Shady Cross

by James Hankins

  Nancy Filoso’s house was less than three miles from where Paul Jenkins lived. It was a small ranch, looked like a two-bedroom from the outside, in a lower-middle-class neighborhood. The house and yard were immaculate. The white picket fence out front gleamed brightly in the moonlight, as though it had been painted just that afternoon. The lawn and flower beds were well tended.

  Stokes left Bobby’s pickup at the curb instead of pulling into the gravel driveway and walked up to the house along a walkway where not a single weed poked through the cracks between the bricks. He rang the bell and looked at his watch: 8:37. He rang the bell again and was rewarded with the sound of footsteps from inside. Stokes detected movement to his left and saw a little curtain flutter in a narrow window beside the door. A moment later, he heard the clack of a lock disengaging and the door opened just an inch or two, not even as far as the security chain would allow. A woman’s eye peered through the crack. It was bright blue and opened wide.

  “Are you hurt?” the woman—presumably Nancy—asked.

  “Am I—huh?”

  “Did you have an accident? I can call 911 for you.”

  “I don’t know what . . .” He trailed off. He remembered the blood on his shirt. He should have changed it back at his trailer. “Oh, the blood, yeah. It’s not mine.”

  Nancy’s eye squinted in confusion. And suspicion.

  “Whose is it?”

  “It’s your husband’s. I mean, your ex-husband’s. Your ex-husband Paul’s.”

  The eye went wide again. The one he couldn’t see probably did, too.

  “God, has something happened to Paul?” She hesitated. “Did . . . did you hurt him?”

  “No,” Stokes said quickly and a tad untruthfully. “No, no, no. But we need to talk about him. About Paul. And your daughter.”

  Stokes heard her gasp. He was botching this badly. He knew she’d be freaked out, but he didn’t want her to freak out until after he was inside, when she couldn’t just slam a door in his face if she wanted, when she’d have to hear him out at least a little. But he’d mentioned her daughter, which was sure to get her worked up.

  “Listen, if you’ve hurt Amanda—”

  “Jesus, no, I didn’t. I swear. Please, just let me in. I think . . .” He paused, unsure if he should say it. He probably shouldn’t. Not like this. But he did. “I think your daughter may be in danger. Please, let me in.”

  “Danger?” Panic was bleeding into her voice. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Bad idea,” Stokes said quickly. “That could get her killed.”

  “What are you saying? You’d hurt a six-year-old—”

  “I’m trying to tell you,” he said desperately, “it’s not me. I just want to help.”

  The eye appraised him for a long moment before the door finally closed. Stokes heard the chain slide free, then the door opened again.

  The photo of Nancy Filoso at Paul Jenkins’s house hadn’t really done her justice. Clear blue eyes and honey-gold hair. She wasn’t even wearing makeup—she was, however, wearing an unflattering, baggy flannel nightshirt—yet she was still sexy. She wasn’t necessarily beautiful in a cover girl way—more like the girl next door, which was a phrase Stokes had heard enough times but never really understood because no girl like this ever lived next door to him.

  He realized he was nearly on the verge of staring. She was standing to one side of the doorway, waiting for him to enter the house. He did, moving past her, through the door, which opened right into the living room of the small home.

  “Please,” she said, the word cracking with emotion. “Is Amanda in danger? What happened to Paul?”

  “Can we sit down?”

  “Can’t you just tell me—”

  “Sit down first, OK?”

  She hesitated, her pretty face a portrait of worry.

  “Please,” he said. “Just have a seat.”

  “But Amanda—”

  “Just sit, OK? Please.”

  She blew out a breath, nodded, and walked quickly into the living room. Stokes instinctively checked out her ass as she did. It didn’t disappoint. She shoved aside a jacket that had been flung over the back of an armchair. As she did, her bottom moved out of Stokes’s view, so he looked casually around the room. The neat and clean state of the yard and exterior of the house didn’t extend inside. Nancy Filoso wasn’t nearly the housekeeper her ex was, and Stokes wondered idly whether this had led to some of the arguments that ultimately drove them apart. In addition to the jacket carelessly tossed on the chair, there were stacks of magazines and newspapers littering the coffee table, a pile of unfolded laundry on the sofa, an empty glass on an end table, and of the only photos in the room—three framed pictures of flowers that hung in a row on a wall—not a single one hung straight. Then he was back to checking out her ass as she moved the laundry to the floor. She motioned him to the now-empty armchair. She took the sofa. Stokes slid his backpack from his shoulder and placed it on the floor at his feet.

  “Now, please,” she said. “This is driving me crazy. Please tell me what’s going on.” He thought her hands might have been shaking. She looked close to tears.

  He nodded. Took a breath. No easy way to do this. “Your husband, I mean your ex-husband, is dead.”

  Surprise and horror took over her face. He felt awful, and that was without her knowing that he had caused Paul’s death. He hoped she never would. He certainly wasn’t going to tell her.

  “This is his blood,” Stokes said.

  “My God . . . Paul.”

  “There was an accident,” he said, “a car accident. Paul swerved to avoid, uh, someone coming the other way . . . or something . . . and, well, he hit a tree. Killed him right away, I’m sure. I doubt he suffered. The car was pretty badly—uh, anyway, I don’t think he suffered.”

  “What about Amanda?” Nancy said, her voice shaking. “You said she’s in danger. Was she in the car?”

  “Oh, shit, no. Shit, I’m sorry, no. I’m pretty sure she’s OK.”

  “Pretty sure?” She was nervously rubbing her hands up and down her thighs, and her nightshirt had ridden up just a little. Stokes realized he was probably going to hell for noticing that at a moment like this. Of course, he was bound for hell anyway, once his ticket was punched.

  “Really,” he said quickly, “I think she’s OK. She wasn’t in the car, I mean. She’s not dead. Paul was alone in the car.”

  “I’m not getting you,” she said desperately. “Amanda wasn’t in the car, but she’s in danger? Help me understand this, please. Where is she? What danger? Just tell me what’s going on.”

  Stokes sucked in a breath, tried to gather his thoughts so he could lay out the situation clearly and concisely. “She’s been kidnapped.”

  And he thought she’d looked frightened before. “Oh my God. Kidnapped? Amanda?”

  “I guess you didn’t know, then.”

  “No, I . . . . Why would anyone kidnap Amanda? I don’t . . . What do they want? Do you know what they want?”

  “They want this,” he said, nudging the backpack in front of his chair with his foot. The bag fell over and a few stacks of bills tumbled out. Thousand-dollar bills. Nancy’s eyes were wide. Stokes leaned down and shoved the bills back in.

  Nancy opened her mouth to speak and the doorbell rang. Stokes looked at Nancy. She looked back, confused. She obviously wasn’t expecting anyone.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “It’s the police, ma’am.”

  Oh, shit.

  Stokes leaped to his feet, and words started streaming out of him like water from a fire hose. “They’ve found your husband’s car, look, you have to trust me, your daughter’s in danger, she’s been kidnapped, and I’ll explain it all to you after the cops leave, but you can’t tell them about me, or your daughter, and you have to pretend you haven’t heard
about Paul because you shouldn’t know about that yet, you have to pretend you think he’s still alive because they can’t know that he’s not, and you definitely can’t tell them about me, because if you do, or you tell them about your daughter being kidnapped, then Amanda will be in even more danger, but I have the ransom money Paul was going to pay them, it’s in this bag, and I’m gonna use it to get her back, so don’t worry about that, and oh, by the way, your husband’s body wasn’t with the car when the cops found it, I moved it, the body, not the car, and I’ll explain that later, too, but you really do have to trust me, so please just listen to the cops, act surprised and upset, which you obviously are, and get rid of them as soon as you can because time is running out on me here, running out on me and on your daughter.”

  He paused and looked at her and tried to catch his breath.

  A polite knock at the door. “Ma’am, please open up. I need to speak with you.”

  Nancy looked at the door, then back at Stokes. He felt her blue eyes sizing him up, which was never a good thing for him.

  “I know you have no reason to trust me,” he said quickly, quietly, and urgently, “but you gotta believe me. I want to help Amanda, but if you tell the cops any of this, I can’t. And this is real serious. They might kill her. Please, believe me.”

  The bell rang again.

  “Kill her?” she said in a strangled whisper.

  “We don’t have time for this. What’s it gonna be?”

  “Ma’am?” the cop at the door said. “Are you OK in there?”

  Nancy was clearly torn. Stokes tried hard to look sincere. He had no idea if he was pulling it off, but he doubted it, seeing as he hadn’t had much practice being sincere and therefore had no idea how he looked the few times that he actually was.

  “Please, Nancy, you don’t know what I’ve been through just to be here right now. I want to get Amanda back, and I need your help with that.”

  The bell rang again.

  Nancy struggled with indecision.

  He pleaded with his eyes. She looked like she desperately wanted to trust him.

  Finally, she nodded.

  “Go into the kitchen. There’s a pantry by the fridge. You can hide in there. I’ll hear them out, play dumb, answer their questions, and let you know when they’re gone. And then you need to make me understand exactly why I sent them away instead of telling them all of this, or I’ll call them right back.”

  He exhaled in relief as he bolted for the kitchen. He saw the pantry, right where it was supposed to be, and slipped inside. He pulled the door nearly shut, leaving it open a couple of inches.

  Thank God she believed him. He knew he sounded crazy. Must have looked it, too—disheveled, with blood on his shirt, probably a wild look in his eyes.

  The bell rang again, followed by a loud knocking. He thought he even heard the cop call to her again. Why the hell didn’t she just open the damn door already?

  Just when Stokes thought maybe she went to put on some clothes or something, she finally let the cop in. He could barely hear her voice, apologizing for taking so long, explaining that she’d been about to step into the shower. Then he heard a man’s voice, a cop introducing himself. Apparently, he was alone. He was explaining how they’d found her husband’s car. There was a lot of blood in it but no Paul. And someone had worked hard to make it difficult for them to identify the car, so it looked like foul play. He was just starting to ask another question when he stopped, seemed to be listening for a moment, then spoke quietly, too quietly for Stokes to hear what he was saying.

  Stokes frowned. He pushed the pantry door open another few inches, leaned his head out to hear better. And he heard Nancy speaking, her voice soft, her tone urgent.

  “He’s got blood on him,” she was saying, “and he said it was Paul’s. He probably killed him. He’s hiding in the kitchen right now.”

  Thanks a shitload, Nancy.

  FIFTEEN

  8:51 P.M.

  “I THINK HE MIGHT BE dangerous,” Stokes heard Nancy say to the cop at her door.

  Stokes may not have been the quickest thinker around, but two options came to him in a blink: he could either run for it, burst from Nancy’s pantry, fly out the back door, and hope he could lose the cop as he raced on foot through the neighborhood, or alternatively, he could take the offensive, which is what he did without making a conscious choice. It was just instinct—an instinct that wouldn’t let him run away without the quarter of a million dollars sitting in the backpack in the living room with Nancy and the police officer.

  He bolted from the pantry and was through the kitchen in four strides. He’d come without warning and was moving fast. Nancy hadn’t expected it. The cop hadn’t yet understood the situation. And suddenly there was Stokes, all 190 pounds of him, charging across the living room. The cop—thank God there was indeed only one—looked up at the last second and reached for his belt, where he had all sorts of things that could hurt Stokes—things like a baton, pepper spray, and, of course, a gun—but Stokes was on him before his hand found any of those things. Stokes lowered his shoulder and slammed into the cop, a little like a linebacker, but more like a guy who had experience fighting his way out of trouble. His shoulder plowed into the cop’s chest and the impact knocked the man back into the closed front door. His head smacked off the solid wood with an ugly sound, and he slid to the carpet. Stokes threw a punch that he realized only a split second after it landed was unnecessary. The impact of the guy’s head with the door had knocked him unconscious. The punch, which landed on the poor bastard’s cheek, had been overkill. And now Stokes’s whole hand stung. He turned to Nancy.

  “Nancy, what the hell?”

  The woman backed up a step, her eyes wide with fear, and stumbled over a pair of her shoes. She landed hard on her ass, her nightie flying up high on her thighs, exposing delicate white panties that Stokes barely noticed.

  “Get up,” he said. “And sit down. On a chair, I mean.”

  She moved over to the armchair he had occupied earlier.

  “Stay there.” He looked back at the cop, unconscious on the floor. “Shit.”

  He jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbed hard, trying to relieve tension that hadn’t been there twenty seconds ago.

  “Shit,” he said again, with true feeling.

  He’d just assaulted a cop. Millett was gonna love this.

  “You have any idea what you’ve done here?” he asked her.

  She was silent.

  “Goddamn it.” He started pacing. He had to do something. The cop would wake up eventually. Unless he was dead. Oh, man, Stokes hadn’t considered that. Maybe he’d done far more than assault a cop. Maybe he’d killed one.

  He walked over to Officer Martinson—the cop’s name, according to the little plastic nameplate on his chest—and put his hand in front of the man’s mouth. He felt breath.

  With a warning look at Nancy, Stokes took a couple of sets of plastic ties off the cop’s belt—plasticuffs, he thought they were called—and secured Martinson’s hands, then his feet. He took the guy’s belt, which held his radio, along with his gun and a few other cop goodies, and put it on an end table by the sofa.

  Stokes wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think Officer Martinson had gotten a good look at his face. Just in case he’d been lucky in that regard, he took a black shirt from the pile of laundry Nancy had moved earlier to the floor and blindfolded the cop with it. He used a pair of Nancy’s black tights to gag the man. He wiped sweat from his forehead as he worked. He was in deep and dangerous waters now, with swift currents tugging him toward jagged rocks.

  He had to do something. The cop would wake up eventually and Stokes couldn’t be there when he did. And if he didn’t wake up soon and radio in, more cops would be here before Stokes knew it. And it would be all over for him . . . and for little Amanda Jenkins.

  Things h
ad gotten very bad very fast.

  Stokes turned back to Nancy.

  “Goddamn it,” he said, “you really screwed up here. Why the hell’d you tell him about me?”

  She had her arms wrapped around herself, her breasts resting on her forearms. She shook her head, looking like she might cry. “I don’t know you. You show up with blood on your shirt, tell me it’s Paul’s, that he’s dead. You tell me Amanda’s been kidnapped. I’m confused, scared, and I don’t have any idea who you are. You tell me I can’t talk to the police about you, which only made me more scared. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Goddamn it, Nancy, you made things a whole lot worse.” He was pissed, but he couldn’t truly blame her under the circumstances, if he really thought about it. So he didn’t think about it. He stayed pissed. “Goddamn it.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please don’t hurt me.” She was shaking. She was scared. Of course she was scared. Some guy she’d met ten minutes ago just knocked a cop cold in her living room. She was probably having a hard time thinking of anything good that could come of that. Realizing this didn’t do much to take the edge off his anger, though.

  He walked over to Nancy, sat on the coffee table in front of her. She shied away.

  “Listen to me,” he said in the calmest voice he could muster. “I wasn’t lying, OK? Everything I said is true. Paul died in a car crash. Your daughter’s been kidnapped. I plan to get her back. But I need your help. Are you listening?”

  She took a shuddering breath and nodded.

  “OK, first, you have to understand something. The cops are not our friends in this. You just have to believe me about that, OK?”

  “Why not? If Amanda’s been kidnapped, we should go to the police, right? Or the FBI?”

  “Look, I don’t have time to go into all this right now. Just believe me, if you want your daughter back again, you can’t tell anyone about this, at least not until it’s all over and you have her back.”

  “I don’t understand. They can help. They can get my little girl back for me.”