Ransom River

by Meg Gardiner

  “Your dad’s postcards,” she said.

  Riss’s face hardened. Boone said, “What?”

  “Your dad sent postcards to me when I was little. You ripped them off my corkboard and tore them up.”

  “What are you talking about?” Boone said.

  “Your dad sent me postcards from Mexico after he fled the country,” she said, slowly, articulating each word. “You destroyed some, but I had a drawer full of them.”

  Riss’s face slowly turned crimson.

  “After the siege, I put two and two together,” Rory said. “Who else could they be after, these people? Me? I’m broke. My parents? They’re a teacher and forest ranger living in an old ranch house. No, they wanted something from Lee. And there was only one thing that made sense. The robbery happened right around the time he left. The money was never recovered. I figured he wouldn’t take that secret with him—he’d want somebody to know. And the only thing that connected him to me was the postcards.”

  Boone stepped forward. “Where are you hiding them?”

  The gun loomed in his hands, the barrel long and black. She tried, harder than she’d ever tried anything, not to let tears creep into her voice.

  “I got them from my parents’ house and gave them to Seth,” she said.

  Riss shook her head as though clearing her ears. “You’re fucking with me.”

  “No.”

  Boone’s parted lips turned into a fishy gape. “Seth.”

  She turned her glare on him. It took nothing. She was half a breath away from losing it.

  Riss said, “Wait. Wait a second. You’re saying my dad wrote you the location of the money and you never went to look for it? That’s beyond bullshit.”

  “Of course he didn’t. But he always wrote in rhymes, or puzzles. When I was little I thought he was sharing his adventure with me. But yesterday I reread them. They’re map coordinates, longitude and latitude. He was leaving clues.”

  “Why you?” Riss said. The Why not me? was in her voice like lye.

  “Because he knew they’d always be there. I would collect them. My parents wouldn’t move. They’d hold on to them—on to all my stuff—like treasures.”

  Riss glared. She stepped forward and slapped Rory in the face. Amber gasped. Addie jerked and began to cry.

  Rory’s face stung. She took it. Don’t lose your shit.

  “The cash is in the mountains,” she said.

  “You goddamned princess,” Riss said. “Where?”

  “The national forest. I’ll take you to it.” She pointed out the door. “But we need to leave right the hell now, before Mirkovic gets here. ’Cause if he does, he’ll cut you two out of the deal like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  Boone nodded. “Yeah. Come on. We’re the ones who can cut Mirkovic out of the deal. Move it, girls.”

  Rory stood firm. “You, me, and Riss. We’ll go.”

  Boone waved toward the door. “Everybody in the truck, come on.”

  “No,” Rory said. “Let your mom take Addie someplace else.”

  Riss’s expression turned sly. “Why?”

  “Besides the fact that Mirkovic is coming here right now, we can’t take Addie. She can’t even hold still in your arms. We’re going to the forest to dig up twenty-five million bucks. We don’t want a crying baby drawing attention to us.”

  Boone was halfway to the front door. But Riss hadn’t moved.

  “You’re not as clever as you think you are,” Riss said. “Go. Addie’s coming with us.”

  Bringing the little girl along, she pushed Rory to the door.

  They walked outside and headed to the wrecker. It was parked seventy yards up the hill, where Rory hadn’t been able to see it from the house. The wind had picked up. The screen door flipped back and smacked against the wall, battering, like ruined applause. Across the road, half-hidden in a grove of live oaks at the edge of a gully, was Riss’s Toyota Land Cruiser. She must have coasted over the lip of the hill with the engine off and parked it out of sight before she snuck in the back door.

  Boone held Rory by the hair, shotgun jammed into her ribs. Riss followed, shoving her between the shoulder blades.

  “You don’t have to push. I’m taking you there,” Rory said.

  She listened for Mirkovic’s SUV parade, but the wind blew through the oaks and eucalyptus, a hard brushing sound that overcame all else.

  She felt, despite everything that had happened, a depthless surprise, like a gut punch, that her own family was this greedy and animalistic, that, unchained, they grabbed for everything without regard for life, for love, for others. They were a cheap documentary on the power of hatred and need, come to life.

  The crumbling road stretched black and empty down the hill, all the way to the floor of the valley. It cut like a gnarled cable through dry scrub and empty fields. The city lay distant, beneath a beige haze, like a cataract. The sharp blue-gray ridges of the mountains rose beyond it, rocky and isolated. Boone gazed at them eagerly. His thirst for the money seemed ready to turn him inside out.

  Riss shoved Rory again. Rory felt some swirling approach of danger, of violence, of cold endings. She pinned her eyes on the truck.

  “We need tools. And bags,” Riss said.

  Not in a million years was Rory going to suggest where to find shovels and a bag big enough to hold a body.

  Boone pushed her into the passenger side of the wrecker’s cab. He climbed in behind her and clambered across her lap, pivoting over the shotgun as if it were a vaulting pole. A thread of sweat rolled down her back. Boone dropped into the driver’s seat. He laid the shotgun across his lap, aimed at her stomach, his left hand awkwardly clawing the trigger. With his right he turned the ignition.

  Leaning forward, he peered past Rory out the passenger door at his stepsister. “Follow us in your car. It’ll take two vehicles to carry everything.”

  Riss backed away, nodding. Addie squirmed and sniffled in her arms.

  Boone stomped on the clutch and ground the shift into first gear. He checked the rearview mirror and turned his head to look out the driver’s window.

  Where, Glock raised and aimed at his face, stood Seth.

  54

  Rory let out a breath that was beyond shock, beyond disbelief. Seth was standing on his own feet, eyes clear and focused, hair disheveled. Shirt damp. Gun shining. Her heart beat hard against her ribs and her voice rose in her throat, a cry of joy.

  Boone sat astounded, right hand on the wheel, left on the trigger of the shotgun. Seth held the Glock in a two-handed grip, chest high, the barrel aimed square at Boone’s face.

  “Federal officer. Don’t move,” he said.

  Rory blinked. Felt a firework detonate in her chest.

  “Put your hands on the dashboard,” Seth said.

  Boone stared straight at him. His hands didn’t move.

  Head pounding, Rory pitched out the passenger door. She hit the asphalt and scrambled to the back of the wrecker, out of the line of fire. Down the road, near the El Camino, Riss had stopped on her way to the garage.

  Seth was two inches from the driver’s window. His Glock was one inch from the glass.

  He called to Rory. “Is Riss armed?”

  “Not that I saw.” Her voice sounded tinny.

  “Riss, don’t move. You and Boone are under arrest.”

  Boone still had not put his hands on the dash. Rory knew he was gripping the shotgun. But swinging that long barrel around to shoot at Seth would take a second he didn’t have. If he tried to raise it, Seth had him dead.

  Amber cried, “Boone—do what he says.”

  The wind rose, and dust scudded across the dead lawn. Amber sank to her knees, hand in front of her mouth.

  Without turning his head, staring unblinking at Boone, Seth said, “Rory, come here.”

  She rounded the back of the wrecker. Seth held like a stone. He was standing awkwardly, working to hold his firing stance.

  “Get the gun from my back pocket.”


  She approached. How? she thought. Why? “Petra?” she said.

  “Safe.”

  She saw no blood. But he winced every time he breathed. He was wheezing heavily and fighting not to double over. And she saw, at the collar of the wet shirt that clung to his chest, the black body armor he wore beneath it.

  She lifted the tail of his shirt and took a handgun from his back pocket. It was heavy.

  “It’s a Beretta. Unsafety it,” he said. “Chamber a round.”

  She ticked the switch on the side of the gun. Racked and released the slide. It snapped into place with a nasty click.

  “Get back,” he said, voice tight, eyes on Boone. “If anybody moves toward you, or me, or reaches for their pockets, fire.”

  “Addie,” she said.

  He cut his eyes at her. Some message in that look. Maybe—she thought—it meant Don’t shoot in Addie’s direction, but let Riss think you will. She backed away, both hands on the Beretta, finger outside the trigger guard, weapon aimed at the asphalt.

  And Riss began to back down the road toward the El Camino, parked at a crazy angle to the curb. “Don’t shoot me.”

  She looked calm. She looked unearthly. Her black hair flew in the wind like a dark corona. On her hip, Addie huddled and pressed the heels of her small hands against her eyes, fighting the dust.

  Facing the wrecker, Riss kept walking backward. She gazed at Boone with the confidence of a trapeze artist flying toward the partner she knew would catch her.

  “Riss, stop,” Rory said.

  Riss continued to back down the hill another ten yards, until she reached the El Camino. She swung Addie away from her hip and set the little girl in the bed of the car.

  Riss raised her hands. “I’m unarmed. Don’t shoot.”

  She stood in the center of the asphalt, her arms up in a position of surrender. But her eyes shone with defiance, and her gaze was riveted on Boone.

  “No,” Rory said. With a start, she headed toward her. “No.”

  Boone hesitated only a moment. He released the clutch and gunned the wrecker.

  Riss bolted.

  The wrecker lurched forward. It aimed straight downhill at the El Camino and the toddler sitting in the bed.

  “Addie,” Rory shouted. “Oh God.”

  She ran. Just ran, Jesus, ran toward Addie. Get there, come on—a human being could accelerate faster than a heavy truck over the first few yards. She was running flat out ahead of the wrecker, but it was gaining. She felt only shredding fear.

  Addie stood up and saw the truck looming toward her. She had no chance, not one in a million.

  Rory threw herself into the bed of the El Camino, grabbed Addie by the arm, and tried to yank her to safety. She heard the engine, felt the heat.

  She heard gunfire just before the truck hit them.

  The report from Seth’s Glock came hard and flat. The sound was swallowed by the blare of the engine under the hood of Boone’s wrecker.

  Rory turned her back to the truck. Addie was hanging half-in, half-out of her grasp, her eyes round and scared, her little feet swinging. Rory looked at her, wishing—please save her—and the wrecker T-boned the El Camino.

  Packed with power and momentum, the blow sent them flying across the bed of the Elco. Hold on. She wrapped her arms around Addie to shield her. She heard another gunshot, barely, beneath the roar of the engine.

  Barreling along on a downhill trajectory, the wrecker began to shove the Elco sideways down the road. The trees passed by. The grille of the wrecker stared Rory in the face, hot and roaring. She held Addie and grabbed for a handhold, crawled toward the tailgate. The wrecker pushed the Elco toward a bend in the road. It kept rolling, bumping, and headed for the drop-off into the gulch beyond. Some part of her brain shouted: Jump. Then they were in the air. She balled up and hit the ground.

  The pain came first from scraping the asphalt. Then hitting her head. Her elbows smashed into the road, and her knees, and she rolled, Addie rolling with her. The truck kept coming. From the ground, it was all she could see, looming, implacable.

  She said, “Baby…”

  The wheels of the wrecker veered. The truck turned and rolled past her face, inches away.

  She lay stunned and gasping. Addie was sprawled across her chest. The little girl took a herking breath and broke into terrified sobs.

  She saw the road, old asphalt grainy with stones. She was bleeding. Addie had blood streaked across her Hello Kitty shirt, but Rory thought it was her own. She saw the blue sail of the sky, nailed to the sun, spinning.

  Above Addie’s sobs, she heard the El Camino slide over the lip of the gulch and roll, thudding, downhill. The wrecker drove into a tree.

  She curled tight around Addie. “It’s okay. You’re okay,” she said. The little girl put her head to Rory’s shoulder and shook. “We’re okay.”

  She raised her head. The truck had rolled sixty yards downhill and run off the pavement straight into the trunk of a eucalyptus. The engine was still roaring, the rear wheels spinning, but the grille was crushed against the tree trunk, the hood crumpled up, steam shooting from the radiator.

  At the open driver’s door, Seth let go of the wheel and dragged Boone from the driver’s seat. Her cousin fell heavily from the cab and hit the dirt like a bag of flour. He lay motionless. Seth held the Glock with both hands, aimed at Boone, and checked the surroundings for more threats.

  His gaze lit on Rory.

  In the background, Amber began to wail.

  Rory held on to Addie. She cringed to her knees. Her right side was scraped as pink as raw sausage. It was a wall of pain.

  Addie’s sobs were full of fear but loud and strong. She was okay. She was scared but warm and whole.

  Boone lay twisted and still, bleeding severely from the neck and chest. His shirt was sopping red. Rory held Addie’s head tight to her shoulder so she couldn’t see.

  Rory looked down at her right hand. She still had the Beretta. Looked up. All around. Riss was gone.

  Seth frisked Boone. He climbed into the cab, turned off the engine, and grabbed the shotgun. Climbed out, ejected the shells, rested the gun against his shoulder. With every breath, every movement, pain poured across his face. He had saved them.

  Amber’s wailing intensified. She tottered toward her son. “Boone…what did you do to my boy?”

  Seth pointed at her. “Stay back.”

  “You shot him,” Amber said.

  Seth took out a badge wallet and held up a set of credentials in Amber’s face. “Federal officer, Amber. I’m arresting your son. Get back.”

  From beneath his shirt, moving with difficulty, Seth drew a pair of handcuffs. Boone lay flat, staring aimlessly. Seth rolled him onto his stomach and cuffed him.

  Boone coughed and gagged. Seth rolled him back over. Boone didn’t move—not a muscle, not anything. Except his eyes. They jumped, seething, as though trying to flee, and to attack.

  His gaze lit on Seth. “Fucker. You…I can’t…” He gagged again and tried to spit. “Fuck you.”

  Boone looked at Rory. She seemed to uncoil, like a spool of razor wire. Every inch of her skin prickled.

  “You think you got it all,” Boone gasped. “The money, all. But you’re screwed. You’ll always be a loser.”

  Before she knew it she was standing over him. The Beretta hummed in her hand. It was aimed at Boone’s chest.

  He said, “You’ll never get away. Riss will…” He coughed.

  He hadn’t once looked at Addie. The gun seemed to sway in Rory’s hand, making the sign of the cross over him. Or crosshairs.

  “Your own child,” Rory said. “You tried to kill her.”

  Seth’s hand covered hers and he pushed the gun down. They locked eyes. She could barely see him. Her rage snaked in front of her like northern lights.

  All this. The courthouse attack. Judge Wieland. The Justice! bystander. The attempted murder of a little girl. All down to Boone.

  She said, “His neck’s br
oken, isn’t it?”

  Seth said, “He can’t fight you anymore.”

  “Of course he can.”

  Boone hissed, “Loser. You got no guts, Rory. Riss got away.” A hitch caught his breathing. “Bitch,” he said to her. “Dick,” he added, for Seth. “Gonna top both of you.” He spit on the ground, but it came out as drool, clinging to his lips.

  “He can fight,” Rory said. “But I won’t let him win.”

  She looked at him. And handed the gun to Seth.

  The wind brushed the ground and shook the trees. The road was empty, and she couldn’t hear any approaching vehicles. But that meant little.

  She said, “Mirkovic’s going to be coming with heavy metal.”

  Seth took her words as a blessing to change the subject, or artificial erasure of the tension that bled through the air between them. He got his phone and punched a speed-dial number.

  He looked ragged. He held the Glock carefully, ready to fire at new opponents at a moment’s warning. Maybe at clouds, or the fabric of the universe.

  Into the phone he said, “It’s Colder. I need urgent backup.”

  Rory listened through the brush of the wind, hearing his clear and authoritative tone, the assurance, even with the wheeze from his lungs. Her skin, her bones, were throbbing. She couldn’t seem to turn away. She held tight to little Addie and felt the girl’s heart beat against her own chest.

  Seth finished the call. “Sheriffs and ATF are on the way. Ambulance too.”

  Rory stared at him. “Who are you?”

  “Criminal investigator for the U.S. Attorney.” His eyes were earnest and half-crazed. “I’m a federal cop.”

  He held still, his shoulders canted, breathing with difficulty.

  “Broken ribs from Boone’s shot?” she finally said.

  He nodded. He didn’t reach for her, didn’t step toward her. He knew he didn’t dare. “Paramedics should look you over. Addie too.”

  The little girl was curled against Rory’s chest, gripping a fistful of her shirt. Nearby, Amber stood hugging herself, swaying back and forth.

  Rory felt the charge between her and Seth threatening to blow, like an electric arc. “Investigating what—corruption in the Ransom River PD?”