Just Me - M J Marlow (reading strategies book .txt) 📗

lungs were given the oxygen, and the pain started to ease. Simpson gave me a mild sedative and the panic was gone. “All you had to do was tell me where to find those files, little girl,” Simpson said as he stroked my hair. I was too exhausted to do more than shake my head. I didn’t care what he did to me. I had made a promise to my father and I would die before I betrayed his trust in me. “You really don’t know, do you?” I turned my head away from him and listened to him leave. I needed to be running away now, but my body was not having it. Even lifting my hand exhausted me now. Tears flowed down my cheeks in frustration and I was glad when the drug kicked in and I was asleep. At least asleep I could not do or say anything that would hurt someone. “Have you gotten anywhere with the scans?” Simpson asked a man who was sitting behind a bank of machines in the old dining room. The man looked up and removed his headphones. “No sign of hidden rooms, underground vaults?” “Not as yet, Doctor,” the man frowned. “If there is such a thing the Grady couple hid it well.” He looked up the stairs. “Their daughter is not cooperating?” “Their daughter,” Simpson frowned back, “is a very sick young woman. Pushing her could very probably kill her.” He shivered. “You know what would happen to us if we allowed that to occur.” “Why does it matter?” the man asked honestly. “What makes her any different than any of the other girls?” “Do you want to ask them, Heath?” Simpson asked. He saw the other man pale and shake his head. “Then you just concentrate on finding that room and leave the girl to me.” James lowered his binoculars and turned to the patrol car where Joseph was going over the layout of the property with the county Sheriff and his deputies. The entire team was there as well. Joseph had been the first person to think of the possibility that the man would bring me to my family home. As he had had said, it made a sick sort of sense. He was obsessed with the Grady family; where best to bring the last remaining family member than the farm where my parents had died? “I count ten,” he said tightly. He was dressed in black, like the rest of the team. “Five on patrol around the property, four inside the house. Maggie is in an upstairs bedroom where only the doctor has gone so far.” “Is she all right?” Joseph asked the only question he needed an answer for. He winced as he leaned a bit too hard on the hood and aggravated his shoulder wound. “We’ll need to get closer to ascertain that,” Sheriff Morrison replied. A short man; he was built like a barrel. Despite his size, he had a vitality about him that made people sit up and pay attention. He wore his gray hair cut close to the scalp military style and there wasn’t a spare ounce of fat on him. He could see the young man was personally involved with the victim and that made him antsy. “These men are here for a purpose and, it appears, they need your girl alive.” He looked at James. “You could tell us what that purpose is, Agent Kellogg.” “If we knew that, Sheriff Morrison,” James said with true regret, “we would have gotten here first.” He looked at Joseph eyeing him suspiciously. “All we know is that her parents hid something some very nasty characters are desperate to get their hands on.” “And they think Maggie knows where it is?” Joseph was aghast at the thought. “Who would entrust their seven-year-old child with such a secret?” he demanded. “And even if they did, she’s been away from that house for most of her life!” He was pacing. “And she needs to be in the hospital!” “Down, boy,” Cheryl said as she stepped up to him. Joseph glared at her and turned to look down at the farmhouse. She turned to James and saw the worry. “Someone’s coming,” she said as she saw the headlights coming down the single lane road. “Is it our man?” “Your man?” Joseph asked as he looked at them sharply. “You’re sending someone in?” “He insisted,” James frowned at the younger man. “If you can’t behave, Joseph, we can always send you back to the hospital. I’m certain Doctor Norman would be more than happy to keep you under sedation if we explained the situation.” He watched Joseph open his mouth to protest and then close it again. “We’re going to get your girl back for you, Sheriff. Count on it.” “Who is this man?” Joseph asked tightly. “Am I at least allowed to know that?” “No,” James shook his head. “It would compromise his cover.” Joseph knew he should listen. This man was a federal agent and, despite their rocky start, he had a great deal of respect for James Kellogg. But this was his girl they were here to save and he hated the idea that he was helpless to do anything to help. There had to be something he could do. He saw the others watching him and knew that he was as much a prisoner as I was. They were watching him like a hawk. “He’s going to give you trouble, Agent Kellogg,” Morrison said as Joseph moved off. “Men in love can be remarkably stupid where their women’s welfare is concerned.” He made a motion to his deputies and they saw Joseph to the back of the patrol car. James watched this and didn’t know whether to be amused or relieved. He had been worrying about the boy himself. He probably shouldn’t have let the boy come in the first place, but he knew if he’d refused to allow it, Joseph would have found his own way here. “Better?” James nodded and met Joseph’s glare. He turned his attention back to the road where their agent was just turning onto the road leading past the farm. Sure enough some of the men patrolling the grounds took instant note. The agent stopped the car and opened the hood as two men came over to check. James smiled as his man took them out and shoved them in the trunk. Two down, eight to go. Craig didn’t wait. He slid into the property and headed towards the back of the house. He had spent many long and happy years on this property and he knew it well. He made his way up the back stairs and took out another man on the way, shoving him into a closet. He got to my room and stepped inside to find me sleeping. He saw the oxygen mask and was horrified. “She almost had another attack,” Simpson said as he walked up behind the man with two of his men in tow. “I was wondering when you would make an appearance, Dr. Grady.” He raised his gun and Craig backed into the room. “Your niece is all right. We caught it in time to keep her from cardiac arrest.” “Why are you doing this to her?” Craig demanded as he sat down on the bed next to me and took my pulse. “She should be in the hospital, not being held hostage to your employers’ madness.” “Tell us where the room is, Dr. Grady,” Simpson said to his new prisoner, “and we’ll let you take her out of here.” “If I knew where it was,” Craig snapped at the man, “I would have gotten in there and turned over every last document to the authorities.” He saw the doctor’s bag and opened it. Simpson let him work, watching as the man got the stethoscope. “She needs to be in the hospital!” he repeated as he made Simpson listen. “Please let me take her before she gets any sicker.” Instead Simpson had his men grab Craig and hold him. He got out a drug and drew some into a syringe. Then he nodded. The men removed Craig’s jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and held out his arm. Simpson gave Craig the injection and had his men cuff the man’s wrists behind his back. “Your niece is too sick to talk to me, Dr. Grady,” Simpson said as he watched the man struggling not to succumb to the drug. “So before I let you take her, you are going to have to convince me you don’t know anything.” He looked at his men. “Bring him down to the kitchen. I don’t want to disturb her rest.” Craig was forced downstairs and the other men in the house were on their feet. They had not heard him enter so they were disturbed he had gotten in without their being aware of it. He was beginning to feel the effects of the drug he’d been given and knew his time was running short. So he drove his elbow into the side of the man to his right and that man went down. The second man went down soon afterwards but Craig suddenly froze as he felt the muzzle of a gun pressed into the back of his neck. “You can’t get the child to the hospital,” Simpson said coldly, “if you are dead.” He glared at the two men. “Tie him to that chair,” he nodded towards the table. They did so, using much more force than necessary. He didn’t correct them. They had no orders to keep this man alive. “Now, Dr. Grady,” he smiled as he saw the drug finally kicking in. “I have a few questions for you. How you answer them will make the difference between your being alive to help your niece or not. Do you understand?” Craig nodded and Simpson smiled. “You always were the more reasonable brother.” “I told Henry he was making a mistake,” Craig said softly. “He wouldn’t listen to me.” He shook his head. “Maggie…” “Kerrigan is fine,” Simpson broke in and made Craig look at him. “She will stay that way only if you tell us where your brother hid those documents he stole from my employers.” “He never told me about any documents,” Craig admitted. He glared at Simpson fiercely. “I would tell you if he had shared that with me. I would hand them over to you personally to keep her safe.” He was shaking with the effort to stay quiet but his need to keep me safe was stronger. “The box,” he continued helplessly. “The key is in the box he made her for her birthday. The one with the three hearts on top of it.” He bit his lip but it all came gushing out: how he had seen his brother testing the box once when Henry had thought he was in the house alone. “I never told him I knew where the room was. He never told me what he had hidden in there.” He looked up at Simpson in desperation. “You have to let her go. Maggie will die if you don’t let her get to a hospital soon. You know that!” Simpson watched the man pass out and had his men take him upstairs to another room. He could not let the girl go. Her transport to the compound and its excellent medical facilities was already arranged. But Dr. Craig Grady was another matter. The man was supposed to be dead. His employers would be quite interested to hear where the man had been the past seventeen years. He wasn’t all that convinced that Craig had been as innocent of knowledge as he stated, even with the sodium pentothal in his veins. “Kerrigan,” he said softly as he went back to my room. He removed the oxygen mask and I whimpered in protest. “Where is your birthday present, little girl?