay?” he asked the boy.

“No,” Kyle began. “Bitch laid me out. I hit my head, probably have a concussion. I’m—”

The sock went back in Kyle’s mouth. “God, I hate whiners,” Dan said, “and this is no time to read him his rights. Your work?”

Holly nodded, asking, “Where’s Brent? He has these weird sound weapons. One’s next to you.” She pointed at the hammer Kyle dropped when she kicked him. “Brent might—”