Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of violence.
Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.
Background
Zee takes in the troubled son of a friend. No good deed goes unpunished. The druggy guy seduces Biggie, Zees young ward. After ditching movie night to go clubbing, Biggie disappears.
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The dynamic duo formulated a snatch-and-grab plan. I reluctantly agreed because "a" plan is better than "no" plan. And, let's face it, I was planless.
Q assembled the reward money. I knew being a rich old broad would eventually pay off. My new screw-in teeth would have to wait another year unless I could arrange an oral agreement with my orthodontist. (Oh, please, we're all adults here.)
Q sent Stella out to buy two identical red hoodies and backpacks from Old Navy.
I spent the day at the spa--a facial, Pedi-mani, and bikini wax. Looking one's best is essential when pulling off a kidnapping. I read it in the handbook.
The plan was simple.
Q filled one backpack with half the reward money and a red hoody. He arranged a met with Tobler.
"Here's half the reward. You get the other half when the switch is over. Dress our girl in the hoodie. Cover her head. Have her wear the backpack for the trip to Heartgrove Behavioral. Once you seat her in the van, call the driver out to check the driver's side back tire."
He did as he was told and walked the driver around to the back of the van. That's when Stella, dressed like Biggie, took off down the highway, screaming her head off.
While the orderly and driver ran after her, I pulled up next to the van. Q got out and grabbed Biggie. The whole thing took 2 minutes.
The trip home was weird. I kept looking at her in the rearview mirror. She looked like a ghost. It was her, but not her. She left looking 15. Now she looked 40.
She began to shiver and rock back and forth in the seat, humming some steady sound through clenched lips. I cranked on the heat. When Q removed his jacket and tried to cover her, she flung herself onto the floorboard and curled into a ball.
The hum turned into a shrieking sound like a wounded animal in a snare. I drove the car with tears running down my cheeks. Q picked her up and pinned her to his chest. He held her tight while he sang a song she used to sing.
Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea......and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee......Oh, Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea. And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee
His rich, baritone voice replaced the cries of pain and suffering with a simple song about a dragon___as he repeated the only lyrics he could remember.
Puff the Magic Dragon. Damn, I need a cigarette.
...........
Author Notes
Zee: Author of cheap paperback novels. Rich, eccentric old cougar living in a condo in downtown Chicago.
Biggie: Filipino. Zees unofficially adopted daughter. Computer guru. Eighteen but diagnosed with arrested emotional development and speech dysphasia after suffering a brutal beating as a child.
Stella: Thirty-something housekeeper. She lives with Zee. She Drives a motorcycle. She moved from her grandparent's farm in Oklahoma to Chicago in search of her birth mother.
Q: Big, mean, and beautiful. He lives in a condo next to Zee. Occupation, bodyguard, chauffeur, cook, and anything else zee needs. Upper crust educated. African American.
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