Ransom River

by Meg Gardiner

  “On the side of the van,” Mirkovic said.

  He shifted, as if his efforts at patience and forbearance were tiring him. “For many years it was an unknown print. But we have now cold-case investigations, and AFIS. The police can check old evidence and look for new prints that have entered the criminal justice system in recent years. Comparison prints.”

  Boone said, “You got yourself arrested at some protest.” He laughed. “What’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding? I’ll tell you what.” His laugh died. “Power to the people, Rory.”

  She felt like her feet had been kicked out from under her. And she thought: They don’t know where or how. Don’t tell. If she did nothing else, she had to keep her parents’ names out of it.

  She said, “Maybe I touched the van weeks earlier. In a garage someplace, when I was with my uncle.”

  “Not possible.”

  “I didn’t go with him on the damned robbery.”

  “You stumbled on the heist. Or overheard where the money is buried. Or your dear uncle Lee confided in you.” Mirkovic waved her objections away. “Enough. This is business. I am businessman. Money out of circulation slows the economy. It harms the business cycle, like credit crunch. It is a crime,” he said. “And all that old, worn cash will serve my interests perfectly. I do business in Mexico, and in my Mexican businesses, crisp new dollars stand out. Much better to use old bills.”

  Plus, nobody across the border would be monitoring the serial numbers of the stolen millions.

  “You see, this is brilliant solution to many problems. Especially when your usefulness to me is over. I am not wasteful. You will have a second experience.”

  Second experience. She felt a chill.

  “But for the sake of saving time, I ask you once again. Where is your uncle?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody does. I think…” She sagged. “I think he may be dead.”

  “That would be most unfortunate,” Mirkovic said.

  “Nobody’s heard one word from him in years.”

  “He can reappear. Incentives are amazing.” He flicked a finger. “Get the camera and equipment.”

  The pain in her arm momentarily disappeared beneath a rush of adrenaline. Equipment to do what to her?

  “I’m telling you, Lee has vanished,” she said.

  Mirkovic shifted in his seat. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “This money, you think it’s yours.”

  “God no.”

  Boone jumped forward, pointing. He barked, “She sure as hell does.”

  Boone was amped. His pupils looked as small as fleas and heat seemed to pour off him in waves.

  The Nightcrawler must have been surprised by Boone’s outburst, because he let up on Rory’s arm and half turned to face her cousin. It was an automatic defensive move, which told her that none of them trusted him. Whatever Boone was on—meth, gin, lifelong resentment—was building up the pressure, like a bottle of butane dropped onto an open flame.

  He took two steps toward Mirkovic and the suits moved smoothly and instantly to keep him back. Boone raised his hands, stepped away. Wiped his nose.

  He pointed at Rory. “She wants the money. If she hasn’t already took half of it and spent it all.”

  She smiled. “Well. Boone Mackenzie. Thank you for finally making this easy.”

  At that, Mirkovic eyed her with interest. Like cataloguing an insect for unsuspected potential to surprise him and maybe hurt somebody.

  “I’m glad you finally stopped slinking around, trying to kill my dog and hiding behind your mom and your hatred of my family. Thanks for stepping forward at last,” Rory said.

  “Not Mackenzie anymore. It’s Renfro.”

  Renfro was his birth father’s name. He jinked a shoulder and stepped back and turned sideways to Rory, his half-shaded, slanted look. “She better tell us where it is. Take the video and let’s get going.”

  Mirkovic said, “In due course.”

  Boone’s mouth pulled down, like a thorn had caught against his lips. “Always getting postcards from my dad.”

  “What, you think he put secret codes in his messages to me when I was a kid? X marks the spot?” She smiled again. A strange, cold calm descended on her. “You should never have torn them up, Boone. Maybe you destroyed your only chance to find all that cash.”

  His eyes popped. The blue butane flame flared and he looked at her at last. Oh shit, was all over his expression.

  Mirkovic said, “Where is the money?”

  “No idea,” Rory said. “I knew nothing about it before yesterday. If I’d known where it was, don’t you think I would have bought myself a first-class ticket to the other side of the world? You can’t actually believe I’d be in Ransom River, scraping pennies out of the sofa and hoping to get a job at the Dairy Queen. Nobody in my family would still be here. We’d have bought an island in French Polynesia and installed ourselves as the ruling dynasty. I’d be that princess Boone always thought I was, and I’d be grinding the heel of my glass slipper into photos of his face every morning after coffee.”

  Boone looked at her like he’d never seen her before. “She’s nuts.”

  Maybe, Rory thought. Maybe she was having an out-of-body experience. Maybe she was already reincarnated as a woman who didn’t give a damn about her own life anymore but was ready to spill it all to get these assholes in police custody or six feet down. And she’d do anything to keep them from thinking her parents were the key to finding the money.

  She let her hair fall in front of her eyes. Torqued forward under the Nightcrawler’s grip, she glared up at her cousin. “If I’m nuts, I’m still ten times more connected to humanity than you are.” She turned to Mirkovic. “What did he tell you? Did he approach you, or vice versa? Did he tell you he and his stepsister want to set up housekeeping together? How are you going to keep this quiet once they build their triple-wide trailer on a Ransom River hilltop and hang a chandelier on the porch, next to their Lamborghini—the one up on blocks?”

  Boone recoiled. “Shut up. You are a freak.”

  Rory laughed. The sound spilled brightly from her lips and fizzed into the air, so sharp and desperate that it seemed to disperse the smoke from Mirkovic’s cigarette.

  Mirkovic looked at Boone. “Close your mouth.”

  Boone pointed at Rory, aggrieved. “See what I’ve had to live with all my life?”

  “You and your stepsister are no business of mine. But you will not stay here. You will not spend any money in Ransom River.” The flat calm returned to Mirkovic’s face. “You said you would move to another country.”

  “I will, I will. Rory’s wack.”

  Mirkovic’s gaze lingered on him. “Then we get going.” Slowly his head turned toward Rory. “You will take us to the money.”

  Boone said, “Let me work on her. We got a deal.”

  Mirkovic glanced at him. “You do not need to remind me.” To Rory he said, “Family business does not concern me. But your cousin is correct—we have a deal. Boone insisted.”

  “Insisted on what?” she said. The laughter had all spilled out, but the chill remained and was taking root. She dug her fingernails into her palms to keep herself angry.

  “You will make a video so your uncle understands he must surrender the money to me immediately. It will be your star turn. Everybody in California wants this.” He uncrossed his legs. “And then Boone will have his after-party with you.” He shrugged. “It is price I pay to get the economy going.”

  Boone said, “I need ten minutes with her.”

  The Nightcrawler said, “This isn’t a playground. You’ll have time afterward. Mr. Mirkovic has other appointments today.”

  Boone swiped a hand across his nose again. “Fine. Take her upstairs.”

  He nodded at the staircase. As he did, his phone rang. The Nightcrawler tugged Rory backward across the living room.

  Eyes on Rory, Boone answered the call. “No time to talk.”

  Rory heard a woman’s voice on the oth
er end.

  “Soon,” Boone said. “Go on to Mom’s and get the baby.”

  He was talking to Riss. Rory nearly stumbled. The baby?

  “Don’t matter what Mom says. She won’t be able to stop you. Pack Addie up and get ready to roll. I’ll be there soon.”

  Mirkovic sat forward. “Boone. Hang up.”

  Boone casually put away the phone. “Business.”

  Mirkovic said, “The child is a distraction.”

  “Riss won’t leave her here with Amber. It’s a point of pride.”

  Addie.

  Little Adalyn, who had let Rory help her pour a cup of water, and who had wrapped her soft hands around Rory’s neck and laughed. The light in the house turned sickeningly hot. Addie wasn’t a day-care kid. She was Amber’s granddaughter.

  Riss’s child.

  Addie was Riss’s daughter. And there in front of her was Boone, acting proprietorial about the child. Boone. Boone? Getting ready to turn his world around—by torturing Rory, grabbing the stolen millions, and taking off with his stepsister and the little girl.

  He tilted his head at her. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  He booted Rory’s knee out from under her, so she dropped in the Nightcrawler’s grip. He nodded toward the hallway. “Move.”

  The Nightcrawler swung her around, and she glimpsed Mirkovic’s face. Why was he staring at Boone so sharply?

  47

  The Nightcrawler shoved Rory along the hallway. Boone strutted ahead to the stairs.

  Addie. Earlier, at Amber’s, Riss hadn’t even looked at Addie. She’d come straight into the house and laid into Rory. She hadn’t spared a breath for her own child.

  And Riss wanted to take Addie as a point of pride? Take her into what? A sinkhole seemed to open in Rory’s chest, dank and septic. Riss would take Addie into a nightmare. A diseased life with parents who cared only for each other and who inevitably cut everyone else out of their twisted existence. Fear overwhelmed her.

  The Nightcrawler breathed into her hair. She stumbled along the hallway.

  She had a lighter in her pocket, the disposable one Seth had handed to her when she lit the candle at the caretaker’s cabin the previous evening. She could find something flammable and set the house on fire with Boone in it. She’d get out. Somehow. She was thinking on the fly—she’d dropped out of Girl Scouts before they got to the arson merit badge. But chaos was better than organized torture.

  Boone stopped on the stairs and turned to the Nightcrawler. “Give her to me. Wait down here.”

  “She isn’t a blow-up doll,” the Nightcrawler said. “I need to supervise.”

  “She’s not going to cause trouble,” Boone said.

  “You kidding? She’s nothing but trouble.”

  Sounded like a plan.

  She could set the bed on fire. Or Boone’s shirt. The books on the shelf. She bet Hunter S. Thompson would burn like a rocket sled.

  She wasn’t thinking linearly, but ideas popped in front of her eyes like bleach bubbles. The stolen cash. Grigor Mirkovic, who was willing to turn the trial of his son’s killers into a piece of theater for the chance to obtain millions in dirty bills. It was astonishing. She wanted to ask him: Why? Did he care so much for money that seeing justice done for his son took second place? Or did he truly consider the trial a farce and think he was putting the court system to more productive use?

  She struggled upward, bent forward as if she were bowing. She said to the Nightcrawler, “Let go so I can climb the stairs.”

  He barked. It may have been a laugh. “Honey, you crack me up.” To Boone he said, “Get the bathtub filled.”

  Rory’s knees loosened.

  The Nightcrawler steadied her. He said to Boone, “And get the camera. In case of accident.”

  Boone laughed. “In case?”

  They were going to drown her. And in her own house, where it didn’t matter if she left forensic evidence on every square inch of the floors and walls and ceiling.

  The Nightcrawler said, “If she doesn’t tell us what we want to know, we’ll need proof that noncompliance is painful. It’ll also be something we can edit to make it look like she’s still breathing. Get that ex-cop to give up the information if he thinks he can save her.”

  Boone reached the top of the stairs. “No, let her go. She won’t cause problems. She won’t utter a peep.”

  She felt the lighter in her pocket. They’d have to put her in front of the camera. They’d want to keep themselves out of frame. She’d have a moment. She simply had to be fast. She couldn’t let Boone get started with whatever it was he thought would turn her mute.

  He opened the door to her bedroom. “Bring her in.”

  Rory climbed the stairs with the Nightcrawler breathing heavily behind her. They would have to pass her desk. It was covered with paper. It could be the point of origin.

  Boone walked through the door. The Nightcrawler brought Rory in behind him.

  Boone turned to her. “Hush, now. Don’t let your friend get any more hurt.”

  Slumped on the floor in the corner, bruised and battered, was Petra.

  48

  Petra lifted her head, slowly. Her eyes were puffy, her lip split and crusted with blood. Her hands and feet were tied to the foot of the bed with an electrical cord. “Ro. Sorry.”

  Tears rushed to Rory’s eyes. She spun on Boone so fast that he actually shrank back. Her teeth were bared.

  “Let her go,” she said.

  “You got no say anymore.”

  He went into the bathroom and turned on the taps. From downstairs, Suit Two called to the Nightcrawler.

  “Hadzic. Come here a minute.”

  The water gushed into the tub. Boone said, “I got this. She won’t act up. Not when her little bed partner’s licking her wounds.”

  The Nightcrawler looked like he doubted the wisdom of leaving the room.

  Rory dug her nails into her palms. “Don’t hurt Petra again. I’ll do whatever Boone wants. Just don’t hurt her.”

  Boone sneered. He may have thought it was a smile. He may have thought a sneer and a smile expressed the same feeling: pleasure at other people’s pain.

  Rory held still, trying to look compliant and submissive and beaten. Trying not to feel compliant and submissive and beaten. Keep it together. She did an inventory sweep of the bedroom. Floor, desk, bookcase. Window.

  Suit Two called to the Nightcrawler again.

  The Nightcrawler said, “I’m going to lock the door and take the key with me.”

  He walked out, shut the door, flipped the key from outside, and thumped down the stairs.

  Petra said, “They said if I screamed they’d slit your throat.”

  Boone pointed at her. “Not a peep out of you. This isn’t your show.”

  Rory backed toward the desk. Boone grabbed her by the shirt. She gasped. He pulled her off balance against him and began backing her toward the bathroom.

  “Twenty years, cuz. Twenty fucking years; did you truly think you could get away with it forever?”

  He shoved her backward through the bathroom door at the sink. She hit the counter and knocked over bottles and containers. They clattered to the floor and into the sink. The bathtub was halfway full, the water pouring out in great gulps, loud and turbulent.

  Boone pointed at her. “Don’t move.”

  He took out his phone and smoothly thumbed the controls. He was breathing audibly. She cringed back against the counter.

  Still looking at the phone, he said, “Tell me where the money is or you get waterboarded. Like the witches of Salem. Full-immersion baptism.”

  She pressed herself back against the counter. A bottle of rubbing alcohol had fallen into the sink. She could smell it.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell you.”

  He glanced up, alert.

  She had a hand on the bottle. The other in her jeans pocket. She picked up the bottle and with one ragged motion flung it on Boone’s face and shirt.


  “What—”

  She flicked the lighter and threw it at him.

  The flames lit silently. They were nearly invisible, ghostly white and violet wraiths that jerked and picked at his shirt and hair and face.

  He shouted in pain and crashed backward toward the door, pawing his skin. Eyes shut, arms frantic, he hit the wall. Rory ran at him, pulled her right arm back like she was spiking a volleyball, and smashed his head against the doorjamb.

  She ran past him into the bedroom. She grabbed a pen from the desk, pulled off the cap, and jammed the pen into Boone’s ear. He shrieked in agony.

  “Petra, the window,” she said. “We’re getting out.”

  The roof was steeply raked—the eaves over the living room. The drop to the lawn was probably fifteen feet. She had only a second. She pressed her back against the heavy bed frame and lifted it, groaning, a couple of inches from the floor. Though the electrical cord was twisted tightly around Petra’s wrists and ankles, it was knotted only where it had been looped around the foot of the bed. Petra slid the makeshift rope underneath it and was free. She shook loose from the cord and stumbled to her feet.

  “Quick,” Rory said.

  Petra staggered to the window and forced it open. Boone was canted against the bathroom wall, eyes streaming, ear bleeding. He’d stopped spinning and attacking himself, so he was probably no longer on fire. Rory picked up her brass Thai Buddha. She swung it with everything she had and slammed him in the face with it.

  The blow shook her arm. He yelled and bent double and brought his hands to his face. “Bitch.”

  Petra wobbled onto the sill and crabbed her way to the roof.

  Boone swung at Rory. She slammed him again with the Buddha. He staggered back into a shelf and knocked it down. Knickknacks and photos toppled across his shoulders.

  He had dropped the phone to paw at his eyes. She scooped it up.

  “Petra, get to the tree,” she said.

  Footsteps pounded up the stairs.

  She wound up as if she were preparing for a hammer throw, and she swung the Buddha at Boone one more time.

  Karma might be a bitch. But Buddha packed a punch.