I finished counting, slid around the cottage to the opposite side, and stuck my head out to catch a glimpse of him.
The man rounded the corner. We collided. Shock registered on his face.
I smashed him in the forehead with the rock. I didn’t think. I simply hit him. Not as hard as I could. I pulled back at the last minute. A dull thud was followed by a muted groan.
Blood trickled from his forehead. I stood there horrified, praying I hadn’t killed him. I checked his pulse. A strong heartbeat mollified my fears as did my memory of what he’d done to me. This man had kidnapped me.
I was about to turn and head toward the house when I caught a glimpse of something stuck in his belt. The item was exposed because his waist-length jacket had hiked up a few inches when he’d fallen. It was a small black gun. I knew nothing about guns. I’d never even touched one. They scared the heck out of me. But I grabbed it anyway. When I reached for the grip, it was an out-of-body experience. I could see myself from afar. Mouth agape I wondered, is she really going to take that gun?
It felt sleek and light and fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. More than that, it felt disturbingly good. It felt right. It weighed less than a pound, I guessed, and was about five inches long. The letters “M” and “P” were etched in the black matte barrel beside the words “Bodyguard 36.” The word “safe” was visible beneath a small button that was pushed up on the left side of the gun. Logic suggested the safety was engaged. The gun would not fire. I could not shoot myself by accident.
To my utter shock, I slid the button down. The word “safe” disappeared beneath the button. Now I could shoot someone, or myself. My nerves stood on edge. I put the safety back on, but to my surprise, I didn’t drop the gun. I kept it. If I needed to ditch it for whatever reason, I could wipe my prints off and toss it into the woods.
A combination of fear, dread, and empowerment possessed me. The feeling was as powerful as the one that had overtaken my senses after I’d cracked Donnie Angel’s tibia with the heel of my foot. I was not going to be intimidated. I was not going to be pushed around by anyone. I’d been a soldier in my mind as a girl scout, and I could be one now, too.
I checked the man’s breathing and pulse again. His lungs filled and his heart beat regularly.
I took off toward the main house, gun in hand.
The van and the delivery truck were parked in a circular drive flanked by two separate three-car garages. It amazed me that someone would need six garages, but I decided that might be exactly the type of person who was interested in stolen art. The rear door of the truck was open as though the crate had been removed. Distant voices echoed from the back of the house. There was no sign of the German shepherd, Donnie Angel, or the mysterious man with the turned-up collar.
I wound my way along a fence made of bushes that lined the far edge of the driveway. The back of the house opened up onto a veranda that led to an expansive pool area. A pair of double glass French doors was open. The voices grew louder as I approached. I snuck around the pool and edged up to the window.
The two deliverymen stood beside an empty crate. An impossibly fit woman of indeterminable age sparkled with joy. Marko had told me that a woman had taken possession of the delivery he’d supervised. They had come back to the same client. The source of her adulation was a five-by-six-foot icon of a medieval knight in a colorful cloak spearing a dragon from atop his black stallion.
A priceless relic, I thought.
The man with the turned-up collar stood next to the proud owner with his back to me, still camouflaged by a coat and hat. I willed him to turn around. He didn’t. Instead, Donnie Angel hopped into the room on crutches. He nodded at one of his men to indicate he needed to speak with him. The nod was in my direction. They both started toward the window beside me and had a brief exchange before they came within earshot.
I ducked down so they couldn’t see me.
Their voices gradually rose as they came closer.
“Where are the shovels?” Donnie Angel said.
“I left them there,” his man said.
“What if someone steals them?”
The man chuckled. “No one’s going to be there this time of night.”
“I hope not.”
“What about Marko?” the man said.
“He’s going to meet us there.”
“You sure he’s going to show?”
“I just got off the phone with him. He’s on his way now. He hasn’t gotten paid. He’s going to show.”
I heard a sound behind me. It was the suppressed sound of a man in agony. Or was I imagining things? I heard it again. I caught a glimpse of a man stumbling toward the main house through the vineyard.
It was the man I’d hit with the rock.
“Donnie,” he said with a weak voice. “Donnie, she’s here.”
I kept my head low, slipped around the corner away from the window above me, and raced around the other side of the pool toward the front gate.
The German shepherd leapt from behind the van. I jumped to the side. The dog’s teeth came within inches of my leg but snapped backward before they could connect. A leash prevented him from stretching farther. He was tethered to a door handle of the van. He began barking furiously. I had a gun in my hand and I’d taken it to defend myself, but even at the moment it appeared I was going to get bitten, I hadn’t raised my arm. I could not imagine shooting an animal. Not unless it was rabid and charging me with saliva dripping from its mouth. Would I be able to pull the trigger at a human being if I had to?
I sprinted out the driveway and down the access road. After a hundred yards my lungs were heaving. I slowed down to a jog, glanced over my shoulders, and saw no one behind me. I ran the rest of the way to my car, started it, and peeled out of the neighborhood. Once I’d driven a mile away along the same route we’d taken to get to the house, I diverted onto a side street, turned my car around, and parked by the curb. The side street dipped down into a valley allowing me a decent line of sight as any cars drove by. They would have to drive past me to get to the main artery, Route 44, which led to the highway. My biggest concern was that one of the neighbors might call the police because some stranger had parked beside his house.
As soon as I killed the lights and the engine, I called Brasilia and asked for Marko. The woman who answered the phone told me he’d gotten sick and gone home for the evening. I knew it was a bogus excuse and that he had left to meet Donnie Angel, but I called him at home nonetheless. It was a futile attempt. I prayed that he would pick up so I could warn him that Donnie Angel had shovels, and shovels were used to dig holes, and those shovels had been left in a place where no one else went on a Saturday night. I prayed that my brother would pick up so I could warn him that the man who’d kidnapped me was going to kill him. He was going to kill my brother tonight.
But I was too late. Marko didn’t pick up. He had no cell phone, of course, and there was no way to reach him.
I sat and waited, wondering if I should call the police. I didn’t know where we were going nor was I absolutely certain a crime was going to be committed. At least not yet.
Less than fifteen minutes later the sedan, van, and delivery truck drove past me on the road above. I counted to ten to let them get ahead of me, and then I pulled out and followed them. They took a different route this time, circling the mountain peak and looping around Simsbury, through Bloomfield and onto I-91 headed for Hartford. It was a longer but less taxing route on the driver. The road was less serpentine, the ascents and descents less steep.