Hours or days later, something was banging, loudly, overhead. The noise reverberated through the wine cellar, and I thought my head would split open. I’d heard of sound waves killing dolphins; is that what was happening?
“Hey!” I yelled, or at least tried to. It came out as a barely audible whisper. I coughed and tried again. “Hey, down here!” After one final bang, the noise stopped. A large square of light appeared above my head.
“She’s down here!” I squinted against the light and heard an excited babble of voices.
“Jesus Christ!” That sounded like Ben.
“Ben?” I croaked. I couldn’t see anything except the light.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you.”
I leaned into him. He smelled like Ben. “Be careful. He’ll be back,” I whispered. “He’s insane.”
“Theophania, my dear. Hold still.”
“Grandfather?”
I could feel something being done to the bubble wrap locking me to the chair at the back, and then I felt it loosen and I fell forward into Ben’s arms. He pulled me free of the chair and, when my legs wouldn’t support me, bent down to pick me up instead. He carried me up into the garage, where he laid me down on the floor next to a sledgehammer and the battered remains of the trapdoor. It felt blissful to stretch out after hours of being cramped rigid on that bloody chair. The garage door was open, the air smelled fresh, and since the sky was faintly gray in the east, the night had passed and a new day was upon us.
“We’ve got medics coming,” Ben said to me.
I nodded. “Okay,” I whispered and struggled to sit up. “I’m really glad to see you. Will you help me to stand up?” I put my arms around his neck and let him pull me to my feet.
“Okay?” he said before he relaxed his hold, and I nodded. My mind felt weird and everything hurt, but I felt better standing, even on trembling legs. I couldn’t talk above a whisper.
And then, with no warning, came an outraged scream, “No! No! No! No!”, and Gavin reappeared, crashing into one of the people who’d created a protective phalanx around me. It wasn’t until he screamed again and flew through the air to land on his back, more or less at my feet, that I recognized Valentina and a classic jujitsu, over-the-shoulder throw. She knelt on his chest, but he wasn’t struggling. In fact, he was completely still, and I looked with some alarm at the growing blood pool on the ground around his head.
“Head wounds bleed,” Valentina said to me, coolly efficient, as she tied his hands together with—were those zip ties? Who carried zip ties around? And then I remembered why I shouldn’t be so surprised. She half-turned and zip-tied his ankles together, too. “He’ll probably be fine when he wakes up.”
“That was—very impressive,” I croaked. She shrugged.
From the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of another familiar face, and I turned to look. Jacob made me an odd little salute and a rubber-faced smile Grandfather was standing there, too, speaking on his phone, looking pale and resolute.
“How did you all find me?”
“Apparently, you’ve had a sort of honor guard keeping an eye on you, thanks to your grandfather’s friends,” Ben said.
I tottered over to Gavin, who was starting to come around, and kicked him, hard, in the ribs. It probably would have hurt him more if I hadn’t been barefoot. As it was I dislocated my baby toe, and an EMT had to put it back in place, but I didn’t care.
Valentina shrugged out of her jacket. I thought she meant to use it under Gavin’s head, and she was holding it out to me before I realized I was in my bra. Not a sports bra, either, but a frothy little confection of purple satin and lace. I refused to be embarrassed. I was part of a grand tradition of fierce women in underwear: Me, Wonder Woman, and Brandi Chastain.
“What’s goin’ on?” I heard Nat’s voice before he pushed his way through. “Have you found her? What are you doin’ out here in your scanties?” he added, catching sight of me and sounding slightly scandalized. He frowned. “Is it Mardi Gras?” Before I could answer, he looked down at Gavin, still flat-out and bleeding. I knew what was coming next. Nat’s eyes fluttered, and he went down like a house of cards, falling against Grandfather, who put out an arm to hold him up until he and Jacob eased him to the floor and propped him gently against the wall.
“He’s been frantic,” Ben said quietly to me, looking over at Grandfather and Nat. “Both of them,” he added.
I started to pull on the jacket, but the sleeve scraped painfully against the burns on my arm. I pulled it around my shoulders instead.
Ben had a supportive arm at my back. He nuzzled my ear. “Nice bra,” he whispered.
Gavin was taken to St. Francis by the EMTs, who arrived more or less at the same time as Inspector Lichlyter. I was afraid she wouldn’t take me seriously when I explained why he would need a heavy police guard—less for his own protection than for everyone else’s. I wasn’t sure exactly what was required to get someone called a serial killer, but I felt three murders (nearly four, if we counted the attempt on Janine’s life) and a kidnapping qualified him for special handling. Somewhat to my surprise, she agreed. She even said, as the EMTs were treating my burned arm, that I was probably in shock, and she could wait a day to interview me. She and Grandfather exchanged nods as she was leaving.
The guest room door burst open as Ben and I reached the top of my apartment stairs, and Davo thundered down the hallway and snatched me off my feet in a painful bear hug. “Jeez, Theo, where the hell were you? We had half the fuc—flaming neighborhood hunting for you. Your granddad told me to go to bed a couple of hours ago; I got exams today or I’d have kept looking. Damn, I’m glad you’re okay. You know you smell really weird, right? You should get a shower.”
He wasn’t wrong. Ben wrapped my bandaged arm in a plastic bag so I could stand under blissfully hot water and sluice off the last eighteen hours. We found a note from Nat written a few hours earlier, saying he’d walked and fed Lucy and I had better CALL ASAP!!!
Lucy woke up, stayed in the bathroom with me, and licked the water off my lower legs when I got out of the shower.
I was two steps into the bedroom, wrapped in a bathrobe and looking forward to falling face down on my bed, when Ben followed me in and said, “Okay, there’s good news and bad news.”
“Oh God, really?”
“Well, no. It’s the same news. I guess it depends how you look at it. Nat called. Everyone’s at The Coffee, and they all want to know how you’re doing, and Nat says if you go there now and let them see you, it will probably save you a hundred separate conversations later. Your call.”
I dropped my head against his chest. “I have to go, don’t I?”
“Afraid so.”
“You coming?”
“I won’t move from your side.”
“Okay, then.”
It was only when I got there and saw everyone making coffee and heating up croissants and taking up seats at the tables that I realized how many rescuers I had. They were all in the middle of a chatty debrief, moving from table to table and sharing bits of the story they might have missed, and I got the feeling that they were ready to do the search and rescue all over again.
I got a round of applause as we arrived, and while I was still laughing through my surprise and taking a bow, I saw Grandfather with Valentina and went over to them. Someone handed me a chocolate croissant.
Grandfather looked almost gray with weariness. “How are you feeling, my dear?”
“Surprisingly well,” I said, chewing happily on my croissant. “I probably have about twenty minutes before I fall asleep standing up, and until that happens”—I leaned over and put my arms around him—“thank you for taking such good care of me.”
He gave my back a few stiff little pats and then suddenly pulled me close into a real hug. Chairs at a nearby table magically emptied. He guided me into one of them and Valentina into another, before he and Ben took seats themselves.
“Sergei’s visit alarmed me, Theophania. At first I thought he had exposed you to danger from unknown sources, and I asked the members”—he hesitated—“my friends to keep watch to see if they saw any signs of interest in you. When Sergei was killed, and the threat was more localized, more personal, if you will, they were kind enough to continue their vigil.”
“Grandfather—it was you and Sergei at the Venus de Milo, right?” He pursed his lips and reluctantly nodded. “Do you know who he met in the pizza place across from the club?”
“At the time he said only that he was meeting the young relative of a friend to discuss—wine, I think.” He shook his head slightly. “I paid too little attention; I thought he was planning a trip to the wine country.” He snorted. “It seems fairly clear now that it was Melnik. I—”
“We are very sorry to have fallen down on the job at a critical juncture,” Valentina interrupted as he struggled. I liked her for it. “We saw you go into the coffee shop, but he took you out through the rear door. We thought you were in no danger in broad daylight. We didn’t plan for that eventuality.”
Jacob came over and took up the story, which had gathered a fascinated audience. “We thought he must have brought you to where we eventually found you. We searched through the building and even looked in the garage, but it seemed empty.”
Valentina added, “We didn’t see the special trapdoor. It was covered in boxes and the same color as the floor—ach.” She waved an irritable hand. “We should have noticed, but we did not.”
Jacob went on, “Then we searched the two empty buildings, because of course we knew he had made use of them before. Your friends Dr. and Mrs. Talbot helped us to search, and they were as tireless as one could hope.”
“Professor D’Allessio organized the Garden Gnomes—is that right? Garden Gnomes?” He looked around for confirmation, and two of the nearby Gnomes cheerfully waved mugs of coffee at him. “Yes, and they searched the gardens and the toolshed and small areas behind the buildings, and a lot of garages.”
“We were sure, you see, that you had to be somewhere close by, because he couldn’t have carried you very far without attracting notice.”
“And then Nathaniel insisted that we search everywhere again, and in particular he thought we should look for a wine cellar. When we came back to search again we were able to see that there was, indeed, a sort of trapdoor set flush into the floor. We had to get heavy tools to break our way in. And here you are!”
Father Martin showed up and, embarrassingly, led a prayer for my safe delivery. Then he told me that Matthew was awake and insisting that he had to leave the hospital before someone stole his stuff. “I’ve invited him to stay at the rectory for the time being; I can’t let him go back to that horrific squat.” I thought—but didn’t say—that Matthew would soon be able to buy a whole lot of better stuff. He was going to need a protector and some advisors, and I wondered what happened to an estate whose executor was very likely criminally insane. Matthew’s inheritance could be eroded completely by expensive legal fees. Evidently understanding some of the cause of my agitation, Ben squeezed my hand. “Huh,” as Davo would say. Matthew could be in luck; I knew a lawyer who might work pro bono.
Angela Lacerda, still wearing her lemon-colored socks, introduced me to “My fiancé, Jason.” He was incredibly good-looking in an old-fashioned, movie-star way, with dark hair, broad shoulders, a smile for everyone, and a rather doe-like expression. His arm was around her. She was wearing her engagement ring again. “Jason and I are setting up a new business.” She beamed at me as Jason smiled happily and squeezed her shoulder. “Lacerda Property Management.”
“You’ve got a great start,” I said.
“Angie’s a great businesswoman,” Jason said proudly. “Latte, Angie?” he said.
“Please hon, that would be great.” He set off toward the counter.
“OMG, he’s gorgeous,” I whispered to her
Her eyes went wide. “I know, right?” she whispered back. “Lucky I’m smart enough for us both.” And she snorted.
We both watched him go in a sort of trance. After a few seconds Ben cleared his throat. “His family is okay with—everything?” I asked her hurriedly.
She narrowed her eyes at me and flicked a glance at Ben. “Jason and I have no secrets now. We decided his family doesn’t need to know everything. And we’re moving up the wedding.” She said her goodbyes to Ben and me and followed Jason to the counter, where two girls from the neighborhood were flirting with him. He looked clueless, but she extracted him efficiently and ordered their coffee drinks in go-cups.
The impromptu party continued, but gradually people left, either to get some sleep or to get ready for work. Haruto spent an hour helping Nat behind the counter, and I could see another part-time job in the offing. Davo stopped by on his way to school and said, since I hadn’t left him a lunch, he needed a ten-dollar advance on his wages. He hugged me so hard I thought my bones would break.
No one left without giving me a hug or a kiss. Sabina and Kurt appeared. Sabina burst into tears and wouldn’t stop hugging me. Kurt mumbled something about being glad to see me safe and was eventually able to persuade Sabina that I could be safely left with Ben and my grandfather, and the two dozen other people still hanging around.
Grandfather, Valentina, and Jacob were chatting quietly—with Zane, I was astonished to see—and I assumed that the two strangers who joined them were fellow members of their exclusive little club. Zane, still wearing his skull necklace, broke off his conversation with them to raise a mug in my direction. I looked over to where Nat was making his umpteenth pot of coffee, and I gave him wide eyes and lifted eyebrows as I tipped my head in Zane’s direction. Nat winked at me, and I decided it was a conversation for another day. I went over to him. “Is that coffee fair trade, organic, and cruelty-free? And are these napkins a hundred percent post-consumer recycled, renewable—”
“Don’t joke,” he said, turning to face me with a teary laugh. “This has been the worst night of my life.” I went around the counter and walked into a hug.
“I hear it was your idea to look for a wine cellar.”
“Yeah, well, it was a dumb idea until it wasn’t.”
“You know you gave me one of my big clues to catch that miserable bastard, with how good you were at remembering everyone’s coffee orders?”
“I did? Too bad he caught you first.”
“Look, I made you a new logo.” I handed him a paper napkin on which I’d drawn a huge mosquito and printed GNAT’S JAVA HOUSE.
“Not gonna happen, English, and I told you dire consequences will ensue.”
“Can I tell Ben?”
“No!”
“I love you. Thanks for saving me. Again.”
“I love you, too. Is Ben gonna take you home now so I can get some peace and quiet?”
Ben came over, having left us to our moment, and wordlessly stuck out his hand. Nat shook it, and that was that. Men.
When Ben and I got home, we were, as the saying goes, alone at last, and while I eventually got to sleep, it wasn’t our first thought as we walked in the door. Later, I asked him sleepily when he had to leave.
“I’m taking some vacation time,” he said.
I opened one eye. “How long?”
“A month. I’m not letting you out of my sight. We can even go away if you want. Rome? London? Sonoma?”
“Not London.”
“I thought you might say that. Or we can stay here. We’ll have time to talk, time to get to know each other without the Army or work or random police investigations.”
“It sounds … wonderful.” It did sound wonderful. I snuggled deeper under our duvet and felt myself drifting to sleep, so I almost missed Ben getting the last word.
“We can talk about London, too.”