The house was an old two story wood-frame near the Route 90 freeway. Mrs. Aird and Evelyn thumped on the door while Timothy waited and watched from his car; they were disappointed when the occupant, someone they couldn’t see clearly through the window screen, told them flatly that she didn’t know anyone answering to such a description, that she was the sole occupant of the place and could not help them in any way. She shut the door firmly in their faces, and they came down the steps feeling stumped and uncertain. They met Timothy coming up the walk.
“It’s a dead end,” Evelyn told him. She could not contain her vexation. “Poor, poor Dianne!”
“Gives up easy, don’t she,” Mrs. Aird said to Timothy. She moved her head ponderously to peer back up at the place. “Maybe the woman just don’t trust strangers. They could be in there gabbing about calculators for all we know. Having a nice chitchat about Smurfs and mud rooms.”
“About what?” Timothy looked puzzled.
“Never mind,” Evelyn said, touching his arm.
She started back towards the house, her shadow thrust ahead of her by the streetlight.
“Let’s take a look around the back. Maybe there’s a separate entrance, a neighbor or something...”
Big Lu came down the stairs from the kitchen frowning and shaking her head. “Just a couple of old bags, sweetie, collecting for some charity. Probably the local seniors’ drop-dead center. Oh, pardon me, I mean the drop-in center.” She sniffed derisively. “I should keep a rottweiler by the door. I hate visitors.”
“Old bags?” A flutter of hope stirred in Dianne’s heart.
“Two old frumps, hon. I gave them the brushoff. Back to business.” Lu had been setting up parasol reflectors around the bench, and now she adjusted them, poking her tongue out the corner of her mouth. A lit computer screen dominated the room. “This won’t be your usual photography, sweetie. It’s digital. Produces images called bit maps that you can modify, store on diskette, send out over the Internet to customers half a world away.”
“Aren’t you afraid they might be intercepted?” Dianne mumbled.
She was still trying valiantly to stall for time but was too dazed by all that had happened to her to put any real effort into it.
“No problem. I use PGP encryption. That stands for Pretty Good Privacy, and it’s shareware, which means it don’t cost nothing. But it’s so good even the FBI can’t crack it.” She grinned. “Ain’t technology wonderful?”
Dianne felt her last threads of sanity drifting away. She couldn’t hold back any longer. She threw back her head, opened her mouth wide, and let out her grief out in a loud, “Ya-a-aaah!”
Judas in a jumpsuit! “What was that?” Evelyn stopped in her tracks at the side of the house and flung a restraining hand up in front of the others.
“Somebody yelled,” said Timothy.
“They sure did,” agreed Mrs. Aird. Even she had heard it. “Sounded like a bare-bottomed warbler doing a tail-plant on a prickly bush.”
“It was Dianne’s voice!” said Evelyn excitedly. “I’m sure of it!” They hurried around the corner to the rear of the house, where they found the back storm door latched against them. It was a flimsy thing; a lot of badly caulked glass in a frail latticed frame. “We need something heavy,” Evelyn said breathlessly, looking around, “to knock the window out with.”
“Look,” said Mrs. Aird, “we got something to knock the window out. Stand clear!” She took her large purse in her hands, hefted it, then brought it forward with all her force. The impact stove in the glass panes and smashed the framework into kindling.
“You heard of the Inquisition?” Big Lu asked pleasantly, making conversation as if Dianne had dropped by to obtain a passport photo.
She performed a few last adjustments to her photographic setup, then came towards the chain link gate. “There was this guy Torquemada back then, and it’s too bad he didn’t have a digital camera setup. The things he did! You wouldn’t believe it. There’s folks would give thousands to see the stills of it, and I’m not exaggerating.”
“What... what kind of things did he do?” Dianne asked hesitantly.
“I was just about to show you.” Big Lu unfastened the loose bracelet of the handcuffs from the links, then opened the gate. “It’ll be a reenactment. Come on out of there, sweetie.”
But Dianne could not make her limbs obey. She stayed huddled against the damp fieldstone, trembling uncontrollably. “Snap out of it!” Big Lu ordered. “Time is money!”
“I c-can’t...”
“Oh, yes, you c-can!” returned Big Lu, mocking her stammer. “And you better d-do it, too, or else!”
She took a menacing step forward, then stopped. There had been a crash upstairs, the tinkle of glass hitting the floor, and Big Lu’s eyes flew wide open.
She tipped her head back and stared upwards as if she could see through the floor joists.
“What the devil—”
The tinkle was followed by the sudden tread of footsteps across the floor of the kitchen, and then the clump of feet on the stairs. Dianne gasped when the sturdy frame of Evelyn Culver hove into view, followed by Mrs. Aird. Her friends wore expressions of curiosity, concern, and wrath. And then a third person appeared. She recognized him immediately. It was the handsome young man she had seen in the park!
Evelyn put her hands on her hips and threw Big Lu a scalding look.
“So you didn’t know who we were talking about, huh?”
Big Lu seemed stunned. She was quivering with rage. “You-you broke into my house! You’re breaking the law!”
“Wow!” Evelyn said, “what a grasp of the obvious.” She gave Dianne an encouraging grin and a waggle of fingers. “Hi, kiddo! We’ll take you home now, if that’s all right.”
If it was all right? It was more than all right! Dianne’s strength returned magically. She would have dashed up the stairs if Big Lu hadn’t resecured the flap of chain link that imprisoned her.
“Not so fast,” Big Lu said, recovering a little. “I got something to say about this.”
“No,” replied Evelyn, “you don’t. You’ve said and done enough already.” She stepped forward. “Move aside. We’re taking our friend, and we’re leaving.”
“I don’t think so,” Big Lu said.
Evelyn produced her magnet. “Do you know what this is?”
However, this time her threat didn’t have the desired effect. Instead of being cowed, Big Lu suddenly threw herself forward like a linebacker, striking Evelyn broadside with forearms and elbows. The magnet flew from her grasp and skittered across the floor while she herself staggered backwards and sat down heavily on the floor with a grunt.
Big Lu loomed above her. A foot-long screwdriver had appeared in her hand.
“You dare threaten me? In my own home?”
“What’s going on? What’s the blathering about?” It was Mrs. Aird.
Evelyn blinked.
Her friend had procured an axe from behind the furnace where a number of garden implements were stored. She was hefting it with the confidence of a seasoned north woods lumberjack.
“What does she think she’s going to do with that?” scoffed Big Lu. “Chop my head off? I don’t think so!”
“You want me to chop something?” asked Mrs. Aird. “That’s fine with me. What do you want me to chop first?”
“You’re bluffing,” Big Lu said. Then she suddenly went pale with alarm. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
Mrs. Aird had raised the axe and now brought it down briskly on a spare computer screen, the jarring blow turning it into broken glass, splintered plastic, and scattered electronic components.