The calculating, scientific part of his brain realized that his mom had grown tolerant to the Ambien he’d been feeding her like candy. He also didn’t realize her desire to overcome her lonely existence and see the world. That gave him a pang of guilt too.
Finally, Dremmel had recovered enough to ask, “You get up in the middle of the day and cruise around the house?”
“Some days. Not too often.”
“Do you want to hear about why there’s a girl in my darkroom?”
She was about to answer when he heard a loud thump, then a crash near the front of the house. He sprang to his feet and reached for his stun gun in his pocket as he darted to the other room, his mother turning to follow him in walker mode.
Once she was up and around, Patty Levine immediately went to Stacey and broke her leg shackles the same way she broke her own. The handcuffs were a bigger problem until she let her engineering class she took her junior year come back to her. The professor drilled into them to think outside the normal parameters of a problem. Basically, think outside the box. Patty saw the answer almost immediately. She used the open cuff arm on her left wrist as a lever to start to twist the eye-bolt in the wall.
She looked back to Stacey and said, “Roll with the turn so I can get this thing out of the wall.”
After two minutes they were both out of bed, naked, scared, and ready to kick some ass. Patty closed the open cuff so both of them were around her right wrist and not swinging awkwardly free. She had a separate shackle cuff with a short length of chain on each ankle.
Stacey still had her hands in cuffs in front of her, but they were ready to make their move.
Patty quietly tried the door handle. Locked. The door was thin, but sturdy. Now she had to decide if she should wait and try to surprise, then overpower Dremmel, or knock down the door and run. She wanted the confrontation, but wasn’t sure what her reaction time was like because of the drugs and her depleted state. Her first responsibility was to ensure Stacey was safe and got away. Then she could worry about what she’d do to William Dremmel.
She looked at Stacey. “We’ll be out of here in just a minute. Once we’re out, run for the front door. If you can’t get to the front easily, just run to the rear of the house. No matter what happens don’t stop.”
“I’ll follow you.”
“No, you have to find the right door yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m staying.” Then she turned and kicked the door as hard as she could.
Stacey was terrified as she stood behind Patty when she kicked the door once, twice, three times. It cracked, then she put her muscular shoulder into it and knocked the door all the way open. She followed the gutsy detective out the door but froze when William Dremmel stood right in front of the door with that scary electric shock thing in his hand.
Patty didn’t hesitate to swing at him, connecting with his face. Then she heard the ugly chatter of the device and Patty yelped and jumped away from Dremmel.
Stacey kept her head down and turned toward the back of the house, ready to sprint. But two steps into it she almost fell over an old woman in a wheelchair.
The woman screeched, “William. William.” Then she wrapped surprisingly strong arms around Stacey’s legs. It was like being caught in quicksand. She struggled but it made no difference. The old lady held on tight and Stacey fell over, pulling her out of her wheelchair onto the floor.
Stacey started to break free of the screaming old lady when she heard another blast of the stun gun and then Patty was flopping around on the cold terrazzo floor.
The old lady’s arms weakened and released as Stacey stood up into a crouch like a sprinter on starting blocks. She was going to make it.
Then she felt a strong hand on her ankle and looked back just as the stun gun made contact and the pain she’d felt before started crackling through her body.
John Stallings saw motion in the front room. There was a flash and he heard faint screams from inside the house. That was all he needed to push him into cold, calculated action. He looked over his shoulder to Tony Mazzetti at the other corner of the house attempting to make a phone call. “Tony, something’s happening. We gotta move.”
Mazzetti scurried up to Stallings for a look just as Stallings drew his Glock, stood up, and started sprinting across the empty street. He slowed as he approached the door but not much. He tried the front door handle. Locked. Now he could clearly hear yelling from inside as well as another sound that was familiar but he couldn’t place. Then he heard it again and realized what it was: a stun gun.
Dremmel already had the detective flopping on the floor from a blast of the stun gun. Now he had the weapon firmly on Stacey’s naked thigh, delivering 400,000 volts of incapacitating energy. The struggling girl immediately went limp under the power of the gun. But his mother was still screaming like an air raid siren.
“Get her, William, get her,” she shrieked. Then she started yelling nonsense. The noise was so loud and shrill it disoriented him.
“Mom, quiet down.” He doubted that he penetrated the wall of noise. He raised his voice, “Mom, shut up.” Still no effect.
Finally, trying to keep track of the two stunned, nude women, regain his own composure, and deal with his mother’s wailing became too much. He put the nodes of the stun gun to her neck and let a charge of electricity fly.
Before he could appreciate the silence for a moment he heard someone at the front door. First trying the handle, then kicking it. Hard.
Dremmel stood, then raced toward the rear of the house, the stun gun still in his hand. He had no idea where to go.
Stallings was surprised how strong the door to the older house was, withstanding his first kick easily. He looked over his shoulder to see Mazzetti running toward the house, apparently not as sure hitting the front door was the right move. Stallings stepped back and delivered another kick just above the door handle and dead bolt. This time the door gave a little. Then, with all his power he splintered the door with a final kick.
Mazzetti timed it and ran through the open doorway without breaking his stride.
Stallings entered the house and froze at the sight of three bodies on the ground. Two naked women and an older women in a wheelchair were sprawled across the floor.
Then one of the naked women moved. Stallings kneeled to her and realized it was Patty. She let out a squeak and groan, then her whole body flexed.
He cradled her head. “Patty, can you hear me? Patty.” He looked into her eyes and saw some recognition.
Mazzetti was helping the other woman on the floor. He turned and said, “How is she?”
“She’s coming around. What about her? Is it Stacey Hines?”
“Yeah, and she’s in shock.”
“I think it was a stun gun or Taser.”
Mazzetti joined him next to Patty and said, “I got her, Stall. Go get that son of a bitch.”
Stallings saw that the woman in the wheelchair was stirring, so he turned and headed toward the back of the house, his gun up, ready to kill the first person he saw. He was a little surprised Mazzetti would give up the chance to catch the Bag Man himself. Maybe he wasn’t the tool Stallings thought he was.
Patty Levine’s head started to clear. She’d thought Stallings was with her. A blanket covered her on the soft couch, and she saw Stacey Hines sitting up in a chair across the room with a blanket wrapped around her. Tony Mazzetti gently patted an elderly woman sitting in a wheelchair.
She cleared her throat and croaked, “Tony.”
He turned, then rushed to her side. He held her hand and smiled at her before she knew it. It felt natural. Mazzetti said, “Help is on the way.”
“I’m okay. How’s Stacey?”
“She’s scared but all right. I think he didn’t have time to hit her with the stun gun as long as you.”
“Where is he? Tony, that’s the Bag Man. Did you get him?” She felt her words rush out as her brain tried to catch up.
