by Karen Rose
Ford stepped to the side and when the old guy rushed past, he jabbed at his back with the rifle stock, knocking him off balance, then swung the weapon by the barrel to smack the back of his head again. The old man went down and Ford followed, shoving his knee into the guy’s kidney. Hope it hurts, you bastard.
He wrenched the axe from the old man’s grip and pressed the blade up under his grizzled jaw. ‘Where’s. The. Girl?’
‘I. Don’t. Know.’
‘You have to know. You shot me in the back with a fucking taser. She was there. What did you do with her?’
‘I didn’t shoot you with nothin’. I signed on to babysit only you and that’s all.’
Ford frowned. I’m back. Did you miss me? This wasn’t the same man that talked to him before. The voice was way different. ‘Who’s the other guy?’
‘Don’t know.’
He pressed the axe blade harder against the man’s flesh until a line of blood appeared. ‘You don’t want to push me, buddy. Who’s the other guy?’
The man hesitated, then his shoulders sagged as if he’d given up, which Ford didn’t buy for a second. ‘Archie Leach.’
That name sounded really familiar. ‘Why did he kidnap me?’
‘Money. Both your parents are richer than God.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Marion Morrison,’ he drawled.
That name Ford knew. Fury bubbled up. Asshole. Morrison was John Wayne’s real name. Who knew who ‘Archie Leach’ really was? ‘Where is Archie now?’
‘Went to the city to collect the ransom.’
‘Which he’ll share with you?’ Ford let the sarcasm ooze in.
‘Marion’ had gone still. Sincerely still this time. He said nothing.
Ford laughed bitterly. ‘You already know that somebody unloaded your gun. Did your Smithsonian phone over there actually work before?’
The surprised jerk of the old man’s shoulders said that it had.
‘Well, it doesn’t now,’ Ford said flatly. ‘So your partner left you alone, with no way to defend yourself and no way to call for help. He collects the ransom and leaves you high and dry. And even if you take this gun from me, it doesn’t matter because he’s taken your ammo. Yeah,’ he added when the old man exhaled sharply. ‘All the boxes in the drawer? Empty. You think you’re a fucking John Wayne? You’re just the fall guy.’
‘If you’re gonna use that axe, boy, do it now. I’m gettin’ tired of listening to you.’
Ford frowned, not sure what to do next. He probably couldn’t kill the old bastard, not on purpose anyway. And I don’t have any ammo either. Which the old guy now knows. Way to go, Elkhart.
The subtle tightening of the old man’s back was the only warning Ford had before he twisted out of his grip, rolling away from the axe blade and grabbing onto the handle with both hands. But although his captor was strong for sixty-five, Ford was twenty years old and pissed off. With a hard yank, Ford took the axe back and, holding it like a bat, walloped John Wayne’s head like he was going for a home run.
The old man was out cold – but still breathing. It was probably a good idea to keep him that way. He might know who had Kim. He definitely knew the other kidnapper.
I need to get help before the other guy comes back.
Hold on, Kim. Just a little longer.
Baltimore, Maryland, Tuesday, December 3, 11.10 A.M.
Mitch climbed back up the ladder, secured the door, and pushed the shelves back into place. Wearily he let himself into the kitchen and stopped short, stifling a curse.
His middle brother, Mutt, was sitting at the table eating cereal. The TV was on and his brother frowned as he watched. What the hell is he doing here? Mitch closed the door hard enough to startle him. Mutt wheeled, sending a splash of milk onto the floor.
‘Where have you been?’ Mutt demanded. Mutt’s given name was Matthew, but Mitch always thought of him as Mutt, since his middle brother was the only legitimate son. Mitch and Cole were bastards, or so his stepfather said. Takes one to know one.
‘I had a delivery. It was on the schedule,’ Mitch replied. Appropriating his stepfather’s goods was an important part of his plan. Being a delivery driver gave him access and opportunity.
As the logistics manager and accountant, Mutt was only too happy to have Mitch’s help, especially when the delivery was a dangerous one – it meant Mutt didn’t have to call in any favors from the drivers he kept on the actual books.
It also meant Mutt could pay his brother half of what he paid everyone else and pocket the difference. Mutt didn’t know Mitch knew about that. It pissed Mitch off to high heaven, but he’d bitten his tongue. It had also eliminated any lingering affection he felt for his brother. Things were about to get real bad for Mutt’s daddy. If Mutt got caught in the crossfire . . . Well, I won’t cry too hard about that.
‘Your delivery was to Richmond. You should have been back hours ago.’
‘Got a legit job,’ Mitch lied smoothly. ‘Last minute emergency. Woman’s heat pump went out and she has a baby. I fixed it on my way back. Why are you here, anyway?’
Mutt lived in one of his daddy’s fancy houses in the city. He’d never lived out here. His daddy didn’t even like him driving out here, ‘slumming it’ with his half-brothers.
Mutt frowned. ‘Because the school called. They tried to get in touch with you, but you were AWOL, so they called me since you put me as an emergency contact.’
Mitch’s heart stuttered. ‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘Cole didn’t show up to school today. He’s skipped nine of the last ten days. They’ve called the house and sent home letters. Cole’s about to get expelled. I drove out to see if something was wrong, like you guys had food poisoning or something.’
Expelled? Hell. ‘And? Did you find him?’
‘Yep. He was in the basement. I sent him to his room.’
Mitch’s shoulders slumped in relief as anger boiled in his gut. His youngest brother had become a real problem recently, finding every way possible to keep from going to school. I’m glad he’s okay, because I’m gonna kill him.
But of course he never would. But he would take every privilege his little brother still had. Which wasn’t many.
‘The school never called me.’ Mitch patted his pockets for his cell phones. He kept four – two throwaways he used to communicate with the Millhouses and Beckett respectively and one he used to communicate with Mutt about deliveries. The fourth was the number he gave to Cole and to the middle school. He found the right phone, then glared at the display. ‘Battery’s dead.’ Then he realized what Mutt had said. ‘Cole was in the basement? Why?’
Mitch kept stuff in the basement. Important stuff. Like cash. Guns. And as of last night, Pamela MacGregor, Kim’s little sister who was now his leverage.
Mutt pointed to the TV in the corner. ‘Damn, would you look at that?’
Mitch looked up and saw that Mutt was watching the very thing he wanted to see. ‘What’s happening?’ Mitch asked, very aware Mutt had dodged his question about Cole and the basement. He’d come back to it later.
‘It’s that damn jury verdict on the Millhouse case,’ Mutt said. ‘I’ve got an appointment downtown and I wanted to be sure there was no riot in the streets.’
‘Is there?’
‘Not yet. Jury found the little bastard guilty. But the real excitement was what happened after. The killer knifed a cop and his mom attacked the prosecutor. There was a brawl in the courtroom while the Millhouse kid tried to escape.’
So the Millhouses’ plan B actually worked? Oh. My. God. ‘Did he get away?’
‘Nah,’ Mutt said, ‘but I gather it was touch and go for a minute. Kid’s a fucking psycho. At least two people have been taken to area hospitals.’
His heart did another stutter, dip, and roll. ‘What about the prosecutor?’
‘Not clear yet. There’s supposed to be a press conference in a few minutes.’
If Daphne was badly injured, I�
�ll kill every last Millhouse I can find.
Pouring himself some cereal, Mitch sat next to Mutt and pointed to his brother’s laptop. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, even though he knew.
‘I’m doing the books,’ Mutt said. ‘Figured I’d keep busy while I waited for you to get your ass home.’
‘Well, I’m home now,’ Mitch said blandly. ‘Need any help with that?’
Mutt rolled his eyes. ‘As if. You can’t even balance your own checkbook.’
That Mitch couldn’t balance his own checkbook was not true. He did his own personal accounting, he just didn’t advertise it. It was better to let your adversaries believe you were stupid and technically challenged. It made them less careful around you – after all, what harm could you do with a P&L statement or a page of passwords?
Mitch shrugged. ‘Guilty as charged.’
‘You need an accountant, Mitch,’ Mutt said, serious now. ‘I found your stash of cash in the root cellar when I was looking for Cole. You can’t just leave that kind of money lying around. Anybody could come in and steal it.’
Mitch narrowed his eyes. ‘Wait. How did you get in? I never gave you a key.’
‘The back door was unlocked. I just walked in.’
Mitch ground his teeth. Cole. ‘Damn that boy. Where’s your car?’
‘I parked around back. Didn’t want Cole to know I was here in case he was up to no good. I’m serious about that money, Mitch. I knew you’d pulled some from that last job in Florida, but I had no idea you just had it lying around. You’ve got to have a couple hundred thousand down there, just piled up in plastic storage tubs.’
There was three times that, actually. Most of it was in the basement room where he’d hidden Pamela. The money was what he’d been able to load onto a U-Haul trailer right before the Feds crashed the ‘pain clinic’ business he’d worked for in Miami. Florida was the go-to state for pill-poppers. Dealers and addicts alike swarmed from the Midwest to buy cheap prescription pills doled out by doctors on the take. There was huge money to be made and Mitch had needed huge money.
His original plan when he’d been paroled was to set his stepfather up to be arrested for the same crime for which Mitch had lost three years of his life – possession with intent to distribute. He basically planned to gather as much money as he could, buy as much heroin as he could with it, plant it on his stepfather, and call in an anonymous tip. They’d raid his stepfather’s compound, seize his books – both sets – and bring his empire crashing down. Simple, yet elegant.
He’d stuck it out in Miami as long as he’d dared, working for the uncle of his cellmate until the Feds began raiding the pain centers and hauling away the dirty doctors. Mitch had been skimming cash off the top – there was so much money floating around that nobody missed it. Over the course of two years, he’d skimmed a hell of a lot of money, which he vacuum sealed into tidy little bricks and stored in plastic tubs in his Miami garage. When the raids started, he rented a U-Haul, loaded it up, packed a protesting Cole into the truck’s cab, and high-tailed it for Aunt Betty’s house. For home.
Only to find things had changed within his stepfather’s business. No longer were drugs his principal source of revenue. To Mitch’s delight, his stepfather had gotten himself involved in something even better – gun running. Highly lucrative and extremely dangerous. And perfect for what Mitch had in mind. Plus, he didn’t have to spend any of the money he’d hidden in the basement. Money that Mutt now knew about.
Part of it anyway. Mutt hadn’t found all of it, not by a long shot.
‘It’s not like I can walk into a bank with tubs of cash,’ Mitch said grumpily. ‘I’ve been depositing it slowly, staying under the bank’s radar.’
Mutt blinked at him. ‘You’ve been depositing it ten grand at a time?’
‘That’s the magic number, isn’t it? Over that and they have to report it to the IRS?’
Mutt sputtered, nearly speechless. ‘Well, yeah, that’s the number if you care about being legal, but . . . My God. Ten grand at a time, in the same bank? With no business charter, no P&L? Mitch, that’s . . .’ Stupid, his brother clearly wanted to say. ‘Incredibly inefficient,’ he said instead. ‘I can set you up so that the money doesn’t raise any flags and works for you instead of sitting in plastic tubs in your root cellar.’
Out of the goodness of his little heart, Mitch thought. ‘For how much?’
Mutt shrugged. ‘A third of whatever I process.’
You rotten little sonofabitch. A third? A tenth would be highway robbery. But Mitch just smiled. ‘That sounds more than fair.’ He’d let Mutt set up the business paperwork and then he’d take over the deposits himself. And then when Mutt wasn’t looking, Mitch would log in to Mutt’s accounting software and wire the money back to himself. No harm, no foul.
Knowing that his brother kept all of his passwords in a file on his iPhone was useful. Knowing Mutt’s phone pass code was more useful still. This password Mitch had gotten the old-fashioned, totally low-tech way – he’d gotten Mutt drunk and looked over his shoulder as his brother had entered it into his phone.
So getting his money back would be no problem and the opportunity would come sooner than later. In just a few more days Mutt and his daddy would be in hot water with people far more dangerous than the cops and the Feds put together.
While Mitch was in prison, his stepfather had entered into a business association with a Russian named Fyodor Antonov. Antonov ran one of the Eastern European crime families that were quickly taking root up and down the East Coast.
Mutt’s old man had been expanding his drug business, but an independent could grow only so much on the East Coast before encroaching on one of the big guys. He’d skated too close to the edge and got smacked back by Antonov’s goons.
His stepfather had been given a choice: work for the Russian or surrender his entire business. He’d gone for the first option and now claimed stockpiled rifles shipped from the Ukraine into the Port of Baltimore, transporting them south, presumably to the Mexican cartel.
Mutt had been put in charge of the drivers and he’d offered ‘poor big brother’ Mitch a route. Driving for Mutt offered a much better way to destroy his stepfather than his original plan of simply framing him for drug distribution. Mitch had been skimming rifles from shipments for months. He’d also hacked into Mutt’s computer to make the invoices match what he’d actually delivered, forging his stepfather’s signature on all the reports.
Because Mutt believed him to be stupid, he’d never been suspected, not even once. Because Mutt’s daddy had no clue he was a driver, he’d never been concerned about him. It was perfect.
The rifles would soon be discovered by the cops – again, part of Mitch’s plan. The cops would see AK47s and think ‘Russian’. Because they weren’t stupid, either. When the Russians got wind of an investigation, they’d hunker down and check inventories. His stepfather’s books would be audited and the discrepancies discovered. Antonov would believe Mitch’s stepfather was a thief.
From what Mitch had gleaned in prison, the Russians didn’t take kindly to thieves. If they didn’t kill his stepfather, the old man would wish they had.
Mutt packed up his laptop, a gleam in his eye. ‘I think I’ll go down to the basement to see how much cash we’re talking about.’
Mitch just smiled at him. Mutt would be so focused on all that pretty money that he wouldn’t think to look for anything else, like Pamela MacGregor. ‘I appreciate the help.’
Mutt grinned at him. ‘What are brothers for?’
Ask me in a week. I’ll have a really good answer then.
Tuesday, December 3, 11.10 A.M.
The cold wind felt good. Daphne drew a deep breath of fresh air and scanned the crowd. All the reporters were here. About twenty feet to her left stood Detectives Stevie Mazzetti and JD Fitzpatrick along with half a dozen deputies, their eyes watchful. After what had happened in the courtroom, it looked like the cops were taking no chances, for which Daphne was grate
ful.
Still, there was a tension, a foreboding that crawled up her spine. Ignoring it for the moment, she cloaked herself in her composure.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure you’ve all heard that a jury of Mr Millhouse’s peers returned with a guilty verdict this morning. We are exceptionally pleased and hope this sends a clear message. We will not allow the murder of innocents to go unpunished and we will fight to bring justice to those who believe themselves above the law.’ She forced a small smile. ‘Now, it’s been a very long morning. If you’ll excuse—’
‘Miss Montgomery!’ It was Phin Radcliffe, the alpha dog of all the reporters. ‘Is it true that Reggie Millhouse’s mother slipped him a knife?’
Somehow Radcliffe managed to be in the front row, every time. Pact with Satan, Daphne thought darkly. But he was good about giving their women’s center on-air coverage, promoting their fundraisers, so Daphne bit back her dislike.
‘There was a knife, but who gave it to whom, I don’t know for certain. The police acted swiftly to contain the threat, but there were injuries.’ She knew the media had gotten the EMTs on camera as they’d entered and exited the justice center. ‘I appreciate your discretion until the families of the injured have been notified.’
Another reporter piped up. ‘Is it true Reggie’s mother attacked you?’
‘No comment,’ Daphne said, her smile faint.
‘Miss Montgomery!’ A young woman pushed her way to the front, at the far edge of the crowd.
Daphne caught a flurry of motion from the corner of her eye. Stevie Mazzetti had answered her phone, her expression going very still. Her eyes flashed to Daphne’s. Something was wrong.
‘Miss Montgomery!’ The young woman raised her voice, her tone abrasive and accusatory. ‘I have a question for you.’
Daphne ripped her gaze away from Stevie and back to the young woman, who stood far enough away that she had to squint.
The woman smiled and Daphne had a flash of recognition, but it was too late. Her gaze dropped to the gun in Marina Craig’s hands. Reggie’s sixteen-year-old girlfriend, pregnant with his child, held the weapon at her hip with an ease that suggested she’d done so many times before.
