Клэр Донелли - Catch As Cat Can

Helena smiled, but anxiety crept back into her eyes. “Mike wanted to call you when I first told him that Abby wasn’t around, but I thought if I asked you for help, it should be face-to-face.” Her smile wobbled a little bit. “You have a friend on the police force.”

“And I’m afraid he’s up to his neck right now.” Sunny tried to make her voice gentle. “He was expecting to make an arrest, and the person he’s after got away.”

Her voice trailed off as she remembered the other missing person of the afternoon. “Helena, could we go upstairs and take a look at Abby’s room?”

Mrs. M. stared at her. “Whatever for?”

“Well, she may—” Sunny fumbled for a reason. “She may have left a note for you there. Did you look?”

Hope appeared in the older woman’s eyes. “I didn’t think of that.” She led the way upstairs. “I know I often get distracted in the middle of something and leave it where it was instead of where I was going to put it.”

She opened the door to a room that looked pretty much unchanged since Abby’s college days. A framed poster from the summer Shakespeare festival she’d worked on held pride of place over the bed.

Mrs. M. checked the small student’s desk and the spread on the bed. Sunny edged open the closet to make sure Abby’s travel bag was still in place. She spotted the wheeled carry-on immediately.

“Sunny?” She turned, silently cursing herself, to find Helena staring at her. “What are you doing?”

“I wanted to make sure Abby’s things were still here,” Sunny said, trying to figure out the nicest way to put what she had to say. “Neil Garret has apparently taken off.”

“Is that who Will expected to arrest?” Mrs. M. asked.

“No, this is another thing altogether,” Sunny replied. “But you remember that Abby said she had . . . known Neil back in California.”

“This is the first time I’m hearing about this,” Mike said.

“There are reasons, Dad,” Sunny told him. She turned back to Helena. “Anyway, I remembered their friendship, and it struck me that maybe Abby would help him.”

And maybe their relationship was a lot more than Abby let on, and that Neil either called her here, or maybe she contacted him after spotting him in his shop. However you slice it, Abby might just be the girl a fugitive would turn to for help. Neil has no money. At least Abby has access to an ATM.

Sunny tried for a reassuring smile, but she wasn’t sure she managed to get her face quite right as she led the way down the stairs. “Anyway, I’ve changed my mind. I think maybe it would be a good idea to give Will a call.”

She stopped in the middle of the flight when she realized someone was standing in the hallway downstairs. Neil Garret.

“What are you doing here?” Sunny burst out.

Mrs. M. looked over her shoulder. “Mr. Garret? I’m afraid Abby is out.”

“I know.” Sunny had never seen Neil Garret look more miserable. “And it’s my fault. She’s been taken, Mrs. Martinson. Taken by a man who wants to trade her for me.”

“Taken?” Helena said the word as if she couldn’t quite grasp the meaning.

“The man who’s after me, he got hold of a file. It told about my background, my associates, and it included a picture of your daughter. Apparently there was a picture of her that appeared in the local newspaper, and this guy put two and two together . . .”

Neil gave his head a violent shake. “Abby didn’t deserve to get mixed up in this. I’m going to get her out of it. I’ve got an hour to show up at Charlie Vane’s boat. As soon as I get there, this man will let her go.”

“Can you trust him?” Mike said. “I think that sounds more like a job for the police.”

“If this guy sees police, Abby gets it.” Neil’s voice was rough. “So I can’t let you call your friend Will.”

“And how are you going to stop us?” Sunny asked.

Neil brought up the hand he’d kept hidden behind his leg to reveal a gleaming pistol. “Abby told me about her dad, how he was always hunting and fishing, about his fishing gear and his guns. This was in a nicely engraved box from the Kittery Harbor Sportsman’s Club. I don’t trust the word of the man who took Abby. This will be an equalizer.”

“Neil.” Sunny tried to keep her voice calm. “You told me you never touched a gun in your life.”

“Yeah, but I watched other people take care of them,” Neil replied. “I know which end the bullets come out of.”

He gestured with the pistol. “So let’s all get on the same level here.”

Step by unwilling step, Sunny, her dad, and Mrs. M. joined Neil.

“Turn out your pockets.”

“What for?” Mike demanded.

“I want to get all your cell phones,” Neil explained. Once that was taken care of, he gestured toward the kitchen. “Now—into the basement.”

“What are you going to do down there?” Mrs. M. asked.

“I’m going to lock you in,” Neil replied. “It will just be for a little while. If everything goes right, Abby will be back here to let you out.”

And if it doesn’t go right . . . Sunny pushed that thought aside. It didn’t pay to argue with a man holding a gun. He herded them down the basement stairs, standing over them with his pistol. When they were down in the cellar, he slammed the door shut. A second later they heard a click.

Mike charged up the stairs like a much younger man. He grabbed the shiny new lever he’d helped install and tried to twist it.

Of course, it didn’t budge.

“Locked,” he said, pointing out the obvious. “I—”

“Shhhh.” Sunny had joined him at the top of the stairs, pressing one ear against the panel and holding her hand over the other ear, which was being assaulted by barks and whines from Toby. “The front door closed. He’s gone.”

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Mrs. M. moved over to Toby’s crate and let him out. The dog danced around them in a dithering run.

Pretty much the way I feel, Sunny had to admit.

“There have to be tools here, something we can use to jimmy the door open.” Mike flicked the switch to turn on a dim bulb on the ceiling.

“Vince kept his workshop and his hunting stuff in the garage,” Mrs. Martinson said. “He redid it as a den.”

“Maybe one of us could squeeze out a window,” Sunny suggested. Mrs. M. was petite. If they could boost her up—

But Helena shook her head. “They’ve been seriously winterproofed. Nothing’s getting in—or out.”

“We could get something to use as a battering ram,” Mike desperately suggested. “The three of us—”

“Wouldn’t have much room on those stairs,” Sunny pointed out.

“There has to be something we can do.” Mike pounded a frustrated fist against the wooden panel.

“Wait a second.” Sunny listened carefully—she’d heard a noise outside. A sort of high-pitched mew. The sound of a curious cat.

“Shadow!” she called. “Are you there?”

The answer came as a scratch, Shadow’s claws on the wooden door.

“Great, the furball is out there,” Mike grumped. “What are you going to do, slip a note under the door for him to take to the neighbors?”

“I’m hoping—praying—he can do something more useful.” Sunny took hold of the door lever and rattled it. “Hey, Shadow, you hear that? Come and get it!”

*

Shadow stared upat the door, not sure what kind of a game this was. He’d been kind of annoyed when Sunny put him down on the floor and all the two-legs climbed the stairs, so he hadn’t followed them. Instead he’d stayed in the room with chairs, wrinkling his nose. The whole place smelled of Biscuit Eater. At least the big yellow dog wasn’t there to annoy him.