“We know Daisy has a home, and she has kids to play with. Monica doesn’t seem that interested. Are we even sure she wants the dog back?” Bailey asked.
“She has a home,” Jim said, “and there are kids, but we don’t know if it’s a good home. In that neighborhood, people are likely to let their dogs run the streets and dump them when they get inconvenient. Daisy eats a lot of food and the family living in that house isn’t doing too well. Best case is they love her and feed her but don’t give her proper medical care. If she gets sick, they put her down. If the Munces don’t want her, we can find her a better home than this one.”
“We need a positive ID,” Terry said. “I venture to guess that our scarlet woman knows Daisy better than anyone outside the family, and Daisy knows her as well.”
“She’s not a scarlet woman, just a sad case. How would you like it if the love of your life was torn apart by coyotes?” Bailey asked. “Lia, do you know if Kate’s coming today?”
“I’m pretty sure she is. If she’s not here soon, I’ll give her a call.”
“You should go during the day, while the kids are in school. Better for them,” Jim said.
“Less drama for us that way, too,” Lia said. “If Kitty says she’ll do it, I’ll go with her since I know her best.”
They drove Lia’s old Volvo for two reasons. First, she was used to having dogs in the back seat. Second, Lia was afraid Kate’s new Altima might give this family visions of a reward they didn’t deserve, considering Daisy had been wearing a collar with tags. If Daisy somehow lost her collar, they still never posted a free ‘found ad’ for her.
It was shortly after 11:00 a.m. when Lia pulled up in front of the neglected house.
“Oh, my,” Kate said, “this feels a bit creepy, don’t you think?”
“It’s just poverty,” Lia said. “Poverty isn’t evil. There could be many reasons why the house is the way it is. Could be they just moved in and haven’t had a chance to fix it up yet. Maybe someone is sick and can’t work. At least we know they like animals. They can’t be all bad.”
They climbed the broken steps. The bell was out of order, so Lia rapped sharply on the door. Inside, a dog responded by barking. The sound was deep and powerful.
“That does sound like Daisy,” Kate said.
After a few minutes, the door cracked. Daisy shoved her nose through the door and whimpered excitedly. Kate knelt down to greet her. Daisy continued to fight with the door until she wiggled through. She was all over Kate, licking her face and wagging her tail. Kate gave up and sat on the porch and hugged the dog.
“Xena! Down! Bad!”
Lia looked down to see a short, bony woman with dark hair that had been fried in a way she normally associated with over-bleaching. She looked middle age, but she also looked haggard, like she had lived hard and was possibly younger. Deep lines were carved around her mouth and her eyes had dark circles under them. The woman pushed past Lia and grabbed Daisy’s collar, dragging her back into the house. She bent over to hang onto the straining dog. Daisy rasped as she panted, fighting to get back to Kate. The woman looked up from this position. “I’m so sorry.” There was a touch of hills in her voice. “She isn’t very well behaved. What can I do for you?” Her smile was forced, as if she knew she should be friendly but would just rather not.
“My name is Lia, and this is Kate. We’re here about your dog,” Lia said. “We believe this is the same dog that went missing at Mount Airy Forest a little over two weeks ago. She pulled a folded flyer out of her pocket and showed it to the woman.
The woman barely looked at the picture. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve had Xena all her life.” Her eyes went flat. Her chin lifted in defiance, belying Daisy’s frantic attempts to reunite with her friend. She yanked Daisy back inside and attempted to shut the door. Lia stuck her foot inside the jamb, wincing as the door banged into it.
“I don’t want this to get ugly,” she called through the cracked door, “but I’m certain this is Daisy. I can prove it at the SPCA. She’s been microchipped,” Lia bluffed, hoping it was true. “If we have to, we’ll file a complaint with the police. I’d hate to have to do that, because you found Daisy and took her in, and we’re grateful for that. But it’s time —”
“Is there a problem?” Lia twisted around to see a well muscled man behind her on the porch. “Honey,” he called to the woman, “why don’t we all go inside and discuss this like adults?”
The woman relinquished her hold on the door. Lia pulled her foot out and shook it.
“That’s better,” he said. “You ladies come in and we’ll figure this out.”
Relieved, Lia followed him into the painfully neat but shabby living room. Kate followed.
“Have a seat,” the man said, closing the door and flipping his hand at a nubby brown sofa.
Lia and Kate sat. The woman released Daisy, who scampered back to Kate. Kate began scratching her ears and cooing. Daisy lolled her tongue and closed her eyes, wallowing in canine bliss.
“I’m going to tie Xena out back while we discuss this.” He grabbed Daisy’s collar. Daisy stiffened her legs, digging in. Her nails scraped across the wood floor as he dragged her out of the room. Lia could hear the back door open and his muttered commands to the dog. The door shut, and Daisy began immediately hurling herself against it. The rhythmic thuds were punctuated with howls.
The women waited silently for the man to come back, observing each other. Lia surveyed the living room. A large, boxy TV sat on top of a composite board media center. Apart from the sofa, there were three dinette chairs with torn vinyl upholstery mended with duct tape. An upside down milk crate served as a side table between two of the chairs.
There was something red hanging on the back of the woman’s chair that drew Lia’s attention. She’d seen that particular shade of stop-sign red before. She felt a vague sense of unease. Something about the red thing. It was a smock, like clerks wear in some stores. It slammed into her brain: this woman worked for Dollar Hut.
“Look,” she said, standing up, “Why don’t we talk about this some other day. Kate and I are running late.”
“Sit back down.” Pivoting at this command, Lia discovered a gun pointed at her chest. Speechless, she watched as the man turned to the woman. “Carleen, I told you this would never work, but you had to keep the damn dog, didn’t you? ‘The kids love her,’ you said.” His face twisted as he said this.
“Billy, I’m sorry—”
“First you whine until I get another phone because I can’t talk to you from my number, somebody might see it on your records. Look what good that did! Nearly got me going down for murder. Now it’s the damn dog. They know you got the dog, Carleen. They’re going to think it’s awfully funny that you had George’s dog all this time. When are you going to listen, you stupid bitch?”
Carleen cowed.
“Carleen?” Kate said. “George’s assistant manager Carleen?”
“You know her and you didn’t say anything?” Lia asked, incredulous.
“George told me about her. I never saw her up close. And she had blond hair.”
“How’s your grand plan now?” Billy sneered at Carleen. “All this trouble over your pansy-assed boss.” He turned to the women on the sofa. “Do you know what this bitch did? She gets jealous because the boss she thinks is someday going to wake up and run away with her is now fooling around with some fat broad from out of town. She thinks if she gets rid of the competition, meaning you—” He pointed the gun at Kate and snorted. “–she’ll get to have him all to herself.”
“This is all your fault, Billy!” Carleen wailed. “If you hadn’t told me how you’d seen them fooling around in the woods from that stupid tree house of yours, this never would have happened. But you had to call me up, laughing about it. You couldn’t keep it to yourself, could you? You had to tell me all about it.”
Billy snorted. “So what does she do? She breaks into my house and steals my crossbow and decides she’s going to fire a few bolts at you—” He waved the gun at Kate again. “–to scare you off, like you were in the line of fire of some deer hunter. Only the day she goes out there, you’re not there.
“So when her pansy-assed boss sees something up in the trees and decides to find out what it is, she goes spastic and pulls the trigger by mistake. Wouldn’t you know, the bolt rips right through his neck and he bleeds out before she gets down from the tree.
“What I wouldn’t give to see that. A couple times shooting at targets in the back yard, and she thinks she’s the big hunter! “I shoot years. I never had such a perfect kill shot and she aces it by accident. There go all her fancy plans.”
“Then she drags that dog back with her and calls me. ‘Oh, Billy,’” he mimicked “‘I really screwed up, Billy. I want you back, but I need your help. Please, Billy, you gotta help me.’”
“So I take care of the body, I get rid of the car, I dump my own six hundred dollar crossbow, and what do I get? ‘We can’t be seen together Billy, not yet Billy, you have to call me on a different phone Billy.’” Billy continued his vicious falsetto. “All that and she has to keep the stupid dog.
“Carleen, did I ever tell you what a kick it was, watching those ‘yotes rip into your boss? I had the best seat in the house, up in that old blind. I sat up there and thought about all the trouble he caused while they pulled him apart. I wanted to take pictures for you, but that wouldn’t be smart.
“We’re doing this my way, now, Carleen. Get the electrical cords out of my truck, the long ones.” He tossed her his keys.
Fearful, Carleen scampered out the door. Lia kept her eyes downcast, submissive.
Keys. I have my keys. I’m not helpless. Thank you, Peter, for being such a good boyfriend. She stretched her shoulders, moved her hands casually down beside her hips.
“Hands back where I can see them.” Billy walked up to her, swinging the gun in her face.
Lia tracked the gun as it swung inches from her, carefully returning her hands to her lap. She looked at Kate sideways. Kate pleaded with eyes shining white all around, terror coming off her in waves.
Lia remembered that feeling. She’d had a gun to her head and she’d been shot once. It no longer petrified her. She was able to think, and that was the important thing. She had to pay attention, look for an opportunity. Right now there was nothing she could do. Best to continue acting compliant.
Carleen returned with a pair of orange, heavy-duty electrical cords. Each coil looked to be twenty or more feet long. Lia had one of these in her studio for running her power tools.
“Hands in front of you, and get in the chairs,” Billy said. The two women obeyed. He walked over and put the muzzle of the gun against Kate’s head. Lia’s stomach clenched as she imagined how Kate must feel at that moment.
“This is how it’s going to go,” Billy announced. “I keep this gun right here while Carleen ties you up.” He poked the side of Kate’s head with the barrel for emphasis. “The minute either of you tries anything, it goes off. Understand? Carleen, tie the skinny one’s hands to the back of that chair. Then tie her ankles to the legs. Make it tight.”
Unable to do anything else, Lia allowed Carleen to pull her hands behind her. She thought about the kubotan in her hip pocket. So close! Yet what good was it against a gun?
Carleen fussed over the slippery cord and the knots, irritating Billy, who yelled at her. Finally she was finished with Lia and went over to Kate. Lia hid her relief when Billy moved away from Kate to let Carleen tie her up. She had a feeling that he’d stick that gun right back into Kate’s head if he knew how much anxiety it caused her.
Billy walked over and pressed the muzzle into Lia’s temple. She froze up, her mind blanking out. Slowly, one breath at a time, she regained control of her thoughts, using an exercise she learned in therapy. Thank you, Asia. I can handle this.
When Carleen was finished, she turned to Billy with an apprehensive look.
Billy pulled the third chair in front of his prisoners, reversed and straddled it. He draped one arm across the back of the chair and scratched his head with the muzzle of the gun.
“This is fucked up . . . Gotta do this right. First thing, the dog has to go. I’m taking it down to the pound. They’ll get their damn dog back and nobody will have any reason to come looking for us. You’re going to watch these two. Keep the gun on them.” He handed the weapon to Carleen. “Where’s the collar that mutt came with?”
“It’s in the junk drawer in the kitchen, Billy.”
Lia could hear him rooting around then banging the drawer shut. He walked back in. “Give me my keys. I’ll be back in half an hour, tops. Think you can keep them under control that long?”
“Yes, Billy.”
“You’d better, if you know what’s good for you.”
Billy slammed the back door on the way out. The three women waited. Lia heard the starter of a truck crank, grind, crank again, then catch. The truck pulled out and the tension in the room slipped several notches.
“Carleen,” Lia broke the silence. “You’ve got to untie us!”
“I don’t have to do any such thing. I let you go, he’ll kill me.”
“It was an accident when you killed George. That’s manslaughter. You won’t serve five years. You know he’s not going to release us. That makes you an accessory to murder. You could get life for that. This is way out of control, you’ve got to see that.”
Carleen turned flat, mud-brown eyes on Lia. “All I have to see is what will happen if you’re not here when he gets back. You hear what he said about George? He’ll do that to me if you’re gone, only he won’t bother to kill me first.”
“You can tell him something,” Lia improvised. “Tell him someone came after us and forced their way in . . . You can leave with us . . . You don’t have to stay here with him.”
“And what am I going to do about my kids, huh? You think it’s easy, raising two kids with no one to help? George used to give me money sometimes, but now he’s dead. Billy’s all I’ve got. ‘Sides, he ain’t gonna forget I asked him to take care of George’s body for me. You think anything you say is gonna make a difference?”
While Carleen ranted, Lia twisted her left hand, stretching, attempting to reach two fingers into her pocket. So close! She brushed against the tips of her keys. She slid a key between her index and middle finger and carefully began to work it upward.
“What are you doing? Why are you twisting around like that?” Carleen walked over behind Lia, grabbed the keys and yanked them out of Lia’s pocket. She shook them in Lia’s face. “What did you think you were going to do with this, use the keys to cut the cord?” She snorted and dropped the kubotan on the milk crate, then sat down backwards on the third chair, holding the gun steady on the chair back.
Lia glanced over at Kate. There was an intent expression on Kate’s face, a subtle shift to her shoulders. Is Kate untying herself? She scrambled for some way to distract Carleen, give Kate time. How much longer would Billy take? The SPCA was barely a mile away.
“What are you and Billy going to do after we go missing? People know where we are. It’s not going to work, Carleen.”
“Billy will think of something. They haven’t found the car and they won’t find you, either. They won’t be able to prove anything.”
Lia shifted in her seat. “You keep telling yourself that.” Just keep talking.
“Why are you squirming like that?” Carleen stood up from her chair and walked back over to Lia, checking her knots.
“You try being tied up in one of these chairs.” She shifted again. And she prayed.
Hands freed, Kate launched herself at Carleen’s back. Carleen shrieked and the two women fell over. Kate’s ankles were still tied to the chair and it banged against Kate’s legs then twisted and slipped over to the side, dragging her legs with it. Carleen flipped over, flailing her free arm as she kept the gun out of Kate’s reach. Kate grunted as Carleen shoved a hand in her face, pushing her away. Kate dug her short fingernails into Carleen’s arm. Kate had longer arms, but she was still hampered by the chair and Carleen had wiry strength from her years lifting boxes of stock at the store.
Frantic, Lia looked for a way to help. She could work at her bonds, but she didn’t have time to undo them. She had to act fast. If Carleen rolled close enough, maybe she could lean back and drop a chair leg onto Carleen. That would hurt.
Carleen held the gun back over her head with one hand, and pulled Kate’s hair with the other, trying to get Kate to let go of her wrist. Lia rocked her chair to the side and dumped herself on top of Carleen’s exposed hip. Carleen lost her grip and the gun skittered across the floor. Kate clawed for it, dragging the chair.
Her hand fell on a black workman’s boot.
Billy bent down, picked up the gun. “Looking for this?” He pointed the gun down at Kate’s face, out of reach of her hands. “The only reason I don’t shoot you right now is I don’t want blood all over the house. Get up Carleen.”
Lia thumped down on the floor sideways as Carleen worked her way out from under her. The small woman stood up painfully. Her face was bleeding where Kate scratched it. She rubbed the hip Lia fell on and looked fearfully at Billy.
“I leave you for ten minutes and you can’t even control a couple of tied-up women with a gun in your hand. I oughta smack you good, Carleen.”
“Sorry Billy. I didn’t realize—”
“Shut up, Carleen! I gotta think . . . . Tie her back up,” he said, nodding at Kate. “Get her loose from that chair and tie her hands behind her back. We’re going for a walk . . . . You, Girlie,” he said to Lia. “We’re going to untie you. You make one wrong move and your friend is dead, blood or no blood.”
“Where are we going, Billy? Somebody will see us.”
“We’re going out the back way, through the woods. Nobody will see us this time of day. I left my tire iron out back. We can use that on them. I don’t want to use the gun if I don’t have to. Get the duct tape. Can’t have them screaming. We’ll either dump them in the woods or break into the back of that foreclosure on Chambers.”
Carleen finished tying Kate’s hands and went for the tape. She came back with the tape and a pair of scissors, cut a strip of tape off, then applied it to Kate’s trembling mouth.
“Okay, now pull the electrical cord down from her hands and tie it around one ankle,” Billy instructed.
Carleen complied.
“Leave about a foot and tie it around the other ankle . . . run the rest of the cord up through her hands and give it to me . . . get the other one. Put the tape over her mouth first. Billy turned toward Lia to supervise. Billy had unconsciously dropped the nose of the gun while he was directing Carleen. It was no longer pointing at Kate, but down, toward the floor.
Carleen knelt down, wrestling with a strip of duct tape. Lia felt Carleen’s hot breath on her face as she laid one end of the sticky tape on Lia’s cheek and stretched it across Lia’s mouth. While Carleen was blocking her from Billy’s view, Lia slipped one loose hand behind her, grabbed the kubotan off the milk crate.
Lia flipped the safety off the kubotan and swung it over Carleen’s shoulder, pointing the bottom end at Billy.
Sorry, Kate.
She depressed keyring swivel, releasing a cloud of pepper spray across the room.
Billy and Kate screamed while Lia rammed the end of the kubotan into Carleen’s temple. Billy dropped the gun and fell, clutching his eyes. Carleen yanked Lia’s hair, drawing tears. Lia struck Carleen again with the kubotan, hitting a pressure-point in her shoulder.
Kitty rolled on the floor, sightless, groping for the gun through a haze of pain. She felt the barrel between her tied hands and snatched it toward her, fumbling, scrabbling to get a firing grip on the weapon while Billy howled. She pointed blindly in the direction of his screams and pulled the trigger. The gun roared in her ear and the recoil send her arms flying up over her head. She ignored the ringing in her ears as she lowered the weapon and fired again.
Stunned, Lia and Carleen stopped their grappling to see the red stain spreading on Billy’s shirt. Carleen pulled away from Lia and ran to him. She pawed through the pooling blood on his clothing, looking for the wound in his side as more blood streamed over her fingers. Kate fired again, this time hitting the sofa. Lia freed her other hand and began dragging herself and the chair across the floor to help Kate.
The front door blew open as a trio of officers poured in with guns drawn, Peter and Brent two steps behind them. The officers quickly assessed the circumstances. Brent relieved Kate of the gun while the others surrounded Carleen and Billy. An ambulance siren sounded in the distance.
Peter stood over Lia, taking in the strip of duct tape dangling from her face and the tangle of her legs, the chair and electrical cord. He stooped down to untie her. “You okay, Babe?”
“Babe,” she muttered, “is a pig.”