“What if it’s a trap?” Rachel asked, fearfully pulling Riley to her chest. Riley squirmed uncomfortably in her mother’s grasp but didn’t pull away.
I shrugged. “What if it’s not?” Everyone was quiet, so I continued. “Janet made it out last time.” Janet nodded, so I continued. “This might be our last chance. I don’t know who is running this sick game but I’m certainly not going to wait around a second longer to find out.”
With that, I began to march towards the door. I hesitated before taking a step into the hallway. Rachel was right — who knew what was out there waiting for us? Eventually, I worked up the courage to poke a foot out into the hall. When nothing happened to it, I peeked around the corner. Seeing nothing, I stepped forward, turned and began to hurry down the hallway, in the direction Riley claimed that Gregson had taken her before a large scary person appeared in the shadows. Maybe it had been Ernie. Maybe we had nothing to worry about. Maybe we’d actually get out of here.
I heard footsteps behind me. Whirling quickly, I took in the faces of Janet, Rachel and Riley, hot on my trail. Smiling, I continued to lead the charge. At the end of the hall, I could tell that I’d be forced to turn right or left. Without thinking, I quickly turned right and ran smack dab into a cocked gun. Figured.
The person holding the weapon was standing quietly, surrounded by darkness and shadows. My breathing quickened as my heart rate skyrocketed. The rest of my crew stopped abruptly, clutching one another in fear. “Marian,” the person holding the gun finally said. The voice was male and sickly familiar. My mind raced with possibilities, but I didn’t want to believe any of them. I pushed some hair out of my eyes and, in doing so, smeared the clotted blood from my injury across my forehead.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, realization dawned. I took a step back, raising my hands in a sign of defeat. “Frank,” I said quietly.
He grinned a cold, evil grin. “Did you really just now figure it out?” he asked. “You didn’t know all along that it was me?”
I shook my head. A sharp pain rippled through me and I tried not to faint from surprise, agony or both. Frank was my father’s partner on the force for years. A stand-up citizen. He’d played football with my brother in the front yard every summer. He’d played tea party with my family on my birthday when I was five. He’d initiated the search for Riley along with my father almost immediately after hearing that she was missing. My eyes were seeing it, but my brain had yet to catch up. “Why?” I finally asked as he walked towards me. I continued walking slowly backwards, my hands raised. Briefly, I turned to glance at my companions. They were all just as surprised as I was. Especially Rachel, which was really throwing me off. If anyone would have known it was Frank all along, it would have been Rachel.
“I’d love to tell you everything,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. His eyes glittered with something that I can only describe as mentally unhinged. “Really, I would. But let’s get you back in your room first, hmm?” He looked around at my friends and waved the gun a bit. “All of you.”
How did these people keep finding me? In the last month and a half, I’d become a magnet for all sorts of gun toting crazies. I refused to turn my back on him. He’d probably shoot me the second he no longer had to look into my eyes. Instead, I walked backwards, cautiously watching Frank’s hand. I nearly tripped over Ernie’s body and worked hard not to gag as my shoes became drenched with his blood.
“You’re disturbing the crime scene,” Frank teased with a smile. Almost as quickly, he dropped the friendly mask and his face grew dark and angry. “Hurry up,” he said, giving me a shove. I toppled backwards into our room, but Rachel and Janet caught my arms and hoisted me back to my feet.
“Did you shoot Ernie?” I asked incredulously, pointing to the body. My hand was shaking. “Did you do that?”
Frank began to laugh. It was a hollow, delirious sound that sent chills up and down every inch of my body. “That’s your first question?”
“No, my first question was ‘Why?’,” I retorted.
Frank’s face again lost any trace of amusement. He stepped closer but I held my ground. Rachel made a grab for Riley and pulled her close, while Janet stood just off to one side, ready to pounce. Frank was so close that his hot breath filled my nostrils. He smelled like cheap coffee and mustard-dipped pretzels. When he spoke, I noticed that his teeth were crooked, yellowed with age and poor dietary choices. “I’d forgotten how much I love your spirit, Marian,” he said, gently running the gun barrel along my cheek and jawline before finally digging it into the fleshy part of my chin. His smile returned and he leaned close so that he could whisper into my ear. “Are you afraid?”
I wanted to pee. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream and plead, begging for my life. Instead, I set my jaw and took a deep breath. “No,” I answered, praying he hadn’t picked up on the shakiness of my voice.
“I sure would be,” he answered, keeping the gun trained on my chin and moving behind me.
He began to pet my hair and I felt myself shake with disgust. The gun trained on my lower jaw kept me in place. He didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to lock all of us into the room again. Perhaps if I could get him talking, he’d be distracted enough that the others could escape. Swallowing hard, I took a long, quiet breath to calm my nerves. “Tell me why,” I demanded again.
Frank seemed to think for a moment before he lowered the gun. I felt a weight lift as he took a few steps further into the room. His back was turned to all of us. “Don’t even think about trying to run,” he said lowly, reading my mind. “I am an excellent marksman. You’d be dead before you were halfway down the hall.” That being said, he opened the gun and began counting bullets. “Five,” he said with a satisfied grin. “Which gives me one extra shot.”
I saw Riley’s eyes widen and her grip around her mother tightened. The situation began to make me angry. Very, very angry. I was just about to tell Frank off when Janet beat me to it. “What kind of a sick person are you?” she spat, taking a step towards Frank. “At least let the girl go. She was never part of this to begin with.”
“Never part of it?” Frank asked. He seemed surprised. Slowly, he started to chuckle. It turned into a throaty, maniacal laughter that haunted me from the inside out. Exchanging glances with Janet, I could tell she was equally disturbed. I stepped in front of Rachel and Riley. We were in the presence of a psycho and I didn’t want my niece becoming more scarred than she probably already was. Frank’s laughter stopped just as quickly as it had begun. Turning, he raised his gun and pointed it just over my shoulder at Rachel’s head. “The girl was always part of it,” he said darkly, “thanks to her mother.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Janet asked, taking a step towards Rachel.
“Don’t,” Frank said, quickly moving the gun so that it was pointed at Janet. Her eyes widened and she froze. “Don’t move,” he told her. “Not one muscle.” As he continued to level his gun at her forehead, a slow smile danced across his face. His eyes began to twinkle. “You’re the cop,” he said quietly. “The one from Georgia.”
“Florida,” she corrected.
“Whatever,” he snapped. “You’re a cop and you never figured all of this out?”
“You gave me the creeps when I first arrived,” she replied. “Call it a woman’s intuition.”
“But I had a good cover, didn’t I, Marian?” Frank asked as he took another step towards Janet. “You probably just dismissed her concerns for me. Why, I’m Don’s partner. Old family friend. I even started the search for Riley to throw you idiots off my trail while I got things organized for myself to skip town.” He now stood only about a foot away. He pressed the gun hard into Janet’s skull but she continued to stare directly into his eyes, defiant. “I could kill you,” he whispered.
“Then do it,” she challenged.
I gulped. Janet was a total badass. I suppose you had to be, to some extent, when you were in such a male-centric field. Still, I’d never
have anticipated this. She was cool as a cucumber, even in the face of death.
“When I grow up, I want to be just like you,” I whispered, a small smile playing on my lips. I saw the corner of her mouth twitch slightly with a smile as she continued to challenge Frank with her stare. The air was thick with anticipation. I felt my heart hammering in my chest.
“That would be a hell of an ending, wouldn’t it?” Frank asked. “You probably get off at night thinking about situations like this. Scenarios where you can play the hero. That really turns you on, doesn’t it, Janice?”
“Janet,” she corrected. “And yeah, Frankie, it really does.”
Frank sneered and snapped the gun hard across Janet’s face. She grunted and crumpled to the ground, lifeless. I started towards her but he turned and trained the gun on my chest. “Don’t move,” he whispered.
“I just want to check her,” I said frantically. Desperate, I tried to peer around Frank’s huge mass to see if my friend was still breathing.
“She’s fine,” he answered.
As if on cue, Janet moaned and rolled ever so slightly on the floor. “I didn’t even hit her that hard.” Frank turned and gave her a kick to the ribs. Her eyes shot open and she yelped, clutching her chest.
The gun no longer trained on me, I leapt forward and punched him right in the kidney. He wasn’t phased but I didn’t have any other shots. He was much taller than me, with quite a bit more mass around the middle. I couldn’t even box his ears without a running leap. “Please just leave her alone,” I insisted as he turned to stare at me.
Frank turned back to consider Janet for a moment before turning back to me. His gun remained lowered at his side, as he watched me, quietly. Finally he said, “Just because you asked nicely.” He grinned. “And because you have such a mean punch. One more and you might knock me out cold.” He laughed like he’d said something funny.
I breathed a sigh of relief and waited until he’d composed himself enough to speak. “Now tell me why,” I whispered. “What did Riley have to do with any of this?”
Frank seemed to take joy in responding. “Rachel didn’t tell you anything, did she?”
“Let’s assume not,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Why don’t you tell me everything?”
Frank grinned menacingly and looked over my shoulder to Rachel. “It would be so much better if she told you herself. I can fill in the holes.”
Rachel was shaking her head, clutching Riley. “I- I can’t,” she said.
“Do it,” said Frank, raising his gun towards Riley, “or the girl is the first to go.”
Rachel’s eyes widened in fear and she clutched her daughter tight. “Don’t hurt her,” she whispered.
“Then start talking,” Frank bit back cooly.
Rachel took a deep breath. I turned to face her and saw the fear filling every inch of her being. “John and I needed money,” she whispered to me. “The diner has been slow ever since the factory a town over had shut down. Gregson told me that he needed help getting his affairs in order, because he wanted to sell the house after Grace died. He’d pay me.” She looked to Frank, who was staring at her, bored. He already knew where this was going. I continued to listen, captivated by the unfolding tale.
As it turned out, Gregson had boxes and boxes of books which he wished to sell. However, he would only sell to one store — The Quill in Chicago. It was where he and Grace had always sold their books for the best price, he’d promised Rachel. But he had gotten too old to make the drive, so his books just piled up. That’s when Rachel began moving books for Gregson into the city, which he offered to pay her for. Or at least, she thought she was just moving books for Gregson. It was always odd to her that Gregson already had these boxes pre-packed. It was strange that she just handed over Gregson’s taped up, cardboard boxes to Ernie at The Quill and that he simply handed her envelopes of cash, not even bothering to check the merchandise. Then again, Rachel never read and certainly never sold books on her own. Maybe that was just how things worked. Rachel wasn’t one to ask many questions and Gregson knew it. He had targeted her.
One day, almost as if fate were playing its hand, one of the boxes Rachel picked up from Gregson’s had ripped wide open in the middle of a Chicago street and all of the books fell out of the bottom. She hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary until she went to pick up the contents and realized that they were hollow books filled with baggies of white powder.
Nervous, but deciding to carry out Gregson’s wishes, Rachel had stacked everything neatly back into the box and repaired the tape as best she could. She took the box into Ernie’s store and handed it over, as per usual. Ernie pulled some cash out of his drawer and tucked it into an envelope, just as he always had. Rachel had driven straight back to Gregson’s. She didn’t know to suspect that she’d been used as a flunky. Call her naive. Call her small-town. Given her upbringing, I couldn’t blame her. Heck, I hadn’t even known what marijuana smelled like until I was in college. My parents, both hippies before they’d had my brother and I, gave up every substance outside of the occasional cocktail while we were being raised. Rachel had not only grown up in a similar environment, she also wasn’t quite as bright as the majority of the population. Which would explain her next move, thought by anyone else to be completely and totally stupid. She’d confronted Gregson. She’d demanded answers. She refused to give him the cash unless he explained what was going on. Worse, she threatened to tell everyone what he really did for a living.
Gregson, however, wasn’t one to be pushed around. He’d been involved in the trade for years and had worked his way up the ladder, but he was getting old. He was tired of looking over his shoulder all the time. He was certainly too old to be offing people. Gregson wanted out of the business. But you don’t just “get out” of drug trafficking. He needed a plan. He needed a lot of money. He’d needed to stay in the business for a while longer.
When Rachel confronted him, threatening to expose all of his hard work, Gregson saw his last few years going up in smoke unless he came up with a plan. The most obvious choice was to kill her. The second choice was to feign ignorance, but then Rachel would probably just insist that together they go to the cops. Gregson had suspected Frank as the head of the whole drug operation for a long time, even though he couldn’t prove it. While Frank was retired, he stayed involved in the local department on a voluntary basis and there was no way he wouldn’t hear something. Either way, it would be bad for both Gregson and Rachel if she told anyone. His third choice, and the one that made the most sense, was to bring Rachel into the business. It wouldn’t be easy, so he’d played a dirty card. He threatened to kill Riley if Rachel so much as breathed a word to anyone about his involvement. He even had her convinced that my dad, her father-in-law, might not be a trustworthy cop. No wonder she hadn’t told him everything from the beginning.
Once Gregson sufficiently scared the bejesus out of my sister-in-law, he’d begun to hatch a plan. He told his boss, whom he’d never even seen, but suspected was Frank, that he was bringing Rachel in to work as a mover.
The Feds were getting close to Gregson. Rachel could deter them for a while, working on his behalf and making him appear retired from the drug business, but that would eventually come to an end and he’d be arrested and jailed. Jail wasn’t for Gregson. He’d never survive. The only other option was to escape.
Without Frank’s knowledge or approval, Gregson had Rachel open up a bank account under her name — a move that would get him killed if Frank ever found out. The allure of escaping his crime-ridden life and starting over, however, was far too tempting. While he would have preferred opening a new account under his own name, it would raise red flags for the FBI, who had been monitoring him for months. Instead, Gregson fed Rachel bundles of cash to deposit into the secret bank account. When there was enough, he planned to have her wire it to an account in Europe, give her a percentage off the top, and run away to live out life on a beach.
It didn’t matter that Ra
chel racked up several million dollars in the account in weeks. It didn’t even matter that the bank she’d opened an account with was known for its shady business practices and was under scrutiny by the government. Rachel hadn’t been on anyone’s radar and no one knew she was Gregson’s pawn. Plus, three million, while a lot to most of us, wasn’t squat compared to other accounts at the bank. Chump change.
Rachel, however, had a scheme of her own. She was going to take her family and the money, and run, leaving Gregson to rot. The account, after all, was all in her name. She, John, Riley, me and my parents would all retire somewhere further south, holed up until it was safe to come out and all the major players that were playing Rachel for a fool were dead. She’d even bought the plane tickets. A pipe dream to be sure, convincing all of us to move to Costa Rica at the drop of a hat, but quite sweet, really.
Unfortunately, Gregson had caught on to her plan. It was time to show Rachel what he was capable of if she disobeyed him again. He’d used his men to kidnap Riley. His intent was to keep the little girl safe in a hotel somewhere in downtown Chicago until Rachel had been reasoned with. Rachel, he figured, didn’t need to know that her daughter was sitting in a fluffy bed at The Ritz, watching ten dollar movies and snacking on Butterfingers.
That’s when things started to go downhill for Gregson. His henchmen ultimately took orders from Frank. When Frank had called the night of Riley’s kidnapping, needing someone “taken care of,” Gregson’s men had to explain that they were indisposed, having just stuffed Riley into their backseat. Frank demanded that the henchmen bypass the hotel and bring Riley straight to him. That’s about the time he started suspecting something bigger was going on and began to sniff around.
Gregson, discovering that Riley was at the distribution warehouse in Chicago, rather than comfy in The Ritz, couldn’t let Rachel know Riley was in any real danger or she’d go to the police for sure. He’d be arrested or worse. He convinced Rachel that Riley was being kept somewhere safe and that she only had to play along to get Riley back. That’s when he came up with the idea for a ransom note. He’d hoped a nondescript note would buy him time, but all it did was bring in reinforcements. Rachel, brilliantly, had set the ransom to match Riley’s birthday, a fact Gregson didn’t find out until later. Maybe she wasn’t unintelligent, maybe she was just above us all.
Allison Janda - Marian Moyer 02 - Seduction, Deceit & a Slice of Apple Pie Page 17
