Chet seemed to be cataloging the contents of the van, too. Hanging on a metal hook near the door was a bright orange extension cord, neatly coiled. He reached out and lifted it off the hook.
"You two sit together now."
I scowled. "We are sitting together."
"No. Back-to-back."
I turned obediently until I was sitting directly behind Mrs. Bromley.
"Closer," he said. "Now link your arms together."
When he was satisfied with our position, Chet stepped into the van. He paused a few cautious feet away. "No funny business now."
"We'll behave," I assured him. We were confined in such close quarters, I feared that if I tried anything, I'd end up injuring Mrs. Bromley.
I never knew an extension cord could be so long. Chet managed to wrap it around our waists, twine it about our necks, draw it tightly across my chest, loop it down around my ankles, and pass it back around our waists again. By the grunts, I could tell when he got to the knot tying part, somewhere out of reach in the vicinity of Mrs. Bromley's ankles.
Apparently satisfied, he climbed down and slammed the cargo door behind him. A few seconds later the shock absorbers squeaked and the van heeled to the left as he climbed into the driver's seat. The engine roared to life and, tires spinning on the loose dirt, our kidnapper peeled out onto St. John's Street.
"Keep track of the turns," I said in quiet desperation.
We turned right, then stopped. "This must be the light on Rowe Boulevard," I guessed, struggling to loosen our bonds.
We turned right again, then made another right, then a left, and an almost immediate right. By this time I figured we were in West Annapolis. But then the van made a series of zigzags, perhaps intentionally, or perhaps because Chet was lost again, and it wasn't long before I lost all track of where we might be. We could have been in Admiral Heights or Ferry Farms or all the way out in Cape St. Claire, for all I knew.
Suddenly, Chet took a sharp left, and both Mrs. Bromley and I toppled over. "Ouch!" she cried.
"What is it?"
"Something's digging into my side!"
"Hold tight!" I struggled to work us back into a sitting position, but the van took another hard turn and we rolled again, sliding along the floorboards. This time I knocked my head on a corner of the lawn mower and saw stars.
For what seemed like hours, but was probably only twenty minutes, we careened around like tennis shoes in a dryer, before the van finally screeched to a stop, throwing us back against a plastic, five gallon gasoline tank. There was an electronic beep from within the cab.
"What's that?" Mrs. Bromley whimpered.
"I think it's a garage door opener."
The van inched forward, then lurched to a stop. There was another beep, and the sound of a garage door grinding down.
Mrs. Bromley and I waited, hardly daring to breathe. "I wonder where we are?" she whispered after a moment of silence.
In the dark, I shrugged. "I don't have the vaguest idea," I whispered back.
Chet turned off the ignition and climbed out of the cab. We heard the sound of a door opening, and muffled conversation. After a few minutes more, the cargo door opened and Chet climbed into the van. Without saying a word, he went about the business of releasing us from the extension cord, then hopped out.
Mrs. Bromley and I were rubbing our arms and checking each other for damage when a hand appeared at the door, followed by a brown sleeve and a face only a mother could love.
“Well, ladies, what a pleasure to see you today." It was Nick Pottorff.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I looked Nick Pottorff straight in the eye. "Who the hell are you?"
Mrs. Bromley crossed her arms over her bosom and glared at him, too. "And what do you want with us?"
Pottorff ignored her, keeping his eyes on me. There was no flash of recognition, thank goodness, just a hint of ill-concealed amusement. "Your friend, here, she's been a busy little bee with her camera."
"She's not my friend. She's my mother," I lied smoothly.
"I'm president of the Ginger Cove garden club," Mrs. Bromley pouted. "I was photographing the tulip beds, for heaven's sake, and the next thing I knew, this thug-" She glared at Chet so fiercely that he actually backed away.
"Nice try, Mom." Pottorff held out his hand and helped Mrs. Bromley alight from the van.
He offered me the same assistance, but I kept my hands to myself. If I actually had to touch the loathsome toad, I knew my fingers would drop off. "No thanks. I can manage."
When my feet hit the ground, I nearly collapsed. My left leg had gone to sleep. I pounded on it with my fist, trying to get the circulation going again. "Are you all right, Mom?"
Mrs. Bromley's smile was unconvincing. "As well as could be expected, dear."
We were standing on the spotless concrete floor of a modem, three-car garage. Except for the van, it was empty. No tools lined the back wall, no paint cans, no old snow tires, no broken-down bicycles or rusty shovels. A Stepford garage. It wasn't natural.
Pottorff extended an arm and bowed slightly, like a headwaiter about to escort us to our table. "Please, follow me."
With Chet bringing up the rear, we followed Pottorff up a short flight of stairs, through a mud room where winter coats and rain slickers hung on hooks in an orderly row, into an eye-poppingly gorgeous gourmet kitchen. Valerie would have loved this, I thought. As we trooped past a high-tech appliance island, I stole a glance out the window, hoping to recognize the neighborhood, but it was impossible. Nick Pottorff's house, if this was his house, had been built on a heavily wooded lot. Through a thick canopy of leaves I thought I caught a glimpse of water, but I couldn't be sure.
Chet prodded me in the back. "Move along, lady."
Pottorff opened a door next to an antique Dutch cupboard and led us down a flight of stairs.
I feared we would find a dungeon at the end of it, or a dark, dank basement, but the stairs were broad and carpeted, and when we reached the bottom, we found ourselves in a luxurious family room right out of the pages of House Beautiful. A sixty-inch HDTV plasma screen was mounted on one wall, flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. To our right was an extensive bar of carved oak, modeled on an English pub. At least two kinds of beer seemed to be on tap, as well as a wide range of hard liquor, if the number of bottles on display was any indication. A beveled mirror reflected the light from a Tiffany-style tight fixture, and mounted above the mirror was the piece de resistance: a copy of Goya's Naked Maya. From her vantage point over the bar, the Maya enjoyed a view of a massive stone fireplace.
"You have a lovely home." My voice dripped acid.
Pottorff turned and studied me without smiling. "Please, give me a moment." He lifted a key from a hook mounted next to a decorative chalkboard that had "Happy Hour" painted on it, then ambled down a short hallway, at the end of which was a door made of dark wood, inset with etched glass.
I squinted. Curlicues and dolphins, I thought, or maybe they were mermaids. Hard to tell.
Pottorff unlocked the door, turned and waggled his fingers in a come-hither way.
With Chet at our backs to hustle us along, we toddled down the hallway past a glass front refrigerator filled with beverages. Like at 7-Eleven, only fancier.
"Please. Wait in here," Pottorff said, stepping aside.
"Wait for what?" I asked.
"Please." He opened the door wider.
"But it's a wine cellar," I said, stepping with some reluctance into the room.