Perhaps he was a hypocrite for calling on God during his time of adversity, but so be it.
He uttered another short prayer and then went inside the bank, leaving his gun in the glove box. He felt naked without the revolver’s comforting weight riding his hip, but he seriously doubted that his concealed carry permit allowed him to bring his firearm inside a financial institution. Although he’d been skirting the law on several counts that day, he didn’t want to toss all caution to the wind, either.
It was the lunch hour, and the lobby was full. Ten minutes had passed by the time he reached a teller and told her that he wanted a cashier’s check for fifty thousand dollars, to be withdrawn from his joint checking account; before leaving the office, he had visited the bank’s Web site and transferred all of the monies from their savings into the joint checking.
The teller was a stout, brown-haired woman with enormous bifocals that magnified her eyes to an almost freakish degree, and upon hearing his request, those saucer-eyes of hers squinted in skepticism. Undaunted, he produced his driver’s license and checkbook and asked her the processing fee that he should add to the withdrawal. When she told him, he filled in the full amount with a shaky hand.
He had never penned a check for anywhere near fifty thousand, but if he had the funds and the lives of his family were at stake, he would have gladly paid fifty million for their safe return.
When the teller asked to whom the cashier’s check should be payable, he said, “Todd Gates.”
Earlier, Corey had called the bank and learned that the largest cash withdrawal he could receive on short notice from any given branch was two thousand dollars, far short of the fifty he needed. Todd had offered a solution: Corey could pay him, and in exchange, Todd would give him the money in hard currency.
You have fifty grand in cash available? Corey had asked, incredulous.
When you run with the big dogs, you need to have major funds on tap, Todd had admitted with a shrug. The guys I play poker with don’t accept checks or credit cards, if you know what I mean.
Corey knew what he meant. Todd played with the kind of people who gambled for high stakes, and they weren’t exactly reporting their winnings to the IRS. Corey had known for some time that Todd swam in those murky waters, but he had avoided making a big deal about it, deciding that as long as Todd was on point at work, the man’s private life was none of his business.
But a check-for-cash exchange for fifty grand was going to make it his business, like it or not. He would have to accept that. All he wanted was Simone and Jada brought home safely-anything else, he could deal with afterward.
The teller printed the check and slid it across the counter for his approval. He nodded, head swimming as he saw all those zeros and remembered the hard work and sacrifice it had taken to build up their savings.
All gone soon, courtesy of Leon. Anger flashed through his chest.
The teller inserted the check in a business-size envelope and passed it to him, and Corey marched out of the building, arms swinging.
As he was getting behind the wheel, the cell phone Leon had given him chirped. Corey fumbled the phone out of the holster.
“Guess who?” Leon said.
27
“Listen, I’ve got your money,” Corey said.
“Word?” Leon said. “Now that was fast, I mean, whoa, you moved like the wind pulling together such an exorbitant sum of capital, so much for your woe-is-me claim that you didn’t have the funds, I knew you were lying through your bleached teeth.”
I’m lying to you now, you bastard. The key to pulling off the scheme was to let Leon think he was getting the full ransom payment. They trusted that when he actually counted the money, his glee at having fifty large in his hands would outweigh his fury at being shortchanged.
Pressing the phone to his ear, Corey strained to hear any background noise on the line that might give him an idea of where Leon was calling from. But there was only hollow silence, as if Leon were at the bottom of a well.
“Let me talk to my wife,” Corey said.
“I can’t go for that, no can do, you got the currency, you’ll welcome her into your open arms soon enough. Take my word, she’s cool, your munchkin’s cool, we’re cool, everybody’s cool as cucumbers. I’m ready to do this, I’m ready to get my money and cruise into the boogie nights.”
“How do you want to do this, then? How about I come to you, give you the money, and you give me my family?”
“No, no, no, no, no. Do not pass go, mi amigo. That’s not how this is going to go down, no. We’ll rendezvous this afternoon, sixteen hundred hours sharp, Lenox Square Mall, east side.”
Corey’s mind raced. “Where on the east side? It’s a big mall.”
“Be there at sixteen hundred, go inside the general mall entrance, wait near the doors, and I’ll buzz you and give you the precise drop-off point coordinates, you dig? I need to scope the scene and make sure you haven’t gone five-o on me.”
A car pulled into the space alongside Corey: a police cruiser. Corey held his breath as a muscle-bound cop wearing yellow-tinted aviator glasses climbed out.
He felt the officer’s mirrored gaze casually rake over him, perform a quick assessment, and judge him harmless. The cop moved on toward the bank.
Corey exhaled. He was so worried about the FBI that every cop was a threat.
“You got verbal constipation?” Leon asked. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Leon, I haven’t gone to the cops. Why the hell would I? You know me better than that.”
“Never been a snitch bitch, I’ll give you that.” Leon giggled. “I’ve missed you, C-Note. Don’t you miss how we used to rock ’n’ roll? How could you ever give it up and go legit? That crazy adrenaline buzz, that quick, easy loot, you’ve gotta reminisce sometimes.”
“I’ll deliver the money to you at four,” Corey said. “But when are you giving me my family?”
“You get the address when I get the funds.”
“I want them to be there at the mall.”
“This isn’t Burger King-you can’t have it your way. You’ve got no leverage. All out of chips. Pockets turned out. Do what I say, how I say, when I say, where I say, and you can resume your merry fuckin’ Heathcliff Huxtable life, comprende, hombre?”
Click.
Corey stared at the phone, gnawing his bottom lip. He didn’t like the plan, but Leon was right. He had no leverage whatsoever.
A blanket of shadow spread across the car. He looked up at the sky through the windshield. The sun had vanished again.
28
When Mr. Leon came into the bedroom, he made Giant leave. Jada breathed a sigh of gladness. She’d been trying to ignore Giant after she ate the Snickers, but he continued to stare at her and smile that creepy smile of his, as if he expected her to do something as payment for the candy bar, and she’d been terrified that he was going to get out of that chair, shuffle to her, and make her do whatever awful thing he was thinking about.
As Giant lumbered out of the room, he said something to Mr. Leon-Jada thought his lips spoke the word candy-and Mr. Leon shrugged, closed the door, and approached her. In one hand, he held a white plastic bag with a Subway logo on it.
She loved Subway, but she scooted against the wall and watched him cautiously as he came near. Daddy had said he and Mr. Leon had used to be best friends a long time ago, but in some way, Mr. Leon actually scared her more than Giant, though he wasn’t nearly as big. Mr. Leon made her think about the last time Mom and Daddy had taken her to Zoo Atlanta. There had been a spotted hyena there, and the animal, which she knew from class was a vicious predator, had been pacing restlessly across the dirt, hungrily watching the people beyond the fence, pacing and pacing and pacing, and she’d known that if it hadn’t been for that fence, the hyena would have pounced on them and torn them to pieces.
Mr. Leon was like that restless hyena, but there was no fence to keep her safe from him if he suddenly attacked, so she thought it best to be
quiet and careful around him.
He dropped the bag onto the mattress. He said something to her, but his lips moved too fast for her to figure out what he was saying. She glanced inside the bag and saw it was full of food.
Thank you, she said, but she didn’t say anything else. He left the room, and she was alone in there for the first time ever. Finally.
The food he’d brought was even better than a candy bar: a big sub sandwich with turkey and cheese and mayo, a bag of Doritos, and a bottle of cold water. The Snickers, as delicious as it had been, had only stirred her appetite. She was so hungry that she barely thought about her parents’ warnings against taking things from strangers.
She was starved enough to eat it all, but she saved some of it in case she got hungry later. She drank some of the water, too. Normally she hated to drink plain water because it tasted blah, but her mouth was so dry the water tasted wonderful.
With all of the eating and drinking came the pressing need to go to the bathroom. She couldn’t hold it any longer, and since Giant had left, she felt safe going.
The bathroom was really weird-peculiar was a word she’d recently learned that came to mind-like the people building it had left before finishing. The knob was missing, and there was no water in the bowl, so she couldn’t flush. A roll of toilet tissue stood on the sink, though.
When she was done, she turned the faucet handle to wash her hands, and nothing came out of the spout. She frowned, tore off a piece of tissue, and cleaned her hands as best she could.
She decided to do some exploring.
There was nothing to see in the bathroom. No windows at all. There was only the sink, toilet, and a bathtub full of junk and cobwebs. She went back into the bedroom.
There was a door near where the mattress lay, and like the bathroom door, the knob was missing. She pulled it open, expecting a closet, and that was what she found. It was a small space, with lots of dusty cobwebs and a few pieces of wood stacked on the floor and leaning against the wall, but it held nothing interesting.
Next, she went to the bedroom door. The plastic chair in which Giant had been sitting was nearby, and being careful not to touch it-the idea of touching a chair in which he had sat grossed her out-she turned the doorknob. It was locked.
She went to the window, which was blocked with big pieces of wood. She peered between the slats. The sky was cloudy and gray, and there was a forest out there that seemed to go on forever.
Where was she? Where were Mom and Daddy? Was she all alone?
Tears trickled out of her eyes. Sniffling, she shuffled to the mattress and curled up on it. She slipped her thumb into her mouth, feeling like a big baby as she did it, but comforted nonetheless.
As she lay there tucked in a ball, she squeezed her eyes shut and whispered a prayer. Dear God, please don’t let anything bad happen to me. Please send Mom and Daddy here to get me and take me home soon, please, please. I want to go home, God.
She thought about Giant, remembered that smile that gave her goose bumps, and shuddered.
Please keep me safe, God. Amen.
She hoped God was listening.
29
We’ve been here before. I know it.
Pacing the bedroom floor, periodically flexing her fingers to keep them from growing numb, Simone ransacked her memory, struggling to recall when she had visited this place and exactly where it was located. The railroad tracks curving around the perimeter of the subdivision and the master bedroom suite appointments had triggered her sense of deja vu. Hadn’t her family come there several months ago to tour the model homes? Hadn’t something awful happened to Jada while they were there?
Although ritzy new subdivisions sprang up every day in metro Atlanta, some of which had nearly identical floor plans and features, she doubted that many of them bumped up against a freight train network. She knew she was right on this; her intuition was buzzing.
Was it coincidence that Leon had brought them here? Or did it mean something? What could it mean?
She didn’t know. But somehow, she needed to get a message to Corey.
Footsteps approached the doorway. She swung toward the door, fingers bunched into fists.
She heard the barricade removed, and then Leon entered. “Bonjour, senorita bonita.”
He grinned mischievously, one hand hidden behind his back. Fear fluttered through her, and she thought about the concealed pipe.
Wait and see what he does. Wait for the right time.
He approached the mattress and showed his hand. He was carrying only a small plastic Subway bag. With a chuckle, as if he’d relished her fear, he tossed it onto the bed.
“Time to graze,” he said.
A spasm wrenched her stomach. She had not realized how hungry she was.
But she shook her head. She didn’t want to be in debt to this man. “I’m not hungry.”
He smiled derisively. “Don’t lie to me. I scooped you and the munchkin from the Webb McMansion before you had a chance to eat your Special K and sip your cafe au lait. It’s past lunchtime now, and with those child-bearing hips you’ve got on you, I know you don’t miss one too many meals. Stop trying to be au contraire and dig your pretty little manicured fingers into this grub, ’cause I sure as hell ain’t feeding your ass again. This is it, now or never.”
Her mouth had begun to water, and he had raised a good point. She didn’t know how much longer she would be trapped there. It could be several days before this ended, and how could she have the strength to fight back or escape if she were weakened from starvation?
Kneeling onto the mattress, she pulled the bag open. It contained a foot-long sandwich, potato chips, and a cold bottle of water.
“Thanks,” she said.
He lit a cigarette with a brushed chrome lighter and exhaled a wisp of smoke. “Guess what? Your hubby came through for you.”
“What?” She stared at him. “Corey’s going to pay you five hundred thousand dollars?”
He scowled. “Why do you sound surprised? Don’t you think you and the little munchkin are worth that much and then some, a king’s ransom? You’ve got pitifully low self-esteem, sounds like, yet you call yourself a therapist, huh? But then I’ve read that all shrinks are prime rubber-room candidates themselves, so I figure you fall into that category, too, fits you like a wet T-shirt.”
She was shaking her head. “It’s not that, it’s just. .” She let the sentence trail off. She couldn’t believe it, but what did it matter how Corey had raised the money? All that mattered was that this nightmare would be ending soon.
“When?” she asked. “When can we go home?”
He glanced at his watch. “If all goes well, mademoiselle, by this evening. I’m meeting him at four to collect the currency.”
Hope swelled in her breast. They could be home by that evening. This could all be over. Praise God.
“Where are you meeting him?” she asked.
“Lenox Square Mall, sure you know it well, that’s where you no doubt use the gold card to purchase the haute couture I peeped in the closet at su casa. You aren’t the only one who’s got love for the plush, you know.”
In actuality, she rarely shopped at Lenox and bought most of her clothes from outlet stores and mail catalogs that specialized in inexpensive but stylish and quality wear, but she saw no point in sharing that information with Leon. She was only relieved to know that Corey would be meeting him in a public place, where things would be less likely to go wrong.
She glanced at the food, hesitated. “Does my daughter have food and water, too?”
“ ’Course she does, I gave it to her myself a minute ago, Billy Boy was eyeballing her too hard after she munched his candy bar.” He snickered. “Whoa, talk about a double entendre, huh?”
“He gave my daughter candy?” She tried to keep her voice level, but she wanted to scream.
Leon puffed out smoke. “She ate that sucker up, too. Probably made Billy Boy want to cream his pants as he ogled her. Poor guy, he only wants
to be loved like we all do, you dig, there isn’t enough love in the world, and I guess if he thinks he can only get love from a sweet little munchkin, who am I to say that’s wrong?”
Her hunger, so sharp a moment ago, faded. Hungry, scared, and alone, Jada had no idea of the mistake she had made by accepting the candy, could not fathom the signal that she had unknowingly sent that sick man. She was in greater danger than ever.
Somehow, she had to get Jada out of here.
Smirking, Leon bent to his knees. “Aw, shucks, don’t be sad, little lady. I told Billy Boy to make like a tree and leave. The munchkin’s alone now eating her chow.”
“Can I see her? Please?”
“Nope.”
She glared at him. “For God’s sake, what harm is there in letting me see my daughter? Corey’s giving you what you want, isn’t he? Let me see her, damn it!”
“No can do, senorita bonita.”
He flashed a shark’s grin at her through the cloud of smoke. He was enjoying his power over her, taking pleasure from her anguished pleading.
She wanted to grab the pipe and smash his damned teeth out.
If you try that, you’ll be doing exactly what he wants you to do. Don’t play his game. You’re the psychologist, girl. You make the rules.
Without uttering another word, she turned away from him. She dug the water out of the bag, carefully unscrewed the cap, and sipped. It was cold and delicious. She tore open the potato chips and popped one into her mouth. Gourmet cuisine had never tasted better.
“That’s all?” he said. “No more begging to see your crumb snatcher, no more pleading, no casting yourself at my feet and beseeching me for goodness and mercy?”
Shrugging, she peeled the paper away from the sandwich. “Turkey and pepperjack on wheat. Yummy. Good choice.”
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