Antiques Knock-Off (20 page)

“I … I guess I’m being silly.”

Of course, later, the real danger would be Mother, kicking me in the shins for not getting out of Tony who he was close to arresting. But at the moment, I was fine not knowing. All I wanted was to sit there with Tony and feel safe.

Darkness had enveloped the cabin. Tony got up from the couch, and turned on a nearby table lamp, throwing a halo of soft light upon our area of the room. He was bending to pet Rocky when the lightbulb popped, running out of its juice, throwing us once again into darkness.

At least, that’s what I
thought
had happened.

Tony grabbed me roughly—
didn’t he know I was preggers!
—pulling me to the floor in front of the couch, covering me with his body, as all around us came the sound of
snick! snick! snick!
and the shattering of glass and the splintering of wood.

“Keep down,” he said urgently in my ear.

Only then did I understand that we were under attack.

The
snicks
were gunfire, silenced gunfire that was no less deadly for its understatement.

Rocky, suddenly alert, fur standing up on his back, poised to growl or attack or maybe even flee, seemed to look intently at his master for which of those to do.

“Gun!”
Tony commanded.
“Fetch!”

The mutt flattened himself to the floor, and began to crawl away from us, like a boot-camp soldier slithering through mud. Under other circumstances, it might have been cute; even in those circumstances, it was amazing to see.

From where I lay pinned by Tony, I couldn’t see what the dog did next, but after a long while, maybe a whole thirty seconds—the room falling deathly silent after the attack—Rocky crawled back with Tony’s gun clamped in his jaws like a big metallic bone.

Apparently, Rocky was not just a lazy, lovable dog free with his slobbery kisses, but highly trained!

“They’ll be coming soon,” Tony whispered, “to see if we’re alive.”

They?

Then more than one suspect in the Connie Grimes murder investigation was worried about an imminent arrest! Maybe it was time to tell the chief that Mother and I
were
sticking our noses into his investigation….

Tony reached for the throw rug in front of the fireplace, and when he lifted the rug—to my astonishment—along came the lid of a trapdoor it was attached to.

“We’re going down,” Tony whispered. He’d grabbed a flashlight from somewhere. “Perfectly safe. Don’t be afraid. Feel for the ladder….”

With his help I eased myself into the yawning hole, finding
my footing on first one rung, and then the next, finally reaching solid ground. I moved over as Rocky came next, in one big leap, landing safely with a thud, and just the tiniest growl/groan.

Tough critter.

As Tony paused in his descent, I heard a metallic click of a lock on the lid.

Then we stood in total darkness, but for only a moment, until Tony switched on the flashlight, and I could take in our surroundings. We were in a dirt hole about seven feet deep; a low tunnel led off into more darkness.

I whispered, “Here I thought
I
was paranoid.”

Of course when bad guys are shooting silenced slugs at you, it technically isn’t paranoia anymore.

His whisper was barely audible. “We don’t have much time before that trapdoor is discovered.” He grabbed my hand, and gestured to the tunnel with the flashlight, its beam light-sabering around. “You’ll have to duck….”

With Rocky in the lead, as if he’d performed this drill a hundred times
(had he?),
we crouched, moving along the narrow tunnel, the flashlight showing the way.

“Where does this go?” I whispered back.

“To my barn. Dates back to Prohibition days. From there we’ll have to cut through the woods. Think you’re up to it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really.”

“When this is over?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s have a little talk about me being safe as long as I’m with you.”

“Fair comment.”

In another few minutes we exited the tunnel to a duplicate hole where another ladder awaited our escape.

He took me by an arm and whispered into my ear, “If
they’ve anticipated this, and I can’t do anything about it, I’ll do my best to drop the gun back down to you.”

What, before he died?

“Tony … I’m scared … I’m really
scared.”

“You have a right to be. If something happens to me, you’ll have the gun, and you just stay down here and make them come to you. You ever shot a gun?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Tony went up the ladder, slowly, quietly, not making a creak. I was probably making more noise than that, just trembling in my clothes. Finally, he opened the exit trap door, popped up for a look around, and …

… nothing.

No gunfire, no Tony dying, no gun dropping down for me to make an Alamo standoff in the dark with a mourning hound.

Which was nice.

Tony reached down for my hand.

I gave it to him, but whispered, “What about Rocky?”

No matter how well-trained, surely the mutt couldn’t jump
up
a ladder.

But I needn’t have worried about Rocky—he was right behind me, climbing the ladder like a circus dog. I grinned in spite of the danger.

Then all three of us were crouching on hay-carpeted ground. Just exactly where in the barn I couldn’t say, as Tony had switched off the flashlight.

He whispered for me to stay put, then crept to a window to look out. In a moment he was back.

“Let’s go,” he said softly, and pulled me along in the darkness. I prayed that I wouldn’t trip over a metal pitchfork or step on a loose board or otherwise do anything that might give us away.

Then, fast as a jump cut in a movie, we were safely out
a barn back door, running in the woods. Rocky led the way with the aid of an almost full moon that was giving the surreal world an ivory wash. Several times I stumbled on a rock, or tree root, but Tony was right there to catch me, then pull me on. At some point my adrenaline kicked in, and I pulled away from Tony and sprinted like I wasn’t pregnant, wasn’t even
fat,
not knowing where we were going, just following Rocky’s switching tail.

Once, Tony came up alongside me and whispered that we could stop for a rest, but I declined, and we resumed our escape deeper into the forest, the terrain becoming hillier, ivory-touched bluffs visible in the distance.

At last, just when I thought my side might split, Rocky stopped on a dime, up ahead by a grouping of large boulders, then turned with sublime canine patience to wait for the humans to catch up.

“Where
are
we?” I asked, out of breath, feeling safe enough not to whisper now. “Wild Cat Den?”

The terrain looked similar to the state park where I had so often taken Sushi hiking.

Tony, seeming not winded in the least, answered, “Close to it—that part of the countryside, anyway. Look—you can hide here while I go for help.”

“But I’m all right,” I protested.

The immediate response to that came not from Tony but from my side, where a sharp pain disagreed.

“No,” he said firmly. “I can move faster without you. Rocky will stay. I can leave the gun with you.”

I was about to ask, “Stay
where?”
when Tony pulled back brush from in front of one of the boulders, revealing the entrance to a cave. Apparently he hadn’t taken Rocky and me off running willy-nilly through the night; rather, he’d had a destination in mind.

I guess this was better than me hiding in a hole in the
ground. The whole purpose of this exercise was to avoid winding up in a hole in the ground.

The mouth to the cave was more like a slit in the rock’s wall, but still wide enough for a burly chief of police and even a pregnant lady to slip through. Unlike most of the local limestone caves I’d been in—which were too small to stand up in—this was larger, and bigger. I wondered if Tony had altered it, as part of an escape route.

He was saying, “You should be comfortable in here until I get back. You’ll have the gun, and I’ll give you the flashlight, too—but don’t use the flash until I cover the entrance again.”

He had taken my arm, depositing me on the ground against the stone wall. “You say you know how to use a gun?”

I nodded numbly.

“The safety is off, and there’s one in the chamber, so be careful. Don’t shoot any cute toes off.”

“Tony?”

He was crouching before me. “Yes?”

“You didn’t plan this escape route in case some suspect in a Serenity murder investigation came looking for you … did you?”

“No.”

“These people shooting at us? They didn’t kill Connie, did they?”

“No.”

“They’re professionals.”

“Yes.”

“From your past.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, Brandy. I didn’t mean to involve you. I didn’t think they’d find me out in the sticks.”

With hicks like Mother and me.

“This is … mob stuff?”

He nodded again. “New Jersey. People I testified against.”

So Mother’s fabrication about Tony’s past was no fabrication at all! What if she had somehow, unwittingly led them to him? She had a kick in the keister coming, just on principle.

A stabbing pain in my stomach hit me like I was the one who’d been kicked.

Tony grabbed my arms. “What is it?”

A lightning bolt racked my body. “I … I think I’m … sorry to say … this … don’t be … mad …”

“What?”

“I think I’m …”

“Not going into
labor?”

“Got it in one.” I was breathing hard. “You are good.”

Tony got to his feet. “I’ll be back as fast as I can with paramedics. Rocky, stay!”

At least he didn’t say,
Rocky—boil some water!
I don’t think I could handle a dog that well trained.

As for me, I wanted to scream, “Don’t leave!”

But I knew that it was imperative to get me to the hospital as soon as possible—if the baby was to survive.

So I said,
“Go!
I’ll be fine. Just the first contractions. But please do
hurry.
”

But he was already gone.

With the mouth of the cave covered again, I switched on the flashlight for company.

Rocky—commando canine—stood guard next to me, eyes alert, sensing that I was in trouble.

I had to stay calm.

Breathe deeply … that’s right, through the contraction. Get your mind off the pain. Think of something else….

“Aunt Brandy? Where was I born?”

“In a cave, dear, while mob assassins combed the forest trying to kill us. I had a gun at my side, and for a midwife, there was a Little Rascals dog that could climb ladders.”

A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip

If you find you’ve bought a knock-off, and there’s no recourse for getting your money back, well, then … try living with it. Many reproductions are well made. And you won’t feel so bad when you do break it. But if you ever do sell it—don’t try to pass it off as the real thing just because
you
got taken. The only thing worse than a fake antique is a genuine liar.

I
won’t go into details about my rescue—how I managed not to give birth before the paramedics arrived, how they had trouble getting me through the narrow entrance of the cave, a sort of birth of its own, and the agonizingly long trip carried on a stretcher over rough terrain, to a waiting ambulance, and then on to Serenity General Hospital.

That’s all you get. Living through an ordeal like that once is enough.

I will tell you that I’d barely made it into the ER when the baby arrived—a girl—alive and with all the necessary fingers and toes, to be shuttled off to an incubator, where the little thing began her fight for life.

I was in no danger whatsoever, unless mob hitmen or murder suspects tracked me down, safely tucked as I was into a hospital bed, with Tina and Kevin at my side, joyous at the arrival of their baby and doing a commendable job of not being angry with me for endangering her.

A good thing, too, because I was too weak to put up a defense, as if I had one. I tried not to face the possibility that if the child didn’t make it, my friendship with Tina would almost certainly flatline, too.

I felt fairly druggy, and I may have asked it already, but my first memory was asking Tina, “What do the doctors say?”

“Touch and go,” Tina admitted, then put on a brave smile and said, “but she’s a fighter.”

Kevin reached for my hand and squeezed it, firm yet gentle. “We don’t want you blaming yourself, Brandy. You could hardly have anticipated this.”

I wasn’t sure how much they knew, and wasn’t sure I should fill them in—Tony being pursued by mob assassins was his business, not mine. Of course, getting chased down an underground tunnel and hiding in a barn and running through the woods and holing up in a cave did sort of make it my business.

But I could only do so much thinking. What I
could
do was feel the tears running down my cheeks.

No, I couldn’t have anticipated what happened out at Tony’s cabin, but I could have stayed at home and kept a low profile for nine months. Not go on with my selfish life as if it was no big deal a baby was cooking inside me. I tend to cut myself a lot of slack, but if that child didn’t make it, I would never forgive myself.

Never.

Somehow it didn’t help to hear Tina say graciously, “We knew the risks.” She managed a dry laugh. “You don’t exactly lead a normal life, do you?”

Kevin added, “But you were our only hope of having a baby together, Brandy, and if
—when
—she’s strong enough to come home with us … we’ll be forever grateful to you.”

He was so incredibly sweet to let me off the hook that I started bawling. This did not help, because Tina and Kevin sat there looking at each other uncomfortably. Was there any moment I couldn’t ruin? Where did I get this capacity for doing just the wrong thing?

Mother sailed into the room.

And I remembered where.

“I’ve just come from my prayer group,” she announced with self-importance, “and we dedicated a
whole
half hour to the little baby.” She looked at my guests. “By the way, what have you decided to call her?”