Steamed to Death (30 page)

Sienna put a hand on her protruding stomach. “I think so. It’s kicking like mad, and that’s a good sign.”

“We have to get you out of here.” Gigi looked around the basement. She’d been down there once before but hadn’t paid much attention. Canned goods and other supplies were stacked on the rough wood shelving unit that lined one wall. A small window, caked with dirt, was high up on the other wall. Unfortunately, there were no ladders or even step stools that might have helped her reach it. She didn’t doubt that Anja had already bolted the basement door, so there would be no escape that way.

“I guess we’ll have to wait until Anja leaves and Winchel comes back.” Sienna gave a brave smile. “We won’t be down here forever.” She brushed some dust off an overturned carton and sat down, a hand at her back.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Sienna nodded. “A cramp. It’s nothing.” She closed her eyes and clenched her fists at her sides.

Gigi didn’t believe her. Sienna was in labor. They were going to have to get out of there sooner rather than later.

“If I could reach that window,” Gigi said when Sienna opened her eyes and looked up again.

“It’s not worth it. Winchel is bound to come home eventually. We can wait till then. I don’t want you to risk getting hurt.”

Gigi bit down on her impatience. She didn’t want to upset Sienna, so she spread out a plastic bag she found on one of the shelves and eased into a sitting position on the floor, her back against the shelving unit. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. It was hard to think with her head throbbing so badly.

“What’s that smell?” Sienna sniffed loudly.

Gigi’s eyes flew back open. “What smell?”

“Maybe it’s my imagination . . .” Sienna’s brow furrowed as she took another deep breath.

Gigi closed her eyes and took a sniff. There was the hint of something in the air, but she couldn’t place it. She inhaled deeply again.

Suddenly Sienna jumped to her feet. “It’s gas! I smell gas.”

Gigi shook her head. “No, I don’t think . . .” She took a deeper breath and sputtered. “You’re right. It’s gas! Anja must have turned on all the burners and blew out the flames.” She turned toward Sienna. “We have to get out of here now. If there’s a spark . . .”

Sienna gave a sob and once again closed her eyes, both hands pressed hard against her back.

“If I could reach that window . . .” Gigi looked around the basement again, but nothing had materialized since her earlier perusal. The shelving unit caught her eye, and she went over to examine it. She gave it a good shake.

“This doesn’t appear to be attached to the wall,” she said excitedly. “If we can take everything off and move this over by the window, perhaps I can use it as a ladder.”

“Are you sure? It’s not very sturdy.”

Gigi coughed. The smell was getting stronger. “We don’t have any choice.” She started shifting cans of diced tomatoes and chicken broth to the floor. “It’s this or . . .” She didn’t have to spell out the consequences to Sienna, who immediately began moving some of the lighter items.

By the time the shelves were emptied, Gigi was sweating and sneezing from the dust; however, the most difficult part of the task was still at hand—moving the unit itself. It was fairly light but very awkward. Gigi would have been tempted to give up except for the strengthening smell of gas and the thought that at any minute a spark could blow them both sky high.

With Sienna’s help, she finally maneuvered the shelving under the sole basement window and the next step was at hand—climbing the thing. Gigi wasn’t a huge fan of heights, but she could manage if she were careful not to look down or to think about it too much.

“If you can hold it here”—she indicated a place to Sienna—“then I think it will be steady enough.” Gigi looked up at the pieces of wood nailed haphazardly together, and her stomach plummeted as if she were on the downward slope of a roller coaster. But she had to put on a brave face for Sienna. And, as the famous slogan put it, “just do it
.
”

She grasped one of the upper shelves with a firm grip and stepped onto the first shelf. The whole construction wobbled a lot less than she’d anticipated, and emboldened, she took another step. This time, the unit swayed slightly, but she was able to hold fast. The wood was rough under her fingertips, and she winced as she felt a splinter slice through the skin of her thumb, but she didn’t stop. The smell of gas increased with every passing second.

Gigi looked down to see Sienna staring up at her, her lip caught between her teeth and her face pinched with worry. Gigi gave her a reassuring smile and struck out for the next rung, or rather, shelf. She was now level with the window. Gigi felt a jolt of triumph, but it didn’t last. The most difficult part was still ahead of her. She had to squeeze onto the shelf to actually reach the window. As soon as she tried to lever her whole body onto the wood slab, the unit swayed dangerously, as if a tropical storm had suddenly hit. Gigi held on for dear life as Sienna tried to steady the increasingly wobbly structure.

“Are you okay?” Sienna gasped, staring up at Gigi in horror.

“I’m fine,” Gigi lied between gritted teeth. “If you can hold it steady for another minute, I think I can do this.”

Sienna increased her grip, and Gigi slowly eased onto the shelf nearest the window. The shelf held, and the whole structure actually steadied. She took a moment to catch her breath and offer up a silent prayer of thanks.

The basement window looked even grimier up close, with dirt caked into all four corners and cobwebs crisscrossing the glass. Gigi prayed it would open easily enough. She didn’t have much leverage in the position she was in. A tiny spider spun toward her face on a gossamer piece of web, and she forced herself not to scream or even move. She clamped her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, the spider was gone. The thought crossed her mind that it might now be entangled in her hair somewhere, and she forced herself to think about something else.

The window latch looked as if it hadn’t been touched in decades, but it moved freely enough. Gigi let out her breath in a sigh of relief. She was one step closer to getting Sienna safely to the hospital.

Gigi gave the window a good shove, and it opened almost as easily as the latch had. It was a bit of a struggle getting through the space. She winced when she heard a loud rip as her jacket caught on something. She was glad she was wearing her old fleece and not the new leather one she’d treated herself to.

The window was barely above ground level, and Gigi found herself lying facedown in the pile of leaves that had collected alongside the house’s foundation. She stumbled to her feet and brushed at the dirt and bits of twigs and leaves that clung to the front of her jacket and the knees of her jeans. She sensed a presence and looked up to find Anja staring at her with those frigid blue eyes of hers.

“Very clever. How did you manage it?”

Gigi’s heart was still beating so loudly she barely heard Anja’s words. She gestured toward the open window. “The shelving unit.”

“As I said, very clever. But I’m afraid, not clever enough.” Anja brought her right arm out from behind her back.

Gigi took a step backward when she saw the shovel in Anja’s hand.

“One of the gardeners very conveniently left this lying against the side of the house instead of putting it away.” Anja gave a hiss of annoyance, presumably at the employee’s laziness.

Even before Anja raised the shovel over her head, Gigi was off and running. She ran as fast as she ever had, fairly certain she had to be setting some kind of record. She kept going even when her breath became so ragged it tore at her chest and she tasted blood in her mouth. Anja was never more than a few feet behind. Her breath sounded like a locomotive in Gigi’s ears, and it spurred her on even after she nearly tripped and fell, and again after she twisted her ankle on the hidden roots of a tree.

She was at the bend in the driveway now, probably halfway down its length. She tried to think, but fear propelled her forward with no plan beyond outdistancing and outlasting Anja and the menacing iron shovel.

Gigi felt something catch at her jacket and glance off her shoulder. She bit her lip in pain. Anja was right behind her and swinging wildly. Tears blurred Gigi’s vision, and she narrowly escaped colliding with a tree. She didn’t know how much longer she could run. Anja must have superhuman powers because she kept coming and coming.

Another blow glancing off her right shoulder gave Gigi a shot of adrenaline, and she made a last-ditch effort to pick up speed. She heard the shovel slice through the air but felt nothing. Anja must have dropped back at last. Gigi was rounding the second bend in the driveway when she ran smack into something.

It wasn’t a tree—it was quite hard but at the same time, softer and more yielding. She looked up to discover Detective Mertz towering over her. Suddenly several people in uniform rushed out of the shadows and whizzed past Gigi and Mertz. She heard scuffling and the sounds of a struggle. She turned around to see Anja handcuffed and subdued between two burly policemen.

She gave Gigi a venomous stare, her lips drawn back into an animal-like snarl. “I only wanted revenge for my sister. Is there something so wrong with that?” She tried to shake off the men gripping each of her arms.

“But murder?” Gigi squeaked.

“She deserved it.” Anja spit furiously. “She accused my sister of stealing, and Monica was deported. She took her own life.”

Gigi gasped.

“All along it was that useless stepson of hers, Derek, who was taking the money. He got his just deserts, that’s for sure. Can you believe he tried to blackmail me?” she shouted after Gigi as the policemen hustled her into the waiting squad car, its lights throwing a whirling display of colors against the side of Felicity’s house.

“What about Sienna?” Gigi turned to Mertz. “We have to get her out of there.”

Mertz gestured toward the fire truck in front of the police cruiser. “The firemen have turned off the gas and opened all the windows. They’ll have her out in a second.”

“I think she’s in labor.”

Mertz turned around, startled. “Labor? Really?”

Gigi shook her head.

He reached through his open car door, grabbed his radio and barked orders at the person on the other end. He turned back to Gigi. “Ambulance will be here in a few.”

“How did you—”

“Come to be here?” Mertz finished for her. “Your dog.” He pointed toward Alice’s Taurus where Reg was now curled up, asleep, on the back package shelf. “I guess he started barking, and it irritated the old geezer who lives down the road, and he called in a complaint. I was on my way out here anyway to ask Winchel a few more questions, so I agreed to check on it. When I saw Reg sitting in the car, barking his head off, I knew something had to be up. It’s not like him to make a racket like that for no reason. Then, as I got closer to the house, I smelled the gas and called in the fire brigade. Next thing I know you’re running smack into my arms.”

“I didn’t run into your arms.” Gigi felt her face blossom with heat.

“In a manner of speaking, you most certainly did.” The smile on Mertz’s face made Gigi go all weak in the knees.

“Here she is!” Gigi heard someone shout. She peered through the trees and saw someone in uniform carrying Sienna down the driveway.

“Sienna!” Gigi, ran, panicked, toward her friend. “Are you okay?”

Sienna was very white, but her eyes fluttered open when she heard Gigi’s voice. “I’ll be fine,” she whispered and closed her eyes again.

“Bus is here,” someone called, and Gigi caught sight of headlights coming up the drive.

The ambulance pulled up behind the squad cars, adding another rotating halo of light to the scene. A man and a woman jumped out, yanked out a gurney and within seconds had Sienna safely in place. They loaded her into the back, and Gigi could see them taking her vitals and starting an IV drip.

She fished her cell phone from her purse and dialed Oliver’s number. Before Gigi even hung up, Oliver was in his car on the way to the hospital.

Mertz was busy commanding his troops, so Gigi waved and got into her own car. Reg lazily climbed down from the package shelf and came over to lick her face in greeting. She ruffled his fur and kissed the top of his head. “You’re a hero, Reg. You saved me and Sienna.”

Reg preened himself a bit and then settled into the passenger seat to continue his nap.

“We’re off to the hospital, boy. Sienna is having her baby.”

Chapter 29

Gigi was still shaking when she arrived at Woodstone Hospital. She’d thought about running Reg home—he’d already spent way too long sitting in the car—but he was napping peacefully on the passenger seat still, and she hoped he wouldn’t mind waiting a bit longer. She wouldn’t rest until she found out how Sienna was doing.

She recognized Oliver’s BMW in the emergency parking lot and pulled into a space three cars down. The woman at the reception desk took forever, asking Gigi a million and one questions before finally issuing her a pass and directing her to room twelve. Gigi was almost dancing with impatience by the time she was ushered through the door.

She passed room ten, eleven and then came to the curtain blocking cubicle number twelve. “Hello?” she called out.

Oliver’s reassuring baritone greeted her, and she pushed the curtain to one side. Sienna was sitting up in the hospital bed, an IV running into her arm and a pulse oximeter clipped to one of her fingers. She was pale but looked okay.

Oliver smiled when Gigi entered, and gave a thumbs-up. “We’re on our way to the maternity ward. Looks like this baby is finally coming.”

“Really!” Gigi gave Sienna a quick hug.

“It’s the first, so it could be a while—then again . . . ?” Oliver shrugged.

“You’ll let me know the minute—”

“Of course.” Sienna smiled reassuringly.

“Well, I’ve left Reg alone in the car long enough. I think I’ll go home and . . . wait.”

“Hopefully not too long.” Sienna grimaced slightly and put her hands on her belly.

Oliver leaned over her, stroking her forehead and smoothing her hair back.