Wicked Charms (18 page)

“You realize this is all nuts, right?”

“Ha-ha, nuts. No, no, I assure you it’s not nuts. Mr. Ammon has fully researched this. He’s had a vision.”

“And you believe Mr. Ammon?”

“Of course. Totally.”

“And you believe in Mammon?”

“Ah, Mammon. Yes, he is…the prince.”

“Well, I’m sorry but the prince is going to have to wake up without the coin because I don’t have it.”

Rutherford was smiling and sweating. “That would be lovely. We would all like for that to happen, but it might not be possible. So you are going to have to bring the coin to us. You’re the only one who can recognize it. Mr. Ammon is very set on this. I know this is going to sound extreme, but you must keep in mind the importance of the ceremony. I’m afraid we will be forced to wreck havoc if you don’t bring us the coin. I admit that
havoc
is a very strong word, but Mr. Ammon has been quite specific about this.”

“Can you explain
havoc
?”

“My understanding is that it would involve torture and death. Possibly mutilation.” Rutherford took a photo out of his suit jacket and handed it to me. “As you can see, this is a picture of the elderly gentleman related to your boss. I believe he’s her grandfather.”

It was a picture of Gramps waving at the camera. Two armed men in suits were standing behind him. Their faces had been blotted out.

“He’s a character,” Rutherford said. “You never know what he’ll say. Very entertaining. I would feel terrible if we had to cut his ear off.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“It is. I absolutely agree. But we must do what we must do. Responsibility is a heavy burden.” He clapped his hands together. “I guess that about sums it up. I should be leaving so you can get on with it.”

“How do I reach you?”

“I’ve sent contact information to your cellphone.”

I watched him leave and saw that there were several men in suits standing at attention by an SUV. Rutherford got in. His thugs followed.

I had a range of emotions wash over me. They were jumbled and hard to identify individually, but anger was clearly at the top of the list. I was angry that Rutherford would kidnap Gramps, and I was angry that I was involved. Diesel was wrong. I didn’t like the adventure. I liked dull and boring. I wanted my life to be
pleasant.
I wanted Gramps’s life to be
pleasant.
Hell, I wanted the
world
to be
pleasant.

Sitting side by side with the anger was ice cold heart-grabbing fear, because I knew Rutherford and Ammon were dangerous and capable of just about anything. And I suspected that the stone was slowly turning them from merely dangerous into crazy psychopaths.

I took a look at my door and blew out a sigh. The jamb was splintered and there was a long crack running from the doorknob almost to the bottom of the door. I managed to get the door to stay closed, but I couldn’t lock it. As if it mattered. One good kick and the door was toast.

“We need a plan,” I said to Carl and Cat. “Hopefully Diesel will be back with the coin before they hurt Gramps. In the meantime I need to keep everyone else safe.”

I called Clara, gave her the short version of what was happening, and asked her to check on Gramps just to make sure he’d truly been snatched. Glo had already left the bakery, so I tried her cellphone. No answer. I called Diesel. No answer there, either. I was tempted to get in touch with Wulf, but I had no idea where to begin. I didn’t know his phone number or where he lived. And you know it was a scary day in hell when I was thinking about asking Wulf for help.

I finished vacuuming and was contemplating laundry when Glo called.

“The Pirate Museum is on fire,” Glo said. “I’m half a block away. I can’t get any closer. I hope Josh is okay. I’m still mad at him, but I hope he’s out of the building. I tried his phone and he isn’t answering.”

“Rutherford and Ammon are on a rampage, and you could be in danger,” I told Glo. “Go back to the bakery and stay with Clara until I get there.”

I poured out a big bowl of kitty crunchies and set an extra water bowl on the floor for Cat.

“I’m going to leave the kitchen window open,” I told him. “Do
not
guard the house. If someone breaks in I want you to jump out the window and hide. I probably won’t be back tonight. I’m going to stay with Clara and Glo.”

I threw extra undies, my sweatshirt, and my toothbrush into my tote bag along with all the usual junk I always carry. I hung the bag on my shoulder, grabbed Carl, and went out the back door. I drove to the bakery and saw the black smoke from the Pirate Museum when I rolled into Salem. In my gut I knew Rutherford had started the fire, either to smoke Josh out or to send me another scary message. Most likely it was both of those things.

Lights were on in the bakery when I parked in the lot. Clara opened the door for Carl and me, and closed and locked it after we were safely inside. She had an assault rifle hanging from her shoulder and a semiautomatic handgun shoved into her jeans waistband.

“I didn’t know you were a gun person,” I said to Clara.

“The Dazzles have been locked and loaded since before the Revolution.”

“Did you check on Gramps?”

“Yes. He’s not at home, and he’s not with his caregiver.”

Glo was perched on a stool. “These people are sick,” she said. “Gramps is such a sweetie. I hate to think he was kidnapped. Did you tell the police?”

Clara and I exchanged glances.

“Not yet,” I said. “I was hoping Diesel would return with the coin, and we could make a trade. I’d rather not explain this whole bizarre mess to the police. I doubt they would even believe me. Martin Ammon has money and power, and I just have cupcakes.”

“Yes, but they aren’t ordinary cupcakes,” Glo said. “Your cupcakes are
extraordinary.
”

“Yeah, I don’t want to have to explain that to the police, either,” I said.

Baking exceptional cupcakes, it turns out, is my other ability that is slightly beyond normal. So I wasn’t kidding when I told Ammon that the ingredient I’d left out of the cupcakes recipe was magic.

There was a lot of loud banging on the front door to the bakery, and Glo went to investigate.

“It’s Josh,” she said, unlocking the door and letting him in.

Josh was soot smudged and sweaty. His puffy pirate shirt was untucked and streaked with black grime, his striped pants had a hole in the knee, and his hair was an unruly mess.

“They’re freaking crazy!” Josh said. “They set a match to the Pirate Museum. I barely got out alive. Had to crawl out the basement window.”

Broom smacked Josh in the head.

“Ow!” Josh said. “That hurt.”

“It was Broom,” Glo said.

“It was
you,
” Josh said. “You’re holding Broom.”

“Were you the only one in the museum?” I asked him.

“Yes. The museum manager got a call to pick up a package, so I shut the doors for a spell. Too difficult to run the show alone. It’s a slow time for us anyway. People are thinking about dinner and not pirates. It picks up again when the ghost tour starts.”

“How did the fire start?”

Josh got whacked with the broom again.

“Okay, I get it,” Josh said to Glo. “You’re mad at me. I’m sorry. I was a jerk. I don’t know what the heck I was thinking.”

“About the fire,” I said.

“We were all locked up, but someone was knocking and knocking and knocking, and, like an idiot, I went to the door. It was three guys in suits. They pushed me back into the museum, and one of them hit me on the head with his gun. When I came around there was fire everywhere. Lucky I was near the trapdoor that goes to the basement. It’s just a crawl space down there with the rats and the spiders, but I got to the small half window that’s on the back alley side and managed to squeeze out. The police were out front and the fire trucks were pulling up, but all I could think of was putting distance between me and the men in suits. I figured they were lurking somewhere close, waiting until someone discovered my charred remains.”

“They kidnapped Clara’s grandfather,” Glo said.

“That’s horrible,” Josh said. “Is he okay?”

“We don’t know,” I said.

Rutherford called on my cellphone. “Good evening,” he said. “Mr. Ammon would like to speak to you.”

There were some scuffling sounds and Ammon came on the phone. “I trust you’ve heard the news by now that there was a fire at the Pirate Museum. I thought the symbolism was appropriate since we seem to have a theme of fire and brimstone.
Rrrruff, ruff.
Excuse me. Remnants of my concussion. I trust you’re working hard to find the coin for me. We’ll have a wonderful future together once you’ve found the coin.
Aaarooo.
”

More scuffling, and Rutherford took over. “Mr. Ammon has gone to get a cough drop,” Rutherford said, “but it sounds like the conversation went well. I have to say I saw some of the fire at the museum, and it was spectacular. Did you get to see any of it?”

“No.”

“Well, there will be other opportunities. Mr. Ammon has a list of activities prepared to demonstrate his commitment to completing Mammon’s holy ceremony.”

“More fires and kidnappings?”

“Very definitely. Mr. Ammon is still a bit under the weather from time to time, but he’s a master at planning a campaign such as this. He would have made a wonderful general. A regular Napoleon.”

There was some offstage growling and a muffled conversation.

“One last thing,” Rutherford said, returning to the phone. “Mr. Ammon would like to order a dozen cupcakes. Six chocolate and six red velvet with cream cheese icing. I’ll send someone over to pick them up.”

I disconnected, grabbed a cupcake container, and filled it with the dozen cupcakes. I wrote “Martin Ammon” on the container, and set it out front next to the door.

“Gather up some food and kill the lights,” I said to Clara, Josh, and Glo. “We’re going underground until Diesel returns.”

Five minutes later we locked the bakery, took the stairs to the storeroom, and moved into the tunnel. I pulled the shelves back in place, so the tunnel entrance wasn’t visible. Clara led the way with the big spotlight. Glo and I had smaller flashlights tucked into our tote bags. Carl skipped alongside me. Josh carried two large freezer bags filled with meat pies and muffins. We would be able to get water at the speakeasy.

“These tunnels go for miles and miles under Salem,” Clara said. “The speakeasy is the most elaborate of the hidey-holes, but there are storerooms and bunk rooms all over the place. Houses and office buildings have changed hands and been renovated, and the current owners probably have no idea they’re living over tunnel entrances.”

We reached the speakeasy and settled in, allowing ourselves light from just one lightbulb in case Rutherford returned to Gramps’s house.

“We’ll know if someone is in the house,” Clara said. “You can hear people walking overhead on the creaky floorboards. And if you climb the stairs and stand in front of the door, you might be able to get cell service.”

We ate meat pies and played checkers. I tried to reach Diesel a couple times but had no success. At nine o’clock Clara wanted to check on the bakery, so we left Josh and Glo and Carl at the speakeasy, and Clara led me through the tunnels to a trapdoor. We unlatched the door and popped up in a dark, musty shed that was housing a lawnmower.

“This shed belongs to Myra Belkar,” Clara said. “It’s a total wreck, and Myra would love to demolish it and put up a garage. Unfortunately for Myra, the shed is deemed historic, so she can’t change it, and she can’t tear it down.”

We crept out of the unlocked shed and looked around. There were no streetlights on the narrow street. The small houses crammed into small pieces of land were in dark shadow. Lights were on in the houses. None had shades drawn. We could see Myra in her kitchen, at the sink. The bakery was a block away. We walked to the corner and looked down the street. We didn’t see any fire-blackened buildings. No fire trucks. No yellow crime scene tape. No lunatic Ammon employees hanging out. It all felt benign. I supposed Martin Ammon was happy with the cupcakes.

“At least they didn’t attack the bakery,” Clara said. “It would be painful to see it destroyed. My first instinct is to stand my ground and protect it, but I know that’s not smart. It’s just a building after all. It can be rebuilt.”

My phone chirped with a text message from Diesel. It was just one word…
success.
He had the coin. I messaged back that there were problems, and we’d gone underground.
Look before you shoot
was his answer. I assumed that meant he’d try to find us.

Clara and I retraced our steps and returned to the speakeasy. Josh and Carl were playing checkers in the dim light.

“Who’s winning?” I asked.

“Carl is winning,” Glo said. “If we don’t let him win he pitches a tantrum and throws the checkers all around the room.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

When you’re underground, the only way to know if it’s day or night is to check your watch. And I imagine if you were underground long enough even your watch wouldn’t keep you from being disoriented. It was close to midnight when I fell asleep. I was on the floor, using my tote bag as a pillow. I awoke at five, drifted back into a restless sleep, and woke up again at seven.

Glo was up and pacing, Josh was playing solitaire, and Carl was sprawled on top of a poker table sound asleep.

“Where’s Clara?” I asked Glo.

“In the tunnels. She said she needed exercise. Personally I think it’s a creepy place to go for a walk.”

“Not for Clara. She played in these tunnels when she was a kid. And she’s probably freaked out that the bakery is closed. The bakery is
never
closed.”

Clara returned at seven-thirty, and moments later we heard someone walking overhead. We snapped the light off and froze. No one spoke. I looked at my cellphone. No bars. If it was Diesel upstairs, looking for the entrance to the speakeasy, he couldn’t reach me. I tiptoed to the stairs and crept up to the door. A text message flashed on from Diesel.
Can’t find entrance.