I asked, “Who hit you, Ruby?”
Her chin trembled, but her voice didn’t. “That man. He says he’s my dad. He says I have to live with him from now on, and that this is what happens to back-talkers.”
“We’re leaving that man,” I told her. “Is that all right with you?”
She nodded, the fight back in her.
“First,” I whispered, “we’re going to get up. And then we’re going to find a ladder so we can climb out the window.”
“They’re nailed shut,” Ruby replied.
She was right, of course. We trooped over to take a look, the beam of my cellphone leading the way. Age-old nails, twisted and bent, ran through the frames and into the mortar of the stone wall. Ripping them out would take forever. But beneath the left window, in an open cardboard box, Lucy had folded the plasticized burlap bags she’d emptied of flour and sugar for her baking. I could smash out the panes and cames and lay the bags over the sill to protect the children’s hands and knees. The route would be better than the one through the kitchen and more doable than scurrying up the coal chute.
The noise would be the risk. Would Ribisi come looking if he heard the shatter of glass? None of that mattered, however, when the hoots and hollers in the kitchen overhead turned to yelps and shouts. Heavy footfalls thundered across the floor. Barrett and Marc had to be in the house. Ribisi’s men were fighting them. And there was no guarantee the good guys would win.
The kids and I needed to get out of this cellar.
We needed to get out now.
“We’re going to do something scary,” I said, “but I don’t want you guys to be afraid.”
I didn’t bother with a ladder. I snatched a nearby bucket. I upended it to form a step.
“Stand over here,” I directed, guiding the kids to a spot beyond the reach of flying glass. “There’ll be a loud crash when I break the window, then I’ll raise you up. You help each other climb through. Understand?”
But Cody and Ruby were much more afraid of the sounds on the floor above than anything I had to say. They clung to each other. And Cody began to whimper.
“Here we go,” I told them, and shoving my phone in my pocket, I grabbed a broom from a tangle of tools in the corner.
With its handle, I smashed the window, knocked the glass from every edge. Dropping the broom, I laid the bags and turned to the kids. Ruby was shaking like a leaf. But when I held out a hand to her, she took it. I boosted her through the window and freedom—and then I turned to Cody.
Gunshots exploded on the first floor. Cody cried out in fear. He bolted for the dark but familiar coal bin.
I grabbed him by his slender shoulders before he could disappear into it. He fought and kicked and cried. I’d never get him through the window at this rate, and Ruby was on her own, unprotected, outside.
“Cody.” I dropped to my knees in front of him. “Do you remember our map?”
Trembling, he blinked at me in the weak, ambient light leaking through the open window.
“Where are you?” I asked Cody.
His eyes flashed wildly as he glanced around the cavernous basement.
“On our map, little man. Where are you? And where am I?”
Cody remembered now. I’d sketched a heart and an X in the hollow of his hands before he’d left Colorado with his abuela. He displayed his palms to me, then brought them together, and linked his fingers.
“Perfect,” I told him. “Now, don’t let go.”
I turned, ducked under the ring of Cody’s skinny arms, and hoisted him onto my back. The boy had to weigh at least sixty pounds. But I wasn’t going to let that slow me down.
“Put your head on my shoulder,” I directed, just as I’d seen his father do. “Close your eyes. Keep them closed. Are you ready?”
I felt Cody’s hearty nod.
And stepping up on the overturned bucket, I hoisted the two of us into the window frame.
Ruby waited in a rectangle of light on the flagstones above. She grabbed handfuls of Cody’s pajama top and helped to drag him through. As his weight shifted, I got my legs under me, dug my toes into the basement wall. With a modified combat crawl, I freed myself from the cellar at last.
I clambered to my feet, gripped each kid by the hand, and took off for the cottonwood trees. From there, we’d get our bearings, catch our breath, and strike out for the car on the distant dirt road. But we hadn’t made it more than three steps when something caught me by the throat.
I let go of the children to claw at my neck. Already, my windpipe squeezed shut. I scrabbled for the tight, hot ligature that had come out of nowhere—and when my fingertips met cotton, I could’ve sworn I was being strangled by apron strings.
Ribisi, I realized as fireworks danced before my eyes.
My hearing went tinny, but I could still make out the screams of Cody and Ruby. I tried to force my fingers beneath the garrote, to reach past the back of my head, to grab at Ribisi’s hands or claw at his face. I kicked and stomped and heard laughter.
Ribisi loved this. I could feel it in my soul. He loved the odd intimacy of this moment, of my struggle against his strength.
Gray mist fogged my mind.
I didn’t want to die.
The kids beat at Ribisi. He only laughed harder. And then a fierce yell drowned him out.
He bucked as a heavy weigh hit him. He let go of the strings that bound me to him. I tore the cords from my throat, stumbled away from him.
Gulping in great breaths made me as dizzy as almost passing out nearly had. I spun, frantic to find Cody and Ruby. But there they were, clinging to each other again, and watching with wild eyes as Elena Preble rode Ribisi’s back like a bull rider. She tore at his hair and kicked with her heels, and in her tight fist she clutched the chef’s knife Lucy had thrown at me. But in one sickening instant, Ribisi seized Elena’s ankle.
Ribisi dragged her from his back. She hit her head on the patio. The knife clattered beside her. Blood pooled on the flagstone. Elena didn’t move.
And in his rage, Ribisi turned on Cody.
“No!” I shouted, but my voice came out as a croak.
Ribisi backhanded me anyway. My head rang like a bell. He seized Cody by the throat, shook the boy like a rag doll.
Marshal Ingram appeared in a patch of light streaming from Lucy’s kitchen window. She trained the muzzle of her service weapon on Ribisi’s center mass. “Step away from the child!”
But she didn’t have a clear shot.
Even I could see that as the world spun.
I took a step toward Ribisi. The universe tilted sideways. I stumbled, but still scooped up the knife lying beside Elena.
I charged Ribisi, plunged the blade into his side. I felt its sharp tip pierce his lungs, slide into his heart. The man crumpled like tissue—and as he fell to the cold, hard ground, I caught the boy and the girl in my arms.
Chapter 43
The Lady Bird Johnson Hill Country Hospital sounded more like a day spa than a trauma center, but frankly, after the week I’d had, it felt a little bit like both.
Maximillian Ribisi’s death had probably come as a complete surprise to him, but he hadn’t departed this world without teaching his daughter, Ruby, how much her mother loved her in trying to shield her. When Ribisi had taken over the Bonnie Bluebonnet B&B, he’d had Lucy and Marshal Douglas trussed up like Thanksgiving turkeys and stashed in an upstairs closet in case he wanted to question them before killing them later. And considering what he’d ordered done to the Strathmeyers, we were all pretty fortunate he’d thought keeping them close would be handy. Of course, Lucy and Douglas would have to face the consequences of faking her death in Omaha and filing for the subsequent insurance money. But the extenuating circumstances probably meant they’d ruined Douglas’s career and not their entire lives.
Elena Preble had given her life for her son, for Ruby, and for even me, when what had begun with a bad decision to trade Ruby for Cody ended in a generous act. If Elena hadn’t had
the courage to jump Max Ribisi, I surely would be dead rather than merely suffering from a few bumps, some deep bruises, a raspy voice, and a world-class concussion. I was grateful to her and I hoped that she was with Dustin Toomey now.
As a result of my injuries, however, the doctors at the Lady Bird Johnson Hill Country Hospital recommended that I stay awhile. My office could certainly do without me a little bit longer, so I accepted their gracious invitation. I had no urgent business pending.
Those New York advertising execs had kicked me to the curb, but that was all right. After the past week’s cross-country chase, I knew that once I got home, I wouldn’t want to step foot outside the Beltway anytime soon. The pro-football quarterback who’d hired me to protect him from a greedy owner with a rich insurance policy and severe cash-flow problems didn’t need my services anymore, either. He and the bodyguards I’d sent along to protect him had put in an appearance at a charity roller-skating event to benefit children of our active-duty military members. But the guy had fallen in the concrete rink during the disco skate—and broken his throwing arm in three places.
When word got out that I’d be staying in Texas for a few days, that famous Broadway star on my client list messengered the brand-new CD of his hit musical, complete with liner notes signed by his original cast who sang every number. And Wendy Jessup, the daughter trying so hard to take care of her Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother while holding down her job as the chief conservator at the National Archives, sent me a dazzling helium-balloon bouquet. Wendy, being an archivist who catalogues the American experience day in and day out, had been able to see the good in what appeared to be bad in her mother’s situation—and I figured there was a lesson in that for me.
I had visitors as well. My favorite was also a patient at the Lady Bird Johnson Hill Country Hospital. Cody hadn’t lost consciousness when Ribisi had choked and shaken him, but a growing boy’s brain is a delicate thing and his attending physician had kept him for observation.
Bright and early on the second day of our stay, Cody padded into my hospital room in pajamas with puppy dogs on them, a natty little bathrobe, and his slippers. Without waiting for an invitation, he climbed into bed with me, and this time, he showed me how to change the channel to cartoons. I knew he was trying to process his kidnapping and the death of his mother, and it would take some time, especially with the additional changes about to come his way. But I also knew Cody would be all right. Marc would make sure of that.
I dozed off with Cody snuggled beside me—and woke up to find Marc himself in the chair next to my bed. Mrs. Sandoval had taken over the bureau top to fuss with unpacking a cooler while her husband arranged lilies in a vase on my tray table. When I blinked at them all, she announced, “I cooked for you. No one can get well eating this hospital food.”
I thanked her. Marc smothered a smile. And then in an obvious maneuver to get the two of us alone, Mrs. Sandoval herded Cody and her husband from the room on the pretext that Cody needed a nap.
As the sound of Cody’s scuffing slippers faded down the hall, Marc said, “I think my mother likes you now.”
“Good. Because I’d love to eat all this food, and if she still wasn’t crazy about me, I’d feel obliged to send it back.”
“I’m crazy about you.”
Marc’s confession stopped my heart, because it was an earnest one. He loved me. And though I cared for him greatly, I couldn’t love him in return.
“Marc, I—”
“I know,” he said, sparing me the necessity of hurting him. His face twisted wistfully. And then he smiled. “I guess I’ll just have to get over you by throwing myself into a series of meaningless relationships. I think I’ll start with the nursing staff.”
“You’re too late. I hear Cody’s already got the nurses here wrapped up and in his pocket.”
“Cody,” Marc mused, serious again. “I can’t get my head around the fact that I’m a full-time dad.”
“You were always a full-time dad, Marc. Even when the two of you were apart.”
Marc’s brows arched. He saw the truth in that. And it was a revelation to him.
He said, “Cody’ll be discharged today. We leave tonight for Colorado. Elena’s funeral is Friday. Robert and I are clearing her trailer over the weekend.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“In the end, she did the right thing.”
“She did,” I agreed.
“And she gave me Cody at the beginning. There’s nothing better than that.”
And the awe in his voice said it all.
Marc and I talked a little while longer.
But soon it was time for him to go.
When he rose, he asked, “See you in Washington sometime?”
“You bet,” I said, and I meant it.
I’d see Marc again, once he and Cody had had a chance to settle into their new life together.
And after Marc’s feelings for me had had time to fade.
After Marc left my room, I slept and woke and slept again. Before lunch, I opened my eyes to see Marshal Ingram, wearing a red sweater and jeans instead of one of her stuffy gray suits, sliding her get-well offering of a thick magazine, rolled up with a great big blush bow, onto my tray table beside Mr. Sandoval’s lilies.
“Hey,” I said, stretching and shoving myself a little higher in the bed. “I thought you’d be back in Colorado Springs by now.”
“I’m going there tomorrow,” Ingram said. “But not for long. I’ve accepted a transfer to Arlington, Virginia.”
“That’s welcome news. The headquarters building is in a great area. And we’ll practically be neighbors.”
Ingram smiled.
I added, “Of course, by that logic, Marc lives next door.”
She flushed. “I…I didn’t think about that.”
“I’m kidding,” I assured her. “Next door is a bit of an exaggeration. But not much of one.”
She shrugged. “I’m really not looking to get involved right now. Besides, I try to avoid the love-’em-and-leave-’em type—especially after they’ve finally fallen for a woman, only to find out she doesn’t love ’em back.”
“Marc’s a good man,” I told her. “He just hasn’t always behaved like one. But I think that’s changing.”
In fact, I was sure of it. Maybe Marc had begun to change when we met last October. But recent days had accelerated his transformation. Now Marc wouldn’t just be Cody’s role model on long weekends and school holidays. Since Elena’s sacrifice, he’d be father, mother, teacher, and friend. And the awesomeness of the task sat well on him.
Ingram stayed a few more minutes and then we said our goodbyes. But we’d meet again. We already had plans to sample some cocktails at my favorite dinner spot within walking distance of the White House.
I had lunch from the fine selection of goodies Mrs. Sandoval had made, then fell asleep until sometime in the late afternoon when a familiar hand clasped my own. I opened my eyes. And there was Barrett, too handsome for his own good.
“Hello, soldier.”
“Hello, honey.”
I blinked sleepily at the late-day sun slanting through the room, the bright balloons, flowers, and other tokens of friendship, and felt actually content for a few moments.
And then I noticed Barrett’s bug-out bag standing in the corner.
“You have to go,” I said.
“My five days are up.”
“You never did make it to that beach.”
“Oh, I didn’t mind the detour.” Something sparkled in Barrett’s chocolate-brown eyes. “It brought me where I wanted to go.”
I smiled.
I couldn’t help it.
Barrett dipped his head. He pressed a slow kiss to the back of my hand. And I felt it all the way to my toes.
“Besides,” he said, “the beach isn’t going anywhere fast.”
“That’s true.”
“So, there’s always next time.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “There’s definitely
next time.”
To the memory of
J and W,
who would do anything for the boy
Acknowledgments
For us readers, the beauty of loving books is that we get to visit our favorites again and again. That’s true for us writers, too. Through the Jamie Sinclair series, I get to visit and revisit favorite places I first came to love as a military spouse. In The Kill Wire, Jamie travels to a number of these places. Of course, it’s not merely their location that makes spots like Colorado Springs, the Dakotas, and San Antonio, Texas, so special. It’s the amazing people you meet along the way that make all the difference. And speaking of amazing people, I’d like to thank my agent, Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein; my editor, Kate Miciak; and Kate’s entire team at Alibi for making all the difference in bringing The Kill Wire into the world.
I’d also like to thank the friends and neighbors who cheered me on to the end of The Kill Wire. I owe heartfelt thanks to David for absolutely everything. And thank you, Cindy, for surprising me with a gift of scrumptious sparkling lemonade while I was locked in my office, writing like a wild thing. Many thanks go to the members of the eighty-four-year-old Penthouse Club for welcoming me into their midst over a fabulous Italian dinner. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. And as always, I extend most sincere thanks and appreciation to you, my reader. Thank you for coming back to visit Jamie again and again. You make all the difference.
BY NICHOLE CHRISTOFF
The Kill List
The Kill Shot
The Kill Box
The Kill Sign
The Kill Wire
NICHOLE CHRISTOFF is a writer, broadcaster, and military spouse. She credits James Thurber, Raymond Chandler, and Jane Austen with her taste in fiction. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s out in the woods with her ornery English pointer.
nicholechristoff.com
Facebook.com/NicholeChristoff
Twitter: @NicChristoff
Every great mystery needs an Alibi
The Kill Wire Page 26