Chapter Seven
Miranda looked over the list as she answered calls on the landline. After speaking in Italian, Russian and Polish, she then called the shipping service.
She was fed up of this, but it worked, anyway.
She had seen Mr Dunstan do this to at least two other children's homes. She examined the list of children's homes, then tracked the addresses of the head care workers. She then pretended to be delivering something while Alexei and Viktor broke in.
When the head care worker sent them on their way, they'd steal their phone and keys, as well as lock the door, then take them. Viktor would visit every day to take newspapers.
Miranda now went downstairs and checked the fridge. See if she had everything.
Fruit, vegetables, huge bottles of water, cereal bars, tinned mushy peas, biscuits, fruit packets, cashews, fruit drink, apricot bars, tuna pasta, poppy seed cake, crackers, small packets of honey, marmalade, jam, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise, pepper, nougat, muesli, sesame bars, chicken Rogan josh, nut cream, mango drink, orange drink.
Some astronaut food also lay in the cupboard; peaches, strawberries, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream (she remembered getting this in her Christmas stocking when she was in grade school) and peanut butter.
She went to the 'laboratory'; in actuality, a small room with a tiled floor and a table with several drawers. Getting out a syringe, she looked at the vials.
"Let's see," she mumbled, skimming through, "sleeping gas, vaccine against hepatitis B, rabies shot. Yeah, I think the inventory's up-to-date."
Then she went to the back yard, a small, gated area that overlooked the docks. She liked this view, because it made her feel as if she had power over everything below. She could look at people and they would never know someone was spying on them. This made her feel good inside, with a nasty glee.
Then she saw the men come back. Opening the door, she saw both the vans come in. Oh, they hadn't brought the red one back last night. Perhaps they had too much on their hands?
She opened the door, helping Mr Dunstan come in, holding his arm around the shoulders of the young child he lead in. Viktor and Alexei followed.
"Ms Wright," Mr Dunstan addressed her, "the woman knows about us. Three of the children managed to escape. We have to go tonight. Then we fix the woman."
"Run me through this," Miranda told him, shutting the front door and pulling up another plastic chair.
Mr Dunstan answered, "We let the woman and the three children come here. Don't worry, the children we have will be enough bait. Then we ambush them when they try and rescue the kids. We get the three children and take care of them. Then we can fix the woman." He sighed loudly and then gave a smirk. "I fear," he said slowly, "that she may not be allowed to live."
Then he looked at the child with him, who was staring up at Mr Dunstan with wide, scared eyes. He patted them on the shoulders, telling them, "Go upstairs to your room. We can sort everything out tonight."
When May-Li had stopped, they were in the docks car park. The sound of seagulls above made Tyler tell May-Li, "I know they're here."
May-Li complained, "But we don't know which building they're in. There's a ton here. Plus, a number of the guys here are from the Baltic. They have cruises all the time."
Tyler told her, "But we have to try. We need to look round. I can use my cell phone. We can find them soon."
May-Li simply told Tyler, "I only wish it was that simple."
Then she thought. "They'll want to get the others, right? Well, they just took Harry. I think we need to go back and wait. It's worth a try."
When they'd got back to Ashdene Ridge, they went up to the rooms. When they went to the bedrooms, they listened.
In Carmen and Kazima's rooms, they simply saw the girls underneath the duvets. Neither girl said anything, though they moved slightly.
"Carmen? Kazima?" Tyler asked, but neither girl got out of bed. Then he gave a long, loud groan and turned to May-Li. "What can we do?" he asked.
May-Li answered, "Maybe they're too ill to get up."
Then she told them, "I'm going to check on Mo."
Then Kazima gave a loud groan, stirring constantly in her bed. May-Li stopped and turned, watching. But then nothing happened. She frowned and left the room.
Going up to Mo's room, she then opened the door slowly. Mo was there, his hand hanging down off the bed. "Mo?" May-Li asked, moving forward.
She heard a small groan, right before she pulled the duvet off. Her eyes widened when she saw the boy lying there.
It was not Mo.
A/N: Sorry this chapter's short, but I thought I could end it on the right note. So, were your theories correct?
