By the time she got to dusting the blinds and lamps, Veronica had worked up a sweat. She stripped off her cardigan. She even cracked open a window to let the cool scent of wet leaves breathe over her. Maybe she’d clean the kitchen too. Reorganize the crowded cabinets and toss out the pots and pans that had rusted at the bottoms of the piles.
But first, the Halloween decorations. Then she’d vacuum up all the dust she’d disturbed.
She tried to be an enthusiastic, cheerful mom, but she’d gotten lazier about holidays with each successive year. At first, decorating for Sydney had been permission to unleash her own inner child and buy all the sparkling, flashing doodads she’d always wanted in her life.
Oh, her mother had decorated their home for every holiday, but the figurines and static lights had remained the same every year. The happy, fake jack-o’-lantern on the front railing on October first. The giant plastic candles at the end of the driveway installed every Thanksgiving and lit by one 60-watt bulb in each base. The thin plastic candy canes leading the way up to the front door at Christmas. There had been no upgrades over the years. There’d been no reason for it. Everything still worked perfectly, and burnt-out bulbs were easy to replace.
But for Sydney’s first Christmas Veronica had spent money they didn’t have on stuffed dogs that barked carols and lights that twinkled and flashed in time to music. For Halloween she’d bought door knockers that boomed like a monster banging on the door, and pumpkins that could be filled with liquid ice so that smoke drifted from their eyes. She’d bought fancy wooden turkeys for the dining room table and glowing Valentine’s hearts for the front door.
So many decorations, and most of them stayed packed away these days. Last year she’d hung a “Happy Halloween” sign and twisted one string of orange lights around a bush, and that had been that. She’d just been too unhappy to do more.
This year she’d do better.
As she opened the basement door and turned on the light, she did her best not to think of Detective Reed following her down the stairs and peering into the shadowed corners of Veronica’s life. That was over. Time to move on.
The shelves had been organized once upon a time, but since she’d started picking out individual decorations instead of unloading whole boxes, the stacks were a mess. Praying that she wouldn’t find a nest of spiders—or even one lonely individual spider—she shifted a Christmas wreath off the top of the pile and opened the first cardboard box. Greeted by red and green ribbons, she moved that box to the side and opened another, only to find more Christmas crap.
If she were better at this sort of thing, she would have already marked the boxes. And if she weren’t so lazy, she’d run upstairs for a marker to do it now. But instead she glanced idly toward the laundry area in hopes of spotting a stray Sharpie before shrugging and moving on. “Next time,” she muttered, ignoring the fact that she’d definitely made that promise before.
The third box held a pastel explosion of Easter eggs and bunnies and baskets. She was already letting the flaps of the box close when her eye caught on a clear plastic bag filled with fake money.
Something from St. Patrick’s Day, no doubt. She hadn’t even known that was a holiday to be recognized until Sydney had come home from kindergarten with excited stories of leprechauns arriving during the night to wreak havoc in the classroom, dropping gold coins and chocolates as they searched for treasure.
But Veronica didn’t remember buying fake dollars the next year, only some green beads and foil-wrapped chocolates to trail through the house on St. Patrick’s Day morning. She’d phased that holiday out three years later on the grounds that even Valentine’s Day seemed a bit much so soon after Christmas. And for God’s sake, they weren’t even Irish.
Puzzled, she lifted the flaps of the box again and freed the gallon-sized storage bag from a nest of fake grass. It was heavier than it should have been. The stacks of bills were thick. The ink intricate and realistic against creamy paper.
The bag hit the floor before she realized she’d let it go.
She stared at the stacks of fake twenties bundled together into bricks. Only they didn’t look fake. And joke money always came in ones, didn’t it? No. It came in hundreds. Twenties were an odd choice for a kid’s practical joke, especially twenties that didn’t look crisp and new.
The center of her vision grew brighter, sharper, even as the edges turned dark. She didn’t need to pick up the bag to discover the truth. She didn’t need to open it and touch the bills. The money was real.
Her heart hammered against the walls of her chest and the vibrations churned her stomach into sickness. Was this what Reed had been looking for in the basement? Or had she expected chains and a cot and dirty plates and cups?
She swallowed hard against the bitter touch of bile against the back of her tongue, working her throat to keep it down as she tried to calm her breathing. She realized she was rocking back and forth like someone enduring a trauma.
Had her husband kidnapped Tanner Holcomb? Had he stolen a child and exchanged him for money? What had they said? A million dollars in cash?
Her fingers tingled. The edges of her vision went from black to static, clearing or getting worse, she couldn’t tell.
She’d touched the bag. Her fingerprints were on it. And not just her fingerprints but her DNA. They could pick up skin cells now, not just blood. And she was his only alibi. She was complicit.
But she really was his alibi. He’d been home. With her. That wasn’t a lie or a cover-up. He’d had no time to snatch that little boy. That was the truth. She remembered it.
Didn’t she?
Hadn’t she complained plenty of times that her memory was shot? That pregnancy and the frazzled exhaustion of early motherhood had ruined her brain? She could have mixed up the days. Maybe she’d come home early on Thursday for some reason, not Friday.
She’d been so sure of everything, but now her world was jumbled, her vision static, her brain a wild, twisting storm.
How much money was it?
Stepping back from the bag, she raised the heavy, swimming weight of her head to look around the gray room. It swung sickly in her vision, careening back and forth, bringing her stomach higher into her throat. There would be a hell of a lot of her DNA on the bag if she vomited on it.
She stepped back and back again until her shoulders finally touched a cool wall. She closed her eyes. Pressed her body into the painted blocks of ice. She turned her head and felt the cold on her cheek. Her stomach gave up some of its fight and settled lower. The pressure at the base of her throat eased.
“Your daughter is upstairs,” she whispered to herself. “Get your shit together. Don’t be a coward. Figure this out.”
But she was a coward and she didn’t want to figure this out. She didn’t want to even know it. But mothers couldn’t be cowards. It wasn’t allowed. No one told new moms that, but the realization flowed into their bones with the hormones. Calcium was leached from the skeleton to produce milk, and new knowledge flowed in to fill the gaps and give strength.
She couldn’t ignore this. She couldn’t walk away. She couldn’t even turn it over to the police and wash her hands of it, not without hurting Sydney. She had no choice but to get her shit together and gather up her husband’s shit too. The years of diaper changes were just practice for this moment.
Pushing off the wall, she moved her legs. They brought her to another plastic shelf, this one strewn with tools and tape and paint cans. A pair of dried-out gardening gloves sat on one of the cans. She made her arms rise and her hands grasp, and she tugged the stiff fabric on over numb fingers.
The plastic bag was waiting for her when she turned around. Afraid she might pass out if she stood still for too long, she dropped to the floor and sat cross-legged before it. For a moment her body refused to cooperate and reach out, instincts kicking in to protect her from danger.
“Do it,” she ordered out loud. Then she took a deep breath and lifted the bag by the top two corners.
>
The plastic seal was difficult to separate with the clumsy stiffness of the gloves, but she picked and pulled until the seal gave way and the bag opened. Instead of reaching in and leaving yet more DNA behind, she tipped the bag up and carefully slid the cash onto the floor.
She could burn the bag, she thought. Put the cash back into the box loose, or even hide it somewhere new if she wanted to force Johnny to give her answers. Regardless, she didn’t need the bag, and burning it would destroy her fingerprints once and for all.
Satisfied that she had an out, Veronica picked up the first untidy brick of money. A paper strap around the middle read “$2,000.” She flipped a gloved thumb along the edge of the bills, and they fanned out in awkward clumps to expose a series of twenties, some new-looking, but most obviously worn and used. Two thousand dollars.
She counted the stacks. There were twenty-five. She was looking at fifty thousand dollars in cash. How was that possible?
She flipped through a few more of the bundles to confirm that none were filled with blank paper or, God forbid, the kinds of dye packs they used at banks. The bills all looked totally legitimate.
“What have you done?” she ground out between clenched teeth. “What the fuck have you done?”
Fifty thousand dollars. A fortune for them. A miracle. They could pay off their credit cards. Fix up the kitchen. It was a glorious jackpot. But . . .
She frowned at the money in front of her, her spinning brain trying to puzzle out the problem.
It was a fortune for them but not a fortune for Hank Holcomb. It wasn’t even close to the going price for a man’s own flesh and blood. For an innocent, invaluable child. It wasn’t a million dollars.
She jumped to her feet and opened the next storage box on the shelf. Here were the Halloween decorations she’d been searching for. There was no bag of cash on top and nothing hidden underneath the fake spiders or orange string lights.
She opened the next box too. Nothing. No money. Just papier-mâché turkeys and a lot of fake fall leaves. When she dug through, she found only more decorations.
Veronica moved on to the next shelf and opened every box, however unlikely. She even grabbed a screwdriver and pried open the lids of the paint cans. Nothing. She opened the fuse box; she looked behind the washer; she checked every crevice; she popped the maintenance door on the furnace. The only treasure she found added up to about seventy-six cents in coins scattered near the clothes dryer.
But he could have hidden more money anywhere. Buried in the backyard. Stashed in the garage. Stuffed beneath the insulation in their claustrophobic attic space. It could be hidden in the glove box of his truck right now.
She was breathing too hard again, moving too fast. The tops of paint cans and boxes were strewn across the floor, though her eye was drawn to the pile of money whenever she looked around.
Panicked, she pulled her phone from her pocket, meaning to call for help. But help from whom? The police? That was who you called to report a crime or scream for rescue. That was who she should call.
But she couldn’t. Because maybe there was another explanation. More important, maybe there wasn’t and Johnny was a kidnapper and what did that even mean? That he should be taken away and punished, removed from his daughter’s life forever?
Yes, obviously. Yes, that was what happened to kidnappers. But . . .
The boy was fine. He was safe at home with his family. Sydney wouldn’t be fine if her father was sent to prison for a spectacular, notorious crime. She wouldn’t be anything close to okay ever again.
Veronica’s face burned with shame, but she didn’t call the police. She at least had to get the truth from Johnny first. She couldn’t bring hell down on him if she wasn’t even sure.
There had to be another explanation. Something to do with Neesa and her idea for a gym. Because, even aside from Veronica knowing he was home, he just wouldn’t do that. He was a little hapless and a little immature, but he’d never been a bad guy. Not truly.
She shook her head and then she couldn’t stop shaking it and that scared her. “Stop,” she whispered. “Stop.” She breathed until she could control her body again.
Instead of dialing 911, she opened her contact list and stared at Micah’s name. She needed him, and he loved her. He could tell her what to do. Or he could tell her she was being silly and list the reasons why.
Her finger hovered over his name, quivering as she trembled with fear and need. But she didn’t touch the screen. If there was even the smallest chance this had something to do with Tanner Holcomb, telling Micah would pull him into a crime. A felony. Christ, he could probably be prosecuted for not alerting the police. That would be considered abetting, wouldn’t it? Wasn’t that what she was doing right now?
That thought stopped her cold. She’d thought of Micah as her confidant, but he would be a witness as well. Right now both of Syd’s parents might be complicit in a crime, but no one could prove Veronica knew, not unless she told.
So no. She couldn’t run to Micah. She couldn’t put him in danger, and she couldn’t put herself in danger either.
And that meant she couldn’t call anyone, because telling her mom or sister or sister-in-law would bring the same risks. She had to do this alone.
The realization sank into her the way a cold front soaked through thin walls. A surface cold at first, but it permeated slowly and deeply. No one could give her advice on what to do.
She moved slowly, joints stiff, as she picked up each bundle of bills and dropped it into the plastic bag. She sealed the bag, scrubbed the corners with her gloves to smear any fingerprints, and then tucked it back into the box of Easter baskets and bright-green plastic grass.
When she closed the cardboard flaps and tugged off her gloves, she felt strangely calm. It was shock, probably, because there was no reason for calm. She’d figured nothing out. She had no plan.
And she may have just become a ruthless criminal, bargaining one child’s justice away for the sake of another. Nothing would ever be the same again.
CHAPTER 20
Johnny came home in a good mood. A great mood. He shouted a greeting to her from the back door and headed straight for the fridge to start a smoothie. “I had two new clients this morning!” he called as she stepped from the hallway. “And they both seemed pretty serious. I’m gonna be damn busy for the next few months, Roni. Shit, maybe for the next few years. This is exactly what we’ve been hoping for.”
She could only nod. Sure, Johnny. That’s great, Johnny.
“Everything is really working out perfectly.”
What the hell did that mean? Her eyelids fluttered. She couldn’t think straight. Working out perfectly. Was that a normal thing to say? Maybe it was.
“Hey, the place looks great.”
She nodded again as her scrambled brain tried to catch up.
She watched as he prepped the blender. He looked so relaxed. So typical. He grabbed frozen fruit from the freezer. Then baby spinach from the fridge.
This was the time. The burner phone weighed down her pocket like a brick. He’d left it behind this morning, perhaps worried that the police would pull him in for another interview. She could say she’d been cleaning the bedroom and she’d discovered it. She could see how he explained the phone first. Once she was satisfied—or furious—with his explanation for that, she could move on to the money.
Veronica opened her mouth. She shut it. Opened it again. She had a strange moment of déjà vu. Had she done this before? Had she stood here and struggled? Maybe. Maybe on one of the days she’d been seconds from suggesting divorce.
“Hey, I’m meeting up with Trey tonight,” he said lightly, deliberately calm and casual as he scooped protein powder into the smoothie.
“Trey?” she asked hoarsely.
“Yeah. No big deal.” A preemptive reassurance so she wouldn’t ask any questions. And that was when it hit her. That thing that had been lurking at the edges of her vision, too quick to get a good look at. Trey.
Maybe that was it. The answer to the question she’d asked herself hours before. Why only fifty thousand dollars? The ransom had been a million. Why did he have only fifty thousand?
Because perhaps it wasn’t a ransom. Perhaps it was drug money. Johnny and Trey were dealing again. Fifty thousand was a hell of a lot for dealing, but maybe Johnny was supposed to pick up a big supply or something. What if the drama of the kidnapping had blinded her to the far more obvious truth? Johnny needed money to start a gym with his girlfriend, and Trey knew how to make some quick cash.
Dealing steroids was stupid. It was criminal. But it was not unforgivable and not irrevocable. If that was all it was, they could come back from this. They’d done it before. It would barely be an irritation in the face of the horror that had been pulling her under.
Relief sucked all the strength from her body and she slumped into the kitchen cabinets.
The kitchen exploded with silence when he hit the Off button. “Hey, you okay?” Johnny asked.
She felt as pale as the dingy white linoleum at her feet. “Sure. I’m good.”
“You look tired.”
She nodded absently again but pushed up to stand a little straighter. “I’m good. Thanks.” She needed to figure this out. Trick Johnny into giving up some truth. The déjà vu returned, but this time it wasn’t the least bit mysterious. “So you’ve been hanging out with Trey a lot.”
He shrugged and turned his back to her to pour out his purplish-green meal.
“Johnny? What’s up?”
“Nothing’s up. We’re hanging out.”
The tide of relief receded. Anger was at the ready, waiting to take up its natural place inside her rocky chest. Anger that he was putting her through this and risking so much. Again. “Does it seem like a good idea to be hanging around a drug dealer when the police are watching you?”
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