by Jill Orr
In the brief silence I could hear Ryan’s voice, muffled, crying out in the background. My whole body started to shake.
“Whatever you say, Sherlock. As I was explaining to your girlfriend, we have a little something of hers we’d like to exchange for what you two stole tonight.”
Holman paused before answering. He was trying to play it cool, but I could see he was trying to figure out how to handle this. A person’s life could be at stake. “Actually, Riley and I are not romantically involved. While her face is quite—”
“I don’t give a shit about her face!” We heard a ripping sound and then a scream.
“Riley!” It was Ryan. Then we heard the sound of a slap to skin. I thought of Mrs. Sanford. Had they taken her too? Mr. Sandford?
“Don’t hurt him!” I gasped. “Please!”
Holman held his hand up as if to tell me to stop talking. “You’ll never see your product again if you hurt him.”
Twain laughed again and said, “I hardly think you’re in any position to make demands.”
“I disagree. From my calculations, I have what appears to be, oh…maybe $500,000 worth of methamphetamine that belongs to your boss. I’m guessing it’s worth more to him than Riley’s ex-boyfriend is to me.” He immediately held out his hand to me so I knew he was only bargaining. I held my breath and waited for Twain to respond.
“Damn, Sherlock.” He forced a chuckle, but the earlier cockiness in his voice was gone. Holman had him worried. “So what do you want?”
“I want to talk to Romero.”
“Romero who?”
“Don’t toy with me. I know all about Romero’s drug trafficking out of the trucks.”
The line was quiet for a bit. “I don’t know what you think you know, but you’re wading in awfully deep water here.”
“I’ll assume that’s a metaphor, which is good because actually I never learned to swim.”
Twain erupted with a sharp laugh. “I’ll see what I can do about a meeting. But if you even think about calling in the cops—and believe me, we will know—guapo here is dead.”
“Romero brings an unhurt Ryan to the picnic benches at Riverfront Park at 10 a.m. tomorrow, or I’m taking the stash straight to the cops. And in case you think of coming near me or Riley before then, let me assure you that we are well protected.” Before I could stop him, he pressed end.
“What was that? You’re going to get him killed!” I shouted.
The sound of Ryan’s terror-stricken voice played over in my head. I’d never forget the fear, the desperation in his screams. What if they decided to kill him anyway? What if they hurt him or maimed him? How could I ever live with myself? Then, I thought of the bizarro-me and the baby. A fresh wave of sickness churned in my stomach, and for a minute I thought I might throw up. I clutched my stomach as I breathed harder and faster, still not getting enough air to fill my lungs.
The sound of my hyperventilation must have kicked Holman out of his panic-induced trance, and he looked at me for the first time since he hung up. “Are you okay?”
“Does…it…look…like…I’m…okay?” I gasped between heaving breaths.
“Take a big breath in,” he said, miming the gesture, “then hold it at the top for five seconds. Do that three times.”
I did what he said and was surprised that it actually worked. Within moments, my breathing was back under control, even if my emotions were not. “How did they find us? And why would they take Ryan?” I asked, still struggling to comprehend what had happened. Why hadn’t they just come after us?
“That security guard probably radioed the break-in, and they sent someone to follow my car. And they didn’t come after us directly because when reporters go missing, people ask questions. Especially two reporters working the same story at the same paper. Twain is just looking for a way to control us without causing any more suspicion about Romero.”
“They’re gonna kill him. What do we do?”
“Listen, we have the upper hand here. We just have to figure out how to maximize our leverage.”
“How’re we going to do that?”
“I have some ideas,” he said, rising to leave. “I’ve worked with a couple of guys from the Warren County sheriff’s office on other stories.…”
“But they said no cops!” I said, my panic rising. “You heard him…he said they’d know…he said they’d kill Ryan if we called the sheriff!”
“Riley,” Holman said, his voice low and serious. “I don’t think they have any intention of letting Ryan live no matter what we do.”
A fresh wave of nausea gripped me again, and the tears came instantly.
“I also think there is a high probability they are also planning to kill both of us. These people have killed to protect their secret at least once.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“I’m going to take this,” he gestured to the drugs, “to a safe place. This is our only bargaining chip. In the meantime, I need you to stay here, lock the doors, and wait for my call. Okay?”
I looked at him like he was crazy. “I can’t just sit here.”
“I will call you as soon as I can, after I check with a source I have about how to proceed.”
“Who? What source?”
He shook his head. “The less you know at this point, the better, Riley.” He was at the door now. “As soon as I leave, let Coltrane out of his crate and lock all the doors. Whatever you do—do NOT answer your cell phone unless it is me, okay?”
“But what if they call back? What if they change the meeting?”
“They won’t.”
I looked at Holman a long moment, trying to gain some much-needed reassurance from his eyes. “I wish you’d tell me your plan.”
He came toward me and put a hand on each of my shoulders, a surprisingly intimate gesture for him. “I’m doing this to keep you safe. You have to trust me. I think I can find a way out of this, but I need a little time, okay?”
I nodded.
“Remember, don’t answer the door or your phone.”
I nodded again, and he left.
CHAPTER 36
It had been four hours since Holman left, and I hadn’t slept a wink. I looked at my phone: 3:56 a.m. Coltrane, on the other hand, was sleeping comfortably on the couch, his head resting on my lap. I eased myself out from under him, his sleepy eyes opening briefly, then closing again. I moved to the kitchen to put on some coffee. I clicked on the TV and tried to watch the news but couldn’t focus. What source did Holman have? Was it someone from the paper? I thought of Kay Jackson. Maybe she was his trusted source. Newspaper editors were better than lawyers when it came to protecting secrets, so it was possible Holman had gone to her for advice. Or maybe it was his DEA guy up in DC?
The coffee, to which I had added more cream and sugar than most people would deem reasonable, coursed through my veins. The caffeine heightened my already agitated state. I felt restless. No—powerless. No—scared shitless. I poured myself another cup, then forced myself to get dressed and brush my teeth. I was so nervous I couldn’t even read through the obit pages like usual.
I sat back down on the couch and must have dozed off, because when I looked at my phone it was 5:28 a.m. Still no word from Holman. Coltrane was awake now and needed to go out. Damn. Holman had left specific instructions not to leave my house, but I had to take Coltrane out. I grabbed his leash, resolving to only walk him around my front lawn. He circled and whined with anticipation.
Coltrane was not satisfied with this abbreviated version of his morning walk and pulled at the leash toward the sidewalk. I scanned the area. No one was out on the street. No suspicious cars. No shady-looking characters. Nothing but the same familiar houses of neighbors and friends, some with lights on as people got ready for the day. The sun had just come up, bringing enough light with it so that I could see down the street in both directions. I felt pretty sure no one was watching me or waiting in the bushes to grab me.
“Fine,” I said, moving
Coltrane toward the sidewalk. “One block and that’s it.”
We had just neared Mrs. O’Flannery’s house on the corner of Salem and Beach, with its black wrought-iron fence topped with fleurs-des-lis, when Coltrane’s ears perked up. A trill of fear shot through my heart. I was about to turn and run back to my house when I looked up to see Kevin Monroe turning the corner on his way to work.
“Riley?” he said, sounding surprised.
“Oh, hi,” I said, putting a hand over my heart to slow its rapid beating.
Kevin was already kneeling down to pet Coltrane, who lapped up the attention. “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, smiling. “I’m just heading to the office a little early.”
I was tense with pent-up nerves. I tried to smile back at him, but I’d never had much of a poker face.
“Is everything okay?”
I tried to say a breezy yes, I really did. But what came out instead was a strangled gulp, followed by tears.
“Hey.” He stood up and looked at me. “What’s going on?”
“It’s just…” I knew I should have made something up, but the stress of the past few hours had wound me as tight as a rubber band. “I’m really scared, Mr. Monroe.” I wiped away the tears.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s gonna be okay.” He took Coltrane’s leash out of my hands. “Let me walk you home.”
I nodded, feeling like a kid back in school, glad for his comfort. “Thanks,” I said when we got to my driveway. “I’m sorry, I’ve just got a lot going on right now.…” I let my sentence trail off.
“You know,” he said, “you can talk to me about anything. I’ll even help if I can.”
I pulled out my cell phone. Still no word from Holman. It was almost six now. That left only four hours till the deadline. What if he’d gotten into trouble? What if he wasn’t able to meet Romero at ten? My head was dizzy with the possibilities of everything that could go wrong and the sickening consequences. I heard Ryan’s scream in my head, his cry for help, the fear in his voice.
“I’m not sure if you can,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Try me,” Kevin said, leading me to my front door.
Kevin Monroe sat in my living room and looked nearly as sick as I felt. He was quiet while I told him the whole story. When I was finished talking, he said, “So why don’t you just give them back their drugs?”
“For starters, I don’t even have them anymore.” I handed him a cup containing the last of the coffee I’d made earlier. “And even if I did, Holman thinks they’re planning to kill Ryan anyway. And probably us, too.” I could hardly believe what I was saying.
Kevin let out a big sigh.
“And they warned us not to call the police,” I reiterated.
“No,” he shook his head. “You can’t go to the cops with this. Not yet.”
“Holman said he had a plan, but it’s been hours, and I haven’t heard from him. I’m worried something’s happened to him.”
“I know you put a lot of trust in Holman,” Kevin said, “but I don’t think he’s the guy you think he is.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has a reputation for being,” he paused, considering what word to choose, “reckless.”
“How so?”
“Jordan worked with him, and she said he had something of a superhero complex. Thinks he’s smarter than everybody else and therefore takes chances that maybe he shouldn’t.”
It was hard for me to reconcile the Holman I knew with the one Kevin was describing. He did say he wanted to keep me safe, which I guess could fall under the category of hero-like behavior, but he’d never seemed reckless to me. Paranoid, irritating, odd? Yes. But reckless? No.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve gotten to know him, and I think he’s a pretty reliable guy.”
Kevin sighed again, his fourth since we’d come inside. He looked and sounded much older than his thirty-two years in that moment. “Did he tell you what happened to the junior reporter who worked with him before Jordan?”
I shook my head.
“It was a young kid named Alex Wright. He was working the Blexor story with him a couple of years back.”
I had a vague recollection of the controversy about Hubert Blexor, an English teacher at St. Augustine’s, a Catholic school in West Bay. He’d been accused of inappropriate conduct with several students. As I recall, it was the Times that broke the story. I didn’t know which reporter, but it stood to reason it would have been Holman.
Kevin continued. “Alex was a recent grad, like Jordan, and Holman had him go undercover as a student in need of math tutoring in order to get close to Blexor.”
“Okay.”
“Journalists occasionally do undercover work, but it is highly unusual—and downright unheard of—to ask an inexperienced reporter to go into such a dangerous situation. But Holman thought it was the best way to break the story.”
“What happened?”
“Well, he was right. Alex wore a wire on his fourth tutoring session with Blexor. And when Blexor put his hand on Alex’s leg, Holman had enough proof to run the story.”
“Okay, so surely Holman rushed in and saved him before Blexor could do anything, right?”
Kevin gave me a sad look. “Wrong. Holman let things ‘develop’ to see how much dirt he could get on Blexor. Alex, inexperienced and naïve, waited for Holman to bust in, so he didn’t stop him when he moved his hand up his leg.”
I felt sick.
“Alex waited for Holman as that scumbag Blexor breathed hot kisses into his ear, whispering the kinds of sick things that a person’s not likely to forget. Still Holman waited.”
I was quiet, trying to absorb this horrendous information. “But—why?”
“Because he cares about the story above all else,” Kevin said, looking directly into my eyes. “He didn’t care what happened to Alex, and he doesn’t care what happens to Ryan.”
His words swirled around in my head like a swarm of bees. This was the opposite of everything I knew about Will Holman.
“Alex was so traumatized by the experience that he left town and moved back to Missouri. And he didn’t even get the byline,” Kevin said. “I don’t think Holman can be trusted, Riley. Jordan didn’t think so either.”
An image of Jordan opening the tip addressed to Holman materialized before my eyes. She hadn’t called Holman to share it. I’d assumed it was down to her ambition, but what if it were something else? What if she didn’t tell Holman because she didn’t trust him?
Kevin’s voice cut across my thoughts. “But if you want, I think I might have a way to help you get out of this mess without anyone else getting hurt.”
CHAPTER 37
Ten minutes later Kevin and I were speeding down the back county roads to meet his mysterious source. We drove for about twenty minutes and were approaching the outer edge of Tuttle County when I saw a huge metal warehouse on the left-hand side.
“This is where we’re meeting my guy,” Kevin said as he turned into the gravel parking lot.
“Looks a little shady.” I took in the vast, windowless building. “Why are we meeting here again?”
Kevin pulled around to the back of the warehouse and put the car into park. He came around to my side and opened my door for me. “The thing is,” he said as he closed the door behind me, “Romero has people everywhere.”
It wasn’t until that exact moment that I realized Kevin was one of them.
Holman finally called at 9:13 a.m.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hey. Sorry it took me so long—”
“Hol—” I tried to warn him, but the sharp point of Twain’s gun poked between my third and fourth ribs.
“Riley?”
“It’s not Riley.” Twain laughed into the phone, then turned his back to me and walked away. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I knew Holman must have been furious that I’d been stupid enough to get myself kidnapped. I struggled in vain against t
he restraints that bound my wrists behind my back.
“How could you?” I railed at Kevin, who sat at a nearby desk in the warehouse nervously spinning in a chair while Twain talked to Holman. “You’re the reason she’s dead!” I spat at him. My throat was raw and painful.
Kevin hadn’t looked me in the eye since he’d helped Twain bind my arms, then my legs, together with duct tape. But they hadn’t blindfolded me. I watched enough TV to know that was a bad sign. After they’d tied me up and slumped me against the wall, they walked to the far part of the warehouse to discuss something in hushed tones.
After they’d left me there, I noticed the lump lying about six feet from me. I looked closer and started to shake with fear when I realized the lump was Ryan. His arms and legs were bound like mine, and I could see dried blood crusted under his left ear. I called his name over and over, but he didn’t respond. I’d nearly been out of my mind with grief until I saw his chest rise and fall slowly.
“Ryan,” I whispered-shouted. Kevin had walked back to stand near Twain, who was still on the phone with Holman. “Wake up! I need you—please wake up.” No response. I didn’t know if he’d been knocked out or given drugs to make him sleep, but either way, he was solidly unconscious. I didn’t allow myself to think about the possibility that he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—wake up. All I knew was that he was alive. At least for now.
I banged my head against the metal wall behind me, and it made a sound like thunder. The situation was completely hopeless. I looked around for any weak point of entry—a place to escape from, if by some miracle I was able to get myself free from the restraints—but there was nothing. The building was massive and built like a fortress. It looked like it used to be an airplane hanger, but now it housed taco trucks.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Twain drawled as he walked back over to where I was sitting on the floor. “Such a shame to hear a grown man cry.” He laughed as he slid my phone back into his pocket. “Sherlock was pretty torn up about you being here, querida.”
I gave him a hard look, ignoring his bait. “What are you going to do? Kill me? Kill all of us? Do you honestly think you could get away with that?”
