Chapter 14: Showdown in the Pirates' Den
Amanda followed the handyman through the back hallways of the house. In the distance, she could hear the sounds of the party, but this man seemed determined to avoid all of that.
Keeping well back, Amanda watched carefully from around a corner while the handyman entered a room at the end of a long hallway. She paused outside the door for a few moments, waiting for the man to move away from it before she tried to peek inside herself.
Of course, Lee would want her to find him and tell him about this instead of going in herself, but Amanda didn't think there was time. There was no telling where Lee was in this huge place, and she didn't want to lose the guy she was following. Amanda eased the door open slowly and peered inside.
"Oh, no," she whispered to herself. "Not another haunted house!"
There was no question that the decorations inside had come from Goreman Electronics. Some of them were identical to the ones Amanda had seen in the haunted house at the school, including the skeleton pirate sitting on the barrel. Amanda eased her way into the room and looked around.
The undead pirates seated around the table really made an impressive tableau, but the man that Amanda was following was gone. Across the room, she saw another door. Thinking that the man she was following might have gone that way, Amanda carefully made her way toward it, trying to watch for the electric eye sensors that would set off the automatons.
When Amanda cracked open the door, she saw the man she was looking for kneeling next to a table with a gypsy figure seated at it. Amanda stayed behind the door, watching him through the crack. The handyman's tool box was sitting on the floor next to him. He had taken out some tools and was tinkering with the display.
"What on Earth is he doing?" Amanda wondered.
She decided that this might be a good time to find Lee. The man seemed settled for the moment, and even if he was gone when she got back, they could notify security to stop him from leaving the house and check out the display he was working on. Whatever he was doing, Amanda was sure that he was no ordinary mechanic.
The man suddenly turned to reach for something in the toolbox, and Amanda automatically took a quick step back. Too quick. By accident, she set off one of the electric eye devices. The skeleton pirate sitting on the barrel suddenly burst into a round of "Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest."
"Oh, no!" Amanda thought. She knew the handyman must have heard that, and she had to get out of there fast.
Amanda turned to run and ended up colliding with one of the other pirate skeletons seated at the table. The door behind her flew open, and the handyman locked eyes with her.
With a gasp, Amanda tried to dodge around the table, but the handyman was too fast. He tackled her and brought her to the ground. As she fell, a sharp pain shot through her ankle. Amanda tried to cry out, but the man quickly covered her mouth. He managed to pin her down in spite of her struggling, and suddenly she felt something pressing against her ribs.
"I've got a gun," the man hissed in Amanda's ear. "You just sit still."
Amanda froze. There was nothing else she could do.
"Now, listen lady," the man continued. "There's something I've got to do . . . "
He never finished the thought. There were voices coming from the next room. The handyman cocked his head, listening.
"I'm sure that I heard something," Lee said.
"We'll take one last look, and then we have to check in with the other search team," Billy said.
Amanda's eyes widened as she recognized the voices of her friends. Somehow, she had to let them know she was there. The handyman still had his hand over her mouth, so she couldn't scream. However, she could move her hands. Right now, the man was more focused on the approaching voices than on her.
Trying not to attract the man's attention, Amanda carefully opened her purse and reached inside. Her hand closed on the little skull-shaped object near the bottom. Praying that this would work, Amanda turned it on.
The unearthly shrieks filled the room, even with the purse muffling the noise somewhat.
"What the—!" the handyman exclaimed.
He let go of Amanda's mouth so that he could yank her hand out of her purse. The hot pink shrieker fell from her hand and rolled across the floor.
"In here!" Lee yelled from the doorway.
The handyman turned to fire in Lee's direction.
"Lee!" Amanda screamed.
The handyman fired at Lee, but he must have missed. He ducked back behind the table as Lee returned fire. The shrieker was now emitting high-pitched laughter.
Amanda didn't want to get up for fear of being shot, but seeing a moment of distraction, she started to crawl away from the handyman. Sensing her movement, the man turned and grabbed hold of her, seizing her by her injured ankle. Amanda cried out as he squeezed her poor ankle tightly, trying to drag her back to him.
"I've got a woman here!" the man called out to Lee. "I'll kill her if you don't back off!"
"If you don't let her go, you're not going to leave this room alive!" Lee said.
Desperately, Amanda kicked the handyman, knocking his gun to the floor. He tried to pick it up, but she kicked it away with her good foot. The handyman swore at her, trying to keep hold of her and reach for the gun at the same time.
"Lee!" Amanda screamed again, giving the man another good kick.
"Hold it!" Lee said. He'd circled around the table while they were struggling and was pointing his gun at the handyman. "Let her go."
"Do as he says," Billy said from the other end of the table. He was also holding a gun.
The handyman let go of Amanda and raised his hands, looking defeated.
"Are you okay?" Lee asked Amanda.
"I'll be alright," she said. Her ankle still hurt, but now that Lee was there, she knew everything would be fine.
Francine also appeared, along with Phelps, the security guard.
"What the heck is this?" Phelps asked, picking up the shrieker. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when he turned it off.
"Get up!" Francine ordered the handyman.
Phelps handcuffed him, and Francine began frisking him for additional weapons.
"What's this here?" Francine asked, pulling something from one of the handyman's pockets.
"It looks like an invitation to the party," Phelps observed. "All of the guests had to show their invitations at the door. The name on this one is Charles Kelly."
"But this isn't Mr. Kelly," Amanda said. "I've met Charles Kelly. His kids go to school with mine, and his wife is president of the PTA."
"How did you get this?" Billy demanded, pointing to the invitation.
The handyman stared at him stonily.
"Mr. Kelly must have given it to him," Amanda said quietly. "His wife told me that they'd been invited to this party but couldn't come because they're overseeing the school's Halloween carnival. Mr. Kelly knew that he wouldn't be needing his invitation, so he gave it to him so that he could get into the party—"
"And kill Mr. Goreman," Lee finished for her. "Mr. Kelly is vice president of Goreman Electronics, so if anything happened to Mr. Goreman, he'd be in charge. Because Mr. Kelly was at the school carnival all evening, he'd also have a perfect alibi."
"Is that how you got it? Did Mr. Kelly hire you to kill Mr. Goreman?" Billy demanded.
"And is that why your friend went after Amanda today at the carnival?" Lee asked. "Mr. Kelly somehow found out that she'd talked to Max, and he was afraid that Max had told her what you were planning, wasn't he?"
The handyman glowered at them silently.
"Get him out of here," Billy said. "We'll question him further back at the Agency. And we'll arrange for someone to go pick up Charles Kelly."
"Come on," Francine said, pushing the man toward the door with help from Phelps.
"Can I give you a hand, Amanda?" Billy asked, holding out his hand to her.
"Thank you, sir," Amanda said.
But when Amanda tried to stand up, a sharp pain shot through her ankle. She fell back down, crying, "Ow! Ow, ow, ow!"
"Amanda, are you alright?" Lee asked, coming over to her.
"I don't think I can stand up," Amanda said, clutching her ankle. There were tears of pain in her eyes.
"Let me see it," Lee said, gently moving her hand. Carefully, he took off her shoe and began examining her ankle.
"Ouch!" she cried, wincing at his delicate prodding.
The wrappings that Amanda and her mother had put on were coming off, and Lee could tell that the ankle had started to swell.
"I think we'd better get you to a doctor," Lee said.
"Take her to the infirmary at the Agency," Billy said. "It'll be faster than the emergency room. I'll call and let them know to expect you."
"Put your arms around my shoulders, and I'll carry you," Lee said to Amanda.
"Lee, how can I go to a doctor? I'm supposed to be back at the carnival, being Madame Florica. Mother and the boys are there, and they'll come to see me in my tent, but I won't be there, and with the authorities coming to arrest Mr. Kelly . . . what on Earth am I going to say?"
"You'll say the truth," Lee answered. "You'll say that your ankle was hurt worse than you thought, and when it started to bother you more, a friend took you to a doctor."
"But Mother and the boys . . ."
"They'll be fine. Let me make a prediction for you, Madame Florica: after our men arrest Mr. Kelly, Mrs. Kelly is going to have a fit, and the carnival will end very quickly. Your mother and the boys will go straight home and find you nursing your ankle, having missed out on all the excitement, not knowing anything about any government investigation. On the other hand, if you try to go back to the carnival, Mr. Kelly might see you and let slip that you knew something about his illegal activities right in front of your mother and the boys. And if that doesn't do it for you, the members of the PTA might admire your sense of dedication, playing your part in the carnival in spite of your injury, so much that they will immediately appoint you president of the PTA on the spot."
"Lee, maybe you'd better take me to the doctor," Amanda said.
"My thoughts exactly," Lee said. "Now, put your arms around my shoulders and hang on."
SMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMK
Billy watched Lee carry Amanda from the room. Poor Amanda had had quite an evening.
Before joining the others, Billy walked back into the séance room. He had noticed the toolbox there and could see that their handyman assassin had been attempting to do something with Madame Florica's table, no doubt rigging some kind of trap for Mr. Goreman. Billy made a mental note to have a couple of the Agency's electronics experts have a look at the table to figure out what he was trying to do.
On the table, there was another of Madame Florica's little white fortune cards. The machine had probably spit it out when the assassin started working on it. Curious, Billy picked it up and read the fortune:
Florica's Fortunes
Quote: "Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand." – George Eliot
Your Situation: Nothing has gone the way you've planned, and now you're in a world of trouble.
Prediction: The situation is likely to get worse before it gets better.
Advice: Fighting will only make it all worse. Things will go much easier for you if you just grit your teeth and face the music.
Billy smiled, pocketing the fortune. The advice part seemed to be mixing metaphors, but he could think of a couple of people it applied to. Maybe he'd show it to Mr. Kelly when he met him at the Halloween carnival.