Page 57 of Barbed Wire and Burglary
“True, but there was also a struggle.” A.J. got on his hands and knees for a closer look. “According to the scuff marks on the tile, something was dragged this way.” He followed the scuff marks on his hands and knees to the nearest interior wall.
A large painting covered it that Aaron didn’t recall being there during his last visit. Granted, it had been several months since he’d paid a visit to the home office.
He strolled closer to the wall in question, and a faint thumping sound met his ears. He initially wrote it off asambient noise coming from the office below them until it happened again. And again. And again.
It was an erratic sound that didn’t seem to follow any pattern. The scamper of a mouse, maybe? Or something bigger, like a rat? It was an old building, so anything was possible. He moved along the wall, tapping it with his knuckles and pressing his ear against it to listen.
The sounds stopped for a full minute. When they started up again, they were right against his ear. “Check this out!” He beckoned Aurora and A.J. closer.
Aurora pressed her ear to the wall and gasped, growing pale. “Call me crazy, but it sounds like someone’s having trouble breathing!”
A.J. started rubbing the pads of his fingers against the wall, pressing them against the seam between the wall and the baseboard. “Would you look at that?” He held up a finger to show them it was damp with white paint.
“You havegotto be kidding me!” Aaron ran to grab an office chair and was about to swing it into the wall, but Aurora’s horrified yelp stopped him.
“If someone is stuck back there, you don’t want to hurt them!”
“Stuck?” He gave her an incredulous look. People didn’t just get stuck behind walls. Not without malicious assistance, that is.
“You know what I mean,” she mumbled. She rummaged through the office and returned with a mop handle and a pair of letter openers. Handing out the makeshift tools, she demonstrated poking small holes in the drywall. They were soon pulling handfuls of it away, revealing a grisly sight.
Uncle Cary squinted back at them with heavily dilated, glazed-over eyes. He was sweating profusely through thewhite blanket that was wrapped around him like a mummy. Ropes and cords were holding him upright. He’d aged since the last time they’d seen him, appearing much older than his fifty-one years. His features were shriveled from dehydration.
But he was alive. Aaron and A.J. quickly clawed him loose and laid him on the floor to check his vitals. His pulse was faint and growing weaker.
“He needs an ambulance,” Aaron shouted hoarsely.
“On it!” Aurora was already dialing 9-1-1.
Paramedics and FBI agents were soon crawling like ants through the office. Aurora and Aaron were allowed to accompany him to the hospital in an ambulance. A.J. followed in a cab. It was several hours and I.V. bags later before Uncle Cary revived enough to communicate with them.
The first time he tried to speak, he wheezed and fumbled with the oxygen cord clipped to his nose.
“Nurse! We need a nurse in here!” Aaron shot to his feet and leaned over the bed.
“Wait!” Uncle Cary gasped out the word, looking wild-eyed and feverish. His color was finally returning. “She’s…in on it.” His hand clamped weakly around Aaron’s wrist as he dissolved into a coughing fit.
“Who? Elise?” Aurora hastily poured him a glass of water and held it to his lips. He choked on the first sip, spewing water droplets everywhere, but he got the second sip down and the third.
“Yes!” His voice grew stronger. “She…” He stopped and loudly cleared his throat. “She returned…after you fired her.”
“How?” Sounding incensed, Aurora helped him sit up. They’d changed the key code on the locks, debugged theoffice, and installed new firewalls and safeguards. Elise shouldn’t have been able to step foot inside the office.
“I don’t know.” Uncle Cary frowned in confusion. “She must have…overridden the system…somehow.” He sagged against the pillows as he recounted what had happened in a halting voice. She’d held him at gunpoint and then knocked him unconscious with a paperweight.
Their uncle looked ashamed at having been outmaneuvered so easily. In his defense, he shouldn’t have had to be looking over his shoulder. The home office should’ve been secure. “When I woke up,” he rasped, “it was dark…and I couldn’t move.”
Aaron couldn’t imagine the horror he must have felt, sandwiched inside what was intended to be a pitch-black tomb.
Aurora made a sound of disgust. “While you were out, the doctor came and talked to us. They ran some blood tests and determined you were dosed with a paralytic. One of the slower onset, longer-acting ones.”
It wasn’t an act of mercy, though. Aaron could all but guarantee its sole purpose had been to subdue the man while he was enshrouded and sealed behind the wall.
“The construction alone would’ve taken a couple of hours.” He met his sister’s gaze, struggling to wrap his head around what their uncle had endured. “We’re talking drywall, paint…”
Aurora blinked back tears. “Not to be overly morbid, but why not just put a bullet through him?”
Nobody answered, because the answer was staring them in the face. Elise had wanted him to suffer. It wasn’t just attempted homicide. It was something else. Something more.
