by Meg Jackson
Ricky could never remember a time when her life had seemed so messy, so unmanageable, so out of her control. This was what she had always tried to avoid. Her mother was wrong; Ricky wasn’t sloppy. She knew where everything was in the clutter. It was only when someone came in and started rearranging things that she found herself lost and confused.
Hardly believing what she was doing, she picked up her phone. Her mother picked up after the third ring, her voice surprised. It was rare that Ricky called Cordelia instead of the other way around.
“Ericka? To what do I owe this rare pleasure? Have you changed your mind about Thanksgiving?”
Ricky spent a moment trying to figure out whether that was supposed to be sarcastic, then decided it didn’t matter. She’d nearly forgotten that it was two days before Thanksgiving. Since she and Kim weren’t speaking, she had been planning to spend the holiday solo.
“Mom, I want you to tell me about Dad,” she said, her voice choking slightly as she spoke.
“Oh,” Cordelia’s voice fell softly. “I see. Well, I suppose I’m glad you called, then. Your father…”
Ricky lay down and closed her eyes as she listened to her mother. She didn’t want to believe some of the things Cordelia said about her father’s drinking, but she forced herself to listen to every word, take each one to heart. She was tired of lying to herself. She wanted things to get better. And this was the only way she knew how to start.
37
Cristov let himself into the trailer, hearing Damon in the living room but not wanting to talk to anyone. He felt dirty, like he’d taken advantage of Ricky, even though she’d been the one who wanted it. He felt dirty because of how damn good it had felt, how even if she’d tried to stop him, he wasn’t sure he would have.
He opened the fridge; leftover pizza, a half-eaten hamburger, a mystery bag of Taco Bell, cold cuts and bread and eggs and cheese. His stomach growled, but he shut the door, feeling unworthy of food. He sat down at the table and stared out the window. The gypsies didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but if they did, it would have been a lot like any other random party they held.
His phone chimed and Cristov glanced down out of instinct. Someone sent him a picture on Instagram. Not an unusual occurrence by any means; his inbox was damn near overflowing with artists who wanted to work with him or for him, or wanted his advice on their technique. Tina ran the tattoo shop’s account, but Cristov’s personal account was well-known among the tattooing community. Out of boredom and the anxious need to occupy his mind, he opened the message.
Bile rose in his throat.
The picture was dark, but there was no second guessing what it was. Tricia, bound by her hands and feet, a gag in her mouth, her eyes pleading at the camera. His hand tightened around the phone screen as he read the message that followed:
Every time you deny us, we take a little more. $10,000 and your asses on the road, or her blood’s on your hands. Heard you’ve been chatting to the PD about us. That’s gonna stop, too. We don’t take chances, and neither should you. We’ll be in touch.
Instagram? Fucking Instagram? He frantically tried to click on the sender’s profile, his fingers suddenly feeling far too large for the little screen. The account held nothing; no posts, no picture. Was there any way to trace this? He looked back at the photograph, trying to find any clues about where she was – he couldn’t make sense of anything except the panic in her eyes, the violent pose of her bound body.
“Damon,” he called out, voice shaking. “Damon, come in here now. Where the fuck is Kennick? Fucking shit!”
38
Ricky stared at the picture on Cristov’s phone for a long time, her face expressing no emotion whatsoever. She stared at it for so long that Cristov was reminded of a computer freezing up, wished she had an off switch he could press to reset her. When finally she looked up, the horror in her face was too much to bear. Her greyish eyes were shaking, blurry with tears.
“This is…we have to…oh, God,” she moaned, her voice barely a whisper. She shoved the phone away from her, back into Cristov’s hands.
“I called you right away,” Cristov said, not sure if there was anything else to say. “I mean, pretty much right away.”
“Poor Tricia,” Ricky said, burying her head in her hands. “This is all my fault…”
“How?” Damon asked, glowering in the corner, his arms across his chest. Ricky let her mouth drop open, but she didn’t speak. Instead, she blinked a few times and took a deep breath.
“What about Kim?” she asked, holding her hand out. Cristov didn’t know what she wanted, and letting instinct take control, he filled her open palm with his own hand.
“The phone,” she said, shaking his hand away. He would have been offended if the circumstances were less dire.
“What for?” he asked. “You saw it, I don’t think you should spend any more time looking at something that’ll just upset you.”
“I saw it,” she retorted, meeting his gaze now, that familiar fire in her eyes. “I wasn’t really looking. Give.”
“Kim’s in Dover still,” Kennick finally answered the question. “She stayed behind to see if Tricia would show up at her folk’s house.”
“Did anyone call her?” Ricky said, holding the phone but not yet looking down. Cristov could see how much she wanted not to look. The image had been awful for him, and he barely knew Tricia; for Ricky to see her best friend like that was a hundred times worse. He imagined how he would feel if it was Kennick, Damon, or Mina in that picture, and he couldn’t. Trying to imagine that felt like going crazy.
“No,” Kennick said. “I mean, I will. But I don’t know how to tell her.”
“She’s a big girl,” Ricky said, and Cristov was strangely relieved to see her trademark snarky nature returning. “She can handle it.”
The look she shot Kennick was one of her classic try-me looks, and for the first time Cristov realized Kim had the same look in her own arsenal. Maybe he’d never seen the similarities before because he and Ricky had never been through such a crisis. He’d never gotten to see how strong Ricky could really be, because everything had always been so easy between them. Either way, Kennick was no more immune to Ricky’s glare than he was to Kim’s, and he pulled out his phone to make the call.
“No, I know…because we…we heard something down here…uh, no, it’s not good. Listen, I don’t even know how to start but…yeah, it’s fuckin’ bad, why do you think I…okay, okay, we think…we think she’s been kidnapped.”
Kim’s screeching forced Kennick to wrench the phone away from his ear, and filled the trailer, her voice erupting in a string of expletives that would have put a hard-up junkie to shame. Kennick rubbed his head in his hands as he waited for Kim to calm down; Ricky, not having half his patience, stalked across the room and took the phone from his hand.
“Kim…Kim…Kim, shut up, I know, I know, trust me, I KNOW, just get back here, okay? Get back here now…no, I don’t think we…because of what…yeah, exactly. No, don’t you…NO, I said, NO. Listen, we have some…just trust me on this, okay? When you get back we’ll talk about it, but right now we need to just think about it, okay? You know…yeah, but you know these guys are bad news. I don’t think they’re just mincing words when they say…yeah, yeah okay. Just get back here. And drive safe, dammit, I’m not losing both of you in one day.”
She clicked off and handed the phone back to Kennick.
“You let her go crazy like that and she’s likely to pass out,” she said. “Just a tip, when her voice gets that high and screechy, you gotta calm her down fast.”
Kennick grimaced as he took the phone back.
“Thanks for the advice,” he said. “I’ll try to remember that.”
“She’s on her way,” Ricky said. She was still holding Cristov’s phone with the incriminating picture on it. “I convinced her not to call the cops right away. I don’t trust that these guys don’t have some way of knowing if we do. Can someone look up what to do in a kidnap
ping situation? Google’s got to have an answer.”
The brothers shared a glance. Ricky had gone from damn near comatose to sergeant-in-arms in the span of about twenty minutes. Cristov had to admit he was a little impressed, and a little proud…though, she wasn’t his anymore, so what did he have to be proud of? She took a long shaky breath and pulled the phone up to her face, sitting down across from Kennick at the counter to study it.
A moment later, she looked up, and seeing that none of the men had budged, gave them a look and snapped her fingers.
“Hello? Google? We’re wasting time,” she said. Damon stiffened slightly, anger distorting his features for a split second. It wasn’t lost on his brothers, but this was no time to try and figure out why he was acting so out-of-character.
“I’ll get my computer,” Cristov volunteered and turned to leave the room.
“Wait,” Ricky said, putting one finger up, her face scrunching slightly. “I…I think I have an idea.”
Cristov waited impatiently as the cogs turned in Ricky’s brain, her lower lip disappearing between her teeth as she thought.
“Well? What is it?” Cristov finally asked, frustrated. She shook her head and closed her eyes.
“This might be crazy but…well, I think I might know where she is. I mean, probably not. Probably just a stupid idea. But…but maybe. See, I think these are some old wooden boards behind her, and it just kind of reminds me of…well, I mean, I’ve never been in the place exactly, but it looks a lot like every barn I’ve ever been in and…it’s worth…it might be worth checking out. I mean, it’s better than just sitting here, right?”
“I’d certainly say so,” Kennick said. “Where is it?”
“Right outside of Kingdom. I can take you,” Ricky said, rising, anxious to go and do something with the nervous energy in her breast.
“No way,” Cristov protested. “If you think they might actually be there, I’m not letting you within a mile of it. It’s too dangerous.”
Ricky grimaced as she looked at him.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” she spat. “You got me and Tricia into this in the first place. I’m going no matter what. I can go alone, or you can come with me.”
They stared at each other, anger sparking between them, the frustration almost taking a physical form as their staring contest escalated.
“Stop,” Damon said, grunting and rolling his eyes. “We don’t have time for this bullshit. Let’s just go.”
“Fine,” Ricky said. “The sooner the better. I’ll go warm up the car.”
She let the screen door slam behind her as she let herself out.
“I don’t want her putting herself in danger,” Cristov hissed at Damon. “This is fucking stupid. She could get…”
“You wanna talk about stupid? How about we talk about an innocent girl being kidnapped because we were too proud to…”
“This wasn’t our fault,” Kennick said, interrupting his brothers. The last thing they needed was to be distracted by fighting each other; their true enemy would only win if the brothers couldn’t cooperate long enough to even get in a car together. “But we’re going to do everything we can to make it right.”
Kennick left Damon and Cristov glowering at each other, going into the living room and rummaging through the closet. When he returned, he held out two Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistols, a third lodged into the waist of his jeans.
“Only if we need to,” Kennick warned, the brothers nodding at the unneeded statement.
“Of course,” Damon said under his breath, checking the cartridge before tucking the gun into his pants.
“We don’t let her get too close,” Cristov said, still thinking only of Ricky. “Alright?”
“If you can’t control her, I don’t think either of us can,” Kennick said, putting a hand on Cristov’s shoulder. “But you can try, for sure.”
Cristov growled. So much for his brothers having his back. If he had to, he’d shoot Ricky in the foot himself before he let her put herself in harm’s way. She might not have been his anymore, but the thought of anything happening to her made him feel murderous. The brothers filed out of the trailer and found Ricky standing impatiently next to her car, the engine running.
“What took so long?” she asked, voice high and frantic.
“We were just coming up with the plan,” Cristov said, crossing his arms as he stared her down. “We get there, you stay back, we’ll check it out. If they’re there, we fall back and call the cops. No mess, no fuss. We’re not putting anyone at risk.”
“Then what,” Ricky asked, pointing at the glistening metal tucked against Cristov’s hip, his shirt caught on the other side of it, “is that?”
He looked down, then quickly untucked his shirt so that the gun was hidden. Ricky looked at each of the three brothers as they shared a look and knew each of them was coming prepared.
“Rather have it and not have to use it,” Kennick finally said, meeting her gaze, “then not have it and need it.”
She gulped. This was not what she’d ever wanted from life. She wanted things to be simple…how had it ended up like this? Could she have prevented all this somehow? She was the link between Cristov and Tricia. She was the chain that held all this together. What could she have done different?
“If you really think you know where she is, we shouldn’t waste time,” Damon said, his voice soft but steady, pulling her from her wandering mind, wrapped in layers of unending guilt. She nodded.
“Come on,” she said, and opened her driver’s side door. She caught Cristov’s eye as he approached the backseat, Kennick taking the passenger side. “And if you think I’m not going with you every step of the way, you’re dumber than I already knew.”
His hands fisted. With his luck, Ricky was going to run face-first into a bullet. But he knew her enough to see that he wouldn’t be able to stop her. But hell if he wasn’t going to try.
39
Even driving over the speed limit, it was twenty minutes before they got to the hill right before the Hutchins’ farm. On the way, she’d told the men where her suspicions came from. The break-in that she’d written about for the paper may not have been naughty kids. It may have been the Steel Dragons checking the place out in case they needed to use it.
The fact that the Hutchins left every winter wasn’t just common knowledge; it was advertised. The couple always put an ad out in the paper for the last day to come out and buy fresh eggs and milk; small town living can make you feel stupidly, naively safe. No one read the paper except for locals, and locals could be trusted not to break into your damn house when you were away.
“Pull over before we’re close,” Kennick advised from the passenger seat. Cristov and Damon had been mostly silent in the backseat throughout the drive. “We don’t need to be announcing our arrival if they’re there.”
She nodded and pulled the car over, rolling as far as she could into the trees on the side of the road; a thick swath of woods gave them cover, the Hutchins’ pasture land half a mile away. They had an hour or so of daylight left. Ricky prayed it would be enough; it would be, if things didn’t go horribly wrong. They’d go and see: if there was no one there, it was back to town to further debate the involvement of police. If there was, it was a phone call and then a quick rush back to the car.
A perfect world is built on if’s, she thought to herself.
“It’s about a half mile through these woods,” she said, her voice a whisper even though they were far away.
“Wait here,” Cristov hissed, attempting to push past her before she could protest.
“You’ll get lost,” she quipped and stepped forward, leading the way through the thick underbrush.
Ricky listened to the men crashing through the forest behind her. If they didn’t want to announce their presence, they sure as hell weren’t doing a great job at it with all the noise they made.
“Can you sound a little less like a herd of elephants?” she hissed, turning aro
und to glare at the brothers. She didn’t miss the flicker of anger – no, rage – in Damon’s eye, or the smile that glanced across Cristov’s face. A few minutes later, the woods thinned and they crested the hill.
“Stay here now,” Cristov whispered as he took his place beside her on the top of the hill. “Let us go down and…”
“Fat chance, Cris,” she said, not even acknowledging him with a glance. When she stepped forward, he grabbed her arm and yanked her back. Damon and Kennick were already moving forward. Ricky looked at Cristov, her eyes narrowed and her mouth set in a scowl.
“I’m going, and you know it,” she hissed. Cristov briefly imagined himself picking her up and carrying her back through the woods to the safety of the car, letting Damon and Kennick deal with things while he kept her safe. He brushed the fantasy away.
“Why?” he asked, shaking his head. “You can just stay here, and you’ll be safe.”
“Tricia’s not safe,” Ricky snapped, though sadness softened her words. “Why should I be?”
“Stay behind me,” Cristov grunted, tearing his eyes away from hers. He understood, as much as he hated to admit it. He couldn’t stop her. But he’d keep her safe if it cost him his life.
There were no signs of life at the house or the barn a dozen yards behind it, but she hadn’t expected there to be. If the Steel Dragons were using it as a hideout, they’d hardly have given themselves away by turning the electricity back on.
Ricky and the brothers kept low as they crept down the hill, moving at a frustratingly slow pace to keep themselves from tripping and rolling the rest of the way down. Finally, they neared the house, and Ricky’s breath caught in her throat. She turned and pointed, wordlessly, to the kitchen window.
A figure moved across it, barely a shadow, the room inside dim. As they crept closer, practically crawling, Ricky saw flickering lights. Candles. Her suspicions were confirmed when they reached the window; she clung close to the side of the house, looking sideways into the room.