The Guardian (8 page)

“Yes,” Janine said softly. And the shame of it was, she did.

They put her on the car floor again. The man drove the car hard. Janine could feel it move in a jerky way. The woman’s voice was very bright now. “Easy, baby. We don’t want any cops, do we?”

“Shut the fuck up.” His voice was very clear. “Don’t call me ‘baby’ or anything else. The little chick’s got big ears.”

“Sure. You’re right.” The woman patted Janine’s head. “Once you get the money, where you want to drop her?”

The man didn’t answer.

After a few minutes passed, the woman said, “I just wanted to know.”

“I told you to shut up.”

“Baby, we don’t have to do this.” The woman’s voice sounded tired.

“I’ll decide what we have to do, and then we’ll do it. And that’s my last word.”

After a long time—Janine wasn’t sure if it was ten minutes or a half hour—the car stopped. The man said, “This one should do it. I broke the bulb this afternoon, but the phone works fine.”

“You’ve got it all thought out so smooth.” The woman led Janine out of the car.

Without being able to see, Janine found even walking was hard. She wanted to have her hands out in front all of the time, sure she was going to walk her face right into something. But the woman said for her to keep her hands by her sides. Janine could hear cars passing.

“Don’t get any ideas, honey,” the woman said. “This is a busy road. People are driving by too fast to pay you any mind. You’re just a kid wearing her hood up, walking to the phone with your dad and mom. You got that?”

“You’re gonna tell your old man you’re fine and we haven’t hurt you,” the man said. She heard the sound of a phone being dialed, the little beep-beep-beep of the numbers being punched in, and suddenly the realization that she would be talking to her parents was all she could bear. Her lower lip start to quiver. She’d always hated that, and she forced herself to breathe deep. She found once again she could stop the tears if she really had to.

“Well, hello,” the man said, his voice suddenly friendly in a mean way. “I got something for you here. Have you got something for me?”

The phone was shoved against her ear.

And her father was there, saying into her ear, “Janine? Is that you, baby? Are you there?”

“Daddy!” she cried. And then her mother was there, too, on the other line. “Janey, Daddy’s going to get you. Hold on, baby.”

Her dad said, “Janine, tell me fast. Do you think he’s going to hurt you? I don’t mean talk badly to you—I mean do you think he’s going to hurt you?”

“Yes,” she said, softly.

“Speak up, sweetheart. It’s important,” her dad said.

So she yelled it. “He is! I know he is!”

And then the phone was snatched away, and she lashed out with her fist and hit the man. She was screaming, “No, no, no!” and she hit him again, and then he knocked her down. The woman was dragging her away, saying, “Don’t! Are you crazy? Don’t do that!”

The woman shoved her in the car and pushed her onto the floor. Janine knew she was in real trouble now, but somehow she was just as angry as she was scared, and she wasn’t going to let them hear her cry.

Chapter 11

She’s a fresh little brat,” the man said. “So we put her in the car. Now tell me what I want to hear.”

Anger cleared Greg’s mind suddenly, swept away the nightmarish cloud of doubt and debilitating fear.

In the past day, he’d forgotten everything he’d ever learned about negotiating, about balancing power. The money had become just a hurdle, the appeasement to the violent little god who’d stormed into his life. He’d almost forgotten how much a million and a half dollars would mean to a man whose last robbery had been a convenience store.

But with what Janine had just said, and with Beth coming into the room, her face stricken, Greg put that into the forefront of his mind. He threw the suitcase onto the kitchen table and opened it.

“I’m looking at a million five,” Greg said. “It’s in a big tan Samsonite.”

“Listen tight and I’ll tell you where to leave it. You do that, and after I’ve picked it up, I’ll leave your girl right beside a telephone with a quarter and your number.”

“No, sir,” Greg said without hesitation.

“What?”

“I’ve done my part. I moved heaven and earth selling a piece of property in one day to get the cash you want. I don’t care about the money. All that’s important to me is Janine. So I can’t simply leave this money in the bushes someplace and just hope you’ll do the right thing and let her go. But I will hand the money over to you directly, when you hand her to me.”

“Just who the hell do you think’s calling the shots here?”

“Both of us.” Greg kept his tone respectful, even though his insides were churning. His hand dropped to the tabletop, and he picked up Beth’s lighter and flicked the flame on and off absently. “I want my daughter back. You want the cash. So the way I see it, my only way of making sure I get her back alive is to hand it off to you at once.”

“You’ll drop it where I tell you, or I’ll put her on the phone and shoot her right now. You saw the storekeeper’s head. You know I’ll do it.”

Ross and Allie were looking at Greg, their faces worried. “Make him understand,” Beth said, her voice low.

Greg locked his eyes on hers. “You can do that.”

“You cheap bastard,” the man said. “Your own daughter.”

“But you’ll never have the money.”

“I’ll
have
it, one way or the other.” The man’s pretense of control was gone. “If you won’t come through for your daughter, then maybe you’ll do it for your wife. It may not be this week, this month, but I’ll pick her up some time, and I’ll make it last with her before I drop a dime.”

The man’s voice cracked with his rage, and Greg leaned briefly against the table, his knees weak.

“No, sir. You’ll never have a chance at my wife or me. If I hear you kill my daughter, I’ll douse this cash with gasoline and light it.” He touched the flame to a packet of cash and watched it curl the top bill. “The money means nothing to us. I’ll shoot my wife in the head, and then I’ll shoot myself.”

“Yes,” Beth said. “Make him see.”

Greg could see Allie and Ross were alarmed, but he kept his voice steady and hard. “Because none of it counts without Janine. If you want this money, I’ll trade you for her directly. And that’s my offer.”

Greg could hear the man breathing. Greg forced himself to say nothing more, to watch his wife’s eyes.

“Merry fucking Christmas,” the man said, finally. “Let’s do it.”

Chapter 12

Sit her up here,” the man said. “She can help me play a game.”

They had driven for another long time. Janine was sick to her stomach, her face shoved into that dirty carpet that smelled of grease and cigarettes.

But the idea of being up there with him made her stomach flutter even worse. She shoved deeper against the carpet, burrowing her shoulder under the front seat.

“What’re you thinking about?” the woman said. “What kind of game?”

Janine’s rage had seeped away by the time he’d returned to the car. She’d been ready for him to start hitting her. But when he hadn’t, when he hadn’t said
anything,
she’d found herself becoming even more frightened.

All Janine wanted was to be home. Wanted nothing of what might happen in between.

Just home.

“I didn’t ask for a conversation,” the man said. “I told you, the little chick’s got big ears. Get her up here in the front with me and see if she’s got big eyes.”

“Hon—”

The woman’s breath drew in sharply. Her legs shifted away from Janine. “Don’t! Put it down, please. You’re scaring me.”

“That’s the idea,” he said softly. “I don’t want any more advice tonight,
hon.
Just take off that blindfold, and get her up here. I want her to pick out her daddy’s car for me, see if she can help.”

“That’s it?”

“And what if it’s not? Now, move.”

The woman got Janine by the elbow and pulled. Once they were outside, the woman peeled off the tape. It hurt the side of Janine’s face, but she didn’t make a sound.

Janine looked at the sky. It was a bright starlit night. The moon was full, and even that hurt her eyes. She looked at the woman and felt startled, seeing the ski mask where her face should be. She’d gotten an image in her head of the woman, for no reason in particular, of a woman with black hair and very white skin. This woman was wearing dark clothes, but Janine could see she was a little smaller than she had imagined. She looked at the woman’s eyes now, and at the woods behind them.

She knew she should run, do something to get away. But the thought of being alone among the dark trees with him chasing after her was more than she could bear.

She looked over at him. He was wearing his mask, too, and that made her feel better. She didn’t want to see his face. He was big. Bigger than her dad, even. He leaned over, opened the door, and said, “Get in.”

“Go ahead,” the woman whispered.

The seat was wide and slippery. Janine sat as close to the door as she could. She could see a gun sticking out of his belt. He was wearing white gloves, the kind her father bought at the hardware store.

The woman closed the front door and got into the back seat.

“Fasten that seat belt,” the man said.

She did. She could barely see over the dashboard, but if she strained she could see the hood of the car was wide and long. They were backed into a little rest area. The lights were off, and the road curved to the right in front of them.

He grasped her by the back of her head and forced her to look left and then right. “From there to there. We’ll see the cars coming up; they’ll swing through the curve in front of us and then pass that streetlight and follow the curve around. You know what your daddy’s car looks like?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I do, too, but I figure four eyes are better than two. So you’re going to help me point it out. Now, I told him to meet us a few miles down the road. But I want to make sure he’s alone. And when the car passes that streetlight, we’re gonna be able to look right in for a second and see who’s driving, and if there’s anybody else in the car. Now, if it’s your daddy alone, that’s fine. Then I’m going to get his attention, and we’ll pull over and make the swap. You’re gonna tell him that everything’s OK as long as he does what I say, you got that?”

The woman said in her ear, “You do what he says, you hear?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Now, if you see his car, but if somebody else is driving it—like a cop—you say it. Or if you see your dad with somebody else in the car, front seat or back, you say that, too. Because then I’ll just let them go, call your dad tomorrow, and tell him to try again, no screwing around. But if I get there, and there’s somebody else waiting … baby, I’ll have to shoot your dad. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” she whispered.

“Sir,” he repeated. “Real smooth, just like your dad.”

There weren’t many cars. She found that he was right—the way the streetlight was, she could see drivers as they went by. She hunched forward, sure that she would miss her dad’s car.

She thought about what the man had said. Part of her wanted to make him happy, wanted to show him she was doing a good job looking. She felt bad about that, too, felt it was wrong to be helping him see her dad when her dad didn’t know they were watching.

But she wanted so much to see her father. Wanted so much for it to be over.

Every set of headlights started her heart thumping.

After six cars, she felt her lip begin to quiver, and she bit down.

After the tenth, her bite became painful.

When the twelfth first came into view, she turned to the man.

“BMW,” the man said, the mask turning in her direction.

She couldn’t help herself. There was no stopping her cry of relief as the car swept around the corner and she saw her father’s face in the light. She said, “Daddy.”

The man started the car. The engine noise was loud, scary. The tires spun in the gravel, and she was pressed back into the seat. The tires made a squealing noise as they went around the corner and the man didn’t say a word as they came sweeping up to her father’s car.

It looked so small in the big car’s headlights, and suddenly they were very close, and she could see her dad’s head as he looked up into the mirror. Janine was looking at the man’s leg, waiting for him to put on the brake. But when he jammed his foot down hard, the car seemed to gather itself and leap.

Janine screamed as the woman grabbed at the man and said, “Lee, watch it!”

He rammed the BMW. Janine’s seat belt held onto her as she snapped forward. She saw her dad’s car swerve off to the side, and she cried out to him. He came back onto the road, the back lights broken.