Page 136 of Maddy's Justice

Seeing them leave the restaurant, a man sitting by himself at the bar made a quick phone call. He then left his drink half-full and walked out himself.

“Nice evening,” Maddy said as they walked toward Carvelli’s rental. “How much longer are we gonna stay?”

“I don’t know” Carvelli replied. “Paxton’s antitrust trial starts next week. I’m not sure what more we can do here.”

Unnoticed by the two of them, a van pulled out of a parking space and turned toward them with its lights off. They were four or five parking spaces from where they parked when they saw a couple holding hands walking toward them.

Maddy took a step to her left while smiling at the lovers to let them pass between her and Carvelli. As soon as they got past them, they both turned back. The woman hit Maddy with a stun gun below her neck between her shoulders. The man did exactly the same thing to Carvelli.

Maddy let out a soft yelp on her way down while Carvelli fell in between two cars. By now the van was next to them. Two men jumped out of the van and one of them helped the couple lift Maddy and tossed her into the van through the side door.

While they did this, the man from the passenger seat took two steps toward Carvelli while pulling a silenced handgun from his belt. As Maddy looked on in horror, he started to level it at the prostrate Carvelli’s head.

“Hey! What are you doing? You there, what the hell are you doing?”

“We’re calling the cops right now!”

They looked back to see several good sized, young men yelling and running toward them.

“No, no,” the man who stunned Carvelli said to the gunman while grabbing the man’s arm. “Leave it. We gotta go. Too many people,”

“Another time, asshole,” Evan Carlin said to the terrified Carvelli.

FORTY-FOUR

By the time Carvelli got to the hospital, he was recovered enough to leave, or so he thought. He tried to get out of bed and his knees buckled. He was able to call Paxton who arrived with Sean and Helen an hour later.

“I’m leaving,” he told the attending emergency room physician. “I’ve got a ride and I’ll be fine.”

“Where are the cops?” was the first thing Sean asked.

The nurse had pushed him in the wheelchair out the front door where the three of them were waiting.

“He didn’t tell the police about Maddy,” an annoyed Paxton told her uncle.

“What? What are you thinking about?” Helen asked. “You have to tell them.”

“Let’s go,” Carvelli said and started walking toward Sean’s truck. “I know where she is. At least, I know she is not in Chicago anymore. She’s either in Northern Wisconsin or Michigan.”

“How do you know that?” Paxton asked.

“I just do. The cops can’t do anything but get her killed.”

“You might anyway,” Sean quietly said.

“If they wanted her dead, she’d be dead. I don’t know why, but they wanted her alive and me dead. One of them pointed a gun right at me. Some people from the restaurant scared them off.”

“I still think you should call the police,” Paxton said, but this time less demanding. “How are you going to find her?”

“I know exactly how to find her,” Carvelli grimly declared.

“Have you called Marc?” Helen asked.

“No, and I’m not going to,” Carvelli said as he got in the back seat of Sean’s SUV.

Once inside the vehicle, Paxton turned to Carvelli and said, “You have to call Marc.”

“Not yet,” Carvelli replied. “Right now, I need to get back to Minnesota. Do me a favor. Get on your phone and get me on the earliest flight. O’Hare or Midway.”

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