Xmas Marks The Spot (Merry Summerfield Cozy Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  In the far, far, far distance I glimpsed John wheeling around and stopping. I prayed he was grabbing his phone from the pouch on his arm and reading my text. Was there even reception that far along the beach? Would he be able to call the Police?

  To my consternation he set off running again – straight back in our direction. The only good thing happening here was that the men had to watch their step through the pieces of driftwood and tufts of rough sand tussock and low whippy branches of coprosma that would have tripped us and had us off our feet in an instant. With any luck they hadn’t seen John, and anyway why would they take much notice of a solo half-clad runner out exercising his dogs?

  I tried to dig my heels in and be as annoying as possible for the beast who was hauling me along, but that only earned me a tug on my hair and a loud growl of, “Walk or I’ll slap you one!” I had no doubt he’d carry through on that gruff threat. I glanced sideways at Margaret. She was smaller than me and a good twenty years older so was no doubt easier to drag. The barbarian holding her was groping a breast with a big hand. Her eyes were scrunched closed. If I ever got the chance, I’d squeeze something of his in return. Tightly. With no mercy at all.

  I flicked my gaze back along the beach. John and the dogs were pounding along at equal speed now so he must have picked up his pace enormously.

  Stay away, stay away, I prayed, and was relieved to see him veer gradually down the sand until he was running at the very edge of the tide. The sun sparkled on the water drops he and the dogs kicked up. Just a sporty chap out for a run, and keeping well clear; that was all our captors would see if they took any notice of him at all.

  They’d now dragged us most of the way up the incline leading to the old cottage garden. Margaret and I were both panting and groaning out our displeasure, and this earned me the threatened slap on the side of my head. I saw stars for a few seconds but was grateful it was a slap and not a punch.

  At last we reached level ground. The man who’d been hauling me along changed his grip so he had a big handful of my hair instead of my throat. It was an enormous relief. “Walk,” he demanded, pushing me forward across the expanse of grass that was too rough to properly be called a lawn. The man dragging Margaret was only a couple of steps behind.

  “What are you going to do to us?” I begged.

  “Wait and see,” he ground out. “I hope you can cook better than the old girl.”

  “What?”

  ‘Don’t say ‘what’, darling,’ my dear departed mother inserted.

  “They’ve stayed the last couple of nights,” Margaret gasped in my direction, probably incensed and given bravery by that unflattering description. “They’ve brought lots of meat.”

  I immediately thought of the huge haunch of beef that had been left in Graham’s car. Were they in possession of the other three quarters? Surely not. It would be stinking rotten by now, although then I thought about how delicious Bernie the butcher’s steaks were when they were well hung. Maybe they’d got it into a chiller in good time?

  Trust me to be thinking about food at such a moment!

  Now it was easier to walk, my captor had me by my hair and the waistband of my jeans. I rubbed at my abused throat and at the side of my face where I’d been slapped. “You okay?” I called across to Margaret.

  “Don’t worry about Grandma.” That grated right into my ear.

  “Not really,” she quavered. “They did something to the car so I couldn’t get away. And took my phone.”

  I thought of the old-fashioned landline, almost hidden behind a curtain in the hallway. Had they seen that too?

  “And the old one in the hall,” she added. “Tore it right out of the wall.”

  I could absolutely see why she’d been traumatized. In just a few months her life had totally turned to custard. Her sister had been murdered. The man she’d presumably loved was charged with serious auto theft crimes and jailed. She’d lost her beautiful house and swanky car, and been reduced to staying in the dilapidated old beach cottage where her parents had lived for many years. And now this.

  Then deep barking echoed across to us, although no dogs were yet in sight. They sounded like big rough dogs. Probably used for hunting. And guard duty on this occasion. I hoped little white Pierre was still safe.

  We were hauled around to the side of the cottage and I truly expected the dogs to rush across and attack us, but the third man – on dog-feeding duty to judge by his bloodied hands – gave a sharp whistle and bellowed, “Stay!” To my great relief there was a clanking of chains, and they returned to gnawing at some big bony remnants of carcass by the fence. They were huge, rangy dogs – a good match for the men. Tall and fit and very hairy. Even after all my dog-walking duties for the Drizzle Bay Animal Shelter I couldn’t hazard a guess as to what breed, or indeed mixture of breeds, they were. Horrible things, and rather smelly.

  Even though it was a warm day, I shivered. How scary it must have been for poor Margaret here on her own and bailed up by such a team. How brave she’d have needed to be to survive unscathed. Presumably she’d caught a glimpse of me on the lonely beach from one of the cottage windows and decided to take her chances.

  But how long before John could get the Police back here? From his steady progress out in the shallows he was a man on a mission and had definitely read my message.

  “Good – you got ‘er,” the dog-feeder grunted. “And a little friend,” he added, inspecting me with far-too-interested eyes.

  At that moment I knew what true fear was. We were way out of sight and hearing of any other humans. Three of them to two of us. Two big dogs versus poodle Pierre. “Tie ‘em up for now,” he added, dragging a couple of outdoor chairs away from the side of the house and setting them back to back. Margaret and I were pushed down into them, which caused our heads to crack together hard enough to make us both squawk with pain.

  “Sorry,” I gasped, as though it had been my fault.

  “It’s okay,” she muttered. “You still all right?”

  “Took her phone,” ‘my’ man said with an evil laugh. “Chucked it in the sea.”

  The third man headed across to the pickup truck we’d seen from the air on Wednesday. Plainly not a lawn mowing contractor. From ground level it was obvious they’d parked it so it was out of sight of the road, maybe to do a recce of the area. He grabbed a big coil of rope, then changed his mind and chose instead a much shorter piece and tossed it across. “Round their necks and through the chair arms,” he grated. “They won’t be going anywhere roped together like that. Hold’em for now, anyway.”

  Seconds later we were trussed together in a two-woman, two-chair bundle and certainly couldn’t manage even a slow shuffle.

  The dogs were now making horrible cracking noises as they crunched at the bones. It was too easy to imagine being their next meal.

  “Beer?” one of the men called. I presumed he wasn’t aiming that at Margaret or me, although I could have murdered one about now. Or a wine. Or even a glass of water. My mouth was dry with fear. I licked my lips, unable to push my hair out of my eyes because of the way the rope had been laced around my wrists and the chair arms. It was horrible rough rope, all frayed and fibrous. It hurt. I was afraid I’d bash into Margaret again if I tried to toss my head sideways so I sat there in absolute misery, half blinded and wondering what they had planned for us. Cookery seemed the least of it.

  “I always felt safe here when I was looking after Itsy and Fluffy,” I muttered to Margaret as our three captors disappeared inside the cottage to enjoy their drinks.

  “Me too, until this lot turned up.”

  “They haven’t… interfered with you?” I asked, wondering if that was a delicate enough description for an older lady.

  “No, thank goodness,” she murmured. “So far they seem to want to stay out of sight and be fed. They smoke a lot of what they call ‘weed’.”

  Huh! Was it their marijuana up in the pine plantation? Maybe they really had killed Beefy junior to keep him awa
y from it. But why would they draw attention to him by putting him on display on that big X of a tree? Unless of course they were high as kites and it simply seemed like a good idea at the time…

  We sat there unspeaking after that, my mind going a million miles an hour. Fifty yards away the waves crashed over and rushed up the shore. Much nearer, the dogs gnawed and cracked their dinner apart. Rough male conversation floated out through the open doorway from the kitchen.

  Then, through the curtain of my hair, I sensed a shape. A tall, silent, shirtless shape. I did my best to flick my hair aside without hurting Margaret, and stared in disbelief at John. He was creeping closer with his arms full of ‘something’. I opened my mouth and he gave one sharp shake of his head. Fire and Ice were stalking along just behind him, on feet as quiet and sure as their master’s.

  One of the hairy hounds suddenly raised its head from the gory carcass remains and gave a ‘wuff’ of warning. Fire and Ice both growled low in their throats.

  “They’re chained!” I blurted as John sprinted past them and stationed himself behind the big clump of hollyhocks by the door.

  A storm of barking and chain-rattling rent the peaceful air and I felt Margaret lurching around in her chair, trying to see what was happening. “Keep still and low,” I hissed, and I shrank down to make myself the smallest possible target.

  Curses and loud grumbles about the ‘effing dogs’ floated through the doorway, followed by heavy footsteps. One of the men lurched outside, beer can in hand. John stuck out a foot, and man and beer hit the concrete, followed almost instantly by John, who grabbed a handful of unkempt hair and banged the head it was attached to once more on the hard surface. The man stayed down, stunned at the very least. All four dogs were now having a gigantic bark-off.

  “Gordy?” a second man bellowed from inside the house. When he received no reply he sauntered to the door, took a couple of steps forward, kicked the fallen man’s ankle none too gently, and yelled back at his mate, “Drunk as a skunk. Fell over.” Then he stared across at the dogs and saw Fire and Ice – focused, rumbling with threats, and keeping just out of reach. “Rifle,” he yelled, the same instant as John leaped from cover and repeated the trip-and-head-smack treatment.

  But ‘rifle’?

  My blood ran cold. Had the third man heard over the barking? Would he come out shooting? John’s reaction was to dive inside the house, crouching low, before anyone else appeared. My heart galloped behind my ribs – a frantic, erratic tattoo. The slice of ham quiche I’d enjoyed at the craft sale threatened to re-appear, and I held my breath in case that helped it stay put. The now empty beer can trundled noisily over the concrete as the sea breeze caught it.

  Nooooo….. John couldn’t possibly take down a man with a rifle when he was dressed for a run on the beach. I squeezed my eyes closed, willed my ears to capture any hopeful progress over the cacophony the dogs were making, and prayed quite hard, although I’m not a very religious woman.

  Thirty seconds later John appeared.

  Dragging the third man by the ankles. He was even limper than his mates.

  Fire and Ice got told to ‘shut it’ and reverted to low growls.

  “What’s happening?” Margaret quavered from behind me.

  “John got all three of them,” I yelled jubilantly over the remaining barking. Margaret burst into hiccupping tears.

  I have to admit John was panting a bit. His broad chest rose and fell faster than usual, and the abs on his long, lean torso were flexing in and out. He piled the third man close to his groggy mates and stood still for a moment watching them, legs braced, hands clenching and unclenching, jaw tight. “Get to you two in a minute,” he said to me, slashing a vicious-looking knife through part of the rope holding me captive and then moving swiftly to retrieve whatever it was he’d been carrying when he arrived.

  He spread out a huge net as I tackled the rope. Who goes running with a huge net?

  Then he dragged each of the cursing, struggling men onto it, pinching something in their necks to knock any further fight out of them, pulled the sides of the net over, and they were soon as neatly trussed as flies in a spider’s web.

  “Doing okay ladies?” he asked, unlashing the rest of the rope holding us to the chairs. Margaret and I managed shocked nods and murmurs of ‘Mmm’ as he flicked the ends apart and set us free. We both gazed at the pile of stunned, tangled-up men as John bent over them, threaded ‘our’ rope through some of the holes in the net, and yanked it tight. He tied a much better knot than our captor had; there was no way they could possibly escape now.

  Even the dogs sensed they were beaten. They retreated to the fence and flopped down beside the remains of their bony dinner.

  I rose from the chair very slowly, ignoring the groans and profanities coming from the bodies inside the net. I was shocked for sure. How had he done it?

  “You wonderful man!” Margaret gushed, flinging herself against John and giving him an enthusiastic and bosomy bear-hug. He looped his arms around her in return, patting her shoulder until he could disentangle himself.

  I pointed straight at him while she couldn’t see me. “Black Ops,” I mouthed. Then I said out loud, “I didn’t believe it until now, but after seeing that…”

  John shook his head. “Not me.”

  I shook mine in turn. “Yeah, right.”

  We grinned at each other like a pair of conspirators.

  “So how did you produce this handy net out of thin air?” I asked, aiming a hard kick at the backside of the man who’d been squeezing Margaret’s boob. He gave an enraged bellow and a loud curse. If he’d been the other way up I’d have kicked him somewhere a lot more painful. Oh well, you do what you can.

  Margaret finally let go of John and sat down on one of the chairs again.

  “Piece of good luck,” John said. “I collected it earlier from someone who was into deer recovery. Erik wanted a sling to transport kayaks for some of my survival treks. It was in the tray of the truck.

  I shook my head. “So without that we’d still be waiting for the Police?”

  “No way!” He looked mortally offended, and then glanced across to where Fire and Ice sat, waiting for their next orders. “I’d have given them one each to guard and I’d have looked after the third.” He seemed to have no doubt it was possible.

  Huh. Well. Okay then.

  “I’ll go and check on Pierre,” Margaret said, rising and tottering into the house.

  I took a deep breath and sat down again, knees nowhere near steady yet. “Thank you. Thank you for picking up the text. And for coming to the rescue in such spectacular fashion.”

  John narrowed his eyes and then looked down at the three men. “Time they got stopped,” he said. “Carver and Wick knew about the pot-growing, and I’m sure they have their suspicions about young Haldane’s death, even if no proof yet. But this is concrete; kidnapping two women will do nicely to get them out of circulation for a while.” He rubbed a hand over my shoulder. Warm. Steady. I almost tilted my head and laid my cheek against it.

  12 – Flying High

  “I wasn’t exactly kidnapped,” I protested.

  “Not the way I saw it,” John said, turning to listen as tires screamed around the bend by Drizzle Farm and some absolutely disgusting curses issued forth from the men on the ground.

  “Nice to hear Carver’s lot putting some effort in,” he added as the accelerating vehicles roared closer.

  I pulled a rueful face. “They’ll be getting sick of me.”

  He grinned. “You’re giving them more fun than they’ve had in ages. A change from shoplifters and drunk drivers.”

  “A quarter of a cow and now three men in a net. That’s definitely different.” I gave in to a fit of nervous giggles and John let loose a bellow of deep laughter.

  “How’d you know about the effing cow?” a rough voice grated from the tangle of bodies.

  “You put it in the wrong car.” I really enjoyed passing that on.

  “
Jeez, Gordy…”

  “Brand new silver-gray Merc. Followed him all the way.” Presumably that was Gordy trying to justify himself.

  The first of the Police vehicles squealed to a halt and drowned any other comments. The two young officers who’d kindly removed the beef from Graham’s trunk came barreling onto the driveway and stopped dead.

  John gave a sharp whistle and called, “Truck!” Fire and Ice gave one last growl in the direction of the rustlers’ dogs and raced away, presumably to the black pick-up out of sight along the road. “Those two are chained up,” he said, jerking his chin at the big hunting dogs and their well-gnawed bones.

  “And these three are tied up,” I added. “Mrs Alsop is inside the cottage with her poodle.”

  “All under control then,” one of the officers said, looking over his shoulder as the next car braked to a stop and the doors flew open. “How are we going to find their hands to get the cuffs on?”

  Not my problem,” John said. “I caught them. You cuff them. Or we could dump the whole bundle on the tray of my truck and untangle them once you have them somewhere secure?”

  I could tell he was joking, but the younger of the policemen seemed to be considering it. Another storm of obscenities rose from the trio in the net.

  John raised enquiring brows over wicked blue eyes. “Shame. Might have been fun.” He turned and gave the cops half a salute. “When Carver wants me, he knows where to find me.” And he strode away.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” I yelled after him, watching his long tanned legs eating up the ground until he’d disappeared. “I’ll make sure Mrs Alsop is okay,” I said in the direction of the policemen. I wanted to be nowhere near those men once they were untied.

  John was waiting for me when I emerged from checking on Margaret. He’d driven back from the beach access path to save me the short walk in my shocked and shaky state, and looked thoroughly apologetic. “Not what I had in mind,” he said. “Just thought it was a great day to enjoy the ocean.”