Porter Read online

  The doorbell rang and Sarah Dans nearly dropped her coffee. Her heart thumped in her chest. Since Albert had gone missing she feared every ring for the potential bad news it might bring. She took a deep breath and went to the door. Will it be the police? No, it’s a young woman. Oh no, probably selling something. For a moment she thought of pretending she wasn’t home, but then the young woman just opened the door and stepped inside!

  Allie! Sarah threw her arms around the daughter she hadn’t seen for a year and a half, sobbing uncontrollably. “You got my messages!”

  Allie hugged her mom, reluctant to say that she wouldn’t have listened to the messages if it hadn’t been for Stephen. On the other hand she wondered why not? What had this pleasant, plump, woman ever done to deserve the disdain Allie had held her in for the past eight or so years? She held her mom tighter, suddenly crying herself. “Have you heard anything?”

  Her mom leaned back, looking into her eyes and shaking her head no. Allie found her heart sinking. All the way home she’d been thinking that she’d get home, and her dad would have showed up, and she’d be pissed. Now confronted with the reality that he was still gone she found herself thinking wistfully of the good times they’d had together as a family. The things that had irritated her so – seemed so trivial now.

  Allie and her mom went in and sat at the breakfast table. Sarah jumped back up, “Let me get you something to eat!”

  “No! I’m fine. Sit, tell me what happened.”

  Instead, Sarah went to the stairs and yelled up, “Steve, Allie’s come home! Come on down!” She returned to the table and sat. “Dad just didn’t come home Friday. Nobody at the University saw him after lunchtime. He left his office at the U and never showed up for an appointment at Forst Enterprises. The police wouldn’t really start looking until 24 hours had passed. I’m not sure they’re very serious about it yet. They keep asking if he might have had a girlfriend!”

  “Forst Enterprises?”

  “Randall Forst was one of your dad’s grad students years ago. He’s started a very successful company making physics equipment and your dad has been working with him on some new idea of his.”

  Stephen stumbled sleepily down the stairs in a t-shirt and ragged shorts. He’d gotten tall! He sat across from Allie. Then he rocked back a stunned look on his face. “You’re Eva!” Goosebumps stood up on his arms.

  “No Steve, this is your sister Allie! Don’t you even recognize her?”

  “Your band is Eve of Destruction?”

  Allie bit her lip and nodded. She hadn’t considered the possibility that she might have a fan at home.

  Sarah Dans looked back and forth between her two children. “Eve of Destruction?”

  Allie nodded.

  “Eva?”

  “My stage name.”

  Stephen threw his head back and stared up at the ceiling. “Oh. My. GOD!” He looked back at Allie. I’ve seen your picture a million times! The black hair fooled me!”

  Sarah looked in wonderment at her daughter. “Even I’ve heard of Eve of Destruction! Why didn’t you tell us you were doing well? All those calls I made offering to send you money!” She shook her head ruefully. “You really are doing OK?”

  Allie grinned sheepishly and then nodded minutely.

  “I guess you won’t be throwing it in and coming home with your tail between your legs, to beg to go to college after all?”

  Allie shrugged and shook her head.

  To Allie’s surprise Sarah leaned over, threw her arms around her daughter and sobbed again. “I’m so happy for you!” she choked out.

  Stephen threw his head back, thrust his arms in the air and shouted, “You’re shittin’ me! My sister is ‘Eva?’ This is awesome! Wait ‘til I tell Ben.”

  “Stephen Dans! Watch your language!”

  Allie caught her brother’s eye when he looked back at her, goofy grin on his face. “Stephen, please don’t tell anybody? I’d like to have a place of peace and quiet for as long as I can. Fans are important to us, but they can be pretty intrusive too.”

  Stephen stared, “You have got to be shittin’ me! The coolest thing that’s ever happened to me and I can’t tell anyone?!”

  “Stephen!”

  Allie made calming motions with her hands. “Let’s worry about that later. First we need to figure out what to do about Dad.”

  A pall dropped back over the table. “But what could we do? The police say we shouldn’t do anything… just wait by the phone.”

  “I don’t know. You’ve been through his desk here at home for clues?”

  “Yes, and his e-mails and his hard drive. Everything in the desk and on his computer seems to be about his research on ports.” Sarah’s eyes cast toward Stephen and she shook her head minutely. Apparently they still hadn’t told Stephen that Allie had been the source of the ports. “There’s nothing on there about any ‘other interests’ either.” Apparently Sarah hadn’t told Stephen about the police’s “girlfriend” theory either.

  “What about his work computer?”

  “I’m pretty sure they won’t let us look at it. Besides we wouldn’t have the password.”

  “Well, let’s go try. Dad could never remember passwords. It’s probably written down in his desk somewhere.”

  The doorbell rang again. Sarah clapped a hand to her heart, a stricken look on her face. “Oh! I hope it isn’t bad news.”

  Allie got up. “I’ll get it.” A grim feeling settled over her.

  She strode down the hall to the entry and opened the door. Hot muggy air flowed in, followed by a scruffy, skinny young man in a white shirt and black tie. Mormons? she wondered, but Mormons are polite – they wouldn’t shove into the house like this. Then a large, wide-bodied, bald man, also in white shirt and tie came through the door as well! His dense goatee looked wrong for a Mormon. “Hey!” she exclaimed, as they forced her back out of the entry and into the hallway. More words froze in her throat as she looked down at the gun in the first man’s hand. Rape?! She wondered.

  Dean looked at the gorgeous, slender chick with the spiky blond hair. These college girls are hot, he thought to himself. He waved his gun at her, “You Allie?”

  “Huh?” Allie said.

  “We’re gonna go visit your daddy and see if you can talk some sense into him.”

  “Put down that damned phone!” the man with the goatee roared over Allie’s shoulder.

  Allie looked back over her shoulder. Her mother and brother stood at the other end of the hall to the kitchen. Stephen had dropped his cell phone and it looked like it had broken.

  Goatee chortled, “This is the mom and both kids alright.” He was looking at a paper he’d unfolded. “Jackpot! Let’s go.” He motioned back towards the door with his gun.

  Allie thought dazedly that she’d been advised to never go anywhere with someone who meant her harm, “stay away from environments that your abductor controlled.” But “go visit your daddy” made it sound like not going was a poor choice too. They needed to know where Dad was.

  A couple of minutes later they all stood trembling at the front door, Allie thought about running as soon as they were out in public, she’d read somewhere that that was a good strategy. Grabbing her hand, Goatee said, “Let’s hold hands so you don’t get any ideas.” Then he squeezed painfully until Allie dropped to her knees. He said in an ominous tone, “We really only need one of you three to convince your old man to talk. So if one of you kids runs, or gives us any other trouble, we’ll kill the old lady. Think about that long and hard before you take off.”

  Allie looked up into Goatee’s pale blue eyes and saw that he enjoyed hurting her. Tears welled up and she looked back down and shook her head. Should she make a port in his neck like that guy at the bar? It didn’t seem like a good idea to make him cough while she was looking down the barrel of his gun.

  Dean grinned at the way Roger hurt the chica. He and Roger had that in common; they both liked to hurt people. They couldn’t afford to have her run
which provided a convenient excuse. He opened the front door and, putting away his gun, started down the walk, opening the door to the back of the van for their guests and then locking them into the windowless, dim interior with Roger. Roger got out blindfolds. Dean went around front, got in, started the van and eased it into the street. He took a random course across town with a couple of loop backs looking for tails. About an hour later they pulled up at the little farmhouse where the boss was holding daddy Dans. Since they had the blindfolds on, Roger took Allie’s arm and led her up the walk. Dean got the other two out of the back but watched the girl’s cute butt go up the steps before he started them up the walk too.

  Allie was pulled up a few steps, then heard the creak of a door, felt a puff of cool air and then felt Goatee’s hand on her elbow urging her up over a sill into a dim room. The blindfold was removed and she saw a man tied to a chair. Her dad! Face swollen, and nose crooked but it was definitely him. Allie ran to him, dropping to her knees and throwing her arms around him. “Daddy,” she whispered.

  “Allie!” a happy to see you emotion bloomed in his eyes, then a pause, “Sorry kiddo, seems I really screwed up.” he mumbled through swollen lips.

  Then Goatee hauled her back by the belt and tossed her against the wall. Effortlessly, it seemed.

  Allie lay stunned, hearing her mother screaming hysterically. She looked up blurrily to see Stephen charge over to tackle Goatee but Goatee clubbed him aside with his gun, using a vicious stroke that left the teenager apparently unconscious against the other wall. Scruffy pulled out some cable ties and tossed some to Goatee. They started methodically tying up Allie’s mother, apparently unfazed by her struggles and shrieks. Goatee simply held her arms still while Scruffy fastened her wrists to the chair arms with the cable ties. Then they did the same with her ankles. Allie saw that Stephen was still breathing. Though he still appeared unconscious, they bound his ankles and wrists together. But not Allie, which seemed ominous. Then they turned back to Mrs. Dans who was still yelling at the top of her lungs. Goatee slapped her hard and when this stopped her yelling for a moment said, “Shut up unless you want to be gagged. People sometimes choke to death on gags you know.”

  Allie heard a new and raspy voice, “Purdy thing, ain’t she?” Raspy, Allie saw, had white hair and old acne scars. He held a gun casually pointed halfway between her and her dad. He took a long drag from a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke towards her. From the lazy casual way he held the gun she had a sinking feeling that he’d killed people with it before.

  “Now, Doctor Dans, I sure would hate to see your daughter hurt just ‘cause you want to keep your little secret all to yourself.”

  Dad has secrets? Allie thought with some startlement. What kind of secret would he have that would involve people like this? They’d always been comfortably well off, though not rich – could he be involved in some kind of crime? Wouldn’t she have had some kind of hint before now? He was a physicist! She thought? Physicists didn’t have secrets! Did they? She shuffled herself into a sitting position against the wall.

  Muzzily, she pondered their situation. It seemed grim with everyone tied but her. Even if her dad parted with his secrets, she didn’t think the family would be leaving here alive. Every member of the family had seen the men’s faces, so it seemed unlikely that the men intended to let them go to the police afterward.

  Raspy, lazily pointed the gun her way, there was a flash, a loud bang and Allie let out a brief shriek and scrunched in on herself as bits of sheetrock dribbled down the wall onto her head. She stared at the gun like it was a snake. Raspy’d been talking she realized, “Don’t worry little lady, you can scream all you want. No one’ll hear you out here. Go ahead and holler to your heart’s content. Maybe it’ll motivate your old man here. You need to get him talking before I have to actually start shooting parts of you. Parts is parts ya know?” He chuckled as if he’d said something really funny.

  “What do you need to know? My dad doesn’t have any secrets.”

  Raspy barked a short laugh. “Oh, Doc, even your kids don’t know? Well Honey, it seems Daddy has developed a wormhole device, but he doesn’t want to share it with the world.”

  Startled, Allie looked at her dad questioningly. He shook his head minutely. After the beating he’d apparently taken, he still hadn’t told them about her!

  Allie’s dad croaked, “I’ve told them the ports are too small to be useful!”

  Raspy casually backhanded her dad with the pistol, knocking him and the chair he was tied to over onto their sides. The gunsight cut the side of his head leaving a long bleeding gash over his ear. “Dans, I really am tired of hearing you talk, without telling us what we need to know, so shut up! We’re gonna have some fun with your little girl here but it’ll stop anytime you want to start talking about things we want to know. Understand?”

  Goatee had easily picked up the chair Allie’s dad was strapped to, setting it and him back upright. Her dad mumbled something.

  “What?!”

  Her dad said, “I said, ‘Just kill us all. You’re going to anyway.’”

  Raspy snorted, “Well now, it might come to that. But first we’ll have some fun eh? Dean, you evil bastard, you wanna have some fun with the chica there?”

  Dean, licked his lips and swaggered over to the girl, expecting to enjoy the apprehensive look on her face. She looked pissed instead. Oh well. Then he tilted his head and looked at her again. “Ahah! I’ve been thinking there was something kinda familiar about you. It’s ‘cause look like a redheaded version of Eva, you know, the singer from Eve of Destruction?” He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, groping her on the way up. Damn! She’d kneed him in the crotch! He slapped her brutally and watched with satisfaction as she crumpled. He bent over, holding his knees and grunted, “Roger, looks like I’m gonna need a little help.”

  “Sure thing buddy.” Roger said, picking a stunned Allie up by one arm and her belt and carrying her to the heavy dining table.

  Dean huffed a couple of times and walked over to the can of cable ties.

  Roger tossed Allie onto the heavy table and held her while Dean tied her ankles and wrists.

  Allie raised up her spinning head and saw her father looking on in horror. She heard her mother screaming but that choked off to muffled sobs as they gagged her after all. She looked around the room. Her brother still lay unmoving but breathing. Could she do something besides make them cough? Were there others? Or just Raspy, Scruffy and Goatee? She didn’t want to try making them cough themselves senseless when someone might pop out of the other room with a gun.

  Dean reached out and grabbed her chin forcing her to look at him, “Kick me now, bitch.”

  Allie twisted her face away from his hand but it was futile.

  Leering over her, he said, “I’m gonna pretend I’m beating the crap out of that rock star, Eva. You look like her and she’s probably an uppity bitch like you are.”

  She focused and could feel the blood vessels in his groin. With trepidation she focused on the big artery there and created a port from there to his pants. A bloody spot appeared near his crotch.

  Roger guffawed, pointing at Dean’s crotch, “Hey buddy, ‘d she rupture something there when she kicked ya?

  Dean looked down and began a panicked cursing. Out of the corner of her eye Allie saw Raspy getting up to look. After a moment Raspy told Dean to change his pants, wash up and figure out what was bleeding. Dean went into the bathroom to desperately examine himself for the source of bleeding, swearing all the while. Roger and Raspy chuckled at Dean’s condition, though they were obviously a little spooked.

  Allie looked up apprehensively as Roger stepped up beside her. He grinned but the expression looked evil on him. “I guess it’s just you and me Cutie.” He said, reaching out, “I like to choke cute girls like you,” he said, raising his eyebrows as if she were supposed to be amazed by this revelation. He grasped her neck and started squeezing.

  Allie, gasped for breath
as his grip slowly tightened. Her mother was screaming into her gag and Allie heard a crash as her Dad’s chair fell over. She thrashed to try to get free without success, Roger was far too strong. His face was flushed, the veins standing out. He was excited and dangerous, she concluded, and she was going to be unconscious soon. She couldn’t wait any longer to be sure whether there were other accomplices or to think of some better strategy. Reaching out with her odd sense she felt the pulsating arteries in his neck and the flow of air in his windpipe. Allie created a port from his carotid artery into to his trachea and Roger suddenly let go of her neck as he began spasmodically coughing up blood just like the big guy behind the bar had done. Raspy hove into view desperately waving his gun in all directions, shouting, “What the hell just happened Roger?!”

  Through a bloody moustache and goatee Roger gasped out, “Don’t… cough, cough... know!” then resumed hacking.

  Raspy pointed the gun at Allie’s leg, “Step into view or I put a bullet in the girl’s leg!” When nothing happened, he said, “Now!”

  Allie realized that Raspy thought her family had an accomplice. She didn’t want to make him spasm with coughing; he might pull the trigger when she did. While she dithered Allie saw his finger tighten on the trigger. Desperately she tried to twist her leg out of the way. He used his left hand to hold her leg down and then pulled the trigger!

  Agony scythed through Allie’s calf. She tried to reach out and sense Raspy’s neck but found that she couldn’t feel anything with her leg hurting so badly! She curled up and grasped at her leg with her hands, though she had difficulty doing it with her wrists bound together. It seemed like the bullet had missed the bone as her leg wasn’t flopping around. The hole was in the fleshy part of her calf, but it still hurt terribly. She had to do something about their guns!