Sneaking Suspicions (The Tharon Trace Mysteries Book 1) (8 page)

CHAPTER 7

Tharon pressed her ear to the door again.  The muffled mewing of the kittens were the only sounds she could make out.  She gave up on the door with the guard plate and moved towards the open doorway to the right.  She whispered, “We can’t get this one open.  I saw a glass window to the right of the door, maybe we can crawl out through it.”

They huddled together to squeeze through the doorway into what was once a small office area.  Each room they entered seemed to assault their senses.  They shuffled their feet through mounds of what felt and smelled like soggy rotting paper and stubbed their shins against what felt like overturned metal file cabinets.  The room smelled of mold so strong it burned Tharon’s eyes.

Helm covered his mouth with his jacket and sneezed into it twice.  “Sorry, I’m allergic to mold,” he whispered.  He pulled his t-shirt collar up over his nose and mouth.

Tharon held still and listened for any sounds rushing towards them.  When she was satisfied no one was coming, she felt for the wall to the left of the door opening and found a counter-like ledge.  It was too high for her to climb on by herself.  “Can you guys give me a boost?  I think there’s a reception window above the counter.”

They each lifted her under the arms and behind the knees and heaved her up so fast she hit one knee on the edge of the counter.  She bit her lip to keep from crying at the numbing pain.

“Sorry,” the boys whispered in unison.

Tharon felt the glass sliding window.  The lock at the bottom was broken and she slid the glass open wider.  It wobbled and snagged several times but she jiggled it free until the opening was wide enough for her to slide through.  She felt for the top of the frame and hung on as she drew her feet onto the counter then lowered herself feet first out to the waiting room.

Helm came through next.  He landed with a grunt and a thud, but stood up quickly.  Kaid launched himself through the opening head first.  He tumbled onto Helm and Tharon and they all ended up in a heap on the floor.

Tharon was the first up and found the door.  She whispered, “I found the knob, Helm, can you hand me your knife?”  He pressed the knife into her palm and she opened the largest blade sliding it into the narrow gap between the frame and the door.  She moved the blade downward until she met the resistance of the lock and breathed a sigh of relief when the latch clicked and she pulled the door open.

Nearby the stench of body odor hung in the air and fear clenched at her chest.  Tharon held the knife behind her.  Her worst fears were realized when a flashlight beam bathed her in light.  She heard Marty’s chilling voice say, “Gotcha.  How’d you brats get loose?  Carl went soft on you, did he?  Well, we won’t need to worry about you boys anymore, not since I caught you trying to escape and had to cut your throats.”

The dim light from the lobby glinted on his sword-like knife.  She swallowed hard, convinced they were all about to die.  The words her father told her when she was eight echoed in her head:
Don’t let fear and danger rule your life. 
She was afraid, more afraid than she’d ever been, but decided she wasn’t going to let Marty see her fear.  There was no way she’d let them kill her friends and keep her alive.  Not without a fight.  She gripped the knife and stepped forward.

Marty chuckled. “So what will it be?  Ladies first?  Sorry girlie, but someone has other plans for you.  Which one of you boys wants to go first?”

Tharon gripped the knife with a firm determination to stay between Marty and her friends.  If they wanted her alive, then she was convinced she could shield the boys from harm.  A soft voice to her right whispered, “I love you, Tharon.”

Helm pulled her back and stepped in between her and Marty.

Marty’s lips curled into a gruesome snarl and raised his knife to strike Helm.  His arm made a sudden unnatural jerk backwards and behind his head.  His bones cracked loudly when they broke and the sound of his shoulder popping out of joint made her shudder.  His knife flew into the hallway behind him.

Carl’s body blocked the light from the lobby as he picked up Marty and hurled him into the wall across the hall.  He turned back to the children.

Kaid grabbed Tharon and Helm and pulled his friends past Carl.

Tharon stammered, “Carl, Marty was going to kill us.”  She didn’t know why she felt she was betraying the big man by trying to escape.  Kaid and Helm pulled her toward the lobby.

Helm scrambled to the boarded entry and found an opening large enough for them to fit through.  “I found the way out!” He pulled the blue plastic covering the opening back and the fading daylight flooded the lobby.

Carl’s eyes were soft and sad.  “It’s okay, Little Miss.  Run.  Head west.  Hurry before Burt gets here.  I’m sorry—,” his face contorted in a grimace.  He fell forward with Marty’s knife sticking from his back.

Marty crowed in agonized triumph. “You moron, too stupid to know you never turn your back on me.  Only took me one arm to bring you down, big man.”

Kaid dragged Tharon to the opening.  He went through first and had almost pulled her through when Marty grabbed the hem of her coat and pulled her halfway back into the lobby.

Marty’s face was twisted with pain and hatred.  His greedy fingers kneaded their way up her coat, inching her back into the lobby.

Kaid and Helm tugged on her shoulders.

She forgot the knife was still in her hand when she batted at Marty’s face, slicing him from below his eye all the way down to his jaw.  Blood gushed from the slash onto her hand, leg and shoe.

He screamed and, with only one good arm, was forced to let her go as he pulled the tail of his shirt up to his face.  “You little brat!  You’ll pay for this.  Someday, you’ll pay!  I’ll get you!  I’m gonna kill you if it’s the last thing I do!  I don’t care what they want with you!  I’m going to kill you!”

Kaid and Helm pulled her the rest of the way out of the opening.  She ran with them across the parking lot through the open gate and turned left toward a wooded area southwest of the building.  At the edge of the woods they came to a wire fence and followed it west.

Tharon realized she still clung to the sticky knife.  She wiped the blade on her jeans, closed it and shoved it in the pocket of her jacket.

In the neglected yard of a white frame house, a massive chained pit bull erupted into a frenzy of deep bellowing barks.  Saliva dripped from his teeth as he yanked against his chain and lunged at them.  They backed into the fence, being careful to give him a wide berth.

They’d no sooner crossed into another yard when a second dog picked up the barking chorus.  When a third dog pitched in, Helm said, “We’ve got to get away from houses or all these dogs will bring the killers right to us.  Let’s look for a break in the fence.”

Two hundred yards further, they found a gate across a gravel road that entered a drainage area.  They climbed over the gate and ran as fast as they could down a stretch of land between two angular ponds.

Kaid slowed after a hundred yards.  “You know what this is?  It’s a water purification plant.  That’s why it’s fenced in.  I’ll bet there’s another fence up ahead.  Let’s hope there’s another gate to climb over to get out.”

Tharon nodded, too winded to say anything.  The pain from the old broken rib she suffered in second grade was aggravated either from running or her scuffle with Marty, and the knee she banged on the counter felt hot, but she was determined to keep up with Kaid and Helm.

Helm noticed her holding her side.  “Are you hurt?”

She dropped her hand. “I’m fine.  I just got a stitch in my side,” she panted.  “This is too open.  We need to find some cover so Burt can’t see where we are.”

The boys kept running but slowed their pace so that she could keep up with them. 

They cleared the drainage ponds and rushed through a wooded area with no underbrush and reached another fence, just as Kaid predicted.  On the other side of the fence a paved walking trail followed the river on the north bank with trees on either side that would afford them enough cover to block the kidnappers from seeing them.

They followed the fence west until they came to a foot bridge which spanned drainage from the treatment plant to the river.  Fortune smiled on them for the first time that day when they found a space under the fence where the soil had washed away either by rain or flooding.

Kaid went first and clawed some more dirt and rocks to fit through; Tharon went next and Helm shoved his backpack through and squeezed under last.

On the other side of the fence a cracked asphalt trail meandered along the edge of the river.  Dried weeds sprang from the cracks.

Helm took her hand and together they tried to keep up with Kaid whose long legs quickly outdistanced them.

Kaid’s relief at being sheltered by the woods evaporated when they rounded a curve in the trail and found the trail hugged the street with no trees or underbrush to hide them.  On the other side of the street a neighborhood plastered with close set houses paralleled their path.

Kaid’s throat felt dry and a cold fear clutched at his chest.  “If he sees us, he could get us anywhere along here.” He scanned every street and every car for a cowboy hat.

It occurred to him that he’d been looking for the cowboy hat but if Burt took it off he could get the drop on them with ease.  Kaid searched for another way to escape if Burt found them, but the only choices were back the way they came or into the river.  He looked down at the rapid muddy current and knew that in this weather, that would be a death sentence.  He wasn’t even sure any of them could swim.  He only knew he couldn’t.

As he wondered if the trees on the river bank were sturdy enough to hold them, an elderly lady came out of a little red brick house on the corner of the next street.  She had a small white dog on a leash.  He smiled at her and noticed the dog’s fur was the same color as her white hair.  She looked at them with a puzzled expression which grew to recognition and concern.

She crossed the street to the trail and Kaid opened his mouth to ask her for help when he saw a black sedan turn the corner and made out the cowboy hat on the driver.  Burt had his head turned back the way they’d just come.  Kaid stopped short; Tharon and Helm ran into him.  “It’s Burt,” Kaid said.  “Hide on the bank and hold onto the trees.”

As he clung to the tree he looked at Helm next to him holding fast to a two inch tree and Tharon beyond him holding a large root with one hand and her other arm crooked around a five inch stump.  His quick glance assured him they were all secure and hidden from view of the road.

Kaid strained to hear over the rushing water.  The car engine purred in front of them.  “Excuse me, ma’am, have you seen three children?  My niece and two nephews wandered off and we think they were on the trail.”

The woman’s dog yipped frantically.  “No, can’t say as I have.  You look familiar.  Aren’t you Burt Payne?  You’re that fellow that has the used car dealership off Illinois Road—the one with the rattlesnake on your ads. 
We take the bite out of buying a car.
  That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s me.  I’m sorry about this.”

“Sorry about what?”

Two shots rang out and Burt gunned his car engine and sped from the scene.

The second bullet hit the tree Kaid held onto.  His grip slipped from the tree.  He grasped at the roots and saplings which were too shallow rooted and gave way in his grip.  Helm grabbed his wrist and held him tight, but the tree Helm clung to began to give way under both their weight.

Tharon reached out to Helm with one hand and grabbed the strap of his back pack.

Panic seized Kaid as he realized not only was he about to drown but he was going to take his friends into the river with him.  He saw Tharon’s hand slipping from the tree and Helm dug his toes and knees into the shale covered bank to relieve the weight pulling on her.

Kaid’s foot hit a rock and he used it to push himself upward, stretching to grab another tree root and with Helm’s help, he climbed back up to peek around a tree.  “He’s gone.”  His heart thundered in his chest.  “He shot that lady and her dog.”

As Kaid pulled Helm back up to the trail and reached for Tharon he said solemnly, “She saved our lives.”  He watched Helm put his arm around Tharon’s shoulder and said, “You two stay here while I go check her.”  He felt for the lady’s pulse the way his father had taught him.  Nothing.  He hadn’t expected to find one after he saw the hole in her forehead.

He closed the woman’s eyes and motioned Helm and Tharon forward.  “Let’s get out of here.  At least we know what kind of car he’s in now.”

Before that day, Tharon had never seen a dead body.  Now she’d seen three.  She couldn’t pull her eyes from the white haired woman.

Helm put an arm around her shoulder and blocked her view of the bodies. “The lady said he had a car dealership.  I bet he goes and gets another one in case anyone saw him in the neighborhood.”

Tharon snapped her attention from the bodies and pulled away from Helm.  She began to run.  “We better hurry then and get out of here before he gets back.”