Hostage (2 page)

“I'll be careful,” Jeff said, and was gone.

What should I do now? It seemed the height of stupidity, to me, to go barging into a house that was supposed to be empty but might not be. Dad would have a fit if he knew we were even thinking about such a thing.

I turned out my overhead light so I could stand in darkness to observe, and it was then that I noticed the small truck on the street in front of the Anderson place.

The Andersons had flown to Boston, leaving their cars locked in the garage, so there shouldn't have been any vehicles on the street at all. The truck was light colored, about the size of the ones small businesses use to make deliveries. I couldn't tell if anything was printed on the side to identify it or not. No doubt Jeff would notice it when he got there; he was already going down the stairs.

I hesitated, then waited until he emerged from the front door beneath me. “Jeff!” I called
softly, leaning out the window. “There's a truck! Check it out!”

He turned and lifted a hand, then crossed the street, stopping momentarily by the rear of the delivery truck.

Memorizing the license number, I decided. He wouldn't have to write it down. He was used to memorizing long pages of concertos and sonatas for his piano competitions; a simple license number would be a piece of cake.

A moment later he looked up at me again, made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, and disappeared around the other side of the truck.

There were no lights that I could see inside the house now. A slight breeze raised the hairs on my bare arms, or was it apprehension? I wished Jeff had called Dad to go over with him. If burglars were in the Anderson house, who knew how safe he was? Of course he wasn't stupid enough to tackle them; he'd stay out of sight, but still . . .

“Kaci?” Dad's voice from my doorway made me swing away from the window, startled. “What's going on? I thought I heard voices, and
then a door closing downstairs. Do you know what time it is? Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“I'm sorry, Dad. I saw lights in the Andersons' house, so I woke Jeff up. I wanted him to call you before he went over there, but he said he'd be careful. . . .”

“Was that him I heard leaving the house? Kaci, you both know better than to take chances. Why didn't you wake me up?” In a couple of strides he joined me at the window—a big, bulky shape beside me in the darkness. “Where did you see the lights?”

I told him. He muttered something under his breath. “Let me get some pants on and I'll go over there myself. And if we don't both come back within five minutes, call the police. That's what they're for.”

I stayed at my post, wondering if this was important enough to pray about. Grandma Beth, Dad's mother, said everything was important enough for that, that God had plenty of time and the ability to listen to even the smallest concerns, even to praying for catching a bus. Dad said it would make more sense to start for the bus stop five minutes earlier, but
Grandma Beth assured him that when she was already doing her best, it couldn't hurt to pray for help when she needed it. I didn't know if Jeff needed help or not, but if I prayed for his safety and it turned out to be unnecessary, nobody would know except God and me. I had no sooner whispered the words, however, than things started happening down in the street.

The strange truck mostly blocked my view of the Andersons' front door, but I could tell that it opened and three people came out. They were in a hurry. They opened up the back of the truck, put something inside, and one of them climbed in after it. Then another one slammed the door in the back and came around to jump into the driver's seat, and another one scrambled for the opposite door. They took off, leaving the house behind them wide open.

Alarmed, I turned toward the darkened hall, where I heard Dad coming out of his bedroom. He must have pulled his pants on over his pajama bottoms and stuck his feet into shoes without socks, because he'd only been gone a matter of seconds.

“
Dad, whoever it was just left!” We heard the squeal of tires as the truck went around the corner. “I don't see Jeff anywhere!”

“Call 9-1-1!” Dad said, and clattered down the stairs without turning on a light.

The police car arrived just as I reached the front door. Mom was calling down from upstairs, wanting to know what was going on, and I turned long enough to reply, “Jeff and Dad are over at the Andersons', and the police are here!” before I ran outside in my bare feet.

An officer unfolded himself from the front seat of the patrol car and turned to look at me. “You the one who called 9-1-1?”

“Yes, sir. The truck that was here just left in a hurry, with three men in it, and my dad and my brother are over there somewhere!”

“Go back into your house, please,” the officer said. He didn't wait to see if I obeyed but approached the open door of Andersons' house. I retreated as far as the end of our sidewalk and stood waiting.

The officer called out, and I heard a voice responding. Mom spoke behind me, and I turned to see that she was still wrapping a robe over her nightgown as she emerged from the front door. “Kaci, what's happening? Where's Dad?”

“Over there.” It wasn't cold, but I was shivering. I explained to her why there was a patrol car across the street. “The cop told me to stay here.”

“He didn't give me any orders,” Mom said, and started across the street in her slippered feet. After a moment of hesitation, I decided that I'd probably get away with joining her.

As we neared the Andersons' open doorway, we heard men's voices and detected a light somewhere in the back of the house. Mom hesitated and called out. “Ken?”

“Back here, Eve. Jeff's okay, he just has a knot on his head.”

We made our way toward the voices, through the house that I'd been in many times. Tonight nothing looked familiar, and it wasn't just the lack of lights. I rubbed my arms where the hair was standing on end, and looked into the
living room as we passed the doorway. For a moment I didn't realize what was wrong, and then I did.

“The TV's gone,” I said as I moved into the lighted kitchen area where the uniformed officer and Dad were holding my brother by the arms as he struggled to stand up. “Those guys in the truck must have stolen it! What happened to Jeff?”

“They hit me over the head. From behind,” Jeff said painfully. “Knocked me out for a few minutes, I guess.”

“I thought you were going to be careful,” I said.

“I thought I was being careful,” he told me. “Let me sit down a minute, Dad.”

They lowered him onto a kitchen chair, where he felt around on the top of his head, wincing. “I sneaked up on the back of the house and peeked into a window, but I couldn't see anything. It was pitch-black in here, so I thought they must be working upstairs, where Kaci and I saw the lights moving around. I decided I'd go back home and call the police, and I had the license number of that truck parked out front. . . .”
He drew his fingers away from his head and looked at them, tinged with red. He scowled. “The minute I got to the front corner of the house, somebody lunged out of the shrubbery and hit me with something hard. Real hard.”

“You shouldn't have come over here by yourself in the first place,” Dad told him. “The police are equipped to handle burglars.”

The cop was looking at me. “You said the TV was gone. Are you familiar enough with the house to tell me what else might be missing?”

I hesitated. “Maybe. Jeff spends more time over here than I do.”

“Would you mind walking through the house with me to see what else is missing? Both of you?”

So we did. Mom and Dad came along, and we all noticed empty spaces where items had been taken. Three TVs, a computer and a printer, a microwave, silverware.

“It makes me feel as if I'm the intruder,” Mom said ruefully when she pulled out the drawer where the real silver was kept. “But I've been here at parties and seen where they
keep this stuff. And, sure enough, it's gone. Oh, my, Ruby's going to be so upset. That was her grandmother's silver. Do you think there's any chance of getting it back?”

“We'll try,” the cop said, but from the look on his face I didn't think he had much hope of it.

By the time we came back downstairs, Jeff was ready to sit down again. “Oh, boy. How am I going to tell them what a lousy job I did of taking care of their house? The fool dogs didn't even bark, and if it hadn't been for Kaci noticing there was someone over here, we wouldn't have a clue anything had been taken. How did the thieves know the place was empty and they could just walk in and help themselves?”

Dad's tone was wry. “The fact that they were taking this big trip to Boston was in the newspaper, remember? Advertising, pure and simple.”

The cop nodded, putting away the notebook in which he'd been taking notes. “Had one couple of weeks ago. Somebody cleaned out the household of a prominent family while they were at a well-publicized funeral for the lady's
father. Isolated house, and they knew there wouldn't be anybody there for at least a couple of hours, so they backed up their truck.”

Mom was appalled. “Did you recover any of their belongings?”

“No, ma'am. Not so far. You may be asked to come down to the station and answer a few more questions tomorrow, verify that license number. If you can locate the name of the hotel where the Andersons are staying, it would be helpful.”

“I have it written down, I think,” Jeff said. He couldn't seem to keep from touching the lump on his head.

“I think we'd better go clean up that cut,” Mom said. “Make sure it doesn't need sutures.” Anybody else would have said “stitches,” but she works in a medical office.

“First I want to check on the dogs. See if they're okay. I don't understand why they didn't bark.”

I went with him to the kennel in the back of the lot, and that's when we found out the dogs had been drugged.

I was more indignant about that than about
the burglary. The Andersons might get their stuff back, and they carried insurance against thefts, but they'd be devastated if their dogs died.

“They're still breathing,” Jeff stated, kneeling beside Mickey, the big collie. “I hope it was just something to put them to sleep, not to kill them. The thieves probably threw them some drugged meat. I wonder if we can get a vet to look at them this time of night?”

Dad did. He even carried Mickey out to our van while Jeff brought Henry, the little beagle, who was so limp, I began to pray that he wouldn't die. Mom inspected the bump on Jeff's head before she decided it wasn't all that serious and he could go along to the vet's. When I wanted to go, too, she frowned, but finally agreed that I could. She knew I was scared for the dogs.

The vet said the dogs had probably been poisoned rather than just drugged to keep them quiet. He told us he'd have to keep them overnight and he might not know until morning whether they'd pull through or not, so we went home feeling pretty glum about the
whole thing. I didn't envy Jeff having to report to the Andersons that not only had their house been robbed but that their dogs were dead.

That was definitely something worth praying about. I did, all the way home.

  •  •  •  

Jeff called the vet first thing in the morning and was told that both dogs were doing better and that the vet thought they'd be all right. I didn't know if my prayers had helped, but I thought they must have; both Mickey and Henry had looked as if they were already dead when we'd delivered them to the veterinary hospital.

Sometimes I'd wished that we were home schooled, like the Anderson kids, so that we could take vacations any time of year. Now I was glad they were still in Boston, so we didn't have to face them immediately. At least by the time they got home their pets would be perfectly all right again.

  •  •  •  

We weren't going to get any vacation this summer, it seemed, when our school was finally over. Some people think that school principals
have long vacations from their work, with nothing to do. That sure wasn't true of Dad. He had so many things to attend to at school, even when it wasn't in session, that we didn't see him much more than during the school year. There were committees to meet with, new teachers to be interviewed and hired, supervising of maintenance of the grounds and buildings, and working with the group trying to persuade the public that we needed to pass a bond issue for a new science lab.

And this year we had to get ready to move, too. The people who bought our house didn't need it until fall. Even so, when my parents signed the papers to buy the new house, Mom had hoped we'd be able to move in long before school started again. But things kept happening to put off the moving date.

Even when the house seemed finished, there were problems. First the contractor couldn't seem to get all the interior painting finished. Everybody agreed that it would be much more difficult to do with our furniture moved in, so we had to wait on that. Then the carpet Mom wanted in the living room was out
of stock in the color she'd asked for. So we had to wait for that. Then the man who was supposed to install the appliances was in a car accident and broke several bones. They couldn't find anyone else in his company to replace him, so we waited most of the rest of the summer for his bones to heal.

Dad didn't care much one way or the other when we moved, as long as nobody bothered him to do anything about it. Mom said it would be much easier if we got in and settled before school opened, and she was frustrated when people kept promising things would be ready at a certain time and then they weren't.

We were all ready to move. I was eager to go because I hated sharing a room with Jodie. I'd have a room to myself in the new house, and Mom had let me select my own colors.