Legal Action - Box Set (38 page)

              “I’ll tell you why,” Maddie Newland said, she was standing above them bundled up against the cold and she looked excited. “Because she went shopping for more than dresses, and she did her homework before she ever left the states.”

              “Sit with us,” Charlotte said, and Billy stood up and pulled an extra chair over to the small table for her. “Maddie Newland this is Billy Kipling, he’s… good at finding people.”

              “I’m a journalist,” Maddie said, sitting in the chair Billy held for her, and she was as captivated by his eyes as he was by her blatant sex appeal, Charlotte noticed. “Alright, I convinced a cop to let me have a quick look at Natalie’s IPhone last night, since they kept it as evidence. It was late and the policeman was all alone, I mean, the police force in this village is what, a grand total of six men? I took him a cup of coffee and a flask of bourbon and he became… cooperative.”

              “Imagine that, and what did you find of interest on the confiscated cell phone?” Billy asked, and his eyes were all over Maddie, with her lovely face, captivating brown eyes and honey-blonde hair that fell in soft waves just past her chin.

              “That sequined dress you mentioned, Charlotte, she bought it from a shop here in the village the day they arrived. The shop is owned by a woman whose husband is in prison for money laundering in the U.S., just the type of woman Natalie was looking for, it seems. We can go to the shop when it opens in an hour. The only thing I couldn’t find, is where she lives.”

              “Did I mention that Natalie has the legal right to control all Bly’s assets in case of his absence?” Charlotte asked, “I talked to Jack Sheppard yesterday, I called his law office when Bly first went missing. He said they’d received a letter from Bly International saying they were changing law firms with no other explanation. He’s tried to reach Bly over the last week, but Bly didn’t answer and his calls were never returned. Bly’s office assistant said he was out of the country and didn’t want to be bothered.”

              “I’m sure I’d be attacked if I suggested that you both need to let me check things out, so I won’t even say it,” Billy said, and the look on the women’s faces said, “you’re damn right, we’re going with you!”

“Let’s go now,” he said, “someone has to be there to open that shop every morning.”

*

              “I’m only filling in for a few days,” a girl who looked to be about sixteen said, she was unlocking the front door of the tiny dress shop when they arrived. She spoke English extremely well, with no trace of a Slavic accent. “My sister works here and the owner’s out of town for the holidays.”

              “Why isn’t your sister here today?” Billy asked, as he walked through every room of the shop quickly, opening doors, and looking behind dressing-room curtains. Then he stood over the girl menacingly. “Where is your sister right now? You know, you’re pretty young to spend your life in prison, and in a foreign country, at that. Have you heard about foreign prisons? Man, people in America have it damned good compared to…”

              “She’s at the house with that man everybody’s looking for! We’ve been backpacking through Europe and we rented a room here for the month and the lady who owns the house and this shop…” the girl blurted out, but Billy stopped her and asked where the house was.

              “It’s a couple of miles out of town, right off the main road, it backs up to the river,” she said and started crying, “I’d better call my parents.”

              “Did you drive here, do you have a car?” Billy asked, and when she nodded her head he said, “Get your keys and let’s go,
now
! I’ll drive and you point the way, is he hurt, the man in the house?”

              “I don’t know, I don’t go in there, my sister crushes pills and puts them in whiskey and it’s all she gives him to drink. She says she isn’t supposed to feed him and not to be afraid because he doesn’t really wake up and he’s tied up or something. I just want to go home, please let me call my parents, I don’t think the man is hurt, I’m sure he’s just fine,” she whined.

              Charlotte and Billy sat in the front seat of the new BMW. The girl said the woman who owned the shop and the house had taken a car service into Prague the day before. She told the two sisters she’d be back soon to deal with the man. Maddie sat in back with the girl and it was all she could do to keep from backhanding the living daylights out of the stupid little fool.

              “Oh yeah, sounds like he’s just fine, fit as a fucking fiddle. Whiskey and pills and no food or water, are you impaired in some way?” Maddie asked, and she seriously wanted to knock some sense into the girl.

              “What room is he in, where in the house?” Billy asked, they parked just down the road from a tiny, wood framed house that sat on edge of the frozen river. It was barely visible through a thick stand of trees. He took a gun from an inside pocket of his coat and Charlotte thought it looked a helluva lot scarier than the one she carried.

              “The downstairs bedroom that faces the river, at the back of the house, go all the way down the hall from the front room,” she said.

              “Come on,” he said, pulling her out of the car, “you’ll get us in the house, then wait outside in case shots are fired, go to the car and lie down on the seat if you get scared, understand?” Billy looked around and there were two other cars in the driveway, one had a rental sticker on the back window.

The front door was locked and Billy could hear two female voices yelling inside, he whispered to the girl to go back to the car. When he saw that Charlotte held a gun in her shaking hands he told her to stay behind him, they would check out the back door. He whispered to Maddie to go to the car and call the police.

There was a deck in back that jutted out over the frozen river, and two doors leading into the house. Billy climbed the stairs and looked in the windows with Charlotte at his side.

Inside the bedroom was a nicely made bed but they could see Bly passed out on the floor near a partially opened window, his hands were duct-taped to an old iron radiator. He still wore his ski pants and jacket, but his face was ghostly white and his lips and hands were blue from the cold. Two women were arguing in the next room, yelling at each other so loudly they didn’t hear Charlotte enter through the second door.

“Fuck!” Billy muttered under his breath, as Charlotte pointed her gun at a woman with long black hair and told the other one to lie down on the floor. “Keep your fucking hands out to your sides,” she screamed as the younger woman dropped to the floor.

Billy held his gun on the woman who stood in front of Charlotte laughing hysterically, the infamous Natalie, he was certain.

At that moment, the police broke down the front door and poured into the house and Natalie seized the distraction to dash out the back door.

Charlotte chased her as she ran out onto the frozen river, and when she was nearly to the middle she stopped on the ice and turned to face Charlotte. She held a pistol pointed at Charlotte’s heart and on her face was a lunatic’s grin.

“We’ll go together then, princess, but I feel bad for that pretty little baby of yours. He’ll be motherless just like you were, such a shame. Of course, if I survive I’ll sit in jail and know I took your life and caused your son a lifetime of sorrow, and I’ll be happy at last,” she said.

Charlotte lowered her gun and a look of surprise crossed Natalie’s face. In that split second Charlotte fired round after round into the ice beneath Natalie’s feet, and with a great cracking noise the ice gave way and they both fell through. 

Billy had been standing behind Charlotte, his gun trained on Natalie. He shouted for the police to grab a ladder that leaned against the deck, and he plunged into the freezing water after Charlotte. His coat was dragging him down and he shrugged out of it quickly and felt in all directions in the murky water until his hand touched hair. He grabbed a handful and kicked toward the surface, numb with cold and he prayed it was the right woman.

              The ladder was laid flat across the gap in the ice, and as he surfaced he grabbed onto it and pulled the limp body up beside him. Her long black hair covered her face and he yelled at the waiting policeman to pull her out as he prepared to go back under just in case.

Billy was never so glad to see a blue face in his life when the policemen pulled Charlotte onto the ice and wrapped her in their coats.

Maddie had been watching from the bedroom where she’d moved Bly onto the bed and swaddled him in blankets. She’d forced him to drink water, even as tears streaked her face while she watched Charlotte and the crazy woman on the ice. She ran down the back steps and walked next to Charlotte as the police carried her to a cruiser to take her to a clinic in the village. The closest hospital was eighty miles away in Prague, and an ambulance was on the way.

“Charlotte, Mr. Bly is coming around and he’s asking for you, hold on please. Your little boy needs his mommy, Charlotte, fight dammit!” Maddie said, squeezing her hand and Charlotte’s eyes fluttered open. “That’s it, you’ve gotta stay with us, you want to see your husband and baby, don’t you? I’m taking care of Mr. Bly.”

“Bly’s alive. I lost Finn’s nice phone,” Charlotte’s voice was barely a whisper, “in my coat, in the cold river.”

Billy walked beside Maddie, and they both started laughing, and they knew that it would all be okay as Maddie handed Billy her coat.

CHAPTER THREE

              The ambassador’s helicopter sat off to the side of the Grandhotel Pupp, and Georgina and Henrietta and Charles Tremont watched as police cars went screaming by. When they stopped at the little minor-emergency clinic just up the road, Georgina handed the baby to Henrietta and ran toward them. She grabbed Charlotte’s hand as the men carried her inside the clinic, and although Charlotte was wet and shaking uncontrollably she looked questioningly into Georgina’s face.

              “Finn?” her mouth formed the name without making a sound.

              “He’s coming down off the mountain now, I talked to the head of the ski-patrol and the forest rangers. Shh, no need to worry anymore,” Georgina said.

              “Charlotte darlin’,” Charles Tremont had followed Georgina and was at Charlotte’s side, holding her hand. “We’ll have you in a good hospital in no time, hang on,” he said.

              “How’s Bly?” she whispered to Tremont, who stayed at her side as nurses and two doctors scurried around.

              Tremont looked at the doctor who was working on Bly and he nodded his head, “He’s good, honey,” he told Charlotte, and she closed her eyes and drifted off.

*

              “Where is my son? Move please, let me see my son! Alexander, oh dear God, Amanda get me some tissue immediately, I’ll ruin my make-up with these tears. Oh my dear boy! Who is in charge here, is this the best medical facility that’s available?” Evangeline Bly held her son’s hand to her cheek while she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

              “Mother, they’re working on him, move out of the way so they can do what needs to be done,” Amanda pleaded, pulling her away from Bly so that Evangeline began to cry in earnest.

              “Mrs. Bly? I’m Ambassador Tremont, I have a helicopter waiting to take these young folks straight to a hospital in Prague. You’re welcome to come along with your son if you’d care to. I truly hate to see you so upset.”

              “You are most gracious, Ambassador, I’ll gladly accept. My nerves have almost sent
me
to the hospital since I got word yesterday that my son had been abducted by a madwoman,” she said, drying her tears and offering her hand and honoring him with a beguiling smile.

              The ambulance could be heard close by, then it passed the clinic and went on the Grandhotel entrance. The radios of the policemen who were standing around began to squawk and they left quickly, racing toward the hotel.

              “What’s happening?” Evangeline asked, and Maddie Newland came in from the cold and told them.

              Housekeeping had gone to clean Bly and Natalie’s room, and discovered the police guard shot in the head and lying in a pool of blood. He was unconscious but the maid heard him groaning and held a towel to the wound and called the hotel operator to send help. The guard regained consciousness, it seemed the bullet had simply grazed his temple and knocked him out. He said Natalie had lured him into the room saying someone was on the phone asking for ransom, then she shot him when his back was turned. The wound bled profusely at first, and she left him for dead. Thankfully it was just a flesh wound, and the officer was going to be fine.

              “I want that woman found and arrested, she should get the death penalty, she meant to kill my son and a police officer,” Evangeline ranted.

              “She is dead,” Billy Kipling said from the back of the room. “She tried to kill Charlotte and I had my weapon pointed right between her eyes, but Charlotte shot into the ice they were standing on, and they both fell into the river. I jumped in and caught a handful of hair. I wasn’t sure who I’d saved at first, I just saw long black hair. Thank God it was Charlotte.”

*

              Charlotte spent only one night in the hospital and when she opened her eyes in the darkening room, she was still hooked up to several monitors and Finn was sitting on the edge of the bed. She tugged on his shirt and scooted over in bed, and he lay down beside her and whispered, “my love my love” again and again, until she pressed her lips to his to quiet him.

              Her voice had suffered the most from her fall into the icy river, the doctors said she must have screamed so loud and long under water, her vocal chords were damaged. They would heal, but for the time being she could barely whisper, otherwise she was perfectly fine.

“No, my love,” Finn whispered against her lips as her hand expertly unfastened his jeans. “Charlotte, you were nearly killed this morning, you have no voice and we’re in a hospital.”