Lethal Ransom

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  She stopped and clutched at Nick’s arm. “What do we tell people when we walk in looking like—like vagabonds?”

  “As much of the truth as possible. We tell them we were robbed and dropped in the woods.”

  “If they don’t run screaming when they see us.” Kristen’s body tensed, but she held herself together.

  She needed to be calm for the strangers, reasonable in speech and appearance—as much as someone with porcupine hair and tattered clothes could appear reasonable.

  They emerged from the woods near the lake, presumably the same lake through which they had escaped. At least ten people, from small children to an elderly lady, ranged from the dock jutting over the water to the deck attached to the back of the cottage. Fragrant smoke rose from two grills set on a concrete slab below the deck, and pitchers of something cold, judging from the condensation on the outside of the colored plastic containers, rested on a long table in the middle of the yard.

  At Kristen and Nick’s arrival, every man, woman and child stopped talking, flipping chicken pieces or running. As one, they turned to stare at the newcomers.

  Not used to so much attention, Kristen wanted to crawl under the nearest bushes and hide until Nick got matters settled. As though sensing her urge to run and hide, Nick covered her hand where it rested on his arm, holding her in place with gentle firmness.

  “We’re sorry to intrude on your party,” Nick said in a voice pitched to carry without shouting. “But we need help.”

  A middle-aged man with an expanding widow’s peak turned his spatula over to a woman about his age, then strode forward. “What sort of help do you need?”

  “We need a telephone,” Nick said. “We were robbed.”

  “At gunpoint?” A boy of about ten sidled up beside the man. “We heard guns shooting last night and this morning.”

  “Yes, at gunpoint. I’m Deputy US Marshal Nicholas Sandoval and this is a witness I’m protecting.”

  “Do you have any proof?” the man asked.

  Nick shook his head. “Taken. But I can give you my boss’s phone number to call and verify my credentials.”

  “Some men were shooting at an overturned canoe in the lake,” the boy offered.

  “Finn, go help your mother with the chicken.” The man gripped the boy’s shoulder and turned him toward the grills.

  “But, Dad—”

  “Go.”

  The boy went, dragging his bare feet through the sand.

  “Do you have phone service here?” Nick asked.

  The man crossed his arms over his chest. “We have a landline. Cells don’t pick up much off the road.”

  He wasn’t making a move toward the house and presumably the phone. With his folded arms and wide-legged stance between Nick and Kristen and his family, his message was clear—he didn’t believe or trust them.

  “Please help us.” The words croaked from Kristen’s dry throat. “We haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday, and we’ve just walked through the woods on bare feet because we had to get rid of our shoes when they were shooting at us and we had to dive into the lake to escape.”

  “David, let them come sit down. Can’t you see they’re about to fall over?” The woman the man had given his spatula to set a platter of chicken on the table then approached, her hand outstretched. “I’m Becky and this is my husband David being all macho and protective, especially with all that shooting we heard this morning. But anyone can see you two are no threat.”

  “You’re still welcome to call my boss,” Nick said.

  “We’ll do that.” David lowered his arms and called to a teenage girl, “Madison, go get the cordless phone.”

  “The rest of you wash your hands and help bring out the salads,” Becky called.

  Chaos erupted as children and the other adults present charged into the house and began to return with serving dishes covered in plastic wrap. Kristen leaned on Nick, blinking to stop herself from crying over the bounty of food. If they were offered any, she must remember not to gobble. If they weren’t offered any, she would just blubber like a baby.

  Amid the hubbub, Madison returned with the phone and gave it to the man, probably her father, then stood beside him, giving Nick big eyes.

  He’s too old for you, Kristen told the girl internally.

  But even bedraggled and scruffy with a day and a half’s growth of whiskers, he looked rather good.

  “Number?” David asked.

  Nick gave it to him.

  David started to punch in the numbers, then stopped. “How do I know I’m not just calling some cohort of yours?”

  “He’ll call you back from an official location so your caller ID will pick it up,” Nick said.

  “That can be spoofed,” David said.

  Nick’s arm tensed under Kristen’s fingers. “Sir, I understand your distrust. But I don’t know how else we can prove we are who we say we are, and you can see for yourselves we’re in no shape to keep going.”

  “Just look up the number online and call that one, David.” Becky squeezed her husband’s hand. “We have enough data for that.” She approached Kristen. “Would you like to come inside and wash a little before dinner? I might be able to find you a pair of flip-flops.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kristen wanted to hug the woman.

  She allowed herself to be led into the house and to a bathroom, where she was provided with a towel, soap and hairbrush. She looked at the shower with longing, but settled for washing her hands and face. In the bedroom Becky led her to, Kristen found two more useful items. One was a hairbrush. With its stiff bristles, she managed to brush most of the tangles from her hair, then secured it in a neater ponytail.

  The second item was a cell phone. For several minutes, she stared at the device in its sparkly pink case. No bars in the house, but nearly a full battery. It would work outside, maybe in the woods, definitely near the road.

  Taking it would be stealing. No, borrowing. She would give it back or replace it as soon as she could. She had stolen nothing more than an extra cookie in her entire life. The guilt might burden her like a lead ball chained to her ankle.

  She argued with herself back and forth until Becky appeared with a pair of sweatpants, that turned out to hang loose and fit like capris on Kristen, and rubber flipflops. By the time she finished changing her clothes, she had made up her mind.

  The phone didn’t show through the pocket of the over-sized pants. Having a way of contacting the outside world left her feeling oddly buoyant.

  Then she walked onto the deck and saw Nick staggering back a step, the phone pressed to one ear, his fingers splayed against the side of his head. His eyes were squeezed shut, and when he gave the phone back to David, his hand shook.

  Kristen had seen such looks on too many clients not to know what it meant.

  Nick had received terrible news.

  * * *

  “Nick?”

  Hand shaking, Nick returned the phone to David and turned in time to see Kristen leap from the deck without benefit of the steps. Her knees buckled when she landed, but she staggered forward to maintain her balance and continued toward him at a staggering run.

  “Nick.” She held out her hands.

  He caught them, stopping her forward momentum. “Whoa there. What’s wrong?”

  “That’s what I want to know.” She gazed at him, her pupils dilated. “Is it my mother? Did those men hurt her?”

  “Your mother is fine.”

  The only part of this situation that was all right.

  “The men actually released her like they said they would.”

  “Whew.” She sagged. “I didn’t really think those men had any kind of honor.”

  “I doubt they do. It’s more likely they didn’t want to be responsible for the life of a federal judge.”

 
Too late, Nick realized Dave stood within earshot.

  The man’s eyebrows climbed toward his receding hairline. “This is Judge Lang’s daughter?”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny.” Nick smiled to take the sting from the response.

  David nodded as though he understood, then waved toward the table. “Becky says it’s time to eat. If you want a minute to go inside and wash, go ahead.”

  His attitude had taken a leap in the opposite direction now that he suspected Kristen was the daughter of a federal judge and he knew Nick was who he claimed.

  At least he had been. If things went well, someone who didn’t know the truth of his employment status would answer the call.

  He managed a smile. “I’d like that.”

  “Can you wait until we ask the blessing?” David asked.

  “Of course.” Nick started to release Kristen’s hands.

  She held on. “If my mom’s all right, then what upset you?”

  “Later. We need to eat now.”

  If he could force food past the constriction around his chest.

  Kristen drew her brows together as though she intended to object, but the family had gathered around the table holding hands and obviously ready for someone to pray over the feast spread before them.

  She had no choice but to wait. By the time they were alone again, Nick hoped he’d know how to deliver his news to her—news she wasn’t going to like.

  “Come sit here, young man.” The elderly lady patted the empty chair between her and a teenage boy with headphones around his neck.

  Kristen was directed to a seat on the other side of the table between Becky and a woman close to her age and looking so much like her they were probably sisters. Kristen didn’t pull her chair in and kept her hands in her lap, obviously unused to the idea of a family holding hands for the blessing.

  Nick’s family had done so all his life. For weeks after Michele’s death, he had refused to join in the circle, to thank God for anything. His greatest blessing was gone. Now things were nearly as bad. He was losing his way to protect the next chance God gave him to prove he could shelter others from harm.

  So he was glad he could tell the grandmother he hadn’t washed yet, so didn’t want to contaminate anyone with trail dirt.

  David said a short but heartfelt thanksgiving for the food, for family, and for being where they could help strangers in need, then the din began. Food was passed, asked for, playfully fought over. Nick slipped away to find a sink and soap inside. By the time he returned, someone had heaped his plate with a sampling of every dish, provided him with a glass of iced tea, and everyone was introducing themselves.

  The other middle-aged woman was Becky’s sister. The kids belonged to both of them—Becky and David with four and the sister with two—and the older lady was David’s mother. She grilled Nick on his work, on how he and Kristen managed to get around the lake, on his relationship to Kristen.

  “She’s a witness I’m protecting,” he explained.

  Memory of that kiss intruded on that brief explanation, calling him a stretcher of the truth. She was his witness he was supposed to be protecting. That was right. Yet maybe she was more to him. He didn’t go around kissing women for whom he felt nothing special. He just didn’t know how special, how much more to him than work she had become since they met. For a year, he had told himself he didn’t want a relationship with anyone, let alone a lady afraid of her own shadow half the time. Yet Kristen had courage and strength he doubted she realized she possessed before this nightmare began.

  “She’s a pretty girl.”

  Nick nodded, his mouth full of potato salad.

  Kristen was indeed a pretty woman—beautiful especially with the slanting evening sunshine glowing on her face as though she were lit from within.

  He feared that light would be snuffed out all too soon.

  Between answering questions and eating, he considered not telling Kristen what he had learned from Callahan. His boss didn’t want him to tell her anything. He wanted her to go into the marshals’ protection until Kirkpatrick was caught.

  Her Honor says Kristen will only worry, Callahan had said.

  But she would worry anyway.

  She did, however, have a right to know, Nick concluded in the end. This directly affected her. She also needed to be warned that she was going to be placed in some sort of safe house, probably an out-of-the-way motel room with a female marshal to guard her.

  While he went home to lick his wounds of humiliation and failure for having been fired from the only job he had ever wanted.

  At least he would have family to lend him support. They always believed in him. He didn’t think Kristen enjoyed such a luxury, such a blessing, such a gift.

  Across the table, she looked as though she were about to fall asleep on her plate. Her shoulders slumped. Her eyes drooped, and she had ceased to answer questions in any more than monosyllables. But when the meal ended with scoops of ice cream over brownies, Kristen rose and offered to help clean up.

  Nick followed suit. “We appreciate this meal more than we can say,” he said.

  “We don’t let anyone go away hungry,” Becky said. “And speaking of going away, do you have anywhere to stay for the night?”

  Kristen’s gaze flashed to Nick.

  “There is someone on the way to pick us up,” Nick said. “They won’t be here for a few more hours, though. So in the meantime, let us repay your hospitality.”

  “Nope. That’s what we have kids for.” Becky bestowed such a loving look on her offspring it was obvious she had them for far more than chores.

  Rather like how his own mom looked at him and his siblings. Kristen’s expression shifted from amazed to sad to the control he had first seen outside the courthouse.

  Had she ever caught that warmth from her own parents? Nick feared the answer was no.

  “Feel free to hang out here until your transportation comes,” David said.

  “Thank you.” Nick looked at Kristen. “Do you want to walk down to the dock?”

  She nodded, the glow draining from her face.

  Leaving the children squabbling over who would perform which task and the parents refereeing, Nick hooked his arm through Kristen’s and strolled toward the lake as though they didn’t have a care in the world and just wanted to enjoy watching the sun set over the water. Her flip-flops slapped against the boards of the dock, and the structure trembled ever so slightly. At the end, a boat large enough to ski behind bobbed on the waves kicked up by the evening breeze.

  Nick dropped onto the edge of the dock beside the boat and patted the plank next to him. “Join me?”

  She sat and crossed her arms over her middle. “Now will you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “You didn’t tell me Raven Kirkpatrick contacted you, though she shouldn’t for her safety’s sake.”

  “She swore me to secrecy. I keep secrets even though she’s not a client anymore and her call wasn’t therefore confidential.”

  “But she shouldn’t have done it if she’s trying to hide from her father.”

  “She is only nineteen and lonely and scared. She used a burner phone and she threw it away immediately.”

  “But Kirkpatrick knew you worked with her and had your office phone cloned so he could know who you were talking to, even if the phone didn’t give away her location.”

  Kristen pressed her fingers to her lips. “How?”

  “People go in and out of your office all day, don’t they?”

  “Yes, but I’m careful with my phone.”

  Nick shrugged. “Not careful enough, apparently.”

  “So Kirkpatrick couldn’t find his daughter, so he decided to get to her through me.” Tears flooded her eyes. “What is he even doing out of jail?”

  “He could post bond and isn’t considered a threat
to society.” Nick hated delivering the news. “And now trial has been set and the prosecutor will bring Raven back to testify.” Nick felt sick delivering the news. “I’ve heard of dysfunctional families, but this is some of the worst.”

  “It’s tragic.” Kristen dashed her fingers across her eyes. “Raven is such a smart, honest and kind young woman. She deserves a full and happy life where she isn’t looking over her shoulder forever.”

  “So do you, Kristen.” Nick took her hand between both of his and rubbed her cold fingers. “We need to stop this guy, and we can do it now that we know who he is and what we’re dealing with.”

  “And in the meantime I’ll be locked up like I’m the criminal.” She swung her legs, came close to losing a flip-flop, and tucked her knees against her chest, feet on the dock. “Maybe Raven and I can go into custody together.” Her voice held a sarcastic edge.

  “We just want to keep you safe.”

  “Which is where we started and how we ended up here—you all trying to keep me safe until you catch this criminal the system lets walk around menacing the public and worse.”

  “He was accused of money laundering and fraud, nothing violent.”

  “As if money laundering doesn’t usually come from a violent crime.” She snorted. “Forgive me if I don’t trust your kind of safety.”

  She rose to her feet in one graceful motion and strode toward the deck where the adults were gathered.

  Nick watched her go, knowing he should follow, and not knowing what he would say when he reached her. “By the way, I was fired from my job because I helped you,” he murmured to her back.

  She would feel guilty about that, and he didn’t want to lay any more of a burden on her than she already carried. Nor did he want to see her leave. Yet leave she would have to do. He gazed at her perched on the deck railing, accepting a glass of tea, the sunset shimmering golden in her hair, and feared he would never see her again.

  ELEVEN

  “They’re going to lock me up, aren’t they?” Kristen sounded more resigned than angry as they sat on the front porch steps and waited for deputy US marshals to arrive and take her back to Chicago and take Nick...home.