Page 155 of Maddy's Justice

The drive from Labelle’s four-million-dollar lakeside house on the North side to their destination took almost forty minutes. Most of the way Labelle sat in back almost too numb to speak. His brother was dead, his car shot to pieces and only the quickness of his driver had saved his life.

A half-hour into his escape, Labelle rhetorically asked, “Why would anyone want to kill me? Who would want to kill me?”

“You’ve been hanging out and doing business with a lot of hardcore assholes, Jimmy. Probably one of them,” Dale answered.

Despite what he had just been through, Labelle’s enormous ego was pricked by Alan Dale calling him Jimmy. He opened his mouth to chastise the man for it then caught himself. Dale had just saved his life. Let it go.

Dale was watching Labelle in the mirror and smiled when he saw the reaction.

“This is it?” Labelle sullenly asked when Dale parked the car.

“Yep, this is it,” he replied.

“It looks like an old, filthy warehouse. I’m not staying here.”

It was an old filthy warehouse near where some cattle pens had once been. It was recently converted into a special office for a very particular purpose.

“It is an old warehouse,” Dale said when he turned around to look at Labelle, “and this is where you’re going to stay. You want safe? Trust me, this is as safe as it gets.”

Labelle frowned, looked around the dark parking lot then said, “You’re getting a little bossy, aren’t you?”

“I just saved your life. Get used to it. Come on, let’s go.”

Labelle, reluctantly carrying his own bags, stopped, and stared at what he had walked into once inside.

“You wanted safe, this is safe,” Alan Dale said again.

FIFTY-ONE

Hiding in the shadows of the compound’s main building, Maddy watched the guards at the building next door. There were two of them, one on the back porch and one in front. This was the building where the twin girls were being held.

After knocking out her would be rapist/guard, Maddy stripped off his uniform including his boots. The man was bulkier than her; the clothes were a little loose, the boots a little big. This was actually a good thing. The loose clothing would help obscure her obviously female body.

Maddy got the unconscious man into her bed and covered him up. His breathing and pulse were very weak, and she felt a pang of guilt knowing he would probably die soon. She finished hiding him as the replacement in her bed. She tucked her hair under his over-size black baseball cap and headed out.

Without a weapon, Maddy walked silently through the dark toward the guard. He was very slowly pacing back and forth across the width of the porch. Maddy timed it so he turned his back to her just as she took the two steps up to him.

Startled, the man heard her, turned, and saw a guard in the same clothing as his. Before he could say or do anything, Maddy had curled the fingers of her right hand and jabbed them into his throat. He grabbed for his throat and dropped the AR-15. Maddy caught it and butted him in the forehead putting him down and out.

Maddy tucked his handgun in her belt behind her back. She then massaged the man’s throat and opened his windpipe. In less than a minute, although still unconscious, he was breathing again. A few seconds later, his eyes opened.

Holding him by his collar, the rifle swung across her chest, his sidearm at the back of his head, he quickly led Maddy to Abia’s room.

Abia opened the door, saw the guard and was about to say something when she noticed Maddy.

“Inside,” Maddy told the guard.

Shocked and afraid, Abia backed up and let them in. Once inside, Maddy led the guard away from the door. She cracked the gun down on his collarbone and kicked him behind his right knee causing him to collapse onto the floor.

“Get something to tie him up,” Maddy said. She was kneeling on the guard’s back, the handgun jammed into his head again.

“You broke my collarbone!”

“Quiet. Be grateful if that’s all I do. Don’t for one second believe I won’t blow your head off,” Maddy said.

Abia came back carrying a large supply of belts, scarves, and shawls to use as ropes.

“Here,” Maddy said holding up the gun for Abia. “Do you know how to use this?”

---