Past the bulldozer and hidden between two construction traders I found the blue van. Just as Mrs. Bromley had said, it had ALL SEASONS LAWN AND LANDSCAPING painted on the sides in bright orange letters.
As much as I wanted to rush over, wrench the door open, and haul Mrs. Bromley out, I stood there quietly for a moment, looking in all directions, just to make sure Chet wasn't anywhere in the vicinity.
I checked my watch again. Five minutes. Where the hell were the cops? Several couples strolled along the banks of the creek, taking advantage of the afternoon sunshine. Just ahead, traffic rushed by on Rowe Boulevard, slowing now and again at the light on Bladen Street. But no cops.
I used my cell phone to call 911 and report our exact location, then approached the van cautiously from the side, so I could peer into the cab. Chet had not returned. I pulled the door handle. The cab was locked.
I crept around to the back of the van and knocked quietly on the rear cargo door. "Mrs. B. It's Hannah. I'm going to get you out of this thing."
"Thank goodness! Let me know how I can help."
"I don't think there's much you can do from the inside, except push when I tell you to."
Indeed, the back door of the van was securely locked and, just to make sure his prisoner couldn't escape, Chet had woven a bicycle chain through the door handles and secured it with an oversized combination lock. "Damn!" I called through the door. "He's put a chain on it. No wonder you couldn't get it open."
I dropped my purse to the ground and glanced around the deserted construction site, desperate for a tool I could use to pry the lock off the door. Failing that, I thought, something big and heavy. I'd bash the door in.
About twenty yards away was a Dumpster, loaded with debris, sitting next to another pile of debris. I patted the side of the van. "I'll be right back!" I told her.
I scrabbled over the pile, tossing aside bits of plywood, odd-shaped pieces of Sheetrock, squares of pink insulation, and leftover shingles and vinyl siding. My sunglasses finally gave up the ghost, sliding off my nose and disappearing under a pile of wood chips. I didn't care. I pawed on.
Beneath the remains of a roll of tar paper, I found a tangle of iron rods of the kind normally used to reinforce concrete. I picked carefully through the rods, tossing several aside before selecting one about two and a half feet long. Brandishing it like a sword, I scrambled back to the van, banging my shins several times on the corners of protruding plywood boards.
"Hold tight! It's going to take me a minute or two to bust this thing open."
A minute or two. That was optimistic.
I studied the chain and the padlock, trying to decide which was the more vulnerable. Finally, I inserted one end of the rod between the jaws of the padlock, braced the rod against the door of the van, and yanked down.
I succeeded only in bending the rod.
I eased the rod out, turned it around and threaded it through one of the links of the chain. "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link," I muttered as I applied pressure to the link. Nothing happened, except a searing pain shot up my arm.
I removed the rod and reinserted it halfway, beginning at the point where the chain met the padlock. I began turning the rod clockwise, hand over hand, winding the chain up. When I'd wound it as far to the right as it would go, I grabbed the right end of the rod with both hands, hung on and pulled down with all my weight, lifting my feet up off the ground.
Once. Twice. I rocked the van.
Three times. Four. The chain groaned.
Suddenly, the chain snapped, throwing me, my hat, the rod, the chain, and the padlock to the ground all in one great, glorious heap.
Fueled by adrenaline, I shot to my feet and was reaching for the handle to the cargo door when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder and squeezed hard.
"Oh, no you don't!"
Instantly, every ounce of energy seemed to drain from my body. I felt limp and defeated. I turned to face my assailant.
Chet loomed over me, lean and muscular, tall as a tree. He was dressed in khaki pants and a navy blue shirt with Chet embroidered on it in orange script. Without doubt he was the gardener I'd first seen in Mrs. Bromley's clandestine photos. His shirt matched his van, I remembered thinking. You pay extra for that.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Mrs. Bromley had managed to open the door from the inside. The crack widened as the door swung slowly outward.
Hoping to distract Chet, I dropped to the ground and scrambled to retrieve my iron rod. I grabbed the rod, rolled over, and swung it at Chet's shins, connecting with one of them with a resounding crack.
"Ooooow! You bitch!" Hopping on one leg, Chet managed to grab my arm and twist it behind my back, iron rod and all, pulling my arm painfully skyward. With his free hand, he grasped my weapon, twisted, and by sheer strength, pulled it out of my clenched hand. The last time I saw the rod, it was sailing over the chain-link fence. After what I'd done to his shin, I was counting myself lucky he didn't beat me to death with the thing.
In the meantime, Mrs. Bromley's tennis shoes had hit the ground. She picked up my purse and swung it at Chet, like a Biblical slingshot, but it bounced ineffectually off his head.
Chet tugged me back against him, reached around and clamped my neck in the crook of his arm. He jerked us both around to face Mrs. Bromley. "Get back in the van," he ordered, "or I'll break her fucking neck."
Mrs. Bromley froze, my purse dangling by its strap from her hand. Her eyes darted from my face to Chet's, apparently weighing her options.
Her eyes flashed. If she'd had a gun, I don't believe she would have hesitated to shoot the bastard, but with only my purse as a weapon, what choice did she have? She set my purse carefully inside the van, turned and climbed obediently back in.
Unless the police showed up within the next five seconds, our geese were cooked.
Chet released his grip on my neck but was still twisting my arm so painfully that tears came to my eyes. Holding me securely, he duck-walked me over to the cargo door, boosted me up with a well-placed, retaliatory knee kick to my butt, and dumped me unceremoniously in a heap on the floor.
"I'm sorry," Mrs. Bromley whispered.
I gathered my legs under me and sat up, shading my eyes against the glare of the sun that poured through the door. "That's okay," I said. "You gave it your best shot."
Suddenly, the sun was blocked by Chet's bulk as he stood framed in the doorway. "How'd'ja find…?" he drawled.
A light in his attic blinked on. "Yeah." Chet picked up my handbag, rummaged through the pockets until he found my cell phone. "Naughty, naughty!" he said. He drew his arm back and sent my cell phone flying in a wide, high arc until it landed somewhere on the Bloomsbury Square construction site where an enterprising youngster would find it the following morning and use up all my minutes having phone sex with some call girl in Miami.
Chet tossed my purse back into the van, where it landed at my feet with a thud. "Now you'll stay out of trouble."
His hard, dark eyes settled on Mrs. Bromley. "You must have one on you, too, then." He held out his hand. "Give."
Mrs. Bromley unclipped her cell phone from her belt and reluctantly handed it over. Soon it was sailing over the chain-link fence in the general direction of mine.
Chet started to close the door, but seemed to think better of it. "You ladies are too damn much trouble," he muttered. He rubbed the spot on his head where Mrs. Bromley had clipped him with my purse, then limped back a few steps, staring into the van, thinking. It was probably a relatively new experience for him.
While he stared, I looked around the inside of the van, too, hoping to find something I could use as a weapon.
Whatever else Chet might be, he was definitely a gardener. The van was chock full of the wherewithal required to provide fairly competent lawn care service. A lawn mower was lashed to one wall with bungee cords; hedge clippers, a chain saw, pruning shears, shovels, rakes surrounded us. Any one of them would have been useful as a weapon if they hadn't been stowed away so securely. Zero chance of getting any into my hot little hands while Chet's beady eyes were still upon us.