Garret's Gambit by Dale Mayer (book club books .TXT) 📗

shuffled backward, still in the sleeping bag, until she was up against the wall, looking as if she felt threatened.

Kano smiled at her gently and said, “Hello. I’m Kano, a friend of Garret’s.”

Her gaze once again shifted back to Garret. She frowned at him. “I didn’t mean for you to come.”

“Oh, come on. Of course you did,” he murmured, as he leaned against the doorjamb across from Kano.

Astra turned to look at him and then back at Kano. “Maybe I should talk to my sister alone for a moment.”

Garret immediately shook his head. “Not happening,” he said. Astra gave him a hard frown, but he just frowned right back.

“Why did you run?” Garret asked Amy.

“I needed to,” she said.

“Maybe so,” he said, “but, by not giving anybody a chance to know where you were, we immediately suspected that you’d been taken, just like my brother. And that’s why I’m here,” he said. “To find out what you know about my brother’s disappearance.”

At that, Amy’s bottom lip trembled. Still in the sleeping bag, she pulled her knees and the bag up against her chest, wrapped her arms tightly around them and said, “I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“Are you sure about that?” her sister murmured.

Amy stared at her bitterly. “And just like that, you always have to argue with me, don’t you?”

“Listen. You’re the one who sent out the warning,” Astra said. “I get over here just in time to find that you’re missing and that nobody knows anything about you. You do know that the police have opened a missing person file on you, right?”

Amy just looked at her, and tears collected in the corners of her eyes. “Of course not. How would I possibly know that?” she said. “I came here to think.”

“Well, now you’ll get some help thinking,” Garret said, as he motioned at the sleeping bag. “Why don’t you get out and come downstairs, and we can sit and talk this over.”

“I have nothing to talk about to you or to her,” she snapped, glaring at him. “This has nothing to do with either of you.”

“It has a lot to do with me, since my brother is missing,” he said in a steely voice. “And you’re the one who sounded the alarm. You can’t just unring the bell and not produce my brother.”

She started to sob then, and Astra gave a heavy sigh. “Come on. Let’s get you downstairs. When did you eat last?”

Her sister shrugged, as Astra looked at the men in the doorway. “Look, guys. I’ll bring her down in a minute. Let’s give her a chance to get dressed.”

She watched as the two men shifted back ever-so-slightly. She motioned with her hand. “Go, go, go.”

Garret just glared at her.

“Stop the intimidation tactics,” she snapped. “Let me get my sister dressed, and we’ll come down.”

“You’ve got five minutes,” he bit off, as he turned and headed down the stairs. “Don’t let her run off again.”

Astra closed the door, and her sister looked at her and said, “I don’t know what I ever saw in him.”

Astra, of course, knew exactly what it was because she herself still saw the same thing. “More to the point,” Astra said, “He’s not a man to make an enemy of, so hurry up and get dressed. Then we can go have a talk.”

“I’m not going,” Amy said. “You can’t make me.”

Astra stared at her sister, who was acting like a dramatic young child, and said, “Well, I guess I’ll just bring them back up here then, and you can have this discussion while you’re half dressed. But I was thinking you might feel better and have more confidence if you got dressed and came downstairs. Then we can all sit down, and you can tell us what the hell is going on.”

“And I’m pretty sure that, once again, you didn’t even listen to me,” she said. “I told you. I don’t know anything.”

“Well, you knew enough to make contact with Garret’s team, and, once you set that into motion, there is no going back.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “It’s got nothing to do with him.”

“Says you,” Astra said, with a sigh. “Now, are you coming down, dressed, or shall I just call them back up?”

“Fine,” her sister said, throwing back her sleeping bag and scrambling out. She wore just a T-shirt and panties. She quickly dressed and walked downstairs, ahead of her sister. “I don’t need you guys here,” she said. “You’re just ruining everything.”

“Well, I guess it depends what you mean by ruining everything,” Astra answered, “because that’s just crazy.”

“No, it isn’t,” Amy said. “And again you don’t listen.”

“Says you,” Astra groaned.

As the two sisters walked into the living room, still wrangling, Garret stood, looked at Amy, and said, “Now tell me the truth. Where’s my brother?”

Instantly Amy burst into tears.

*

Garret remembered the tears. How was it that he couldn’t forget the tears? He just glared at Amy and said, “Stop it.”

But Amy wasn’t listening, she was too far gone.

“You won’t get answers out of her that way,” Astra said, as she walked over and motioned for her sister to sit down. She walked into the kitchen, checked out the meager food supplies in the cupboard and the fridge, and said, “Looks like the only thing you can eat here is peanut butter and jam or ham and cheese.”

“Well, she’s not staying obviously,” Garret said. “So it doesn’t matter.”

“I am too staying,” Amy said, through her tears. She got up and, walking into the kitchen, she pulled out a loaf of bread, plopped down two slices, cut some cheese, and put it all together into a sandwich. She leaned against the counter, glaring at Garret, as she made her way through the sandwich.

Once again, she had him wondering what he’d ever seen in her.

“I don’t know what happened to Gregg,” she announced out of the blue.

“You said he disappeared,” Garret said. “You knew that I would come. Obviously you had some reason for thinking that.”

“Yes, he’s not answering my