Chapter 21

“WHAT ON EARTH got into you, Will? That girl is fifteen years old. If you do or have done anything with her, you’ll not only get a divorce, you’ll go to jail!” Dot was steaming. That was not a good way to wake up in the middle of the night.

Will stood from the drawer in his nightstand holding a handgun.

“Will, no!”

He looked down at the weapon and laid it gently on the nightstand.

“Dottie, it’s not for you or me or anyone in our home unless there is a home invasion,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s because of what that girl told me. There wasn’t anything unholy going on between us. She’s a sweet kid and I’m glad she’s Dennis’s girlfriend. Number however many.”

“What did she tell you?”

“You know her older brother is one of the three boys who were the ringleaders in the abuse our son went through last year.” Dot nodded. “She didn’t tell us all she overheard last night. I think she planned to get me aside to talk to tomorrow and it happened that I was coming out of the bathroom just as she arrived to go in.”

“That’s a convenient coincidence,” Dot growled.

“Just as convenient a coincidence as you happening to come out of our bedroom just as she asked me to protect myself and hugged me.”

“Protect yourself from what?” Now Dot was getting worried for other reasons.

“She said she heard them talking about their plans to kill me and kidnap Dennis next Saturday. The thing is, I believe her. It wouldn’t be the first run-in I’ve had with Lee Smith.”

“You mean since you charged into the school last spring and got the whole basketball season terminated and those three boys expelled,” Dot snorted. Actually, she’d been right beside him and if Lee Smith thought he could take her husband and her son, she’d be right beside him again. Dot stopped to breathe. She didn’t think she’d be going through the change so early in life. She was not yet forty. But this rapid mood change made even her dizzy.

“Since then,” Will whispered. Dot sat on the bed next to him and stroked his arm.

“The baseball bat? It was you?” she asked. He nodded.

“He and those other two had chased Den down. You remember the night his Coach came and called the sheriff? Well, it was obvious the sheriff wasn’t going to do anything, so I started following Smith, lying in wait for him to make a mistake so I could slip up on him.” Will heaved a deep breath and lay down on the bed, pulling Dot with him. “That night, I followed him into town and saw him follow a girl into the back of Johnson’s yard. I figured it was a girlfriend meeting him, so I followed. Then I saw that she wasn’t a friend of his because he tried to grab her. I just swung the bat and connected. The other punk, the really big musclebound one, started for us from the back of the C-Store with a gun. I told the girl to run and I ran away as well. If it hadn’t been for the punk with a gun, I’d have stayed and beaten that kid until I was sure I finished him. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that we met when she was leaving here and we recognized each other. I’ve been worried she’d spill that I was the one who hit him.”

“What was she doing behind the Johnsons’?”

“She had a camera. The more I thought about it, the more I decided she was spying on them—collecting evidence against her brother. I haven’t dared go back there since then. It was obvious they’d set a trap for her and would have grabbed her that night if I hadn’t been following Smith,” Will said.

“Will, what are you going to do with your handgun?” Dot asked.

“Exactly what it’s intended for. I’m going to protect my family and my life. Dot, you and Peg could be in danger as well as Den and me. Think about it. If they grabbed either of you, I wouldn’t hesitate to surrender myself in exchange. Then there would be no one left to protect the three of you the next time.”

Dot leaned against Will and hugged him.

“I need to go to the living room and tell that poor girl she can stay. I’ll tuck her in next to Dennis,” she said.

Brisco’s phone rang Monday morning. He finally had the evidence he needed to put together a strike team. Staking out the C-Store had paid off as a van pulled into the back and stopped near the door. His camera was high resolution and equipped with a low-light lens. From his position, he was at a perfect angle to even get a picture of the driver. He could put together a team now. He was surprised, though, by who was on the line.

“Agent Brisco, this is Amy,” she said. She sounded much better and calmer than she had on Saturday night when she called. He’d been about to turn and follow the boys, but stopped to creep along the street following Amy the four blocks to what appeared to be her boyfriend’s house. Well, if she was safe, he didn’t care if she was sleeping with another teen.

“Good morning, Amy. I trust you made it to safety Saturday.”

“As you know,” she answered. “You passed me while I was just going into my boyfriend’s house. But I was so upset Saturday that I didn’t tell you everything I heard.”

“I’m all ears. Please fill me in.”

“First, Lee Smith, the shortest of the three boys, is planning a murder. Specifically, he plans to murder my boyfriend’s father, Mr. Will Enders. The boys plan to grab me sometime before Saturday night and want Mr. Enders out of the way so they can grab his son as well. You might not have noticed, but my boyfriend is short and has thick glasses. He was raped by the boys last spring and all they got was expelled from school. The gang has wanted to get even with him for ratting them out ever since.”

“Why do they intend to grab both of you on Saturday?”

“Jerry—he’s the third boy and my brother—gets a drug delivery on Saturday, usually around midnight. His contact apparently runs or supplies some kind of sex trafficking operation. Jerry plans to sell us to the contact after he and the others have raped us.” Amy was breathing heavily now. “He said something about Danny Perkins being there to guard the drop. He’s the sheriff or a deputy or something.”

“Hmm. That checks out with the information I’ve gathered. Who is the father again? Enders?”

“Yes, sir. Um ... He’s the one with the baseball bat in the picture I sent you.”

The penny dropped and Brisco saw how they all fit together now. “Has your brother ever mentioned you spying on him or taking pictures?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“I’d be willing to bet he thinks the spy is your boyfriend and they know it was his dad who clobbered Smith. Is there anything else, Amy?”

“I think that’s all. Except I’m scared. They’ve tried to grab me before. What if they don’t wait until Saturday?” she asked.

“Do you have any safe place to stay? Maybe not with your boyfriend this time.”

“I could stay at my girlfriend’s house. I just need to convince my parents that it’s a good idea.”

“Do what you can. I have people in town 24/7, so don’t hesitate to call me direct if anything happens.”

“Yes, sir.”

Brisco disconnected and immediately started calling in the team. He had enough on the sheriff now to get the State Police involved if he could convince them not to jump the gun and squirrel the rest of the raid. With word of the sex trafficking, there was ample reason for the FBI to help with the operation. ATF was still seesawing about raiding the still. Their concern was that it wasn’t a big enough operation to be a concern and would only serve to call attention to their presence in the vicinity. They needed to shit or get off the pot. Brisco would happily lead his team to the still and shut it down after they dealt with the drugs and sex traffickers.

Brenda was tickled to have Amy stay with her for a week. Amy simply told her parents that her ‘big sister’ on the basketball team wanted to work with her in a special basketball camp that would last into the evenings and it would be easier if Amy just stayed with her. The week-long event would culminate with an all-day practice on Saturday and a sleepover at the home of one of the team members that night. Even she was surprised when her parents agreed. She wondered if it would be that easy if she just told them she wanted to sleep over at her boyfriend’s house.

Amy wondered sometimes at her own temerity. Before she tried out for basketball, she’d been shy and a bit of a wallflower. Then after practice one day, she’d stood in the locker room topless with Dennis right there. It made her heart race to think about it. She’d snuck out late at night to spy on a drug delivery and reported her findings to the DEA. She’d jacked off her boyfriend twice in his socks, which she still found hysterically funny, but she’d spread her legs so he could rub her clit through her pajamas. It was all she could do to keep from pushing his hand down inside her panties. Brenda had been the only one who’d gone that far with her, and Amy found her girlfriend’s pussy to be as wet and exciting as her own.

Even while she was talking on the phone, her co-conspirator, Brenda, was talking to Coach about making the training camp a reality. It was a perfect time for intensive training since there was no game this week.

Brenda placed all their cards on the table when she talked to Coach Graves. She told her straight out about the attempt on Amy and the gross way the punks had masturbated on her pillow. And she told Ardith about the threatened murder of Mr. Enders, and intended kidnapping of both Amy and Dennis this weekend. She felt neither Amy nor Dennis would be safe if they weren’t surrounded all the time.