Legacy Rejected

by Robin Patchen

  The water kept rising, rising. Ginny and Kathryn stayed close and didn’t talk about the fact that their bottoms were sitting in the water now. They didn’t talk about how they were gonna drown and be just like those floating bodies.

  Maybe that’s where Mama and Daddy were already. Maybe they were floating facedown and weren’t ever coming back.

  And then, a boat motored toward them.

  Mama’s voice carried over the storm, “Kathryn? Oh, my God, Tommy, we’re too late. Kathryn!”

  Kathryn and Ginny pounded on the glass. “We’re here. We’re right here.”

  The glass broke, and Daddy climbed in. He took both Kathryn and Ginny in his arms and hugged them tight.

  Everything they’d ever owned was gone. Somehow, Mama and Daddy had collected other stuff during that storm, expensive stuff like jewelry and cell phones still in their boxes. Days later, they’d arrived in Houston with a wad of cash bigger than Ginny’d ever seen before.

  Her family never returned to Louisiana. When Ginny asked about her Granny and PawPaw one time too many, Mama had blurted, “They’re dead. Katrina killed them all.”

  Ginny wondered now if her mother had lied to her that day about the rest of their family the way she’d lied about everything else. Maybe all these years, Ginny had had grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins still living in Louisiana, family who loved her. Maybe Mama and Daddy had forfeited their family and their home and their sense of right and wrong when they’d spent the hurricane looting their neighbors’ homes and businesses instead of protecting their children. Because after that, everything changed. Her old life had floated away in that flood.

  As today’s storm raged outside, Ginny knew her life was about to float away again.

  The storm had passed, and somehow, Ginny had slept. It was dark outside, and rain pattered against the roof.

  Beside her, a shadow moved.

  She gasped, reached for her nightstand, and yanked open the drawer. Empty.

  The shadow closed in.

  A scream caught in her throat.

  A hand pressed over her mouth, pushed her against the pillow. “Let’s have none of that.” Sokolov’s voice, cool and collected as if this were a conversation between friends over dinner. “There’s no need to panic. It’s just you and me.”

  As if that should calm her.

  “Just breathe,” he said.

  She did what he commanded, pulled in a deep breath through her nose, pushed it out. How had they gotten past her alarm system? All the safeguards she’d put into place had been useless.

  “You’re not going to scream?”

  She shook her head.

  “Not that anybody would rescue you.” He removed his hand from her mouth and stood beside her bed. He lifted his other hand, and in the dim light, she saw the shape of a gun. “I assume you were looking for this.”

  She couldn’t think of a word to say.

  His shadow moved. “I thought we had a deal.”

  “How did you get in? The alarm—?”

  “Easy to disable. Maybe not for your common everyday burglar, but there’s nothing common about us.”

  “What do you want? I gave you everything my mother gave me. I never touched—”

  “My dear, you can’t believe I went to all this trouble for the cash in that bag.”

  She hadn’t understood, but she’d hoped. “That’s all they gave me.”

  There was a bang as a door slammed downstairs. She turned toward the hall.

  “Pay no attention to the noises. My friend is bringing in boxes from the garage.”

  Someone else was there? Probably Pavlo. She shuddered at the thought of that man in her house.

  “Your mother gave you that money the day of your father’s memorial. She intended for you to use it to start your new life.” The shadow shifted, and a moment later, something plopped on the bed.

  She sat to see the duffel bag by her feet. The shock of his words—and the presence of the bag—pulled words from her mouth. “How could you possibly know why she gave it to me?”

  “She told me when we spoke to her the day after the funeral. She said she’d given you money and told you to hide. She was trying to protect you. But there was no need for you to run away. I’m not here to steal your future, not if you give me what I came for. Before he died, your father gave you something. A journal, perhaps, or a letter? It has instructions on it. You see, your father was holding onto our money. He was in the process of getting it laundered when he was killed.”

  “Daddy didn’t give me anything,” she said. “He never—”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t speak just now.” Sokolov blew out the sigh of a disappointed parent. “I’m going to tell you everything my associates and I have gone through to get to this point. I want you to listen carefully, and I don’t want you to speak. You understand?”

  Keep quiet. She could do that. She’d been practicing keeping her mouth shut all her life.

  “After your father’s accident, our associates had a chat with your mother. You see, your father and our organization hadn’t worked together for very long, so we weren’t well acquainted with how he worked. When we first began our acquaintance, though, your father assured us that he always had a backup plan, somebody who would have the information we would need should anything happen to him. When he died, we assumed your mother would be able to locate our money for us.”

  That made sense. Mom and Dad had always worked together. Surely Mom could have given them what they needed.

  “Unfortunately, your mother claimed she knew nothing about the money. With a little persuasion, we convinced her to tell us in whom your father might have confided. Your father had been making frequent trips to China. You knew about those?”

  Sokolov had told her not to speak, so she nodded. In the two years or so prior to his death, Dad had gone to China many times on business.

  “Your mother believed that he was connected with the relatives of a man who worked for them. She further believed that he’d become involved with a woman in China. According to your mother, your father and this woman had quite the love affair.”

  “My father would never—”

  “I told you not to speak.”

  She swallowed the rest of her protest. Daddy had always been loyal to Mom. All their other sins aside, her parents had loved each other.

  Was even that a lie?

  “This woman was the sister of the manager of one of his restaurants, a man named Wang Lei Chen.”

  Wang Lei had managed Tammy Jean’s. He’d been murdered in September.

  Sokolov continued. “Wang Lei’s family owns a factory in China. They manufacture cheap trinkets—souvenir items, costume jewelry, that sort of thing. That’s how he met the woman, Li Min.

  “It was very difficult to find Li Min. After your father died and her brother was murdered, she went into hiding. Fortunately for us—not so for her, I’m afraid—she is like most people, like you yourself. People cannot fathom the idea of being alone. They flock to places or people they know. You came here to be near Kathryn. Li Min went into the countryside to stay with her grandparents. She stayed out of sight for some time, but eventually, she felt confident enough to show her face. That was when we found her.”

  Ginny tried to imagine her, this Chinese beauty who’d lured her father away.

  “Like your mother, though, Li Min did not have the information. She told us your father gave it to you.”

  “What?” Panic had her voice rising. “No, he never gave me anything. She must have it. She must have it, and she sent you after me so she could keep it. I swear, Daddy never gave me anything.” She pushed herself to a seated position. “You have to believe me. I don’t care about any of that. I don’t care about the money. I’d give it to you, I’d do anything to protect Kade right now. But I don’t have it.”

  “Are you through?”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “Like you,” Sokolov went on, “Li Min had
people she loved. Her beloved grandparents, her aunties and uncles. Only when she knew my associate would kill each and every one of them did she tell him about you. Only when she thought all was lost.”

  “But I don’t—”

  “But you do. And I know you do because after we killed Li Min, we found your mother again.”

  They’d killed that woman, Dad’s friend. They’d murdered her.

  And then the rest of what he said penetrated.

  “You found Mom?” Ginny tried to shake off the panic. “Mom sold the house and… How did you find her?”

  “You remember the day you and I met in the restaurant?”

  The day Kathryn had left, the day Sokolov had bumped into her at McNeal’s. Of course she remembered.

  “I was only in town to keep tabs on you,” he said. “I originally invested in Kade’s property because I needed a good excuse to be in town—and I’m always looking for legitimate places to invest my money. When you and Kade started dating, it made my job of watching you that much easier. The day we met, I downloaded an app on your phone.”

  “You bumped into me on purpose. I didn’t drop my phone. You stole it.”

  “But I gave it back.” His voice sounded amused. “And when you called your mother the following day, I got her phone number. Then it was just a matter of bribing someone at the phone company to tell me her location, and voila, there she was. She was in Baton Rouge when we found her. She had rented a house, changed her name.”

  Mom had gone home to Louisiana after all those years.

  “Your mother said it made sense that your father would have given you the information. He trusted you, trusted your innocence.”

  Her mother had told them that? Why would she do that, unless she’d been trying to protect herself?

  Was this her mother’s latest betrayal?

  “I need you to understand this, Ginny. Everyone you love is in danger. Your friends, your sister—”

  “You know where Kathryn is?”

  “Of course. She can’t escape any more than you can or your mother could. We will kill her. And your precious Kade… They will all die if I don’t get what I want.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “I’m not going to listen to your protests any longer. We are searching your house right now. If it’s here, we’ll find it. It would go better for you if you simply told us where it is.”

  “I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

  He leaned closer, and she picked up the faint scent of mint on his breath. “Maybe you aren’t aware of what you possess. When you handed over that silly bag, I was almost convinced that you truly are innocent. That’s why I’m giving you another chance. But make no mistake, we will get the information we need from you today, or Kade will be the first to die. And then your sister and her family. We will keep killing people until you turn over what we need.”

  Face after face flitted before her eyes. Kade, Kathryn, her husband, their children. There weren’t many, but they were all precious. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Sokolov stood over her and put his hand on top of her head. It was hot and heavy, and she wanted to duck away. “Of course, if we don’t get what we want, you will die, too. And I’d hate for that to happen. I’ve grown to like you. If you get me what I want, then the deal we made earlier will stand. Your boyfriend can build his little community, and nobody ever needs to know about any of this. So, where is it?”

  All of Ginny’s protests meant nothing to the man. He questioned her for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and then lost his patience and yanked Ginny from the bed.

  She shivered before him in nothing but her flimsy summer nightgown.

  He turned her to face the bed and bound her hands behind her back with plastic zip ties, which he tightened until the sharp plastic bit into her skin.

  Then he pushed her back onto the bed. She tried to slide under the covers, but with no hands to pull them over her, she could only get her legs covered.

  Sokolov walked to the door and called, “Come here.”

  A moment later, Pavlo stepped into the room. He saw her, and his lips stretched into an evil smile.

  Sokolov said, “We’ll search each room together, and we’ll keep her with us.”

  Pavlo approached the bed.

  Ginny pushed back against her headboard, but there was no escape as the man sat beside her. He placed his hands on either side of her face and closed in. “Just tell us where it is, Ginny, and we’ll get out of your hair.”

  “I don’t know. I swear I don’t.”

  Pavlo’s hands slid down to her shoulders, her arms. Then they shifted to her hips. “You and I could have some fun together.”

  “Focus,” Sokolov said. “We need to search.”

  Pavlo didn’t move, didn’t take his eyes off her. “She knows where it is. Let’s just get it out of her.”

  She said, “I don’t know—”

  His hand closed over her mouth and muffled her words. He pressed harder, shifted until he covered her nose as well. She couldn’t breathe. She struggled to take in a breath, to get away from him.

  His other hand slid around her back, pulled her against him.

  “Oh, yeah, you and I could—”

  “Let her go,” Sokolov said.

  Pavlo stood and stepped away.

  She sucked in a deep breath and tried again to scoot beneath the covers. All that accomplished was sliding her nightgown higher.

  “If we don’t find the information”—Sokolov looked at her through narrowed eyes—“you can do whatever you want to her.”

  Pavlo smiled. “Well, now I don’t know what to hope for.”

  Sokolov turned his irritation on his partner. “Hope we find that money. Now.”

  “Right, boss.” He nodded, then headed for her bureau. With his back to her, she saw a handgun shoved in the waistband of his jeans.

  Sokolov had shoved her gun into his waistband. He had another in a holster on his side.

  She prayed the guns would stay where they were.

  Sokolov started pulling artwork off the walls while Pavlo yanked every drawer from the furniture, emptied it on the floor, and pawed through her belongings.

  Ginny was taken from room to room with them, forced to sit and watch them demolish her home. Sokolov mostly ignored her. Pavlo turned to her with a leer whenever he’d hit another dead end.

  She watched them and prayed for help, for guidance. For a miracle. God could save her if He wanted to. God could rescue her.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t think He would.

  That spring, her Bible study group had been reading Genesis, and she’d heard the story of Abram and Sarai and Hagar for the first time. The rest of the ladies in the study focused on how Abram and Sarai had tried to make God’s promise come to pass by themselves.

  But Ginny had thought more about Hagar. She was a slave, unloved in her own household and forced to sleep with her master and carry his child. Had they consulted her? Had she mattered to them at all?

  When she became pregnant and Sarai mistreated her, she ran away, but she met an angel of God in the desert. The angel had told her that God would bless her and multiply her descendants. That’s when Hagar had proclaimed that she had met the God who saw her.

  Ginny had felt seen by God for the first time in her life during that Bible study. She’d felt He truly cared for her.

  Where was God now? Did He see this?

  Did He see how Sokolov destroyed the few photographs she had of her family in his quest for information?

  Did He see the way Pavlo leered at her whenever Sokolov wasn’t looking?

  Did He see that she was trapped, broken, alone, and without help? Without hope?

  Where was the God Who Sees now?

  By the time the sun started to turn the black into gray outside, four hours had passed, and Sokolov and Pavlo had searched every square inch of her house. They’d pulled every drawer from every cabinet and bureau, searching for secret compartments.
They’d gone through every box she’d packed.

  They left her house in shambles, and still they hadn’t found what they were looking for.

  Now, the men stood over her in the living room, both glaring down at her.

  “We’re going to have to hurt her.” Pavlo didn’t seem too upset about his declaration.

  Sokolov glanced at the man, then crouched in front of Ginny. He put a hand on either side of her neck.

  This was it. They’d kill her now. Better her than everyone she loved. Maybe they’d stop with her. She closed her eyes and waited for the end to come.

  “Open your eyes,” Sokolov said.

  She did, and he stared into them. “Do you know where the information is?”

  “My father didn’t give me anything.”

  “That would be very unfortunate for you. Very unfortunate indeed. Because Li Min didn’t have it, and we killed her. Your mother didn’t have it, and we killed her, too.”

  She gasped, and Sokolov shook his head. “You didn’t think we left her alive, did you? I should have made that clear.”

  Mom was dead? Dead because Ginny had called her, had given her location away.

  Ginny was a fool. She’d always been a stupid fool. Tears filled her eyes, tears shed for the woman who’d never loved her. The woman who’d put her in this position.

  “You understand that if we don’t get what we want, you will die, too. But you’re the end of the road for us. If you don’t have it, then…” He shook his head. “We will have to consider the money lost.”

  Behind him, Pavlo said, “The sister was at the funeral, though. Maybe the mom gave the information to Kathryn.”

  Sokolov’s eyebrows rose. “It is possible.”

  “No,” Ginny said. “No, Kathryn wouldn’t have it. She wanted nothing to do with my parents and their business.”

  “Ah, but maybe she doesn’t know she has it.”

  “No. Kathryn wouldn’t take anything from them, even if Mom or Dad had tried to give it to her. If either of us has it, it’s me.”

  Sokolov smiled. “I agree. Though if we don’t get what we need from you, we’ll kill her anyway. Her and her whole family. It’s only fair after what your father took from us that everyone he loved dies.”