“Please,” Walter started to say.
“Please what?”
“I have money,” Walter said. “Whatever they’re paying you, I can pay more.”
Jones chuckled. “Methinks our friend doesn’t actually know what we’re being paid for this job.”
“I don’t think so, either,” Jack said, playing along.
“You’re gonna need a bigger bank account than what you’ve got now, sport,” Jerry said from the open door. “Yes, in case you’re wondering, we know exactly how much you have, just like we know how much this spread of yours costs.”
Their responses were clearly not what Walter was expecting, and Jack almost felt sorry for the guy as his face seemed to crater.
“Please,” Walter said. “My daughter, Allie… Just let them go. I’ll do what you want.”
“I know you will,” Jack said. He tapped the laptop. “Go on. You know you’re dying to find out what’s in there.”
“I’m not,” Walter said, shaking his head.
“Liar. Truth is, you don’t have a choice. So you might as well get it over with.”
Walter sighed and picked up the device with one hand, pinching it between two fingers, and stuck it into the side of the laptop. A light on the metal case blinked once, twice, then stayed green as the computer accepted the connection.
“Oh,” Walter said, when he saw the contents of the flash drive.
“They told me you’d know what all those numbers mean,” Jack said.
Walter nodded gravely.
“Okay, then,” Jack said, and clapped his hands together. It was a little harder (and louder) than he had meant to, and Walter jumped in his chair a bit. “Let’s get to work.”
“I…can’t,” Walter said, though Jack noticed he hadn’t looked away from the screen for even one second.
“Do I have to tell you how this is going to work?” Jack sighed, feigning a loss of patience. “We need you, Walter. If you don’t do everything we ask, we’re not going to hurt you. We can’t. But…”
He drew his Ka-Bar knife and laid it on the desk next to the desktop. Walter’s eyes finally left the laptop’s screen and traveled to the weapon. If Walter had been someone else—hell, even if he had been the daughter—Jack would never have laid the knife so close to him. But this was Walter, and Jack had no fear at all he was going to reach for it.
“…your daughter,” Jack continued, “and your girlfriend. Well, they’re a different story. Do I have to keep going?”
Walter shook his head.
“Think of it this way,” Jack said. “The faster we get this done, the faster the six of us can go back to our normal lives. You, me, Jerry, and Jones back there, and Allie and Lucy in the other room. You want that, right?”
Walter nodded. “And you’ll keep your word? You’ll let us go when this is all over?”
“Of course,” Jack said, and had to fight every instinct to shoot Jones, standing over Walter’s shoulder, a menacing response, because the big man had just snickered. Fortunately, he had done it just quietly enough that Walter hadn’t noticed.
Dear God, one semi-professional. I would have been happy with just one semi-professional, but you couldn’t even give me that, could you?
Jack focused on Walter, and pushed the laptop a little closer toward the edge of the desk. “Now, let’s get to work. I hear this is going to take some time…”
“We’re going
to die, aren’t we?” Lucy said. It wasn’t really a question, more like a statement.
Allie pursed her lips into a smile and hoped it was at least semi-convincing. “No. We’re not going to die.”
“They have guns…”
“A lot of people have guns.”
She thought about Beckard, about the last time she had found herself in the woods and why she’d promised herself she would never do it again, and how much she so, so regretted going back on that promise right about now.
“We’re not going to die,” she said. “I promise.”
“How can you be so sure?”
There were still dry tears along Lucy’s cheeks, and Allie wet a part of her long-sleeve shirt and wiped at them.
“Because I’m not going to let them hurt you,” she said. “Or your father. I won’t allow it.”
Lucy’s eyes remained fixed on hers—probing, as if she was trying to convince herself to believe Allie. “But how can you be
sure?
”
“I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to believe me.”
Lucy blinked expectantly at her. She looked so much younger than her fifteen years at the moment.
“I’ve been through this before,” Allie said.
“This?”
“Not this, exactly, but something like it. I survived that, and I’ll survive this, too. And so will you. That’s why I want you to believe me when I say we’re going to get out of here.”
The girl nodded and tried to return her smile, failing badly. She didn’t say anything for the next few seconds. Then, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For being a bitch to you before.”
Allie smiled. “You weren’t.”
“Yes, I was.”
“Okay, maybe a little…”
Lucy smiled back, and this time it wasn’t nearly as forced. Then she looked across the room at the door. “What are they doing with Dad?”
“I don’t know,” Allie said, and thought,
What the hell have you gotten us into, Walter?
“I don’t hear anything,” Lucy said.
“Neither do I.”
“I guess that’s a good sign?”
Allie wasn’t sure what the girl meant at first, but then she understood. They hadn’t heard a sound from Walter or the other three men who had taken him, which meant Walter wasn’t being harmed. Or if he were, Jack and his “friends” were being very quiet about it, which was something they had no reason to be. Not out here, not with full command of the situation.
“That is a good sign,” Allie nodded.
“I thought Dad works in an office,” Lucy said.
“He does.”
“So what do three guys with guns want with him? I mean, he’s just Dad, not James Bond, right?” The girl looked back at her when she said that last part. “Right, Allie?”
Allie nodded. “I’m pretty sure, yeah.”
“But you’re not completely sure…”
“Before tonight, I would have told you yes, I’m absolutely one-hundred percent sure, but now…” She shook her head. “I’ve dated Walter for five months, and if you were to tell me something like this could even remotely happen, and it would be because of him, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
“But it’s happening…”
Allie sighed. “Yes, it’s happening.”
They both looked back at the door, as if expecting one of the J’s to throw it open at any moment and storm inside. Except no one did, even though Allie couldn’t shake the feeling someone was out there in the hallway right now, eavesdropping on them.
Allie took in the room again, hoping to see something she hadn’t seen before, something—
anything
—that would help them escape. She spent the next few minutes just looking from corner to corner, but didn’t see anything she hadn’t spotted the first time “Jones” brought them inside. There used to be a bed to their right, but it had been removed recently, leaving behind four bedpost indentations on the carpeted floor. The same for the dresser that used to sit to her left. The closet was next to the door, the open doors revealing nothing inside; they’d even taken the clothing hangers.
She glanced over at the wall, where she’d heard voices earlier. They hadn’t taken Walter very far, just to the guest bedroom next door. She tried to listen in now, but like the last few times couldn’t make out anything remotely coherent.
But Lucy was right—they hadn’t heard anything that sounded like pain from Walter. So what were they doing with him at this very moment? The answer, of course, was connected to what they wanted from him in the first place. Which was what…?
“Allie,” Lucy said.
Allie looked over. “Hmm?”
Lucy was watching her closely when she asked, “Have you ever seen someone get shot before?”
Seen it? I’ve done it. I shot a man from almost point-blank range and watched his brains splatter on the ground behind him.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when this is over.”
“What if—”
“No,” Allie said, cutting her off. “You have to believe we’ll get out of this. That’s the only way we’ll make it. You have to believe, and do whatever I tell you without hesitation. Can you do that?”
Lucy didn’t answer right away, but Allie could see that the teenager had regained a lot of her composure, despite how messy she currently looked.
Finally, Lucy nodded with a resoluteness that made Allie proud.
“Good,” Allie said. “Now, before they come back, we—”
She didn’t get the chance to finish, because they both heard the
clacking
of the padlock moving on the other side of the door.
“Come here,” Allie said, holding out her arms.
Lucy scooted over until she was sitting against Allie, who slid both arms around the smaller girl.
“Don’t look at him,” she whispered. “Make yourself as small as possible. And whatever you do, don’t look at whoever comes through that door.”
The door opened, and Jones’s large body filled the frame. He was more intimidating without the balaclava, but that could have just been because the man was not very attractive. He had something that looked like an army buzz cut and a scar almost in the shape of a half-moon over his right eye. He had a cleft chin, which somehow added to his bruising appearance. The gun belt, with its holstered sidearm, looked like toys on him. He’d had a shotgun slung over his back earlier, but she didn’t see it anywhere now.
Jones looked at her first, before moving to Lucy. The girl’s face, pressed against Allie’s chest, trembled as if she could sense Jones’s eyes on her.
“You,” Jones said, pointing at them. She couldn’t tell if he meant her or Lucy. “Get up.”
“Which one?” Allie asked.
“The girl.”
Lucy’s body went rigid, and Allie tightened her grip further around the girl.
“No,” Allie said.
Jones cocked his head. She couldn’t tell if that was shock on his face or confusion. Maybe a little of both. “What?”
“You can’t take her,” Allie said.
“Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“I beg to differ.” Jones drew his sidearm and held the gun—a Glock—at his side and smiled at her. But that expression turned sour when he saw her lack of reaction.
Allie didn’t know why she was so unafraid, why her voice remained steady. She
should
be afraid. Not just for her, but for Lucy and whatever Jones wanted her for. It had to have something to do with Walter, but it could be anything, each possibility worse than the last.
She found that she didn’t care what they wanted Lucy for, because she wasn’t going to let them have her. The irony of it didn’t escape her for one second. For months, she’d dreaded going to Walter’s house because it meant having to brave another round of passive-aggressive interaction with Lucy. She didn’t think she would ever get used to the teenager.
And now, here she was, with her arms in a viselike grip around the girl, refusing to yield to Jones’s demand. If Lucy was the least bit uncomfortable by the tight embrace, she didn’t show it. If anything, the fifteen-year-old seemed to burrow even further into Allie’s chest.
“You’re not taking her,” Allie said.
“Are you fucking crazy? Is that it?” Jones asked.
“Maybe I am, but you’re still not taking this girl out of this room.”
“I’m not
asking.
”
“I don’t care. The answer’s still no.”
Jones narrowed his eyes, his forefinger
tap-tap-tapping
against the side of the Glock. It was one of the bigger models, probably a G41, which meant a max of thirteen .45 caliber rounds in the magazine. More useless information that she couldn’t do anything with at the moment, though she was surprised at how easily everything came back, as if the last two years of her life hadn’t been spent going from job to job before she finally landed a good one at Gorman and Smith.
“Man, you’re a piece of work,” Jones said, and she thought there was a glint of something that looked almost like appreciation in his dark eyes. Then again, it could just have been the ceiling lights reflecting off him at a poor angle.
He might have had something else to say, but before he could get it out, Jones paused, then tilted his head slightly to one side. She remembered the flesh-colored wire dangling from one of his ears, and knew someone was talking to him through the radio.
“Your girlfriend’s causing trouble,” Jones said into his throat mic, eyeing her as he said it. He listened for a second or two, before answering, “She won’t let me take the kid.” Beat. “I’m not saying she can stop me, I’m saying I might have to mess up that pretty face a little bit.” Jones chuckled that time.
Allie watched him carefully, scrutinizing every line on his bloated face, paying attention to the way his eyes shifted back and forth between her and Lucy. She wasn’t concerned about the gun in his hand. If Jones was going to shoot her, he would have done it as soon as he stepped into the room. No. There was a reason they were both being kept alive, and it had everything to do with Walter.
Jones finally holstered the Glock and flashed her a smile that made her skin crawl. “Looks like we’re going to have to do this the hard way after all. Lucky me.”
“You’re not going to touch her,” Allie said.
“Oh, I’m going to touch her, all right. Then I’m going to do more than that to you, missy.”
Missy?
she thought. Maybe that was his way of trying to intimidate her, but Allie had heard worse things, seen worse things, and all it did was make her want to snicker. But she didn’t, because she was too busy preparing for what was coming next.
“Jack thinks you’re someone,” Jones said. “Some kind of super secretary, maybe. Oh, sorry. They don’t call you guys secretaries anymore, do they? Ahem. I meant super executive assistant.”
“You can call me whatever you want, but you’re still not taking her,” Allie said.
“We’ll see about that,” he said, and began walking toward her.
She relaxed her arms around Lucy and felt the girl react, turning her head slightly to look questioningly up at her.