Chapter 34

 

It was the first day of the Peach Festival, and Rico was up at dawn helping at the café so they would be ready for all the people who wanted some "real food" as his grandmother put it.

Things were bound to get hectic, but for now the prep was done and Rico was on his way out. He was putting another shift in later, but he had some time off so he could enjoy the festival with Mitch and Sammy.

Seeing the town all decorated as he walked the streets of Peach Tree, he couldn't wait for Sammy to see how pretty the town looked. She was going to love all the colorful banners and streamers, and peach colored balloons that had leaves stuck to them so they looked like peaches.

The café was festively decorated. The place his grandmother called "the jewel of this town" really did shine. Rico was pretty fond of the place too and glad to see it all decked out for the celebration.

 

When Rico arrived at the Dunbar house and came in through the front door, he called out, "Good morning. Happy Peach Festival day."

Going further in, he heard Sammy talking to the kittens in the kitchen, but she must not have heard him. Mitch did say good morning to him, but Rico couldn't tell from where. After looking all around, he had to ask, "Where are you hiding?"

"I'm over here," Mitch told him as he poked his head out from behind some furniture from the living room that lined the hallway. "This would be out of here if I didn't spend so much time working for the festival."

"There isn't that much more to do in here. We'll get to it," Rico reassured him. "And tomorrow you get to see your hard work literally on parade. And some of it today too. It's going to be a good time."

As far as the work on the house went, only the living room needed another coat of paint. But Rico really hated the thought of it being finished since it meant Mitch might decide to leave town and look for work somewhere else.

Eventually Mitch emerged from behind the furniture and gave Rico a kiss. They went to the kitchen together and found Sammy explaining to the kittens why they couldn't go to the festival.

"Barney and Brownie don't get to go either. OK? OK?" she said to each of the kittens to make sure they understood.

"Good morning," Rico told her. "It's a special day and look what I got here." He held up a grocery bag and brought out an oversized peach from it. "I have the biggest peach ever. Guess who I'm going to give it to."

"Daddy!" Sammy guessed.

"No. Sammy!" Rico said. "This is to get you ready for being a peach in the parade tomorrow. It's training."

Rico went to the sink to wash it then he had Sammy sit at the kitchen table. As he gave the peach to her, he told her, "Now watch out. That peach is so big it might eat you."

Sammy shook her head and grinned at him. She wasn't afraid of a peach, but in her little hands the peach did look like a monster.

Mitch agreed. "That's a lot of peach."

"But it can't eat you if you eat it first," Rico told Sammy.

"I'll cut it for you, honey," Mitch said but Rico wouldn't let him.

"No. I want to see her tackle that thing whole," Rico said then he elbowed Mitch. "Get ready to shoot video. This is going to be epic."

Mitch got out his phone just in time for her first bite. "Maybe I should throw down a tarp," he said as he watched juice dribbling down her chin.

"I'll clean up," Rico promised.

"Are you going to do laundry too?" Mitch asked since peach juice was now all over the front of Sammy's shirt.

"Whatever it takes. This is how legends are made. Child vs peach. Who will emerge victorious?"

"Too bad you can't have her doing this while she's in her peach costume," Mitch said.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't let us do that," Rico said but he was already wondering if he could sneak a peach to her somehow.

"Is this going to be her breakfast?" Mitch asked.

"Could be. She'll eat plenty of goodies at the festival. They have this thing called Peach Fuzz. It's a giant ball of peach cotton candy for your kid to stick her face into," Rico told him with a grin. "Be ready to shoot video when she tackles one of those things too."

"That will be a balanced breakfast," Mitch said while he grabbed some paper towels to go and wipe Sammy from her nose to her elbows. There was more where that came from as she kept biting into the peach. She was definitely winning that contest.

Rico poured himself some coffee and he and Mitch watched Sammy make a mess of herself while she demolished that peach. When she was done Rico raised her arm in the air and announced, "I declare Sammy, The Pink Tornado, the winner and undisputed champion of this fight. That peach didn't stand a chance. But now we both need to wash up." He picked up Sammy and took her over to the kitchen sink.

"Hands and face, and your arms too," Mitch told her.

"That's right you don't want to be sticky at the festival," Rico said as he tried not to get splashed as she washed up.

"Everyone is going to the festival!" she said excitedly. "I'm gonna wear my dress with the pink flowers, and tomorrow I'm gonna be a peach."

As soon as Rico was done drying her off, she ran out of the kitchen. Mitch was about to follow her so he could help her get ready, but Sammy ran right back to Mitch and Rico.

"There's a man!" she yelled clearly scared.

"Hello?" Mitch called out as he went to check it out. Rico stepped out into the hallway right behind him then stopped dead. There was a man with a gun standing there.

"Hi there, folks. Now let's all stay cool and collected," the man said while he pointed a gun at them.

Rico put himself between the man and Sammy, and placed his hand on her arm to make sure she stayed put. He recognized the guy. It was that older guy who came by the yard sale looking for silver, the same one grandmother said had wanted to see the house. His grandmother called him Mr. West. He wore that same old suit and he looked kind of sallow, like he might not be well. A tight smile was plastered on his face as his eyes darted around nervously.

"What do you want?" Mitch asked him as he made sure to stand between the gun and Rico and Sammy. Rico wanted to be the one who stepped between Mitch and that gun, but he could feel Sammy shaking as she made a frightened sound.

"I just want to have a friendly word. I need a little help, you see. I lost something important to me. I'd like your help finding it," Mr. West said. He cocked his head to the side a little so he could look past Mitch at Rico and Sammy. "You don't mind helping me, do you?"

"We'll do what we can," Mitch said in a voice that was a warning growl telling the man to stay away from Sammy.

"Why don't you two set your phones right on that table there," Mr. West told them.

Rico and Mitch did it and the guy picked up their phones and pocketed them.

That's when Rico noticed that Mitch had a scraper in the back pocket of his jeans. It had a sharp edge, but Mitch would have to get in close to use it. Right now it wouldn't do him much good against a guy with a gun.

While Rico was breaking out in a cold sweat and trying to figure out how they could get out of this, Mr. West told them what he was after, "What I'm looking for is a silver egg with 'nest egg' written on it. It belongs to me. It's just my own property, you see. I'm just retrieving it. So where might I find it?"

Now Rico knew why he was looking for silver at the yard sale. He was trying to get his hands on the egg. Was he the one who broke into the house too? Rico tried to think back to the last time he had seen the nest egg while the man prattled on about it.

"The egg is rightfully mine, and it doesn't have any great value or nothing. It's just a keepsake." The more he said how it belonged to him and all that other crap, the less Rico believed him. "But I do want it back real bad," the guy said and glanced toward Sammy.

As he did that, Mitch tensed but held himself back. Though he never pointed the gun directly at Sammy, the threat was clear. Mitch knew just as well as Rico did that their best course of action was to let the guy have what he wanted.

At the moment, Rico couldn't tell him where the egg was. He hadn't seen it in a while. He wondered if Mitch knew. Since Mitch stayed silent, Rico guessed that he probably didn't.

Finally Mitch did speak up. "We'll help you find the egg and then you'll leave, right?"

"I got no reason to stick around. I would be long gone if I had it. But I couldn't drop in before now. Deputies were driving by this place day and night and that made me feel real unwelcome. Now they're all too busy with that festival, so I invited myself in. So where is it?"

Mitch didn't turn around as he said, "Sammy, honey, where is the nest egg?"

"Is the mean man gonna take the nest egg?" she asked.

"It's his, so we're going to give it to him," Rico told her.

"But you gave me the nest egg, Rico," she said.

"I know, but..." Rico started to say, but Mr. West cut him off.

"She's real cute, isn't she," he said with a nasty edge to his voice.

"We'll get you the egg and then you'll leave," Mitch said, his voice low and dangerous, warning the man not to pay too much attention to Sammy.

Mr. West still spoke to her though. "The egg was just a little something Harry was keeping safe for me. Present from an old sweetheart. He never got a chance to tell me about this place, but I found it. And I'll find that egg too. I will."

As he said that, Rico realized that he meant Harry Dunbar and then he remembered that he was shot during a robbery. Rico couldn't help but wonder if this guy might have killed him. It was too much to hope that his death was just a coincidence, just a random break-in gone wrong.

Maybe that's why Mr. West didn't show up here before now. He didn't know about the house because he couldn't openly search for information about the man he killed or he might draw suspicion.

If Harry Dunbar's death was this guy's handiwork, they weren't dealing with a guy who just liked to wave a gun around. They were dealing with a murderer. If he committed one murder, he might be that much more willing to kill again.

Rico felt like ice water was trickling down his spine. This was so bad.

"Tell me where it is, honey," Mitch told Sammy evenly, not wanting to scare her even more.

Sammy pursed her lips like she didn't want to say, but then she told him, "It's in the nest."

"Where's this nest," Mr. West cut in to ask. He was really eager to get that egg.

"With Natalie and Veronica's toys," Sammy said.

That didn't mean anything to the guy, but Mitch and Rico knew that she meant the cat toy basket in the kitchen.

Before he told him that, Mitch wanted to be sure they would be rid of him. "Once you have it, you'll be gone."

"I got no reason to linger as long as I get what I came for," Mr. West said. He had an eager, hungry expression as if he was feeling how close he was to getting what he was after.

Rico wanted to believe that he would leave, but the guy seemed too desperate, hiding how jumpy he was as his face got covered in a sheen of sweat. They couldn't trust him to keep his word.

Mitch had made a decision though. "The egg is in the cat toy basket. It's in the kitchen," he said to the man.

"All right. Let's all go in there in an orderly sort of way. No sudden movements from either of you," the guy warned Mitch and Rico while shooting a look at Sammy so they knew what was at stake.

Once in the kitchen, he didn't let Mitch get the egg. "Let the little girl get it."

Mitch nodded, and Rico let Sammy go over to the basket. Now he saw that the egg was buried among the kittens' toys and swaddled in a blue baby blanket that they had found in the house, and Sammy had given to the kittens to snuggle with. She got the egg out of there and handed it to Rico.

"I'll be damned. Can't say I thought to look in there," the man said. "Set it on the counter there."

Rico put it down then picked up Sammy and held her protectively, as the man looked the egg over then tried to crack the seal against the edge of the counter.

"No. Rico gave me that," Sammy said.

"Sorry, we need to let the man have it," Mitch told her. Then he made an offer to him. "I have tools. I could..."

The man didn't let him finish. "Like hell. You stay right there. I don't want you near any tools. I'll do it myself." With that he started pulling open drawers until he came across a meat cleaver.

Rico didn't like seeing the meat cleaver in his hand, but the guy only seemed interested in using it on the egg. He set the egg on a dishtowel and tried to cut through the soldering.

Seeing what he was doing Sammy was very unhappy. "He's breaking it, Rico," she said pitifully and whimpered into his shoulder.

"It's OK," Rico told her. "Remember your dad can fix anything."

The guy was trying to open the egg one-handed while holding the gun on them at the same time. It was tricky.

While the guy was busy with that, Rico noticed that in his search of the kitchen, he had left some of the drawers open. Mitch noticed the same thing.

Most of the guy's attention was on the egg so he couldn't keep the gun steadily pointed at them. When the egg started to come apart, the guy looked away from them.

That's when Mitch lunged toward the nearest drawer. It held various cooking gadgets. The one Mitch reached for was the meat mallet. He moved fast. One second Mitch had it in his hand. In the next it went flying at the guy's head.

Rico didn't wait around to see how it played out. He couldn't waste a second. He had to get Sammy out of there in case the guy started shooting. With Sammy in his arms, he started running.

When the gun went off, Rico's heart nearly stopped. Sammy screamed and then cried. For her sake, Rico couldn't stop, couldn't look back to check on Mitch. It was agony.

He heard crashing, the guy cursing but no sounds coming from Mitch. Oh God, he had to be OK. His insides twisting, feeling like he was falling apart, Rico was only moving on autopilot. Then right behind him, he heard Mitch's voice suddenly yelling, "Go, go, go!"

He was OK and following close on Rico's heels. Mitch must have done something to that guy because he was still cursing. Though he didn't hear any more shots, Rico didn't think they could make it to the front door, but the basement door was right there.

He went through it and Mitch followed. As he came through the door, Mitch turned and shut it. He then used the scraper from his back pocket to break the light switch next to the door. Next he used the scraper to jam the door. He stuck the scraper between the frame and the door and hammered it in with the heel of his hand, but it wouldn't stand up to a good, strong kick. At best it would slow down that guy.

Determined to make the most of the time Mitch bought them, Rico was bounding down the stairs with Sammy held in his arms. He was running through the dark basement toward the back to the storage room or bomb shelter, whatever that was.

It was the only place where they might be safe from that guy. They could wait him out in there until help arrived. When they didn't show up at the festival or answer their phones, it wouldn't be long before the sheriff came knocking.

"Hurry," Mitch said as he came up behind them right at the storage room door. But instead of coming in with them, Mitch shoved Rico in there and shut the door. Rico heard the lock turn and then Mitch's raspy, urgent voice telling him, "Bolt the door and take care of Sammy."

Rico had no choice but to do as he was told.

"Why did Daddy close the door?" Sammy asked as he set her down as far away from the door as he could. He could tell how alarmed she was, and Rico was too.

"Stay in that far corner, honey. Let me take care of this door. I'll be right there. Your dad is going to talk to that man, but I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you," Rico promised. He was ready to give his life for her a thousand times over, but he was scared to death for Mitch and he couldn't do a thing for him.