Hotter than Helen (The "Bobby's Diner" Series) (18 page)

The blackout curtains of the scrubby motel room created the sensation of nighttime but Roberta had been trying to watch the clock since she’d been abducted. It was daytime now although she would never have known that for the curtain and through the blindfold from which he could only see a sliver when she looked at the floor.

A low rolling rumble, sounding like a storm coming, rose and fell somewhere outside. She imagined standing be outside to see the sky fill with rain clouds, to be untied, free from her captors.

Tanner rose, antsy and hoping to get at her and approached as he walked toward the kitchen for another cup of coffee. Biggs had the TV on and was slipping in and out of consciousness again.

She’d been sitting in a hard wooden kitchen chair for hours. Her ass had gone from aching to numb. She preferred the pain. At least she felt alive when her hips ached. The numbness, however, made her feel dead all over.

When Tanner walked past her, he brushed an open hand across her breast and bent down fast into her face over her shoulder and he stood behind her.

He gripped her breast hard and tight and talked to her so close that she could smell the bitter coffee off his tongue.

“He can’t stay awake forever.” He whispered in her ear, the heat of his breath burning her skin. He tipped his head to Biggs. She moaned in a high pitch through the rag they’d stuffed into her mouth.

Biggs, with his arms crossed over his chest and one foot on, one foot off the sofa, spoke in a surgical tone. “Leave her alone, Tanner.”

He kept his eyes closed. Roberta twisted her body out of his grip. He dug into his jeans pocket, pulling out a small tin and walked off. Roberta cranked her neck around to make sure she was a safe distance from him. With his back to her, he slipped open the tin and shook it once. Then, throwing his head back, he popped whatever he had in the tin into his mouth. She assumed, from his agitated state, he was taking amphetamines.

He turned quickly to look at her then, again, like a snake, fluttered his tongue at her. It sickened her and she didn’t hide her feelings.

“I’m telling ya, Biggs, he should’ve called by now.”

In the last day and a half, the two men worked out the situation together. Someone else above them was calling the shots via phone conversations Hawthorne received. He had gotten a call on Saturday at one o’clock. They expected another call again today within the hour, at one.

“Shut up.” Hawthorne shot a quick peek at Roberta as she focused on both men again. She hadn’t meant to sleep.

“I need to pee.”

“I’ll take her.”

“Shut the hell up,” Biggs barked at Tanner.

“You let me with Helen.”

“That was different.”

“Why?”

“She threatened me. Plus, Helen wasn’t the god-bless-ed mayor, asshole. Now, shut up and if he calls while we’re in the toilet, keep talking to him until we get back.”

Roberta understood they meant Helen had been raped. Since Biggs had slugged her she had remained quiet, only speaking when they asked her questions and when they forced her to leave those two scripted messages, one to Kaplan Hayes and the other to Georgette.

As Biggs untied her arms from behind the chair, she tried to remember each conversation, trying to puzzle everything together.

They wanted to obtain ownership of the diner, that was clear. But why? And who was the man on the phone? She figured the “why” part of the equation was out of greed. That part was simple too.

They’d double-tied her. Once around her wrists then again onto the chair. Biggs raised her from the chair by yanking up on her arms, forcing her to stand.

“Let’s make this one quick.” She nodded fast. “You know the drill.” He pulled up the blindfold to her forehead. She turned around like she had all the other times. Her whole skull felt bruised.

The time before when she urinated, she fell asleep leaning back against the toilet. Biggs had fallen asleep on the couch allowing Tanner to sneak in and try to get her panties down around her legs. When his tugging woke her, she kicked him against the wall and screamed.

Hawthorne came in and dragged him out, then he flung him out the bathroom door like a schoolboy. She wouldn’t make the same mistake this time.

They didn’t hear her finish and walking back out from the toilet, she had a view of the entire room. Both guns sat several feet away from her chair, on the dresser near the TV, next to Biggs’ cell phone. The duffle bag lay on the bed, gaping open.

Her jaw was sore. Keeping her mouth open like this had put an unusual amount of strain on her facial muscles.

The phone jangled, making Biggs rise and swing his feet down, making Tanner race to answer it, spilling coffee onto the floor as he moved from the kitchen over to the dresser.

“Hey,” Tanner answered the  phone,  then  turning he handed the phone to Biggs. Roberta had seen the roles playing out this way quite often. Tanner was Biggs’ boy and Biggs’? Owned, by the guy phoning in.

“Yeah…” he listened dutifully. “Where…” stopping for more instruction. “Got it.” He ended the call. “Wants us to move. Says we’ve been here too long.”

“Where?”

Biggs rolled his eyes and tipped his head toward Roberta. They wouldn’t say in front of her.

“Get her in the bag.”

It hadn’t even occurred to her how they got her into the hotel without being seen. The duffle bag had been her most recent mode of transportation.

They tied Roberta to the chair again. She flailed and moaned but couldn’t get any volume because of gag in her mouth. She rocked the chair, trying to somehow unleash herself. It was a primal urge, her body, her reaction, thrashing, groaning, crying. Her fear peaked when she thought that no one might even realize she was missing.

“Don’t make me hurt you, bitch.” Tanner, smiling, showed no anger. He walked up in front of Roberta, who had not yet calmed down.

Biggs, now standing, put his cell phone in his pants pocket and walked calmly to the dresser, retrieving his and Tanner’s guns.

“Shut her up,” was all Biggs said. It took only one punch this time, to the right side of her jaw, to knock her out.

***

“We found something, boss.” Taylor West, dressed in chalkline blue from neck to toe, was one of Willy’s men at the scene.

He held up an evidence baggie between his gloved fingers. The sanitary gloves stretched tight across the tips, allowing his fingernail bed to show through. He rubbed his nose, clearing the oil off his nut brown skin. His fifties-style, black-rimmed glasses didn’t do justice to his good looks.

“A few hairs too, found a partial and tons of full sets from what I gather are Roberta’s and Rick’s.”

Willy eyed the baggie and its contents. “Any writing on it?”

“Nope.”

“Where’s it from?”

“The Sunnydale ESL on 93.”

“Where they found Helen Wellen?”

“Same one.”

“Sound like a coincidence to you, West?”

“You know what they say about coincidences, boss?”

“No, what’s that?” Willy egged on his answer.

“There aren’t any.”

“And the partial?”

“Yep. I want to get it to the lab and run it through Solaris.”

“Good. I want that info now. Go. Call as soon as you know something.”

West turned to leave the scene with the matchbook. He wiped at his forehead and adjusted his glasses closer to his face on the bridge of his nose. “It’s muggy today,” he called back, unzipping his blue clean suit. “Muggy and hot.”

Willy looked out across the horizon, seeing a mountainous thundercloud billowing in the east. “Looks like rain in the mountains. Know what that means.”

“Idiot drivers trying to surf!” West yelled back as he walked, holding up the hand with the baggie, acknowledging Willy.

“Call as soon as you know!” Willy called out again.

“Check, boss.” Willy jumped into the white police van and sped off.

On the outside, Willy remained calm. But his heart pounded inside his chest.

The scene showed obvious signs of violence—from the back window being busted out to a trail of destruction through the house and blood in the master bedroom. He feared the worst—they had found blood on the bed and splatter on the lamp, blood he assumed was Roberta’s.

His exterior spoke of authority and finesse while inside he feared for Roberta and the injuries she had incurred, or worse—her possible brutal murder.

He resolved that he would wait to call Georgette. Alarming her any further wasn’t the way to handle things. He had to remind himself that this wasn’t personal even though, in their small town, he had personal relations with so many folks. It was hard not to become close with each and every crime.

***

She swung her car into the hotel’s parking lot, watching to see if she could spot the man with the duffle bag. If it had been Hawthorne, if he was culpable in any of this murder business with Helen, he was hiding in plain sight. Just like him to be brazen.

Her arms cranked the wheel, straightening out the car as she drove behind the building instead of where she she saw the man’s car.

Parking now, she stopped to decide on some plan of action while the car idled.

Behind the hotel, the wall of oleanders wagged wild in the breeze from the storm pushing closer. Behind the bank of oleanders a glint of something shiny and dark caught her attention. She shifted the gear down again and drove closer to the hedge then parked letting the car idle again. She got out and stepped nearer to a shallow, dry riverbed running just parallel to the shrubs—the same riverbed that curved and twisted northeast toward the coming storm. Placing her hands between some limbs, she pressed the branches open.

Hawthorne’s big black truck sat empty down in the narrow channel. It was all the proof Georgette needed, him hiding there.

She knew he had killed Helen and now he had Roberta.

Making her way back to her car, she remembered she had no way to protect herself. Looking for anything, she pulled open the glove compartment. Scraping out its contents and finding nothing, she sat back and stopped to think.

Using the car’s interior control, she popped open the trunk and jumped out fast. Lifting the trunk open, she pulled out her emergency kit with the flare gun inside and pressed the trunk closed again and got back to safety inside her car. She angled around, looking for anyone who might be witnessed her. When it appeared no one had, she unlatched the box and pulled out an even smaller box.

Her heart pounded when she considered what she might have to do. But if it meant she might save Roberta, well then, she would do anything. The cardboard lid squealed when it came off.

She flicked the small latch and holding the handle in her left hand, she loaded one thick, oversized red signal into the flare gun’s chamber. Closing it, she pocketed another flare. She noticed the box stated the flare gun’s 500 foot projectile capability. “Okay.” She whispered. That was plenty far for her to maintain a safe distance from Hawthorne.

Turning toward the steering wheel again, she turned off the car and started to get out, but stopped. She looked again at the other two flares in the box, snatched them both and stuffed them into her other pocket.

***

Tanner regained duty of rolling the oversized, heavy  duffle bag from the hotel room to the car. Stopping at the elevator, they waited, each looking up at the lights striking numbered floors. A maid’s cart clanged down the hall after pulling out from a room she recently cleaned.

“Did you put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door?” Biggs spoke low.

“Dammit to hell.”

“You moron. They don’t need to find our gun ever and if they do find one, not until after we’re long gone. Give me the key you retard.”

Biggs held his hand out when the elevator chimed and swooshed open. “You get Georgette’s piece?”

Tanner tried not to act flustered, tapped his pocket and nodded his head ‘yes’ about the gun, then said, “Here.” Handing off the handle to Biggs. “I’ll get it and catch the next one. Go on.”

An elderly woman, leaning on an oversized black umbrella like a cane, stood inside the elevator, smiling as she held the doors open with the button.

“Going down?” she said almost yelling to them after waiting for them to come in.

“Yes, ma’am. Just uno momentito.” Biggs winked at her, making her cloudy eyes almost disappear in a wrinkle from smiling.

“See you down there.” Tanner walked off reversing his steps toward their room.

Biggs tugged the heavy bag into the elevator, pivoting it around so it was beside him, away from the woman.

“Looks like rain,” she said.

“Does it? Haven’t been out today.”

He felt the bag move. He coughed to distract the woman. Roberta moaned inside.

“I’m sorry?” she said.

“Haven’t been outside.” He spoke loudly, realizing the woman’s hearing was impaired.

“Oh, my, it’s absolutely gorgeous today. Even with the storm coming.” Her soprano voice warbled from age.

He whispered low to check for sure. “You’re an old bat, aren’t you?”