Stealing Second (The Amendments Book One 1) (22 page)

“I
’ll go with them,” said Lisa.

“No,” said Ace. “You’d only be putting the kids at a greater risk. I won’t allow it. If Neil and
Violet can’t go together, I’ll do it myself.”

“Please understand,” said Cathy. “
Violet is all I have in this whole world. How would you feel about sending your own daughter out there?”

“Don’t you think I’ve been kicking that around all morning? Shit,
I don’t know how I’d feel about it. Sure, I’d be afraid for her. I am afraid for her. Still, think about how many lives she could be saving. I think the worst-case scenario is that the soldiers take the money and turn them away. I mean that. God dammit, I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t believe that.”

“I’m going to go,” said
Violet. “Somebody write the note.”

“That’s up to your mom,” said Ace.

Cathy gave me a pleading look, but I dropped my eyes and stared at my feet. My shoelaces were covered in thistles.

“What if I was in there?” said
Violet. “How would you feel if you were Ace?”

Cathy let out a sob and covered her face. “I know,” she moaned. She turned and faced Neil. “Promise that you’ll bring her back to me,” she said, stabbing a finger at him. “Don’t you dare come back without her, do you understand me?”

Neil swallowed hard and nodded his head. “I won’t,” he said. “I promise I won’t.”

Cathy began to weep and crouched down and took
Violet into her arms. “You be careful and listen to Neil,” she said. “I’ll just die if anything happens to you.”

“I took the liberty of writing up a note,” said Ace, pulling a folded slip of paper out of his shirt pocket. He stepped across the soiled kitchen floor and handed it to Neil. “
Leave your weapons here. You’re going to take a right at the end of the driveway and follow it down to the frontage road. Just follow that to the south. You should walk right into it. Gary, why don’t we send them with four hundred bucks?”

“I got it,” said Jack.

“No,” I said to Jack. “I’ve got it,” I took out my wad of cash and began to peel off twenty dollar bills. I counted out four hundred dollars and handed them to Violet, who had pulled away from her mother. She folded up the money and tucked it into the front pocket of her jeans. She then smiled and gave me a hug.

Neil looked down at
Violet. “Well, are you ready?”

“As ready as I’m ever going to be.”

“Let’s do it.”

Violet
looked back at her mom. “I love you.”

“And I love you. Be careful, baby!”

“I will.”

“We’ll give you two about an hour and a half,” said Ace. “If you’re not back by then, we’ll come after you. If anything goes wrong, don’t put up a fight. Just follow whatever orders the guards give you. You two might be turned around before you ever reach the gate. If that happens, just walk back here and we’ll come up with a new plan.”

“That’s right,” said Cathy. “If there’s any sign of trouble, just hustle your buns back here. Neil, remember what I said. Don’t come back without her.”

Neil nodded his head and a second later, both he and
Violet were gone. Cathy wrapped her arms around me and buried her head in my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “They’ll be all right. I know they will,” I looked at Ace for reinforcement, but he quickly turned away.

Jack and Ace walke
d deeper into the house and Lisa followed. I wanted to know the rest of the story about Violet’s father. I wasn’t sure if this was the best time to ask, but I had come to the conclusion that there would never be a good time to ask about him. “That was brave of you to allow Violet to leave with Neil,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“I pray you’re right,” Cathy said. “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her.”

“You were telling me about Jim, Violet’s father. What happened to him? Where is he now?”

Cathy jerked away from me and stood facing the cupboards. “I don’t like talking about it. I should have been able to help him.”

“Is he dead?”

“He is to me.”

“Where is he now? Does he want to be a part of Violet’s life?”

Cathy turned around and shot me a look of disgust. I wasn’t sure if it was meant for me or Jim. “Fine, I might as well tell you,” she said. You’ll just keep badgering me until I do tell you. Do you want to know what happened?”

I hadn’t been badgering her and I was in no mood for melodramatics. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t give a shit about her, or about what had happened, which was close to the truth. I nodded to her out of respect for Violet. I wanted to know why she acted the way she did.

“Jim’s drinking was out of control. I tried to get him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen. I was working two jobs and I hated leaving him home with Violet, but what could I do? One day
about a month ago I came home and he was gone. He took his rucksack and all of his weapons. He told Violet that he loved her and he gave her a three-page letter to give to me.”

“What did it say?”

Cathy chuckled and shook her head. “He was a very disturbed man. He wrote that he was going to try to get help, but if he couldn’t get it, he would make those pay who had stolen his life away from him. He named names and made it very clear that he would hunt them down. Let’s just say that he went into great detail what would happen to these people when he found them.”

“Oh shit, I don’t suppose the letter came in a sealed envelope, did it?”

“No, as a matter of fact, it didn’t. Violet read every word of it.”

“And you never notified the authorities, did you?”

“Why, so they could have hunted him down like a dog? No, I couldn’t do that. He was a damn good man. Besides, Violet begged me not to tell anyone. She’s young, but she’s no fool. She knew that if we breathed a word of that letter to anyone, we’d never see him again. I couldn’t do that to her.”

“So, what you’re telling me is that Jim is running around out there, somewhere, and you have no idea where he is?”

“That was the last time we heard from him.”

“You must still love him.”

Cathy began to cry and she stepped over, into my arms. “I do, but not as a husband. The man I loved died two deployments ago, Gary. The man who came back was a stranger to me. I don’t know him at all.”

Just then, Lisa walked into the kitchen and she looked at Cathy and gave her a worried look. She walked over to her
knapsack and began rummaging through it. Lisa pulled out an orange prescription bottle and unscrewed the cap. She then tapped out a couple of small tablets. “Here,” she said. “Take these. You’ll feel better.”

Cathy pulled away and dried her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “What are they?”

“They’re happy pills.”

Cathy held ou
t her hand and Lisa dropped the pills into her palm. I fought the urge to chuckle as Cathy dry-swallowed the two tablets. We had no idea what she was taking, but whatever they were, I thought they couldn’t hurt. Lisa offered the bottle to me, but I shook my head. “No, thank you,” I said.

Lisa
shrugged and tapped a few more of the white tablets out into her palm. She then popped them into her mouth and began to chew. I heard Jack and Ace mumbling something, followed by the sound of slow footsteps on creaky stairs. “I’m going to go see what the guys are up to,” I said. “Will you be okay?”

Cathy nodded her head and offered me a sad smile. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’re crazy,” said Lisa. “This house is spooky as hell. I’ll stay here with Cathy.”

I smiled and left them standing there. Behind me, I heard Cathy say something followed by
the sound of Lisa’s laughter. I was happy the two women had a moment alone to form some kind of bond. I liked them both and hated the idea that I had somehow come between them. I walked into a large, decrepit dining area. The ornate woodwork was covered in layers of dust, but it was nonetheless impressive. A huge chandelier hung askew from the twelve-foot ceiling. I carefully walked around it, just in case the footsteps upstairs might send it crashing to the floor.

The front of the house was occupied by two large rooms that I imagined had been the living room and parlor.
The rooms were lit by pinpricks of yellow light that spilled in from the boarded up windows. A ratty couch occupied one wall and an old portrait hung crookedly behind it. The portrait was of a stern-looking woman and I was amazed that someone hadn’t stolen it and shopped it around. The frame alone would be worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Ten feet from the front door was a grand staircase and I stared at it with wonder. The stairs tapered off from at least ten feet wide at the bottom, to roughly four feet across at the first landing. There, they turned at a ninety degree angle and disappeared. Above, I heard the sound of footsteps and I slowly began to take the stairs, carefully clinging to a solid banister. Despite the creaking, the stairs seemed surprisingly solid under my weight. I turned the corner and followed the flight to the top.

The upstairs landing was spacious
, and again I was taken aback by the sight of more portraits hanging on the walls. I counted five in all. The faces lacked any sort of expression and appeared to belong to a single family. I could only guess at how long ago they were painted. Judging by their clothes, the paintings predated the era of the photograph. I felt a cold chill as I studied the faces in the pale light.

Jack appeared in the hallway and briskly walked my way. He yanked his flask out of his hip pocket and fumbled with th
e cap. He stopped and took a long pull off of it and quickly returned it to his pocket. Wordlessly, he flipped me the bird as he continued walking to the stairs. He took them two at a time.

From down the hall, Ace stuck his head out of a door. He waved me over to join him
and quickly disappeared. I swallowed my courage and walked down the hallway. Gloomy light filtered in from open bedroom doors. Thick cobwebs hung from the ceiling and I batted them aside the best I could. I found Ace in a dingy room that was lined with empty bookshelves. In the darkness, I could see that he stood at an open door. I walked over to join him and saw that the door led up another flight of stairs. Every sense in my body was screaming at me not to climb them.

“Did you bring a flashlight?” asked Ace.

“No, do you want me to go get you one?”

“Nah, there looks like there should be enough light up there for us to poke around.”

I rubbed my chin. “I don’t know, man,” I said. “Maybe we should stay down here. What if we crash through the ceiling?”

“There’s something up there,” said Ace. “You can feel it, can’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Gary, you can’t lie to me. I know you feel it. Whatever it is, it wants us to come up there.”

“Aw shit, are you out of your mind? I ain’t going up there. This is seriously creepy, Ace. I don’t like it.”

“Fine,” Ace said, shaking his head. “Go back down and join the girls. I don’t need you.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “Now I have to follow you.”

A wide grin spread across Ace’s face. “I knew that would work,” he said. “Buddy, I can read you like a book.”

“Buddy is dead,” I replied.

Ace chuckled and slowly began to climb the stairs. The staircase was narrow and impossibly steep
and I knew that one wrong step would mean a serious injury, possibly even death. I reached for the thin banister, but it wiggled in my grasp. I let it go as if it were a snake. I stayed two steps behind Ace and he moved slowly, testing each stair gingerly as we ascended to the top. Finally, he turned to wave me up and disappeared into the shadows.

I could feel my heartbeat in my temples and my spine tingled as I reached the top of the stairs. I couldn’t
see my hand in front of my face; it was that dark. The sticky air was warm and pungent. I followed the sound of Ace’s footsteps, desperately wishing I had run back downstairs and grabbed my flashlight.

There was a fluttering sound and I froze. “Get down!” ordered Ace. Something brushed against my cheek and I instantly dropped into a crouch. “Just a few bats,” Ace said, calmly, “nothing to worry about.”

“Except rabies,” I hissed.

“Don’t forget about the vampires.”

“Oh, that was so funny that I forgot to laugh. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Hang on, there’s a window over here. Somewhere
…”

I covered my head, but it sounded like the bats had found a new place to hang out. The fluttering was gone and it had been replaced by the sound of Ace grunting. I didn’t like the sound of it and I could only imagine what he was doing. The grunting continued and gradually, it was joined by the groaning of nails being eased out of strong wood. I suddenly felt a strong urge to pee and was only barely able to control it.

There was a crack and a fat beam of light hit me square in the face. I was temporarily blinded and I heard another quick crack and more light spilled into the attic. I blinked my eyes and saw Ace standing next to a large octagon window. The rising sun was directly between us and I shielded my eyes to see.