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

The pretty box your father made you?” “Box?” I opened my eyes with a great deal of effort and tried to sit up. Simpson had to help me. I saw it sitting on the shelf with some of the clay statues and animals I had made as a child. “There on the middle shelf,” I nodded and fell back against the pillows utterly exhausted. “It has three hearts on the cover,” I smiled wearily as he put the mask back over my face. “So tired.” “I know, little girl,” Simpson nodded and stroked my hair. “We’ll be leaving soon for the hospital. You’re going to have your operation.” I closed my eyes, frowning. “Rest now, Kerrigan.” The frown eased and he got up and went to the bookshelf. He found the box easily and opened the lid. He heard a chime that echoed through the house and then one of the men calling his name. He went downstairs to find a section of the wall sliding open to the left of the fireplace. There was a lock exposed now and he took the key out of the box and turned it. There was a clicking sound and the wall opened like a door. “Gentlemen,” Simpson smiled as he looked in and saw the office with its computer setup and file cabinets. “I believe we have found what we were sent here for.” He came around the desk and frowned as he saw the request for a password and a timer ticking down from five minutes. “What the hell?” He motioned to his brain. “What can you do with this, Heath?” “It’s a destruct sequence,” Heath told him after just a half minutes diagnostic. “If we don’t enter the code it’s asking for this entire room is going up.” He saw Simpson’s expression. “As in boom, Doc?” He looked at the asterisks. “Ten letters. There is no way I could find it in the four minutes left to us.” He frowned and thought about it. Then he laughed and shook his head. “It can’t be that simple,” he said as he typed in what he guessed. The code was accepted. “Her father called Kerrigan his ‘fairy child’, Doc. That was the code.” He frowned as a panel on the top of the desk slid open and a lighted panel rose up. “What is this? A Bio-lock? But that is impossible.” “What are you talking about?” “You’re going to have to bring the girl down here, Doc,” Heath replied. “Fast.” He saw the timer counting down from where it had left off. “You have three minutes.” Simpson nodded and was halfway up the stairs when he heard the gunfire outside. He got me out of the bedroom and down the stairs, ordering his men to get Craig. They went into the hidden room and he laid my hand on the panel. It went green and he leaned me up against the wall next to my unconscious uncle. The door closed and would not open. Simpson looked at Heath and the man shrugged. “What the…” Simpson choked as a section of wall opened between the file cabinets. He saw a tunnel and a handcart on a set of tracks. “How considerate!” he laughed. “They have everything waiting so we can take the files with us.” He nodded to Heath. “We’ll start loading while our hostages rest.” “We’re really taking them along, Doc?” “Of course,” Simpson nodded. “There are still a few questions that need to be answered.” Heath opened the first drawer and pulled out a folder. “What’s wrong?” “It’s empty, Doc,” Heath frowned. He opened a few more. “They’re all empty!” “The documents are in a safe place.” The two men turned as Craig began to laugh. He rose to his feet and pulled the gun they hadn’t bothered to search him for. “You lied?” Simpson exclaimed. “But you were under sodium pentothal, Grady…” “I didn’t lie,” Craig broke in. “My brother didn’t tell me about the documents. I found them later when I came to close up the house after their funerals.” He saw the men trying to gauge how good he was and hid his amusement. “If your employers contact you in jail, tell them they will remain hidden only as long as they keep away from my niece.” He held out the cuffs he had slipped out of while they had been focused on the computer. Then he made Simpson put one of the cuffs on Heath’s wrist and then the other on Simpson’s wrist. Craig closed the tunnel passage and opened the door into the living room. James was waiting for him. “Took a bit longer than we planned,” James said as he stepped aside for the prisoners to be shoved out. “How is Maggie?” “We need to get her to the hospital now, James,” Craig said as he bent down and picked me up in his arms. “Her condition is deteriorating.” “We can handle things here, Craig,” James nodded. “Sheriff Morrison is out front with Sheriff North. They’ll get you to the airfield.” “You brought the kid here?” Craig shook his head. “That was risky.” He hurried out and saw Joseph in the back of the patrol car. He nodded to Morrison. “I see you had things under control as usual, Van.” He opened the door and set me down next to Joseph so that my head was in his lap. Craig got in front. “Let’s see how fast you can get this jalopy to go. We have a flight to catch.” He saw Joseph’s worry. “Keep a close eye on her, Joseph,” he said to the young man. “If her breathing starts to become more difficult or she seems to be in pain, sing out.” “You’re Craig Mason, aren’t you?” Joseph frowned. “You’re supposed to be dead, sir.” “I’ve heard that a few times in my life,” Craig laughed. He looked over at Morrison. “How many now, Van? Five? Six?” “I’ve lost track of the number of your near death experiences, Grady,” Morrison replied. He floored it and the patrol car took off in a shower of dirt and rock. “Hang on back there. It’s going to be a rough ride.” Joseph pulled me into his arms and my eyes shot open. I saw who was holding me and I relaxed and smiled before I passed out again. I was safe. Joseph was here with me and I was going to be fine. I slept through the trip to the airfield and Craig took over, making certain I was hooked up to the waiting monitor in the private jet. Joseph did not ask how a man who was definitely not who he thought he was rated a private jet. He turned to thank Morrison for his help but the man was already racing off. “He’s like that,” Craig shrugged as a man closed the hatch. “I owe him at least a thousand thanks over the course of my life. I haven’t had the opportunity to voice one of them yet.” He got me settled and went to strap in. “Sit down boy and strap in. We’ll be in Rochester as quickly as we can. The surgeon is already standing by.” Joseph nodded and sat down as close to me as he could get. He smiled as I woke and reached out to touch him, as if needing to reassure myself I was not hallucinating. I dozed off again and he looked at Craig in concern. Craig got up and checked me and smiled reassuringly. But Joseph did not relax. I was about to undergo heart surgery and he felt like he was going under the knife with me. “You can’t go in there,” Craig laughed as Joseph tried to follow me into the surgery. He made him sit down and waited until James arrived. “I’ll let you know how things are going,” he told them. “I’m going to sit in on this one.” “Who is that man?” Joseph asked as James found a seat and settled in for what would be several hours of waiting. “Doctor Craig Grady,” James replied with a shrug. “He’s been an FBI consultant the past seventeen years.” He saw Joseph’s shocked look. “How do you think he managed to hide his niece so well?” “You knew all along where she was?” Joseph asked the man. He had a very unsettling thought. “You were using her as bait this entire time!” “We were,” James nodded. “It’s not something I’m proud of,” he admitted to the younger man. “Especially when they went after those other girls first. But it’s over now. Her uncle has seen to that.” “She’s not ever going to know he’s her uncle, is she?” “As far as she’s concerned, Joseph,” James reminded the younger man, “her Uncle Craig is dead. He has a lot more to do before he is ready to retire and she would be a weapon his targets could use against him if they were aware of her.” He looked at Joseph pointedly. “Don’t you think she’s gone through enough?” “She won’t hear about it from me, Agent Kellogg,” Joseph replied. “Once she’s through this, I plan to make her life as crisis-free as possible.” He rose to his feet as Craig came stumbling out four hours later and his blood went cold as he saw the blood on the man’s shirt. “No,” he shook his head as he saw the man’s white face. “No!” “They took her, Joseph,” Craig choked out. “They were waiting for us in the Recovery Room. I couldn’t stop them…” He keeled over as the alarms rang through the hospital. He looked up at James in distress. “You have to find her, James. Promise me you’ll find her!” James nodded and ran to get a gurney. He got Craig up and his friend was taken into surgery. He was on the phone and running, leaving Joseph standing in the waiting room. Joseph knew he was out of his depth here, so he opted to remain with Craig. He knew James and his people would find me; he had to believe they would. Layton was in his office when the call came. He listened to the kidnappers’ demands and knew he had to do as they asked. He was not going to risk my life by approaching the authorities. So he drove to the bank and got a suitcase filled with the ransom demanded. Then he took it to the overlook near the airport where a van waited. “Mr. Layton,” a hooded man nodded as he got out from behind the wheel. “We heard you were interested in this particular piece of merchandise.” He nodded and the doors opened. Layton could see me lying on a gurney and hooked up to a monitor and an IV. “She came through the surgery quite well. The surgeon got the obstruction cleared.” He saw the suitcase. “I assume that’s the price we asked for her?” Layton nodded. “Set it down and move this way, sir.” Layton did as he was told, his hands out and away from his sides. One of the men patted him down and then he was handed the keys to the van. He watched as they took his car and the suitcase. He checked me over and was relieved to find that I was well. He got behind the wheel and drove to the airfield where his private jet was waiting. “Get rid of the van,” he told one of his men. “And find the men who did this to her. I want them to vanish.” The man nodded. “You can keep the money as a thank you, Randall.” I woke up and saw that I was in a hospital bed, but not in a hospital room. There was an IV in my arm and I was hooked up to a monitor. I turned my head to see a nurse sitting in an upholstered wing-back chair. She smiled as she saw