Shake Down, page 17
Love for my father has turned to loathing. Or perhaps the loathing is so strong because I yet love him.
Janice’s windpipe thickened and she blinked away tears then plunged on in the narrative.
I continue to ask myself, does my mother know? Her health has always been so fragile, mentally as well as physically. Could her precarious state be due to a heart realization of the truth that she refuses to admit, even to herself? A part of me almost wishes I could go there also—to that place of willful ignorance that dulls the pain. But I am not made that way.
Before I do the unthinkable and reveal the horror to those who can stop it, there is one to whom I owe an explanation. In my weakness, I have allowed our relationship to move beyond infatuation. Now he must become privy—
A sharp bark startled the diary out of Janice’s hands. The book flopped onto the covers. Atlas woofed again and leaped up from the bedside rug. The dog trotted to the closed bedroom door, nails clicking on the hardwood, and whined.
“What is it, boy? Do you need to go out?”
Janice swung her pajama-clad legs over the side of the bed. Punching her feet into a pair of mule slippers, she grabbed her lightweight robe from the foot of the bed. Atlas barked again.
“Okay, big guy. I’m coming.”
Letting out a half laugh, half huff, she opened the bedroom door. Atlas lunged up the hallway and rounded the corner into the main room. Janice shuffled along after him.
She stopped and stared around the sitting room. “Where did you go?”
Normally the dog waited at the front door to be let out. He wasn’t there. A snuffling sound from the kitchen sent Janice toward the side door in the kitchen.
She laughed. “You must be looking for Shane.”
She’d heard his Jeep pull up on the gravel outside and the slam of his vehicle door. He was probably setting up his tent on this side of the house. The lawn was better over here.
What a terrible hostess she was! She should have offered to hold a flashlight or an electric lantern for him while he worked in the near pitch dark. Then again, the guy was awfully self-sufficient. He would have thought about the light issue and rigged up a solution on his own.
Janice opened the door and the dog streaked outside. No jury-rigged light or shadowy activity in the dark betrayed Shane’s presence. The yard was empty.
Where had Atlas gone? Of more vital importance, where was Shane?
A fierce growl from the rear of the cottage answered her question about the dog. A deep thud and a truncated yelp turned Janice’s pulse into a roar in her ears. The outer darkness pressed upon her, thick and heavy. Instinct cried run, but her feet were nailed to the floor.
Run? Which way? Toward the sound where Atlas and certainly Shane were in trouble? Or slam and lock the door and race to the phone to call for help? Only the latter made good sense—for her and for them, but turning away from the door nearly wrenched her heart from her chest.
Breathing as if she’d sprinted up the steep incline from the beach to the cottage, she grabbed the telephone handset. The dial tone hummed then ceased as she punched in 9-1-1. The phone rang once, then twice, then—nothing. Stone silence told her the line was dead.
A blink later the lights in the cottage went out.
Janice’s mind went as dark as the atmosphere around her. Her heart stalled then plunged into a gallop. Loss of phone line and electricity could only mean someone had cut the power. What should she do? It was logical to assume she was a target of the hostile presence. Where could she go? Her enemy could come through any window or break down a door. Or, if she fled out one egress or another, she might run straight into him.
Come on, girl! Think! There had to be a way of escape.
The cellar!
She could climb down there and slip out the doors to the outside. From that point, her car was right around the corner. The best thing she could do for Shane and Atlas was to get away from here and find help.
Her eyes had somewhat adjusted to the darkness. She hurried out of the kitchen and through the sitting room, dodging furnishings half by memory, half by spotting darker silhouettes in the dimness.
The sound of a footfall on the porch spurred her faster, and she miscalculated, jabbing her toes against the leg of a high-backed armchair. Pain stabbed through her foot. Biting her lips to stifle a cry, she hobbled onward.
Behind her, window glass shattered. Beside her, the base of a lamp exploded, showering her with shards of ceramic. Janice darted into the hallway. What was that? Her mind struggled to make sense of the breakage. A bullet. Had to be. She’d heard no gun blast, but she would not necessarily have heard the spit of a silenced pistol.
Janice reached her bedroom and grabbed her purse from the top of the chest of drawers. Back in the hallway, clutching to her chest the vital container of her car keys, she groped at the floor with one hand for the entrance to the cellar.
Noises from the front door indicated someone attempting to get in.
God, please help me find— There!
Janice’s fingers closed around the recessed latch and she heaved upward. Running on pure adrenaline, she propelled herself at foolish speed down the steep stairs into a black hole. She barely remembered to pull the trap door closed after her. Figuring out where she went ought to slow her pursuer.
At the base of the stairs, Janice fumbled in her purse for her cell phone. At last she pulled it out. The face lit and a pale glow bathed her immediate vicinity. Hand quivering, she found and pressed the flashlight button. A beam extended a bright finger into the darkness. As much as she’d despised the musty, dusty, useless space, at this moment it was a refuge. Janice inhaled a long breath and let it out slowly. She repeated the process several times until her jumbled insides settled back into an approximation of their proper places.
She’d need all the guts and savvy and speed she could muster to pull off her next move. Pointing the beam toward the cement steps, Janice hurried toward them. Her slippered feet made little scuffling noises on the packed earth.
Overhead, a crash sounded, followed by a thump and deep-voiced bellow. Janice grinned.
Welcome to my house. You’re the stupid jerk who put out the lights and didn’t bring a flashlight.
At least she now knew the location of the adversary. Emboldened, she quickly undid the inner latch on the doors to the outside. Putting her shoulder into it, she slowly raised one of the door panels. The protest of the rusty hinges echoed in her ears like a scream in the night. Janice winced. The noise was probably more like a whimper, but any sound at the moment was about a million times too loud.
The beam of her flashlight showed the coast was clear. She flung the door wide and let it flop to the side with a small clatter. Time to make a break for it.
Her dash toward the car was more like a scuttle, hunched low and digging in her purse for her car keys. Somewhere along the route, her phone slid out of her grip. No time to backtrack and retrieve it. She was at her vehicle now.
Gaze darting around for any sign of the intruder, she yanked the door open and flung herself inside. Three tries later, her shaking hand finally managed to jam the key into the ignition. The vehicle purred to a start. She threw it into gear and peeled out in reverse, flinging gravel under the carriage. The pop-pop-pop sounds, so much like gunshots, sent a shiver through her.
Was that a shout she heard from the field behind the house? Surely not. Had another engine just roared to life? Please, no!
Janice shifted gears and tromped on the accelerator. No headlights. Not yet. She’d make the highway by the gleam from the gravel beneath the meager moonlight. Lights would go on only when she reached the highway. Then she’d make a dash for Essie Mae’s and a landline telephone that worked.
“Hang in there, girl,” she encouraged herself under her breath. “You can make it.”
Both hands strangled the steering wheel. Where was Shane? What had the creep done with him? A vision of Shane lying in a pool of his own blood tortured her mind’s eye.
Shaking her head, Janice hauled her attention back to business. She couldn’t dwell on distracting fears right now or she’d wind up paralyzed with grief that might have basis only in her imagination.
Yeah, right, a mean little voice taunted in her head. You were shot at, somebody broke into the cottage, and there’s no sign of the guy whose middle name is “protective.” What do you think happened to him? Nothing good, that’s for sure.
“Shut! Up!” Janice hollered aloud.
Suddenly headlights flared on dead ahead, blinding her. She screamed and jerked the steering wheel to the side. The tires bumped onto the rough ground of the shallow ditch. A line of trees filled her sight and the nose of her car plowed into a looming trunk. The crash deafened her ears even as the airbag exploded into her body.
The bag deflated, leaving her coughing from chalky dust and hugging her bruised chest. Running into the tree physically might have hurt less.
Somebody yanked open the driver’s-side door, unbuckled her seat belt and hauled her out of the car. Her legs had no strength and she promptly crumpled to the ground. Burly arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her upright, but not with helpful intent.
“End of the line, Charlotte’s daughter,” said a bullish voice.
The bottom plummeted out of Janice’s world. She was known! And by Officer Mitch. Shane had been right to mistrust the cops. Who else was in the loop?
Mitch dragged her toward—what do you know?—a dark-colored SUV. Someone in the back shoved open the rear door. Janice began to squirm and the arms around her tightened painfully.
The corrupt police officer shoved her into the backseat. Janice lunged toward the sliver of space between Officer Mitch and the edge of the door, but a hand buried itself in her hair and yanked her back. Cold metal pressed into her temple.
“Be still.”
The subzero intensity in that voice quieted her as much as the gun to her head. She subsided, quivering in every limb.
Mitch climbed into the driver’s seat and they cruised up the driveway, but didn’t head for the parking area. Well back from the cottage, the SUV left the road and navigated the lumpy ground of the field behind the house, giving Janice’s teeth a reason to chatter other than sheer terror. The SUV rolled to a stop behind the toolshed.
Their rotund chauffeur climbed out of the front seat and opened the back door. Without releasing his grip on her hair, her captor with the gun shoved her outside. They walked around to the front of the vehicle where the headlights illuminated the shabby rear boards of the shed.
What were they going to do? Line her up against the wall and execute her firing-squad style?
Mitch lifted an arm and pressed something under the eaves and the bottom of the wall began to tilt outward with a low, mechanical hum. The wall rose until it was completely horizontal above their heads and exposed a cavity of several feet between the false rear of the shed.
Again, Shane had been on the right track with his off-handed remark about the size of the shed. Too bad they hadn’t investigated the small-seeming space rather than writing the impression off as an optical illusion due to the interior clutter.
A set of stairs led sideways down into an illuminated area below. The gunman let go of Janice’s hair, but the muzzle of his pistol prodded her forward.
Gingerly, she set foot on the steep wooden steps. If only she could pull in a full breath, but it was as if an iron band encased her lungs. She glanced up and Mitch’s grinning mug taunted her. He pointed down. She eased onto the next step. Could they hear her bones rattling together?
Attempting to swallow but not quite succeeding, she continued downward. More and more of the space below became visible. The size was double her two-car garage in Denver, but didn’t quite match the volume of the cellar under the cottage. Apparently the space served as a warehouse of sorts. Rows of boxes and barrels lined one side of the room. A long, scarred table sat against the opposite wall, little white puff-packets strewed across its top.
A few feet away the big guy she and Shane thought of as Larry stood, straddle-legged and arms crossed, looming like a stone-faced Stooges clone above a crumpled and bloody figure on the floor. Horror thrust Janice to her knees.
“Shane!”
* * *
Janice’s urgent cry penetrated Shane’s semiconscious haze. His head throbbed, his gut burned, and every muscle ached, but he gathered himself and sat up. Someone let out a long groan. Oh, yeah. That was his voice. The ringing in his ears left him feeling detached from his body.
With supreme effort, he pried one swelling eye open a slit. Janice’s beautiful face, framed by her glorious hair, gazed into his. The compassion of her stare sifted warmth through him.
“What have they done to you?” Her fingertips touched his swollen jaw.
Reflexively, his head turned and his lips brushed her palm. Color flushed her pale cheeks and her gaze slid away.
“It appears,” he said, “that our friend Larry isn’t merely a builder or just a saboteur. His true calling is prizefighter. Oh, and enforcer for the mob.”
He’d meant to sound jaunty in spite of his wounds, but the words came out slurred as if he’d been hitting the bottle. His muscles and bones felt as though the bottle had been hitting him.
Janice’s glare up at the husky Larry should have seared the guy’s skin off. A bitter chuckle shook Shane’s ribs and he winced into silence.
“Ain’t that touchin’?” A familiar voice spoke from a corner of the room in the shadow of stacked crates. “I’d call it an ironic romance, eh? Useful maybe?”
Shane scowled. The shadow-figure had lurked there the whole time Officer Mitch and Norman Marks had held him up as a punching bag for Larry. At least he wasn’t dead...yet. The Marks Man was impatient to shoot him and clear the disgrace from his reputation.
Did they want something from him first? What could it be? He’d been a complete bust as a secret-record sleuth.
The figure in the corner stepped into the light. Identity confirmed.
Janice gasped. “Mr. Beaseley? You’re involved in this?”
The old fisherman displayed an affable, snaggle-toothed smile. “In it? I’m the only one standin’ here that has half a brain.”
Larry’s scowl deepened and Mitch grunted.
“Be careful who you’re calling dumb, pops.” The hit man buffed the barrel of his pistol against his expensive polo shirt.
Beaseley narrowed his gaze on Norman. “Yer a gun for hire, and tops at your trade. Each to his own skills, ayuh. The Morans didn’t trust me to run this slice of the business because I can shoot or punch or fix evidence at the cop shop, but because I can think. And now we have some loose ends to tie up delicate-like. You’ll be takin’ my directions if any of you want to keep on breathin’ free air outside the pen.”
Mutinous looks on the henchmen’s faces didn’t bode well for the fisherman’s authority. Maybe Shane could use that crack in their armor to good advantage, if only he could figure out how.
Larry cracked the knuckles on his right hand. “That idea of booby-trapping the place to run off the heir worked real well, huh?”
“’Tweren’t possible to anticipate uncommon stubbornness. You two—” Beaseley poked a finger toward Janice and Shane “—would have been sensible to take a hint, pack it up and go on home. But I’ll give you this, young man, yer fast on your feet, even if yer not too smart, ayuh.”
Beaseley squatted down on his haunches and looked Shane full in the eye, a sly grin creasing the wrinkles on his face. “Bet ya didn’t know you’ve been workin’ this whole summer long for the daughter of Charlotte Moran.”
Shane’s mouth went dry. The breath left him as if he’d been punched in the gut...again. Janice was a Moran? It couldn’t be true. He wouldn’t believe it.
The grin widened as the old fisherman turned his gaze on Janice. “Bet ya didn’t know Shane’s not Shane. Name’s Seth Grange, son of Dexter Grange, Reggie Moran’s bookkeeper and right-hand man in every scheme they floated. Bet Seth ran some cock-and-bull story past you ’bout huntin’ for evidence to clear the innocent and expose the guilty. Ha!” At Janice’s wide-eyed pallor, the guy chuckled. “Yep, see I hit that nail on the head. It’s all about money, honey. Big money. Moran Family money.”
“You lie!” Seth burst out. “There is no money! Never was. You’re the dupes! None of it’s true. Well, except the part about my name. My father is innocent. He was framed. And Janice is no Moran. She’s the Realtor for the Moran heir.”
Clicking his tongue, Beaseley rose to his feet.
Seth turned a desperate stare on Janice, both eyes opened as wide as they could against the swelling. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. In fact, she rose slowly and turned her back on him. Seth’s stomach curdled.
“May I please shoot my mark now?” Norman drawled as if asking permission to step out for a breath of fresh air.
“Don’t git yer gills in a flap.” Beaseley scowled. “Our business takes priority. Then you’ll git yer chance.”
“Yeah.” Mitch stuffed his thumbs in his belt and puffed out his chest. “You still wouldn’t have a clue to the location of Seth Grange if I hadn’t ferretted out his true identity.”
“You?” Larry snorted. “You couldn’t spook a skunk out of a woodpile on your own. The DEA did your work for you, and as a courtesy, notified the local P.D. of the fingerprint match between Shane Gillum and Seth Grange.”
Mitch stuck his face in Larry’s. “You know this how?”
The boxer grinned. “I have my sources.”
“You mean your Pattie patoutie.” Mitch rounded on his fisherman boss. “I still don’t get why the head honchos thought they needed to plant a second officer in the Martha’s Vineyard P.D. I was doing just fine on my own.”
