Disappearing Nine Patch (A Harriet Truman/Loose Threads Mystery Book 9) (35 page)

Harriet grabbed the spotlight from where she dropped it and shone it on him. A nasty-looking knife was embedded in his right arm. Judging by the flow of blood oozing from around his hand in spite of the pressure he was applying, if he let go of his arm to pick up the gun, he could bleed to death.

“Don’t just stand there, call me an ambulance. And give me a belt or something.”

Lauren stepped back to the spot where they had first stopped and felt around on the ground for her phone. When she found it, she dialed 911.

“We need an ambulance, and police and probably a firetruck, too. We’re in the green space behind Fogg Meadows and the park.”

Max was standing a few feet away. He waited until the faint sound of sirens was audible and then backed slowly away and faded into the woods.

Harriet crouched down next to Stewart.

“What’s a nice poet like you doing with a bunch of captive women and a chained-up chef?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“You’re right, but I’m probably your last chance to tell your story to someone who cares even remotely about your side of things.”

Stewart started crying.

“All I ever wanted to be was a poet. I wrote my first poem when I was seven years old. You know what my parents did?”

He looked at Harriet. She shook her head.

“My mother laughed. She laughed, and my dad beat me. When I went to school the next day, my teacher reported my parents to Children’s Services, and I got put in foster care. Sandra had lost Amber a couple of years before and had applied to be a foster parent. She didn’t laugh at my poems.”

Harriet looked over her shoulder at the approaching flashing lights and then turned back to Stewart.

“They’re going to be here in a minute or less, and being Sandra Price’s foster child doesn’t explain why you’re holding four people hostage in a hole in the ground.”

“I’m trying to tell you…”

Harriet glanced at Lauren, who was yanking on a handle she’d pried up from the trapdoor.

“I’m not holding anyone hostage—Sandra is. Or the people she works for. She’s just a step in the process.”

Lauren stopped pulling on the door.

“Whoa!” she said in a stage whisper. “Talk about a big reveal.”

Stewart was crying in earnest.

“Sandra was involved in this business before I even went to live with her. All I did was feed and water them sometimes.”

Lauren came and stood over him.

“I’m no lawyer, but maybe you can turn state’s evidence or something.”

Stewart tipped his head to his shoulder and attempted to wipe his tears.

“Do you really think they’ll let me do that?”

Lauren shrugged.

“Like I said, I’m not a lawyer, but if I were you, I’d hire the best one you can afford and don’t say another word until you do.”

“Lauren!” Harriet shouted. “Why are you helping him?”

“I believe him. He’s not a criminal mastermind. He’s a poet.”

“He tried to shoot us.”

Stewart looked up embarrassed.

“It wasn’t loaded.”

“We didn’t know that,” Harriet yelled at him.

A fireman and two paramedics stormed up with multiple boxes of equipment. Two more people arrived carrying an aluminum tubing basket that replaced the usual gurney when a victim was injured away from a passable roadway.

Detective Morse then joined the group, accompanied by two uniformed officers carrying crowbars.

Harriet bent down and pulled on the door, but it didn’t budge.

“Stand back,” Morse told her.

The two officers wedged their tools on either side of the hatch cover and pried it open. They set their tools down and drew their guns before climbing down into the hole.

“James!” Harriet yelled.

“Down here,” a disembodied voice said from underground.

Less than a minute later, James climbed up the ladder and out into the field. He rushed to Harriet and wrapped his arms around her.

“Hey, I’m fine,” he said softly as she held him and cried.

“I was so worried,” she said into his shoulder.

“I was worried, too,” Lauren said in a dry tone.

Three of the paramedics carried Stewart away on the portable gurney, and the fourth one stepped over to James and handed him a bottle of water.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked.

“Someone whacked me in the head with something.”

The EMT looked at the back of his head.

“You’ve got a nasty lump back there. I’m afraid concussion protocol says we’ve got to take you to the hospital and check you out.”

“I need to check the restaurant. I’ll sign a release or something.”

James continued to plead, but the man had already spoken to the guys in the ambulance, and the fireman was returning already with another carry basket. They loaded James onto the portable stretcher and hauled him away.

“I’ll come find you at the hospital,” Harriet called after them.

“That’ll be after you and this one…” Morse pointed at Lauren. “…do some explaining down at the station.”

The uniformed officers led three bedraggled women from the underground bunker. More uniformed officers arrived, followed by two four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles.

Morse walked Lauren and Harriet to her unmarked car and when everyone was in, headed for the station. The third time Harriet complained about not being able to go to James, Morse turned on the lights and sirens.

Lauren burst through the door of Harriet’s studio, dropped her messenger bag then bent to pull a bottle of champagne from its interior. She joined the group standing around the brand-new long-arm quilting machine that had just been delivered and set up.

“Am I late?” She held up the bottle. “I wasn’t sure if this was like a ship christening or not, so I brought a bottle to break on its…whatever the long-arm equivalent of a ship’s bow is.”

Harriet looked at her.

“You’re not breaking that on any part of this machine. I haven’t decided if I’m keeping it or not.”

Aunt Beth’s face turned red.

“What? Of course you’ll keep it. You’re being childish. This is a much better machine than the one that was damaged. The fact that your parents had a hand in it being here doesn’t change that fact.”

“They wouldn’t even have known I needed a machine if you hadn’t told them,” Harriet countered.

“That’s where you’re wrong.
They
called
me
. You may not talk to them very often—and that
is
as much them as it is you—but they do care about you, and they keep track of you much more than you believe. They called me when they found out something had happened here, and asked what they could do. Their first instinct was to write you a check, but I told them they needed to put a little more effort into it. To their credit, buying you a top-of-the-line quilting machine was their idea.”

“You’d be foolish to return such a nice machine just because you have unresolved issues with your parents,” Connie told her.

The Loose Threads were standing around the machine, all eyes on Harriet.

“Okay, fine. It can stay.”

The group collectively let out its breath.

The outside studio door opened again, this time letting James in. He carried a foil-wrapped pan.

“Anyone hungry?”

Harriet went over to him.

“I thought you were supposed to be resting this week.”

“I’ve passed all my concussion milestones so far so they let me resume a little of my normal activity. They said no restaurant yet—I’m still banned from doing anything that requires too much thinking or too much energy. Lucky for you, I can make brownies in my sleep.”

“Let’s put on the tea kettle and coffeepot,” Mavis said and led the way to the kitchen.

Jenny wiped her mouth and set her napkin beside her tea mug on Harriet’s dining room table.

“Those brownies were incredible.”

Mavis sipped her tea.

“I’m glad James is still around to bake them.”

“James is glad, too,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I would be for a while there.”

A tap sounded on the studio door, and shortly thereafter, Detective Morse entered the dining room. Harriet stood up and went into the kitchen to get another plate and mug.

“I’m glad you could make it.” she said.

Mavis stood up and picked up the coffee carafe with a questioning expression. Morse nodded, and Mavis filled her mug.

“I’m sure you all would like some answers. I can’t tell you everything, and in fact, since the FBI took over, I’m not sure I even know everything that’s happened.”

Harriet sat back down.

“I’m still in shock about Sandra Price.”

Morse set her cup down after taking a long drink of coffee.

“Everyone’s in shock about that. The FBI and pretty much all the local jurisdictions up and down the I-Five corridor have known for a long time that the freeway was a major human trafficking route. It goes from Mexico to Canada, with major ports all along the way. They also know that it takes a lot of support to move that many people. There are lots of regional and national task forces working on breaking it.

“The existence of the trafficking is no surprise. It’s the idea that a middle-class mother living in a nice, small-town neighborhood is a major link in the chain that’s got everyone rethinking what they’re doing.”

Mavis leaned forward in her chair.

“How long do they think this has been going on?”

“No one knows for sure,” Morse answered her. “From records they found in an office in the underground bunker, it’s been decades.”

Harriet thought for a moment.

“So, is Amber’s disappearance related to this?”

“That seems likely, now. The investigation into her disappearance has been reopened. The working theory is that Amber and Molly stumbled on to the bunker. Maybe they followed Sandra, or maybe they just were playing and found it. If the hatch was open, they probably climbed down the ladder and surprised either Sandra or one of her employees.

“As you’ve probably guessed, Molly got free and climbed out through the vent. Amber wasn’t so lucky and was either killed or sent off to who knows where to become part of the trade. I’m sure they kept an eye on Molly, and when it turned out she didn’t remember what had happened to her, they forgot about her…or tried to.”

Robin tapped her pen on the table. She wasn’t taking notes this time, but the pen had found its way to her hand anyway.

“It must have really bothered them when Molly grew up and came back to town trying to figure out what had happened.”

“Before her attorney arrived, Sandra was in a holding cell, and she had a little fit. She was ranting and raving and apparently unaware that everything said in those cells is recorded. She was mad at herself for going so easy on ‘those idiotic quilters and their amateur detecting.’ She outlined in great detail what she
should
have done to Beth’s car—which, by the way, she thought was Harriet’s. And she cursed her inept minions over the fact that they didn’t trash your place worse or even burn it to the ground.”

“That snake,” Aunt Beth hissed.

“Will she ever get out of jail?” Harriet asked.

“No. It’s clear from her meticulous record-keeping she was a major player. The poet might be able to strike a deal—he grew up the foster child of traffickers, and as near as they can tell so far, he made some effort to distance himself from them.” Morse looked down, studying a coffee spill on the tablecloth.

“It’s hard to tell how they’ll treat him. After he reached adulthood, he could have left, but if he has a good lawyer, they could bring in psychologists to argue how much damage was done to him, and they’ll undoubtedly argue Stockholm syndrome.”

“Do they know who killed Molly?” Harriet asked.

“I don’t think that’s sorted out yet. It probably wasn’t Sandra herself. They’ve arrested at least half a dozen of her associates, and it could have been any of them. One will eventually take a deal and turn on the rest. The first one to talk gets the best deal, and they all know that.”

Beth stood up and stretched her healing arm.

“I’m just glad it’s all over. Things could have been worse.”

James had been quietly listening to Morse’s information.

“I’m glad it’s over, too. I’ll be happier when they let me back in the restaurant, but in the meantime, I have a surprise that I think will put a smile on all your faces. Harriet, will you help me?”

“I’ve got to see this,” Lauren said. “It will take a lot to top those brownies.”

James led Harriet out of the dining room, through the kitchen and studio and out the door.

“Are we running away?” she asked him.

“No, but it’s a good idea.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly. “I really do have a surprise.” He led her to his van. “Open the door and pull out that cooler.”

She did as told and set the cooler on the ground.

“Okay, don’t say anything in case anyone can hear us, but look inside.”

Harriet again did as instructed. She found a large white laundry bag, opened the drawstring and looked inside.

“Oh, my gosh. Where did you get this?”

“One of my mom’s friends was volunteering at Goodwill, and it came in from a donation box. She checked to be sure it was a documented donation, then talked to the manager. Under the circumstances, they were able to work out a deal.”