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An occasional bungalow hugged the side of the road but mostly we were driving through scrubby pine intermingled with heavier forested areas. After two miles the Mercedes led the other two cars onto a gravel driveway and disappeared into the woods.
Potts pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine. I slid the window down and listened. Car doors slamming shut. Men talking. And then quiet.
“This is where we abandon the car,” Potts said.
“I get the feeling you’ve done this before.”
“Mostly in video games. Usually there’s a high-speed chase involved. I’m awesome at the high-speed chase. Especially if it’s an obstacle course.”
We walked the length of the driveway and moved into the woods to look at the house. It was a small ranch. Probably three bedrooms. The yellow paint was peeling, and the yard was mostly dirt and weeds. No garage. Everyone was inside.
“Now what?” Potts asked.
“Everyone is inside, and the shades are down. That means they can’t see out. I’m going to the back of the house and try to determine where they’re keeping my mom. I’m guessing they’ll stash her in a bedroom.” I sent Morelli’s and Ranger’s phone numbers to Potts’s cell phone. “You stay here and call Joe Morelli and Ranger. Fill them in and give them our location.”
I slipped my phone into my back pocket and tucked my .38 into the waistband of my jeans. I left my messenger bag with Potts and instructed him to guard it with his life.
New mantra, I told myself. From here on out it was balls to the wall. I moved across the yard with as much stealth as possible. I hugged the side of the house and listened at a living room window. I could hear men talking. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I had a half-inch view of the room where the shade didn’t meet the window frame. I knew there had been five men in the cars. I could see three of them in the room. I didn’t see my mom, and I didn’t hear her voice. A fourth man crossed the room and disappeared from view. I crept around to the back and peeked in a kitchen window. No one there.
I got lucky at the far end of the house. I found a bedroom window with the shade half closed, and I could see my mom duct-taped to a straight-back chair. I caught her attention and made a sign not to talk. I tried opening the window. Locked. Breaking the window could draw the attention of the men in the living room but I saw no other option. I didn’t want a SWAT team arriving and my mom inside as a bargaining chip. I was about to smash the glass with my gun butt when Gabriela tapped me on the shoulder and scared the bejeezus out of me. I would have instinctively shot her, but I was holding the wrong end of my gun.
“I’m here to help,” she whispered.
“How did you get here?”
“I followed you, of course.” She held up a glass cutting tool.
“Do you always carry a glass cutting tool?”
“Tools of the trade,” she said, fixing a suction cup to the window.
“What trade is that?” I asked.
“It depends on the moment,” Gabriela said. “By my count there are five men in the house. Another car with two more men just arrived and the men are standing watch outside. We’re going to take your mom out the window. Cross the backyard and go straight into the woods. I’ll cover you.”
My mom’s eyes were as big as saucers. I gave her a thumbs-up, and she did an eye roll so huge that it almost tipped her chair over. Thirty seconds later Gabriela removed a circle of glass from the window, reached in, and opened the lock. The window was up, and Gabriela crawled in. She cut my mom free and passed her out of the window to me. Gabriela followed.
“Is your grandmother okay?” my mom asked me.
“Yes,” I said. “She’s with Lula.”
“She won’t be okay when I get done with her,” my mom said. “I’m going to put her in assisted living somewhere far away. Georgia or Texas or Slovakia. I told her to give the keys to Benny and she wouldn’t do it. And you’re no better. You went along with it all. And look what happened. I got kidnapped. They put me in the trunk of a car.”
“I know. I’m sorry but we need to discuss this later.”
“In the trunk of a car!”
“Not now, Mom. We need to get out
of here.”
I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the tree line. We were halfway across the hardscrabble yard when one of the men walked around the side of the house. He shouted to his partner and fired a shot over our heads.
Gabriela turned and fired two shots, hitting the gunman on the second. He went down to the ground, and we ran into the woods. Gabriela caught up to us and turned us in another direction.
“We want to circle around the house and go toward the road,” she said. “Slow down and try not to make noise. There’s a rusted-out Airstream camper just past the house. We can use it for cover, and I can try to pick them off one by one.”
We bushwhacked through the undergrowth, listening to the men shouting to each other back at the house and in the woods behind us. Gabriela was leading the way. She looked like she knew what she was doing, and she was dressed for the job. Camo cargo pants, a formfitting V-neck olive drab T-shirt, and thick-soled, spike-studded boots. Small camo backpack. Olive drab utility gun belt sized for a woman.
