The Guardian (3 page)

Janine kept seeing her mom being kicked. Her dad on the floor, his face bleeding.

She kept coming back to him patting her on the head before, telling her, “We’ll be all right, sweetheart.”

That man hitting them. Talking to Daddy in such an ugly way.

The storekeeper.

That was a scene of noise, and red, and she wouldn’t let herself think about that directly. She hadn’t been friends with the storekeeper, or anything. But she and her mom had gone there before.

One time, he had been whistling as she and her mother walked up to the counter. He had said, “Hi, beautiful.” Talking to her. Janine had remembered turning her head away, embarrassed. Her mother had smiled for her. That had been early in the year. March, maybe.

She wondered immediately if he had a little girl, too. He was old. But the way he had smiled at Janine, she bet he did. And what if that little girl had seen him that way …?

Janine let out a low keening sound.

“Shut her up! Here, I’ve got a roll of that duct tape.”

“Get me some of those paper towels,” the woman had said.

“Why?”

“Put the paper over her eyes, then do the tape.”

“Fuck that. Just do the tape.”

“It’ll be easier on her later, taking it off.”

“Who cares?”

“Look, I’ll do it. Just get yourself a beer.”

“Little mama, you can’t keep her. Hell, I may have to put her in a bag and drown her if her old man doesn’t come through.”

The woman didn’t say anything.

Janine started to cry again. She couldn’t keep the sounds from coming out. She had to pee, too, but couldn’t imagine asking if she could go to the bathroom.

The woman had reached under the coat with paper towel and pressed it against Janine’s eyes. Janine felt the coat pulled away and the ripping sound of tape being pulled off the roll. The woman put it on quickly and tightly; the tape pulled at Janine’s hair. “Shssh,” the woman said into her ear. “Don’t make a fuss. It’ll go bad for you if you do.”

Janine nodded.

“You gotta pee?” the woman asked. “I’ll walk you into the bathroom.”

Janine heard the man talking. It didn’t sound like it was to her, and then she heard her dad’s name, and she realized the man was on the phone.

“Yeah, a Greg Stearns. Ridge Road, Lincoln.”

The phone clattered.

“OK, got his number,” the man said. There was the sound of paper rustling, and she heard him chuckle. “What’d I tell you? Look at the prices of these houses in Lincoln. A million four. A million eight-fifty. Three million, for Christ’s sake… .”

The floorboards creaked in front of Janine, and she pressed back against the woman’s body.

Janine felt a hard finger under her chin. “I’m going to think up a nice number, then me and your dad are going to talk. Now tell me something—let’s see; how does it go—tell me something that just you and your mom and dad know.”

Janine couldn’t speak. She felt herself trembling so hard.

“Come on, come on.”

She couldn’t. Her mind had gone blank. Couldn’t think of what he wanted. She said, “Mama.”

He shoved her. “Goddamn it! Tell me something only you and your mama know. Just
saying,
‘Mama,’ doesn’t do shit for me!

“Oh, Christ, she peed on the floor!” the man yelled, and Janine realized with terror that she had. Her leg was warm.

Suddenly she felt herself lifted up and she cried out before realizing it was the woman. The woman called out in a loud voice, “Drink your beer! I’ll clean up in a second. And I’ll get what you want out of her.” The woman’s voice was hard and not very friendly, but Janine hugged her with all of her strength.

She heard the door close behind them, and then the woman said in a mean voice, “Listen, I’m not always going to be able to get in between him and you like I just did. So when he asks you something, you answer him fast. You got that? Now talk to me. You got any brothers or sisters?”

Janine shook her head.

“OK, let’s see.… What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

Janine tried to think, but her mind was jammed with only what had happened in the past few hours, and she’d have been hard pressed to say her name in that moment.

The woman’s voice was impatient. “Well, what do you usually like? Pancakes? Cereal?”

“Bagel,” Janine said softly.

“What?”

“Bagel. I like a bagel with peanut butter and banana mashed up on top of it.”

The woman laughed. “Kids,” she said. Janine didn’t know why what she said was funny and didn’t like it that the woman could laugh when all she felt like doing was crying and being held by her mama, and having her dad sitting beside them, his hand on her back… .

“OK, bagel with peanut butter and banana. Let’s see if that and your old man can get you out of here.”

The woman brushed Janine’s hair with her hand for a moment. That made Janine feel a little better, and she worked up her courage to say, “Take me home, please?”

“Shut up.” The woman had taken her hand away abruptly. Janine heard the sound of the tape being pulled off the roll again, and the woman taped Janine’s mouth and tied her hands and feet to the bed.

And left her.

Chapter 5

The phone finally rang at 3:43 in the morning.

Greg and Beth reached for it at the same time, and then Beth pulled her hand away. “You do it.”

Ross sat beside Greg and nodded over at Allie, who quickly rolled off the couch and pushed back her tousled hair. Beth shoved the pad and pen over to Greg as he picked up the phone.

Ross put his ear beside his brother’s and held his hand lightly over his mouth so whoever was on the phone would only hear one man breathing.

“Yes?” Greg said.

“Guess who, Mr. Lincoln,” a rough voice said. Ross closed his eyes, listening hard.

“Let me speak to my daughter, please.”

“Shut up. She’s not with me. I’m in a phone booth, and I’m gonna say this once. A million-five. Tonight. I’ll get back to you on when and where.”

Greg said, carefully, “Please listen to me. You’ve
got
to understand that I don’t have that kind of cash sitting in the bank.”

The man hung up.

“Jesus.” Greg looked up wonderingly at Beth. “Oh my God, that’s it?”

“He’s probably just thinking about a trace,” Ross said. “He doesn’t want to talk that long, that’s all.”

“You’re right,” Allie said. “That’s probably all it is.”

Beth’s lower lip trembled, and she stared at Greg. “Why’d you tell him it would be hard?” A flush swept up her face and she suddenly shouted, “Why did you say that? Why didn’t you’d tell him we’d do anything to get her back?”

“Honey, he didn’t give me—”

The phone rang again, and Greg snatched it up.

“I don’t
got
to understand anything,” the man said. “Your girl is crying for her mama. Ma-ma. It’s up to you to get her back. Now, I’m a big reader of the real estate pages, the
Globe,
the
Herald,
the
Phoenix.
Guy like me learns things, like who’s getting ready to move, who’s gonna let me walk through on an open house and shop for my next hit, you know what I mean? So when I see Lincoln, I know your house costs somewhere over a million bucks, maybe three times that. So I’ve got to ask myself, Is this guy’s kid worth a house?”

“The bank owns the place!” Greg cried. “We don’t have that—”

“She’s safe until tonight,” the man interrupted. “And then she’s dead. You’ve already seen the last of your girl if you’re planning on fucking with me.”

“Please take care of her.” Greg fought to keep his voice calm. “We’ll do anything to get her back. We don’t care about the money—it’s just a matter of raising it. Give me something to know she’s alive.”

“Yeah, yeah. She likes bagels and bananas, she says. With peanut butter.”

Greg’s laugh was just a short bark. “That’s true. She does. But how …” He licked his lips.

“But how do you know I didn’t ask her that right before killing her? You don’t. But here’s what’s going to happen—I’m going to call you tonight around eight. That’s sixteen hours from now. You have the money, and I’ll have her on the phone. And if you’re sitting there with the cash, you can ask her what she wants for dinner and then I’ll tell you where to go pick her up. You’ll have her back in time to make the little doll whatever she wants.”

The man’s voice continued. “But if you’ve got some lame story for me about how you couldn’t raise the cash, how you need me to give you a few days, then I’m gonna figure you’re jerking me around. I’m gonna figure you’re sitting there with the FBI. And then I’m gonna treat you to the sound of me blowing her away, right while you’re talking to her. You
got
that?”

He hung up.

Beth’s hands shook as she fished through the top kitchen drawer for a pack of cigarettes. Her voice was bright and high, on the verge of hysteria. “Here’s a deep dark secret, Greg. I still smoke.” She fumbled with the little propane lighter, lit the cigarette, and said, “How in God’s name are we going to raise that much in a day?”

“Half a million dollars.” Greg’s expression was blank, stunned. “Doesn’t he understand no one has that kind of money lying around?”

“No,” said Ross. “Guys who’re willing to go into stores with guns have a very simple view of the world.”

“He’s right,” Allie said. “Don’t assume this guy is operating from anything you know. He’s from another planet.” She switched tacks. “We need to get somebody to buy the whole property, the whole cove. Someone with a business.”

Greg nodded. “There was that developer. Geiler. He was pretty interested. Even sent somebody to talk to you inside, didn’t he?”

Ross nodded, remembering the meeting through the glass with Geiler’s attorney, a man by the name of Bradford. The attorney had pushed hard.

“You didn’t burn any bridges with them, did you?” Greg asked worriedly.

“Nothing irreparable. I just told the guy we definitely weren’t selling the whole thing. Nothing worse than that.”

“That’s what I said.” Greg turned his attention back to Allie. Just talking over the specifics of selling the Sands had focused him. “We’re going to need a letter of agreement, because we’d never be able to actually close in one day. We’ll start with Geiler, and let’s work out whoever else is a possibility. Let’s go for CableTech Systems, that wire-extruding company that’s right up against our property line. And any other company in the industrial park. Let’s do a list. Maybe one of them needs to expand. Let’s get going.”

The three of them began making calls at 7:30
A.M.

Ross wandered about the house as they did. Five years of being inside prison had left him feeling clumsy and out of place with even normal business practices. Greg was in control now, and approaching the sale of the land as logically as could be expected under the circumstances.

Ross hesitated outside Greg and Beth’s bedroom, then went in.

Sure enough, he found his father’s gun along with the cleaning kit and bullets on the top shelf of Greg’s bedroom closet. Right where their father had kept it.

Ross felt a hand squeeze his heart, just taking the thing out of the box. His parole officer, Bernise Liotta, and the judge would be myopic about it. Ex-con with a gun, that’s a violation, don’t tell me about your niece, don’t tell me how hard it is to sell real estate in one day, next case file, please.

Ross took the revolver up to the attic and pulled up a chair to a rickety table and started cleaning the thing. It was an old Smith & Wesson .38 with a black handle grip. The gun hadn’t been oiled in a long time. Ross wondered if it would blow up in his hand.

To his knowledge, the gun had never been fired. His father had just thought a man needed a gun in his house. Or more likely, he had thought that was how a man
should
think.

It had been the hardest lesson of Ross’s life to accept that his father was a weak man. But he’d done it one afternoon not long after his thirteenth birthday, when his father had cracked him across the face for flushing a vial of cocaine down the toilet.

Greg hadn’t wanted to hear it. “Shut up,” he’d said. “Goddamn it, Ross, he’s got a problem. He misses Mom. You’re too young to understand.”

“Brody is an addict,” Ross had said.

Greg had shoved him into the bedroom. “Don’t call him by his name. He’s Dad to you and me.”

Ross hadn’t pushed his brother back, even though he was already faster and almost as strong. After all, Greg was older. Greg remembered better days. He would talk about how much fun it had all been when their mother was alive, going to concerts, traveling the country in an old Volkswagen van. That they had been lucky to have parents who weren’t boring.

She’d died in a car crash when Ross had been eight, and Greg, ten. Their father had been driving.

Ross remembered the days before only vaguely, and that had troubled him a lot at first. He remembered his mother as warm, and her hair blond. That she smelled good, and held him and Greg easily, and she kept things OK even when their dad was tense and angry. That she’d call impromptu picnics, just her and the two boys, up overlooking the cove. She’d make light of their father’s “grumpiness.”