Brownies, Bodies And Bad Guys Part 11

Nans grimaced. "The thugs discovered us in the office. They chloroformed you and dragged us all into this storage room. We're locked in."

Lexy looked around the room. It appeared to be some sort of store room with metal shelves along the back and sides. There were no windows, but a sliver of light came in from under the door allowing her to see the basic outlines of things in the room.

Lexy's heart lurched when her gaze fell on Nans and Ruth. The two women were seated in plastic chairs to her right. In the dim light she could just make out that Nans had a tear in the bottom of her shirt and Ruth's face was smudged with dirt.

"Are you both okay? Did they hurt you?"

"Oh, we're fine. They didn't hurt us. My shirt caught on the metal desk and Ruth was already dirty from poking through the office," Nans said, then turned to Ruth. "You know, you have dirt smudged all over your face."

Ruth looked startled. "I do?" She immediately started digging in her purse coming up with a napkin she used to wipe her face.

"You have your purses? What about your cell phones? We could call for help." Lexy felt the cloud over her heart lift with hope.

"No such luck," Ruth said. "They took our cell phones and yours too."

"Otherwise, we would have signaled for help already," Nans said. Then her face brightened.

"Wait a minute." She picked up her big old lady purse from the floor and dug around inside. "They took our cell phones, but they didn't take the iPad!"

"What's Jack's email?"

"Email? He doesn't use email a can't you call him on that thing?"

"Not unless he has another apple device with FaceTime." Nans frowned. "Oh, I know."

Lexy watched Nans dig in her purse again, this time coming up with a business card, holding it in the air like it was a trophy.

"What's that?" Lexy asked.

"Brax Daniels's business card," Nans said, squinting down at the card while she held the iPad at an angle to cast light on it. "Oh good, he has his email listed."

While Nans was busy typing an email on the tablet, Lexy ventured over to the door. She grabbed the k.n.o.b, pushing and pulling. It wouldn't budge. She threw her shoulder against the door. Still nothing.

"We already tried all that, dear," Ruth said, then turned to Nans. "Did you try FaceTiming Ida? If there's a strong enough signal out here for that we could get her to call Jack and tell him where we are."

"I'm trying now," Nans said, looking anxiously at the device while it made hollow ringing sounds.

Lexy walked over behind Nans and looked over her shoulder, her stomach roiling and shoulders tense, willing Ida to answer. The ringing stopped and Lexy felt the tension leave her shoulders when Ida's face filled the screen.

"Mona? Where are you? It's so dark I can hardly see anything."

"We've been captured by the thugs!" Nans said in a loud whisper.

"What? Where a you a" Ida's voice was fading out.

"Ida? Are you there? I can't hear you."

Ida's face flashed on the screen, then off and Lexy felt her stomach drop when the screen flashed a note about a bad connection.

"d.a.m.n!"

"It's okay dear, I'm sure Brax will get that email soon anda""

Nans's words were interrupted as the door to the room burst open. Lexy's heart froze in her chest when she saw Louie The Finger and Skinny Sal rush in through the open door, guns drawn and pointed in her direction.

"What's all da racket in here?" Louie yelled his eyes growing wide when he saw the iPad in Nans's hands.

Lexy's heart thudded as Louie advanced on Nans who sat wide-eyed in the chair.

"Gimme dat," Louie said, pointing at the tablet.

"Yeah, hand it over. We don't wanna have to rough youze ladies up," Sal added.

Nans handed the iPad to Louie who wrinkled his brow at it. "Dis is one of dem dere computers, ain't it?"

Nans nodded and then shrugged. "There's no reception here so it's not much good."

Louie narrowed his eyes at Nans. "I hope you didn't call da cops on dis thing."

"Oh no, you can't use it as a phone, unfortunately." Nans gave Louie her most innocent look.

"We ain't takin' no chances." He handed the device to Sal. "Put dis in da' office."

Lexy eyed the open door as Sal left with the iPad. Could she overpower Louie and make a break for it?

"Now don't go gettin' no ideas." Louie waved his gun toward Lexy as if he knew what she was thinking.

Lexy stepped in front of Nans. "What do you want?"

"Youze know what we want," Louie said. "Da list."

"List?" Nans furrowed her brow. "What list?"

"Da one Nunzio had," Sal said from the doorway as he rummaged in one of Lexy's white bakery bags, coming up with an oversized fudge brownie. Bright light spilled in from the open doorway making it easy for Lexy to see the details of the storage room and read the expressions on the thugs' faces.

"We don't know anything about any list. Is that what you guys have been looking for?" Ruth asked.

Louie's heavy black brows knit together. "Don't act dumb wid me. We wouldn't wanna hurt youze nice ladies now. Would we Sal?"

"No siree." Sal swallowed a big chunk of brownie, then gestured toward Lexy with what was left of it. "Hey, ain't that da brownie lady?"

Louie stepped closer. "Yeah, da one from da bakery."

"I hope we don't have to kill her. I really like dese brownies."

Louie gave Sal a threatening look. "Will you stop with the brownies and pay attention, here?"

Louie turned his attention back to Lexy and Nans.

"Now you listen up. We wanna know where dat list is hidden, or dis one is gonna get it." He jabbed a finger threateningly in Nans's direction and Lexy's heart shrank.

"But we don't know about any list," Ruth said. "We thought you were looking for the will."

"Will? What will?"

"Nunzio's will. It's missing." Ruth shrugged.

A look of confusion crossed Louie's face and he glance back at Sal. "Da boss didn't say nothin' *bout a will, did she?"

She?

Sal swallowed the last of his brownie and shook his head. "Nope."

Louie turned back toward Ruth pointing his finger at her. "Don't you be tryin' to throw us off track. We know youze ladies know somethin'."

"Really, we don't," Lexy said.

"You shut it!" Louie yelled turning his pointer finger toward her and Lexy shrunk back. With all this finger pointing, Lexy wasn't surprised the guy's nickname was "Louie The Finger".

"What was on this list, anyway?" Nans asked. "Maybe if we knew, we'd be able to tell you if we saw it."

Louie narrowed his eyes at her. "You don't know?"

Nans shook her head.

Louie looked back uncertainly at Sal.

"Tell *em," Sal said.

"Nunzio had a list of retired crime bosses and dae crimes dey never got busted for. We need to get it."

Lexy inhaled sharply. So that was what they were looking for. No wonder they were going to such great lengths. A chill ran up her spine when she realized that was the type of list someone would kill for.

"What about da key?" Sal tilted the open brownie bag toward Louie who shook his head.

"Yeah, we saw you wid a key when weze was watchin' youze in da bakery before. I bet it opens da box dat has da list," Louie said to Ruth.

Too bad no one knows where that box is.

"Oh." Ruth self-consciously pulled out her locket.

"Is it in dere? Hand it over," Louie said gruffly.

"Well I don't know what it goes to." Ruth looked uncertain.

Lexy felt a jolt of electricity pierce her heart as Louie took two steps in Ruth's direction, reached out for the locket and yanked it off the chain.

"Ouch." Ruth rubbed her neck.

"Sorry. Youze need to do what we say, otherwise I might hafta hurt *ya." Louie shrugged then turned the locket over in his palm. He brought it closer to his face, squinted at it and tried to pry it open with his thick thumb.

"Let me." Sal held out his hand and Louie dropped the locket in. Sal pried it open with his two thumbs and the key popped out.

"Here it is," he said holding the key in the air.

Lexy held her breath. What would they do with them now that they had the key?

"What's it go to?" Louie asked.

"That's the million dollar question," Nans said. "We have no idea."

"We better wait for da boss to come and see what she thinks," Louie said.

"What about dem?" Sal thrust his chin out toward Nans, Lexy and Ruth while he pocketed the key.

"We'll see what da boss wants us to do wit dem," Louie said, pointing his gun toward them, causing Lexy's stomach to tumble. "No funny stuff while we're gone."

The two of them backed out of the room closing and locking the door, leaving Lexy, Nans and Ruth in darkness.

"What do we do now?" Lexy whispered as her eyes tried to adjust to the sudden dim light.

"Hopefully Brax will get our email and send in the troops," Ruth answered.

"We're not just going to stay here like sitting ducks," Nans said, "I have a plan."

"You do?" Lexy asked.

"Of course I do," Nans answered. "Ruth, can you fake a heart attack?"

"What? Why I suppose so. Why would I do that?"

"To create a diversion."

Lexy narrowed her eyes at Nans, her heartbeat picking up speed. Just what was her grandmother up to?

"Ruth, do you have a can opener in your purse?" Nans asked while rummaging in her own purse.

"A can opener? Why I just might." Ruth bent down and picked up her purse. Setting it in her lap, she opened it and started feeling around inside.

"What do you want a can opener for?" Lexy asked.

"I noticed that there are dozens of cans of applesauce on the back shelves there." Nans waved her hand in the direction of the back of the room.

Lexy's eyes were adjusting to the low light and her gaze followed the direction Nans had indicated. She noticed row upon row of large applesauce cans sitting on the shelf, covered in inches of dust and mottled with rust.

"Those are decades old. They're probably no good anymore!" Lexy's stomach clenched thinking about the nasty contents of the cans. "Surely you can't be that hungry?"