Take the Monkeys and Run (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #1) (19 page)

“It’s okay. Don’t worry. I must be close to you. I should hang up and call the police, don’t you think?”

“Yes. No! No! Don’t hang up! I’m freaking here!”

I had just turned onto Thin Branches myself and spotted the Town Car. Thin Branches is a low-trafficked, two-lane road that starts at Red Cedar and winds its way through Rustic Woods, ending at Rustic Woods Parkway. The sun had long gone behind storm clouds and evening twilight was setting in, so I was having trouble seeing the black car easily. Since environmentally-friendly Rustic Woods doesn’t allow street lights, my job was especially difficult. Eventually, I caught up and I could see both the black Lincoln and Roz’s van ahead of it. The three of us were lined up at a four-way stop. I saw that there was a car in front of Roz at the stop sign, but I couldn’t tell whether it was the Camry or not. If it was, this could be our saving grace. I was figuring that Roz could get their attention somehow—honk, flash her lights, rear-end them if necessary—and hopefully we’d be able to scare off her pursuers.

“Roz, is that Howard in front of you?”

“No! Some jerk pulled out in front of me and now he’s stalled! Howard and Colt are long gone.” She honked her horn. “Oh, no! Maybe I shouldn’t have done that,” she said. The driver’s side door of the stalled car opened. A man got out and threw up his arms at Roz as if to say there was nothing he could do. He started to signal to her with a wave that she should go around him, but then a car coming from the opposite direction got in her way. Just as that car passed, the Town Car jumped forward and rear-ended Roz hard. I heard her scream into the phone. “Barb! Call the police!”

Just then, another call came in on my cell—Callie’s phone. I didn’t intend to answer, but somehow the call came through anyway, and I heard Callie on the other end. “Mom?”

I was breathing hard and watching the man, Roz and the Town Car, and assessing my options while trying to answer Callie. Talk about multi-tasking. “Yeah, honey, this isn’t . . .”

“Grandma is here.”

“What?”

“Grandma. She wants to . . . ”

I was too busy watching the man with the stalled car to hear what Callie was saying. Obviously angry, he yelled an obscenity and started back toward the Town Car.

Oh no, don’t do that
, I thought
. No stupid man! No! Turn around!
Too late. The Town Car’s passenger side door swung open fast and before you could say “Fuhgeddaboudit,” a gunshot was fired and the man went down.

I screamed. I thought I heard a scream from Roz’s van. I could hear Callie screaming in my ear, “Mom! What’s wrong?” Then another shot and a loud pop. Before I could make sense of what was happening, the face of Elvis the Mafia Man loomed large in my passenger door window. Knowing my cell phone would be my savior if I got thrown in a trunk and driven to the river, I quick snapped it closed and hit the mute button on the side, ensuring silence if another call came in. Silence in my Bluetooth. Simultaneously, I was trying to lock my doors and make an attempt at slipping the phone into my jeans pocket. It was all too much to do at once, and I failed at getting the car door closed or hiding the cell. Instead, the door was ripped open and I was being pulled out by my hair. Elvis ripped the cell phone out of my hands and shoved it into his coat pocket. Instinctively, I reached up while being dragged and grabbed the Bluetooth, clutching it in one hand while trying to grab my kidnapper with the other.

I could hear Roz screaming. The next thing I knew, I was in the back of the Town Car banging heads with Roz. We hugged each other and didn’t let go. I could taste blood in my mouth.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

“I think he broke my hand!” she cried.

The car lurched forward, moving at a speed way too fast for the roads of Rustic Woods. I was thrown against Roz as the car careened around a bend and changed direction. I was trying to figure out where we were, without a whole lot of luck, since my head was throbbing.

“Do you still have your cell phone?” I asked Roz.

“No,” she said. “He took it and threw it in the bushes.”

Okay, so they weren’t as stupid as I thought. It was so dark, I couldn’t make out the other figure in the front seat. I assumed it would be the same pug-faced, gun-wielding goon from earlier, but I decided to find out for sure. “Hey,” I asked, craning my neck, “where are you taking us?” The shooter in the passenger seat turned around. Yup. Same Pug Mug.

“You don’t follow directions so good, do you?” he asked. “Dis is an unfortunate ting for you.” Wow, I thought, they really do talk like that.

The car weaved up and down winding roads, leading me to believe we were leaving Rustic Woods, heading maybe into nearby Oakton or Vienna. It was hard to tell and my sense of direction was all out of whack. By looking out the windshield I could see very few oncoming headlights, so it was likely that we weren’t on any major roads. Roz and I shivered, still gripping each other for our lives. Literally, I think.

“Can you tell where we’re going?” I asked her. She shook her head “no.” I couldn’t see her face very well in the dark, but I suspected we were asking ourselves the same questions—will I ever see my kids again? Will I live to see another day?

“I should have listened to Colt and stayed out of it,” I said. She nodded “yes.”

Outside, the dark storm clouds made the dark night even darker. I could barely make out a faint outline of trees. I tried to guess the time. Working my way backwards from when I’d left the hotel, I figured it must have been nearly five o’clock, maybe five-thirty at the latest.

Our speed had slowed from our initial abduction. From the feel of it, I guessed we were moving thirty to forty miles per hour and, of course, slower on the turns. My eyes had adjusted somewhat to the dark inside the car and I located the very vague outline of the door handle. I looked at Roz, who was looking out the window. I tapped her on the hand. When I had her attention, I pointed to the handle and made a motion with my own hand. Without words, I was suggesting we try to jump out—attempt an escape. She looked at me like I had suffered brain damage and shook her head violently. I didn’t think it was such a crazy idea. Bruce Willis did things like that all the time, and he was still alive.

“Come on,” I whispered. She kept shaking her head. I nodded. She shook.

“Hey yous,” said Elvis, spotting us in his rearview mirror. “No use tryin’ those doors—we got ’em locked. You think we’re stupid or sumthin’?”

“No!” Roz and I shouted in unison.

“Just sit back and enjoy the ride. You ain’t goin’ nowhere ’cept where we say you’re goin’.”

I fell back against the seat, feeling a little nauseous and a lot defeated. Roz blew out a loud sigh and joined me in my misery.

Pug Mug turned around and faced me. “We watched your video on YouTube. Pretty funny stuff.”

Words escaped me. “What?” I managed to ask.

“What song was that?” He was looking to Elvis for an answer.

“Madonna—‘Like a Virgin,’” he said.

“No,” I corrected him. “‘Material Girl.’”

“Yeah!” shouted Pug Mug. “That’s the one. Very funny. You got talent. You oughta do more of those.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling. Roz gawked at me. I shrugged at her. “They like my video.”

“Do you mind me asking,” I continued, curious, “how you found my video on YouTube?”

Elvis sneered in the rearview mirror. “We got our ways, little lady.” Holy cannoli.

For some reason, I kept talking. “The last time I looked,it had like twenty-five views.”

“Oh, no,” said Pug Mug with surprising animation. “More’n that.” He looked to his co-kidnapper once again for help. “What was it? Ten tousand—sumthin’ like that?”

“Ten tousand?” I repeated stupidly in my excitement.

“Hey, you makin’ fun a de way I talk?”

“No! I . . . I bit my tongue. It hurth.” I touched my tongue to prove my pain and affliction. Roz looked disgusted. I kept talking, figuring maybe if we made nice with them, they wouldn’t have the heart to kill us.

“I was thinking of making another one, you know.”

“Yeah?” asked Pug Mug, leaning over his seat now with one elbow hanging over. “What song was you tinkin’ of?”

“‘These Boots are Made for Walking.’”

“Good one! Nancy Sinatra!”

“Actually, I was thinking of the Jessica Simpson version.”

“Jessica who? Naw! You gotta do Nancy! She’s Frank’s girl. Hey—you should do a Sinatra song—Frankie’s the best.”

Lordy. Could these guys get more stereotypical?

“Oh, yeah,” I said, realizing too late that I didn’t sound convincing enough if I wanted to create a strong bridge of affinity with this felonious fellow.

“Absolutely. Love Frank.” Actually, I did love Frank Sinatra, so it wasn’t a tough sell. Roz blew out another more disgusted sigh. Pug Mug didn’t like her reaction.

“What? You don’t like Frankie?” he growled. Roz froze.

“Are you kidding me? She loves him. She came over just last week and we watched her favorite—
From Here to Eternity
.”

“Yeah?” He smiled, content, I was guessing, that we weren’t Sinatra-haters. He pointed at Roz’s hand. “How’s that hand a yours?” he asked. Roz opened and closed the fingers of her right hand a couple of times. “It’s okay, I guess,” she answered warily.

“That’s good—sorry ’bout dat. Didn’t mean to be so rough.” Roz’s eyes opened wide like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Elvis slapped Pug Mug in the chest. “Ay! Stupido! Put a plug in it!” Pug Mug plugged it and was quiet for the rest of our trip.

Finally, after what seemed like hours (but was probably only minutes) the car pulled onto a gravel driveway and crunched its way to a stop. Both back doors were opened and Roz and I were yanked out of each door, respectively. I felt something hard in my back. Gun, I thought. So much for making friends. I had learned my first lesson regarding men of the Mafia: a mutual affinity for Frank Sinatra would not necessarily save your life. This couldn’t be happening, I thought. Just a few days ago my biggest worry was Captain Crunch: with Crunch Berries or without? Now it seemed I was standing at Death’s doorstep.

Large floodlights positioned on the garage illuminated the area, and I was able to make out our surroundings pretty well. The car was parked at the top of a long gravel driveway that wound down a good three or four hundred feet, taking a steep dive at the last one hundred feet where it met up with the main road. I couldn’t see a street sign, so I didn’t know the name of the road. A monstrously large, two-story brick house stood at the end of the driveway. A three-car garage was attached to the house. On top of the house was a unique sort of widow’s walk with a wrought iron railing. It looked like a typical Northern Virginia McMansion with a Victorian twist. The front porch light was on, as well as the large floods from the garage to the driveway, and I could see lights in a few windows here and there on the front of the house. The two thugs had brought Roz and me together near the front of the car and were beginning to walk us, side by side, around the garage and to the back of the house.

“Barb!” Roz whispered. “I found this house when I was researching House of Many Bones. It’s owned by the same person.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Pretty sure I saw it on Google Earth—I can tell because of the widow’s walk and the gravel driveway. If it’s the same one, then we’re in Fairfax Station.” That made sense, based on how long we’d been driving and the number of twists and turns we’d taken. Fairfax Station is a good ten to fifteen miles from Rustic Woods, and consists mainly of very large new houses or small old ranches on multi-acre properties. I estimated that the land surrounding this house was at least ten acres. I couldn’t see another house from where I stood.

“What’s the name?” I whispered.

“Crooks. Fred Crooks. He owns ten houses in Fairfax County.”

I felt a thump to the side of my head.

“Shut your mouths, hear me?” said Elvis, shoving the gun harder into my back.

Crooks. Peggy’s story about the crazy lady at the wedding was beginning to make sense.

As they brought us around to the back of the house, I saw that the gravel drive extended around behind the house, and parked there, parallel to the back of the garage, was a tan Prius. Another floodlight illuminated this back area of the house. There was a single door with glass panes on the back of the garage, and between the car and the garage were three large metal trashcans. In the back window of the Prius were several small stuffed animals. The car looked familiar to me—it seemed I had seen it before. I didn’t have time to give it much thought, because we were shoved past the car and through another door that led down some dark stairs into the back basement portion of the house. I stumbled and almost fell over, because we couldn’t see and Roz stepped on my ankle.

“Ouch!” I yelled.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“I’ll live,” I said. Or maybe not.

“I said to keep your traps shut!” yelled Elvis, pushing us both. We fell down three or four more steps onto a landing that opened up into an amazingly spacious, nearly empty recreation room. There was a lot of chattering and screeching. A sound I remembered very well. Along one whole wall to our left was a set of black metal cages. Monkeys. Rhesus Macaques. Four of them. Our arrival had seemed to set them off, and the noise was intense
.
Roz and I struggled to our feet and as we did so, we both spotted the same thing at the same time. In the far corner to our right was a body curled up in a ball. Conscious, unconscious, dead, not dead—I couldn’t tell. I saw the red hair and recognized the bright white and orange “
Kiss Me, I’m Italian
” sweatshirt.

They had poor Peggy too.

Chapter Fifteen