Hunting Garden Gnomes at Night

Istvan Molnár was a recluse man. Rarely got out of his one story house and most of the time it was to go back and forth to the church, once a month he went to the barber shop, once or twice per month to the small town’s doctor and once a year he had a couple of weeks out of town, destination unknown to everybody.

Everyday he phoned Mr. Barrett and made his orders of groceries and lunch and dinner. Every single day. The day he failed to do that Mr. Barrett called the police, and deputy Newton found him dead lying on the stairs. He was presumably 60 years old, son of an Hungarian refugee from 56 and had no living relatives. It didn’t took more than a couple of days for the sheriff to find out that it was all a pack of lies.

In his will, ‘Istvan’ gave everything that he had to a certain Hillary Miller or her nearest next of kin. A quick investigation found out that Hillary was his only sister, and his name was actually Stephen Miller (he had just legally Hungarized his name), an ex-con.

Hillary had died in a plane accident more than twenty years before, and her nearest next of kin was her only daughter, Margaret Wilson Miller. Margaret arrived in town completely unsure as to what to do with the house, she lived over six hundred miles from there and had a solid life there, there was no reason at all to move to the county. The lawyer, and quite probably the only real friend that Molnár or Miller had in town, took care of everything.

He would sell the house for Margaret and everything else inside the house that she did not wanted to keep for herself, he stipulated a reasonable fee for his services and Margaret agreed. Thus, less than a week after Miller was buried, there was a sale in the very large backyard of his house. Since Miller had surrounded himself with good yet not really expensive furniture and decoration, a lot of people from all over the county (and the nearby ones) appeared at was called ‘Molnár’s Big Garage Sale’ by the townsfolk.

The most wanted objects ended up auctioned after lunch, too many buyers for too little stuff and the three sports enthusiasts of the county did wanted too much (going to the point of forcing the police to be called) the baseball bat of an obscure player of the 50's. What would have been a single item auction lasted for nearly six hours! The lawyer and his secretary took note of everything, who bought what and for how much, to the minimal details and when it was over he had achieved a sizeable sum as his fee. There were still a few furniture inside the house but, to all intended purposes, it was now technically bare.

Margaret deposited her gains in the night/weekend deposit box local bank to have them transferred to her account first thing in the morning of the following Monday, paid a good yet simple dinner for the lawyer and his secretary/granddaughter at a local restaurant and went to her hotel room mulling all that had happened with her so far.

At 26, Maggie honestly didn’t remembered much of her mother (she was raised by her aunt Sophie, the youngest sister of her father), and the discovery of a late ex-con uncle had been a surprise. Of course he must have had a reason to change his name, of course he must have had a real reason to go... here, in the middle of Oklahoma of all places!, which meant that he was hiding from someone. He had arrived in town over thirty years ago, so from whom he was running for more than thirty years?

She was afraid that she might end up discovering it...

And she did, as soon as she opened the door of her room, and a large hand grabbed her wrists and pulled her inside the darkened room. The other hand of the giant man who was now holding her in a tight lock was covering her lips and she felt a pair of strong yet smaller hands (more like her size) grabbing her own and tying them together with a long piece of rope, then (after some negotiation with the man behind her) the rope was passed around her waist about three times and a big knot ensured that she wasn’t going to be able to raise her hands more than a few inches from her waist.

‘Gag her.’

There was another man in the room, behind the trio by the door. He was very old by the sound of his voice. The huge hand over her mouth was suddenly removed, and one... two... three... four strips of tape were pressed and carefully smothered over her lips.

Then the lights were turned on.

They were actually four in number. All dressed in indigo or black jeans trousers and T-shirts. And masked and wearing leather gloves, and removing or having just removed their night vision goggles. There was a tall bearded man behind her, a very curvy girl (those breasts weren’t real ones!) in front of her, another man standing by her bed and an old short and fat man sitting on the edge of the bed holding a cane in his hands.

Her room was barely touched, a few drawers had been opened, her bags were somewhere else other than the top of the chest of drawers, but at least they had not tore anything apart.

‘Make her sit besides me. Carefully, please... there’s no real need to be rough with her...’

The giant easily lifted and cradled her in his arms and carried her to the bed. Her made her lay besides the old man and grabbed her legs. While he was taping her ankles the buxom... auburn haired girl tied her legs right above her knees, over her plaid broadcloth skirt, and when he gently pulled her so she sat on the edge of the bed, the girl knelt behind her and proceeded to further trap her arms besides her torso.

After three or four minutes it was over. The masked girl was the one that spoke to her from them on, her voice was very melodic and seemed really concerned. An amateur?

‘Maggie... you don’t mind if I call you Maggie, do you?... Maggie, you have two options as of now... Hold on a second... could you please dry her tears?’

The girl was now sitting besides her and holding her chin with a strong grip, yet her touch over her face was gentle. And her voice quite reassuring. They were not after her, they were not going to hurt her. They only wanted on information from her, nothing else, then they would tie her up a little more (was it really necessary?) and leave her in her room.

Luckily, by dawn they would have found what they were after, and she would probably never ever see or hear from or about them again.

The younger man of the bunch was clearly impatient, he almost demanded that they removed her gag and made the question (or else), but then the taller one merely looked at him with a meaner look (than the one the young guy was aiming at her) and he stopped in mid-sentence, and moved to the window of the room.

‘Maggie. We want the names of the people who bought the stuff you put on sale today. I know that you don’t know any of the men and women who attended your sale, but I also know that you made receipts of everything, I have one for... a Swiss Army penknife. Do you kept the receipts with yourself and locked them with your documents in the safe of this small hotel? Or did your lawyer kept them all?’

Before she realized what she had done she answered ‘No’ to both questions.

‘Oh... I see, the lawyer’s secretary has them...’

NO! Jane was only 18 years old! The lawyer’s granddaughter! The thought of having just sent these awful people after another innocent person (specially a sweet little farmer’s ginger haired daughter like her) made Maggie become more and more agitated.

The giant had her trapped in his hug once again in no time. And turned her around as soon as her hands were freed, and now her hands and arms were being bound together. Tightly, yet bearably. Then her melted together (or as close as possible) arms were lashed to her torso (the giant broke the hug and kept her standing in front of him with just one of his arms), she was made to lay on her tummy on the bed and then her arms were linked to her ankles. Then, with very little effort of his part, the giant made her kneel.

The woman was holding... a scalpel and a glass with water and a straw?

‘Pay attention please, we have three options as of now regarding your fate. We can’t let you have a chance to free yourself or to at least be able to somehow raise the alarm. Sure, we could simply mummify you with rope and lock you in a closet, but that would take too much time and you wouldn’t like it. Would you?’ – Maggie shook her head vehemently – ‘So we can: Take you with us for an undetermined. Knock you out cold with one or two punches. Make you drink this glass of water, in which I put the last drops of your own sedative.’ – The empty flask was in the old man’s right hand – ‘So, what do you choose?’

Obviously, Maggie preferred to be knocked out cold with her prescribed drug. The buxom girl handed the glass of water to the old man and held Maggie’s chin firm with her left hand and made a precise (and very slow for Maggie’s liking) cut on the tape. The she grabbed the glass of water and aimed the straw to the short overture she had provided (Although tempted to see if any audible sound could pass now, Maggie was afraid of what could happen to her afterward so she kept herself as mute as possible), and Maggie was out cold in less than two minutes. The tape was completely removed and the a white ballgag (with holes in it, ‘Japanese style’ as Coraline called them) was jammed into her mouth.

Thombstone, Coraline, Frank Sr. and Frank Jr. were out of the room moments later, with Coraline carrying a shopping bag with a pillow and a bed sheet.

There were no cameras in the corridors of the hotel, Sammuel (the night receptionist) was more intereste in the baseball game than in doing his job at the reception desk and the hotel’s back door was unlocked. They went straight to the Karl & Sons one story building.

The five dollars bill that they had given to the drunkard paid itself royally. The guy told them that, with the crisis, Karl Janssen had practically enslaved his granddaughter Jane, delegating to her all the menial/administrative jobs available at his law firm.

True, he did taught her all that she knew about laws and legal procedures and such (and thus that girl knew the books better than most judges!), but it wasn’t unusual that, in order to have a free Sunday for herself, she did spend Friday and even (like now) Saturday nights at the office! Well, she had enjoyed (a lot!) the local opening night of ‘New Moon’ at the theater with her friends the day before. And her grampa needed those files (that she had forgot to prepare in the due time) ‘nice and ready’ first thing first Monday morning.

And Dan had promised to take her to a very special place the next (whole) day...

So she was working on a pile of files, Saturday night, all alone in her grampa’s office...

Not anymore of course.

She was in the bathroom when they broke in the building. The security system that they had to deal with was older than Fran Jr. and Coraline...!! They went straight to the only office with the lights on and didn’t found her, but they heard a door opening and she humming a country song with earnest. They positioned and Tombstone and Coraline jumped on her when she appeared in the hall. She barely had any chance to react, and they did ignored all her feeble attempts immediately. While the restraining was happening, Frank Sr. slapped the back of his son’s head when he realized how enticed the boy (22 years old, 3 feet long rap sheet and two convictions) was with the efficient job that Tombstone and his ‘girlfriend of the season’ were doing. They could check on the list they were after while the others dealt with the girl, couldn’t they? Reluctantly Frank Jr. nodded.

Meanwhile Coraline was puzzled with Jane’s reaction to her ordeal. The girl wasn’t crying nor scared nor anything that she could have predicted. She was looking at them like she was memorizing everything that she could about them, cold analysis was all that she could perceive from the girl’s eyes. Either she was hiding her fear very well or she was one of the bravest persons Coraline had ever met. THE bravest person she had ever met tapped her shoulder and she stood up and took two steps back while Tombstone cradled the captive in his arms and moved her to a nearby sofa. Then they went to check on the Franks.

‘Here it is. 8 gnomes... 8 buyers... 6 from here and 2 from nearby towns.’

Gnomes? Garden gnomes? They had invaded her grampa’s office and tied her up that tight because of those funny looking GARDEN GNOMES???

Jane was scared as she had never ever had been in her entire life, and somehow it felt so good! She was feeling awake and rough and ready and... adrenaline rush, that was the only explanation possible for her current state.

The moment the gorilla and the stripper had knocked and pinned her down, pushed a ball of sorts inside her mouth and started to wrap turn after turn of that accursed black tape over her white jeans covered legs and boots, not to mention her crossed wrists and above and below her breasts (that was going to ruin her favorite T-shirt!), she felt... fine. yes she was being rendered powerless by burglars or whatever, but they had not really hurt her or simply knocked her out cold (or even went far enough to murder her)... they were taping her up. For the moment they didn’t meant any real harm for her.

Hoping that this behavior towards her didn’t changed one bit, she decided to see and hear and memorize everything that she could about them to tell to the sheriff as soon as she was found whenever she would be found. The gorilla had the same accent that the client from California that her grampa once had, the stripper (according to Jane’s imagination, since she actually had never met one, Coraline had the body of one) was trying hard to disguise her own with a Texan (very fake) accent. The other two that were ruining three hours of her work hadn’t spoke until the younger one found the list of the buyers of the ‘Garage Sale’.

Now the stripper was checking and printing the maps of all the addresses in the same computer in which she had been working, and they were discussing how (or rather in which order) they would go after the gnome’s buyers.

They reached a decision and them they all looked at her. And for the first time that night Jane wasn’t able to hide or overcome her fears. It was with clearly frightened (and more common to Coraline’s point of view) eyes that she looked at the stripper when she grabbed a sheet of paper and... a black crayon??? What was she planning???

‘Hi. First of all, we don’t mean any harm to you Jane. We’re thieves and a lot of other things, but not whatever you may have thought now. So... calm... down...’

Was this ***** patronizing her?

‘There, much better. We planned this after we heard that there had been a ‘garage/backyard sale’ of Miller’s old stuff. We really are after a gnome garden, the problem is that there are eight of them and we might be unlucky enough to only get the one we want on our last try. So we must deal with everything and everyone that might hinder our plans. Maggie is now sleeping in her hotel room, we didn’t hurt her but she might (like you) get a few cramps and ropemarks, still... the sedative that we used on her (prescribed by her doctor whatever reason that is none of our concern) ended with the dose we gave her. Now you know what we are after and, who knows?, you might have a second list of the buyers or a photographic memory... so if you use one of the twelve different ways (that I can think of without wasting too much time) to either free yourself or attract other people’s attention (specially the police), you can give them our targets, our destinations...’

Oh oh... Jane wasn’t liking the sound of what she was hearing one bit.

‘But we know that even small towns like this one got hit by that ‘mortgage crisis’, which means that there must be a few vacant and empty houses somewhere around us, right?’

Jane nodded eagerly. Better spend a night writhing around in an empty house than locked in their car’s trunk (or inside their van if that was the case), or be taken by them and stay as their captives for who knows how long. The stripper helped her to sit on the floor and handed her the crayon, with a bit of contortionism from her part Jane was able to scribble the name of a lane in a good neighborhood that had at least five foreclosed houses.

Coraline checked on the computer and the lane was three blocks up to the street where their first target was located. She nodded to Tombstone who effortlessly grabbed a now very concerned  Jane and threw her over his right shoulder, they went in a bee line straight to the back of the building and into their rented SUV. Jane was placed in the back, between Coraline and Frank Sr., and they left the building.

Fifteen minutes later Daniel Willard, Jane’s boyfriend, and a couple of buddies appeared at the law firm. He was worried that Jane hadn’t answered his text messages and e-mails, and found obvious signs of invasion, struggle and no trace of his girlfriend.

The police was called immediately.

Twenty minutes later Coraline kissed Jane’s brow and covered her with the bed sheet she had ‘borrowed’ from the hotel, and started to cocoon her inside it.

Lying on a cold floor in one of the rooms of the second floor of a dusty house wasn’t what Jane had envisioned as how she would spend the night, as a decoy. Sheriff Wolson and his boys wouldn’t bother to go after some ‘unknown people’ who were either stealing or smashing garden gnomes while they had a real deal kidnapping in their hands. HERS. The worst part was they had checked her messages in her phone.

They knew that she wasn’t due to arrive at her home until 11 PM, they knew that her mother was mad at her grampa for all the work that he had thrown on her shoulders and would wait for her and they knew that she had a boyfriend (he wasn’t, yet) and he had texted six messages saying that he was sorry for not being able to stop by as he had promised, her answers made it clear for them what she thought about his ‘sports nights’ with his buddies, so no one was supposed to miss her until 11, 11:30 at most.

And when they did... would their path be clear? Besides the roads (that could be blocked) there were at least five different ways to get in and out of town.

The gorilla had carried her inside the house with the stripper right in tow, and it was the bosomy lady that had finished her bonds, a long piece of rope to put her in a loose hot... no hogtie, a pillow to place her head and a bed sheet to wrap her inside it. Four or five turns around the ankles, below the knees, thighs, waist (and wrists) and above and below her breasts. She was inescapably trapped yet protected from the dust and (just a little in this case) cold night. And the girl said a few reassuring words before the tender kiss.

Not that it would prevent Jane to identify her in court, if... no, when she was called to witness against them all... one day after this night was over.

‘What’s with the fake Texan accent? You’re from Houston! (...) Aren’t you?’

‘Yes, and my real bra size is a couple of numbers shorter than she, and anyone else who end up seeing me tonight, will think that it is. And I am using a wedge that is giving me a couple of inches more in my height. And a wig. Look guys, YOU might have not bothered to think in disguising yourselves a little, save for this beard in your face, Tomby, but I won’t gonna take any chance with anyone. So..., who’s the first on the list again?’

Changing the subject right away with such a sardonic smile and innocent look in her eyes...

‘Tomby’? Who was she to call him like that? She was the burglar that, after three or four well done jobs had become careless and... had broke into HIS apartment and had tied up HIS then girlfriend. The moment he returned home unexpectedly and saw her in the living room watching a TV series, with a can of beer in one hand and HIS cash in the other hand was still carved in his brain. She hadn’t had any chance.

Four minutes later she was writhing on the floor and he was turning the TV off, then he heard Lilly’s muffled whimpers coming from the bedroom. He grabbed her and took her there, depositing her bound body right next besides Lilly’s on his bed. She had hogtied her in the buff. Lilly helped him to return her the ‘favor’ and, to teach her a lesson, he kept her as his bound toy (Lilly really had a devious mind..., albeit he didn’t let her go as far as she wished he had so Coraline hadn’t any real scar from that experience) for three days straight. Then he took her (inside a large tennis bag that he bought with her money) to her apartment and left her bound naked on top of her own dinning table.

Three months later they met again, when she robbed his then girlfriend Jamie Lee’s house.

The look in her face (and Jamie’s confident blue eyes above the tight black ballgag) when he surprised her was one of the funniest he had ever seen in a woman’s face!

This time, besides the ropes and tape and scarves that he and Jamie Lee displayed over her body, he had bothered to make a few questions to her in one of her ‘feeding times’. She was a former stripper that had ‘enacted’ a burglar for some couple’s private fantasies (she had worked for Madame Louise) until she had decided to become a real one. How she had jumped from a legal activity to an illegal one was a mystery for him, even a surprise visit to Madame Louise didn’t helped him at all, but when he and Jamie Lee heard her ‘exploits’ he was sure of one thing. Coraline was good, very good, and had made a few famous jobs.

Skilled with security systems, good with martial arts, stealthy and addicted to the thrill of invading somebody else’s house or apartment, preferably a young woman whom she would love to restrain over and over and over again. She hadn’t dealt with the sharks out there yet, and she wouldn’t survive if by any chance she met them... so she had become Tombstone’s partner. So far she had seen seven girls fall into his protection under the ‘girlfriend’ alias, and hadn’t trussed up none of them again of course, and they had worked together on nineteen jobs (three for the Duchess’ organization). She was now publicly known as one of his few (non sexual-relationship involved) female friend, his protegee and more...

But... ‘TOMBY’???

Xandra, his current girlfriend, loved to play with bound girls as much as Coraline. Since she also loved to be bound as well, usually she fell under Coraline’s power. But... perhaps... perhaps he wouldn’t have to hire a model from Moby’s agency for her latest fantasy...

Better get back in business...

'The police?'

Frank Sr., who was monitoring the police communications with the help of Tinkerbell, answered what he was expecting. They were already searching for Jane, deputizing some volunteers and blocking the roads. Tinkerbell taking care of their way out of the city...

'Let's go.'

Nothing out of the ordinary happened with the first and the second gnomes, IT wasn't in them and the owners of the houses they broke in would have just a 20 dollars loss since they had nor time nor disposition to appraise the houses they (Frank Jr. and Tombstone) had invaded. In the third (big) house (that according to Tinkerbell belonged to a certain Will Dane that was at the moment out of town),the buyer of the gnome and its current  house-sitter surprised both men as they were entering the TV room.

The large TV plasma was off, the lights were off also and there was no human activity at all when Frank Jr. entered the room. Tinkerbell had told him and 'Tomby' (he wasn't dumb to tell it to anyone else but he could have some fun on his own) that the owner's 19 years old niece, Melinda, was house-sitting and that most likely she was using the guest room upstairs. But Melinda, who was blind since she was 5 years old, actually had dozed off on the sofa after reading a book in Braille. And awoke with the sound of two people wandering in the house. Her cellphone was on the table behind her, she could get to there very quickly (she knew her uncle's house and its furniture disposition better than the owner) but she could hear them getting closer and closer. And she was 'dressed' with only a pair of panties and an oversized T-shirt. And both intruders were men...

Her uncle's guns! She knew where he kept them, in that sideboard not five feet away from where she was crouching now, she could sneak to there and grab one!

And she managed to do that.

Now both Tombstone and Frank Jr. were facing an uncanny treat, a loaded gun in the hands of a frightened blind girl! The first thing that Frank Jr. had realized about her was that she wasn't wearing a bra, the first thing that Tombstone had realized was that she was blind.

But she was determined to shoot them if they dared to make one sudden move.

The weird part was that she kept moving her aim from one man to another as she walked sideways to the table at their left, Tombstone, and immediately after him Frank Jr., did try to move silently as possible in her direction, but she accompanied him and Frank Jr while she threatened to pull the trigger. Both men were forced to walk to the left wall of the room and stand facing it. Could she have such an accurate hearing that she was trailing them with it? If so, how could she not feel Coraline's presence in the room?

At the same time that Coraline's left hand covered Melinda's lips, the now overly scared girl felt something sharp being pressed against the small of her back. Who was this... woman (who used an expensive perfume, large breasts – that felt a bit weird against her back – and had a fake Texan accent) who had managed to sneak on her?

NO ONE had managed to do that since she was eleven!

While she ordered 'the boys' to search 'it', the stealthy lady made Melinda kneel on the floor and proceeded to tape her up, first her crossed wrists, then above and below her breasts and then she forced her to stand and walk back to the sofa. There she was helped to seat and promptly gagged with four strips of tape carefully smothered over her lips.

Then the girl really taped her legs together, wrapping the roll of tape around and around from her thighs to her ankles (which deserved a 'special' attention), then she was turned around and lied on her belly, and with a little of effort from her attacker's part (whom first lifted her legs and then forced her to obey her whims) her legs were folded and taped in that position. A pillow was placed under her head and the girl patted her butt as she warned her of what could have happened to her if they weren't on a schedule AND had a no-rape policy. To Coraline's surprise, Melinda agreed with most of what she said.

Another pat on the pink covered behind, an appraise on her 34C breasts, one or two blonde curls removed from the way and a kiss on the forehead... and the girl was gone.

Taped as she was, there was no way that Melinda could free herself. She could be able to, with one or two hours of effort, manage to worm her way to the kitchen. But what could she be able to do there? The cutlery drawer was way out of reach and all pointing and sharpen tools were locked and/or guarded safely (also out of her current reach). She was helpless. Fact. So she tried to calm herself and wait for the police...

Her cellphone! The table on which it was placed wasn't too heavy, if she managed to worm her way to there and rock it or at least shake it a little... Her late aunt's favorite vase might fell on the floor first... which would provide her with a sharpening tool. Anticipating her excuses to her uncle she managed to roll around and sort of safely fall on the ground.

And then she started to worm her way to the table in the hall. It took her twenty two minutes to call the police, and she didn't broke the vase.

The next 'visit' of the trio (nothing would be able to force Coraline to stay behind with Frank Sr. now) was also uneventful. The garden gnome was right in front of the front porch and they managed to snatch it undetected. But it wasn't there as well...

Their fifth stop was, like the third, also... unusual for them.

They were in the outskirts of town, in a good neighborhood with big houses a bit too spaced one from the next and the previous ones and, fortunately for them, there was a small wood in the back of the house that was their target.

What they were not expecting was that there was someone in that wood at that hour (00:13), with three high priced and professional camera attached to tripods and aimed at the very same house that they were about to break in besides her. And she was looking at the house with a night vision binocular in her hands. The girl was young (mid 20's), tall, skinny and was wearing black commando fatigues. And was so focussed in taking pictures, with one of the cameras) of what was happening in the room to which the second window from the right in the second floor belonged to that she didn't registered their presence until it was too late. As Tombstone and Coraline tied her up and checked whom she was, Frank Jr. took a peek at what she was looking at and taking pictures of.

Very interesting; there were candles lit everywhere, roses and... a mid-forties black woman 'dressed' in a provocative see-through white set of lingerie tying herself up.

This, and the fact that the girl had only a few documents that identified her as 'Lila Prescott, MD' and a sportsbag with many pre-cuts coils of rape and three rolls of tape inside it, aroused all three criminal's curiosity. Then they saw someone entering the house.

Which was weird. There were at least two doors (that had been left open) and a window (whose drapes had been lifted) between them and what was happening at the front door, and yet they were able to see and take pictures of the arrival of that girl..

Unlike the doctor or the house's owner (who was not exactly fat but clearly overweighed), this woman had it all. She was wearing an overcoat that she removed as soon as she closed the front door, revealing an equally sensuous and see-through set of underwear (red in this case) that fitted her curves very well, Frank Jr. almost wolf whistled at her sight.

While she also had a few ideas about having the newcomer under her (lack of) mercies, Coraline saw something more. Red/blonde hair like the doctor in their hands, same nose and other facial structures, one or two inches smaller and...

'She's your sister, right?'

The girl didn't knew what to answer, and then tried to lie (by shaking her head vigorously since she was way too well gagged) quite very pathetically. Yep, while this one (for some reason) had became a couple of ounces above skin and bone, that one had all the right ounces of flesh, specially on the breasts. But they were sisters, probably even twin sisters.

Now the sultry newcomer was in the room and was 'appraising' the captive lady of the house... a bit too forcedly, it wasn't real or at least didn't looked like.

A sexual fantasy (of the older woman) perhaps?

'Bob - Frank's alias -, pick all this stuff and bring it with you. Jessie, be gentle with her.'

They tried to protest but Tombstone wasn't going to have none of it. As he expected the back door was unlocked. He took a peek over his shoulder; Frank was having trouble carrying three tripods and the cameras and the bag while Coraline was having an easy job with Lila, the girl was hobbled at the knees which impaired her walk but Coraline helped her to do it fast (and at the same maintained a strong grip on the girl's arms).

He entered the house. As he sort of expected, the door of the room wasn't even closed. The girl in red was kneeling behind the woman in white who was sitting at the edge of the bed, she was kissing the older woman's left shoulder when he entered the room. Both women's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets, and when the younger one remembered to scream (which wouldn't bring her any good since the 'next door neighbor' was snoring in his bed 200 feet away) his hand was already covering all her lower face. She didn't put up any fight so scared she was and, by the time that Coraline brought Lila into the room (which made all three women's tears flow even more freely), she was properly hogtied and gagged.

Tombstone immediately left the room leaving Coraline to deal with all three captives.

After she made Lila sit at the left of the older woman in the room, and helped the buxom captive to kneel on the bed at her right, Coraline warned the older woman to not scream and removed the tape she had self applied over her lips.

'Please don't hurt them, please just don't hurt them... there's a safe behind that painting and the combination is 23-left, 36-right and 28-left... take everything you want but...'

'Sheshh! We are not going to hurt you or them... by the way... who are you?'

'I... I... am Toni Drew, I am the local hospital's administrator...'

'Hold on a second, isn't this house property of Kenneth...'

'That man is in prison and will stay there for the rest of his life! And hell has a seat with his name already carved on it and the Devil is just waiting for him to come and take it!'

Whoa! What was that? Both (still gagged) girls were nodding feverishly at what Toni had just said. Had Tinkerbell failed for the first time since the beginning of their association?

'Well, that only matters to me because you just said that he's not around, so he probably is not going to come by and rescue you or them tonight or tomorrow morning. By the way, who is she and what are they doing in here with you?'

'This is Lila and this is her twin sister Daralyn, or Dara, Lila is... was a resident at the hospital until she had... a disease, Dara works at their mother's flower shop... but that's not what you want to know... well... I... I... sort of hired them... to fulfill a fantasy of mine. OK, I... abused their consideration about me and the respect that only grew after I managed to get Lila cured at a reasonable price, and well, Dara is (and in a few months so Lila will be once again) simply everything what you are seeing. And... I... once had a girlfriend back in college and we were used to increase our sex life with... fantasies. This one was the only one that we were never able to fulfill since it demands a third party. After... that man was arrested a few months ago I... well, I started to think about such... fantasies. Since my... marriage with... him... I hadn’t thought about them and... I talked with Lila about it and... well... they... they... sort of.... agreed to help me have it.... for free!!! They’re not pros or whatever you may be thinking that they are! Me and Dara would pretend that we were lovers interrupted during a spicy kinky moment by a burglar who then would tie us up over and over again (taking tons of pictures all along) and leave us tied together on the bed... for the whole duration of the night... NO SEX involved...'

Coraline heard a commotion downstairs and reapplied the strips of tape over Toni's lips before she left the room. Neither Tombstone nor Frank Jr. had managed to find the gnome anywhere in the house nor in its front or back. Coraline returned alone to the room and asked Toni where was it as she studied the pros and cons of an idea she was germinating.

'The gnome? You are doing all this because of a garden gnome?!! Well I don't have it with me anymore. I thought it could be cute and normal to have again one of them in front of my house since the last one was broken by... anyway, I saw it and it has a reasonable price (and for the first time since that man's arrest I managed to socialize with people without fearing anyone calling me names or spitting on me), ...and I bought it. But Natalie Terrance, who owns an antique shop in ******** ******, bought the last one and suddenly decided that she should have two of them to sell them as a pair. I mean, mine is dressed in blue and green and so is hers, and all the others are dressed in other colors so ours were a 'pair', and she bought mine for thirty bucks... Oh my God! You... you really are after them?'

She could not see the hooded woman's face, but she was sure that there was a coy smile on it as she slowly nodded. She honestly thought about giving one of her famous 'siren calls' but, at least it seemed to her, that woman and her partners were reasonable people.

Even for burglars or whatever they were. They would listen to her.

'Natalie's husband and brothers and brothers-in-law are on duty, in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's no one else but her and her six months old son in that small building, she and him lives on top of the shop. PLEASE... don't hurt...'

'I am not going to hurt anyone... not even for the money they are paying me to get that gnome, and that's a lot of money we are talking about. If you don't believe in it it's your problem, not mine. Now... do you have any medicine in this house?'

She told Tombstone that she would use Toni's car to get to the field on time, but that she had to take care of the three captives in a different way since Lila couldn't simply be gagged due to her disease. Tombstone didn't bought her lie, but he knew that, whatever was her reason to stay behind, it would not endanger the plan.

For the second time that night served spiced water to a captive woman. She knew the drug and, according to Toni, Lila was strong enough to drink a dose that would make her sleep for a couple of hours at least. After she was out Coraline undid all her bonds.

Then, as promised, Coraline bound Dara and Toni together as tight as possible without hindering their breathing. Both women had their hands bound in the back to its opposite elbow, a lot of rope above, below and in between their breasts to better anchor their arms, their ankles had been lashed together and only after all those preparative she did wrap coil after coil of rope around them. It took her forty minutes to cinch the last knot and she checked if they, under the circumstances, were faring well and were comfy. Then she helped them to lie on the bed, covered all three women with the bed’s blanket, opened the safe and took over 25K from it, while grinning shamelessly to Toni, and left the house.

The only deputy that hadn’t took part of the ‘action’ at the airport did stop by five minutes later, but since he wasn’t receiving any info from his partners at the airport or from Jessie at the police central station he went to check on his cousin first. That avoided that Toni secret was discovered by the most blabbermouth cop of the town.

When police finally stopped by her home the next morning both Lila and Dara were long gone, and she did manage to give a reasonable excuse (a tight blindfold) as to why she didn’t knew or had seen who (Lila) had left her tied up spreadeagle for the cops to find, the ropemarks on her body were explained as a ‘previous tie’ that her attackers had submitted her to and because she had managed to create too much slack on it due to her feverish struggles, they had decided for the spreadeagle one.

Six  months later she had her fantasy fulfilled by both twins, the first of many.

A few days later she found out why the attackers thought that her ex-husband was still living with her, the man who was in charge of the town’s public records hadn’t bothered of changing everything to her name as the judge had required him to. He believed that she deserved to be harassed for having been married with whom she had been. He got fired, spent some time behind bars and Toni got some money from the city hall.

As he expected there was no one at the station but the local troublemakers Barney and Terrance enjoying their accommodation at one of the cells. So where was she?

‘JESSIE!!! WHERE ARE YOU???!!!!!’

He heard a faint bump coming from beyond the cells and found the mid-forties and obese brunette tied up to her swiveling chair and locked inside a closet in the back of the building. She had been almost mummified with tape to it, had been gagged and blindfolded with that accursed stuff, was obviously furious and impotent and had no idea as to whom had attacked her (she was attacked from behind and knocked out cold with a taser).

After he freed her they went to check on the communication room. Everything had just been shut down (no real damage on the machinery), but after they turned it all back on they still had no answers from the other cops of the small town.

Coraline arrived at the local airport and could clearly see that some action had happened in there. There was no one at the car's entrance, there were three police cars  parked in front of the hanger and the plane was already out of it. She could see a woman's blindfolded and gagged face coming from one of its windows, and Tombstone angry one from another. She stopped the as Frank Jr. signaled her to run, the engines had already been started.

'What happened?' - was the only thing she could say as he close the door with the plane already in motion. The answer was, at the same time, what she was expecting to hear and (at the moment) really didn't wanted to. The cops already knew about the gnomes.

A couple of teenage kids had broke into the house in which they had stashed Jane, they wanted to smoke some weed in private and ended up finding and releasing her. She called the police and told them about the whole business especially what she could remember about the buyers of the gnomes. The sheriff (or one of his deputies) had deduced correctly how they would leave the city and went with a few deputies to the airport.

Now he, his deputies, and the airport's security and maintenance people, were busy trying to free themselves from their own cuffs and tape that he and the Franks had applied on them without being able to communicate with each other or see their surroundings.

Tinkerbell and the pilot would take them to their next target, the pilot' shortest flight ever, while the pilot's wife (that Tinkerbell had kidnapped earlier that day) was fearing for hers and her husband's life no matter how many times they said to her that they would not hurt her. It didn't took Coraline more than ten minutes to calm down the early thirties woman.

By the time that they landed on a back road  she wasn't crying anymore and, as Coraline, she got really scared with that part of their plan. But her husband was the great pilot that she thought that he was and did it as safely and smoothly as possible.

Since it was too dangerous to leave the plane on the road, he was allowed to stop and 'park' it beside the road, over fifty feet away from a curve on the road (it was little bumpy to get there but they managed to do it). As Frank Jr. dealt with the pilot, Coraline stood by the wife the entire time they waited for their ride to arrive. As it was now pointless to keep her gagged, Coraline undid the knot on the multi-colored scarf wrapped around her face and (between a few yells between her and her husband) they talked about amenities.

Again, as she had done with all the women she had met that night, Coraline kissed the woman's forehead (only three days later Coraline would learn that the pilot's wife name was... Coraline!) before she left the plane. It became her signature.

Harper had visited the Natalie dame (breaking in, searching for the gnomes and leaving without the lady realizing it), and had found it. The safe deposit box's key and to which safe deposit box of which bank it belonged to written in a piece of paper.

200K for each, at the very least, and that was just the beginning!!!

One week later

'But... but... but...'

'Cora... you did call him 'Tomby'...!!!!'

'Well, yes, butmmmpphhhhmmm!!!'

Lilac button down blouse, black mini skirt, stockings, black stiletto heels tied to both her feet and crossed ankles, lots of hemp rope over her legs, arms and torso and now a white micro foam tape gag keeping the foam ball inside her mouth.

And on top of that Coraline was simply volcano smoking hot!!! Why would such a men’s magazine model material would seek such a hazardous line of work? Was she some sort of a thrill seeker? As if it really, really, mattered to Xandra...

She was now hers for the entire length of the weekend!!!

Of course Coraline had tried to protest when Tombstone brought her to his farm. The whole place (she had to admit it) was a bit creepy, but he was with them, watching some baseball game in the TV upstairs, and the place was safe and secure (it had a lot of security paraphernalia placed all over the estate and surroundings). And it had the appropriate ambiance for her 'Pretty And Noisy Secretary Kidnapped At Gun Point' photo session, and Coraline was the appropriate model for such session.

Later, after lunch, she'd be the 'Noisy Cheerleader Amateur Detective Snatched by the College's Dean', and at night... oh she would think about it later. Right now that incredibly beautiful burglar/hired thief was hers... and that was what mattered!

For her part, Coraline (who had lost a profitable job in Atlantic City due to her, according to Tombstone, ‘sudden indisposition’) had already learned her lesson... never again she would call her partner by such a ridiculous nickname!

Or would she?