by Harry Dolan
36
Rafael Garza
In the FBI raid on Adam Khadduri’s vacation house, Rafael Garza is more or less a bystander.
Six agents make the trip north from the field office in Detroit, including Rachel Massoud and her boss, a stern-looking man in his fifties named Wayne Jansson. Garza follows them in a rental car he picked up at the Detroit airport.
They drive for three and a half hours to the town of Frederic, Michigan, where they’re joined by six deputies from the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office in nearby Grayling. The two groups meet at a staging area on Sand Hill Road: the gravel lot of an ice-cream shop that’s gone out of business. Rachel briefs them on the operation and everyone suits up. The deputies are young. Some of them could be fresh out of high school. Their equipment looks new: body armor and helmets and Colt M4 carbines.
They take a knee in the gravel and say a prayer, and when they come up they’re energized. They give each other high fives.
Garza is worried for them, but his worry is misplaced. None of them suffers so much as a scratch.
The operation unfolds precisely as Rachel planned it. The FBI agents take the lead, driving south on Sand Hill Road in a UPS delivery van they brought up from Detroit. A bit of subterfuge. Their aim is to get right up to Khadduri’s front door without arousing suspicion.
The sheriff’s deputies follow in a van of their own.
Garza brings up the rear in his rental car. He’s got his service weapon, a Glock 19, and he’s wearing a Kevlar vest on loan from the FBI. But Jansson has made it clear that he’s being allowed to tag along as a courtesy. He’s supposed to stay out of the way.
It’s four miles from the staging area to Khadduri’s house. The UPS van makes the turn into the long driveway. The deputies hang back a little. They time it perfectly, entering the driveway just as the FBI agents breach Khadduri’s door.
The agents go into the house. The deputies deploy around the perimeter.
Garza stays out of their way.
It’s over quickly. The house is empty.
Garza walks through it after the agents have cleared all the rooms. It’s plain that someone has been here recently. Several someones. There are four bedrooms on the second floor. Four beds. All of them have been slept in.
Three of the rooms have travel bags in them. Men’s clothes scattered around.
No clothes in the fourth room. Molly Winter might have been held there. You don’t get spare clothes if you’re being kept against your will.
Or maybe Garza is seeing what he wants to see.
There’s a kitchen at the back of the house on the ground floor. Evidence that someone cooked breakfast. The smell of bacon lingers. The sink holds unwashed pans and dishes.
There’s a table outside, on a wooden deck by the river. A tray and plates. Glasses of orange juice. At least two people ate out there, and they left some food behind. It’s gathering flies now.
It’s unusual. Suggestive even. But it’s not evidence of a crime.
Wayne Jansson says as much. He’s not pleased. He takes Rachel aside for a private conversation. Garza observes it from a distance. It looks grim.
To top everything off, there’s no black SUV in the driveway. The only vehicle present is a dark blue Maserati GranTurismo, which is registered to Adam Khadduri.
Garza walks through the yard to the front of the house. The sheriff’s deputies are milling around there. Disappointed. The adrenaline rush fading. They’ve got their helmets off. One of them is sitting cross-legged on the ground, pulling up blades of grass.
Others are stripping off their body armor. Looking like kids again. One has a blue-and-white T-shirt on. School colors. The logo reads: KALKASKA HIGH.
When Garza sees it, there’s something familiar about it.
Kalkaska.
Garza’s suitcase is in the trunk of the rental car. He digs out his notebook and pages through it. Finds his notes from his interview with Karen Tierney, Molly’s old boss. The one who owned the art gallery. She told him a story about Adam Khadduri—how he once took Molly to the site of a summer camp he attended when he was young.
At Grass Lake. Up near Kalkaska.
The camp is abandoned now, she said. Nothing but some cabins and an old chapel.
Garza takes his phone out and opens Google Maps. He finds Grass Lake. It looks remote. Only one road leading in.
If you were looking for a place to keep a captive, it might be ideal.
It’s only fifteen miles away.
Garza returns his notebook to the suitcase and closes the trunk.
He’s already behind the wheel when he sees Rachel and Jansson walking along the north side of the house. Jansson breaks away to talk to the deputies.
Rachel approaches Garza’s car.
He rolls down his window. “I don’t think you were wrong,” he says.
She smiles faintly. Puts on a patronizing tone. “We’re all stewards, Ray. Stewards of Bureau resources. And Bureau resources are not to be wasted.” She’s imitating Jansson.
“This wasn’t a waste,” Garza says. “She could have been here.”
“I think she was,” Rachel says with a shrug. “But she’s not now, and I don’t know where to look for her.”
Garza fidgets with his car key, turning the key ring around his finger.
“I have an idea,” he says. “It’s probably a long shot.”
He tells her about Grass Lake.
“That’s a stretch,” she says.
“I know.”
“Kind of a big stretch. To think Khadduri would take her there.”
“It’s a place he feels connected to.”
“Sure.”
“And it’s not far,” Garza says. “It’s worth a look. I’m going to drive by there, just to satisfy my curiosity.”
She studies him through the open window, her brown eyes thoughtful.
“Well, you’re not going alone, Ray.”
37
Molly Winter
She’s been here before.
Camp Antioch is the name of the place. Adam Khadduri brought her here once on an August Saturday for a picnic and a swim in the lake. Molly remembers him grinning as he showed her around, leading her by the hand like they were kids.
It’s about a mile off the main road. A collection of long, low, wood-frame buildings. All of them are run-down, and some have been damaged by fire.
One building is set apart from the others, farther back from the road. It stands near the southern shore of the lake, and it’s taller: a chapel with a steeple rising from its peaked roof. Its clapboard walls were once painted white, but time and weather have stripped the paint away.
Most of the chapel’s windows are broken, and the altar lies in ruins. Nearly all the pews are gone, hauled away by scavengers. If you look down from the choir loft, you can see three of them left, arranged to face each other in a rough triangle.
Molly is up there now, in the choir loft. But she’s not looking down. They’ve got her sitting on the floor with her back to a wall, hands cuffed behind her, ankles bound with zip ties.
Khadduri is sitting a few feet away. He’s got zip ties on his ankles, too, and on his wrists.
Jimmy comes and goes. The last time Molly saw him, he disappeared up a set of winding stairs at the back of the loft. She climbed those stairs herself, years ago. They lead up into the steeple.
Molly knows what Jimmy’s doing up there. He’s watching for Sean.
Sean is coming here with the cylinder seals. That’s the arrangement Khadduri made with him. A simple trade. But Sean doesn’t know Jimmy’s here, and Molly has no way to warn him.
She feels powerless. Quite literally.
She’s been thinking about the handcuffs. They’re loose on her wrists, but not so loose that she can slip free of them. It would help if she could shift them from the back to the front; it would put her in a better position to fight, when the time comes. And it’s possible. She and Sean used to practice now and th
en. The maneuver is simple, if you’re limber enough. You lie on your back and scoot your cuffed hands down past your bottom until they’re behind your knees. From there, with some effort, you can bring your legs through—but only one at a time. Molly has never been able to do it with her ankles bound.
She’s desperate enough to try anyway, but unfortunately she’s being watched. Jimmy’s men are standing guard over her and Khadduri. There’s Nick, the one who was with Jimmy at the ranch in Montana. And there’s Kelly.
Kelly is short and wiry, dressed in black jeans, a silk shirt, and a leather jacket. He has a face you would call ill favored. Pale and heavy browed, with a bent nose and a blunt, ugly mouth. Molly has caught him staring at her off and on since they arrived here. But caught is the wrong word. Kelly’s stare is open and hungry; he doesn’t try to hide it.
Molly makes herself relax. Tries to estimate how long they’ve been here. Two hours at least. She sees Kelly staring at her again and watches as he moves closer to her. He squats down so their eyes are on the same level. But when he talks, he’s not talking to her. He’s talking to Nick.
“I’ll tell you something,” he says. “You’re a better man than I am, Nicky.”
Nick is standing at the railing of the loft, looking down into the chapel.
“That’s a pretty low bar,” he says.
The corners of Kelly’s mouth turn up. “That’s funny. But I’m serious. You’re a saint. I mean, here she is, your enemy. The girl who wrecked your face. And it seems like you’re willing to forgive and forget.”
“How about you give it a rest, Kel.”
“If it were me,” Kelly says, “I’d want some payback.” Without taking his eyes off Molly, he reaches into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulls out a folding knife. He opens the blade. “I’d want to mark her up a little.”
Nick has turned around now. He sees the knife. Says, “Put it away.”
Kelly scowls. “Don’t tell me what to do, Nicky. You know I don’t like it.”
He scrapes the tip of the knife across the wooden floor. “I think I get what you’re doing,” he says to Nick. “You’re biding your time. When this is over and Sean’s dead, Jimmy won’t need her anymore. I bet if we asked him, he’d let us have her. I bet she’d be fun.”
Nick steps away from the railing. His hands have been in his pockets, but now they come out. The right one has a gun in it.
He doesn’t aim it, just holds it. Kelly sees it and looks away as if he’s bored.
“I know you’re not gonna threaten me, Nicky.”
“Let it rest,” Nick says.
Kelly tosses his knife in the air and catches it on his palm. Molly has her legs extended in front of her, and he’s been squatting by her feet, but now he rises and approaches her on her left side. He goes down on one knee. Brings his face close to hers.
“Nicky’s torn, don’t you think?” Kelly says to her. “I mean, he can’t be happy when he looks in a mirror. But he likes to pretend he’s a nice guy. I bet he’s thought about seeing you bleed, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.”
He brings his right hand up to her cheek. The hand that’s holding the knife. Molly forces herself to remain still.
“We could show him some blood,” Kelly says. “I wouldn’t have to cut too deep.”
Adam Khadduri has been sitting silently, staring at the floor. He raises his head and says, “Leave her alone.”
Kelly laughs and lifts his eyebrows to show Molly his surprise. “Look who’s here,” he says. He looks over at Khadduri and his voice turns cold. “Shut the fuck up,” he says. “I could carve you into little pieces and I can’t think of anyone who’d care.”
“You’re not as frightening as you suppose, you little hoodlum,” Khadduri says.
Kelly turns back to Molly and flashes her a big smile. He brings the knife close to her face again, but when he touches her it’s not with the blade. He uses his index finger. Draws his nail along her cheek.
“What about you?” he says. “Are you frightened?”
He’s close enough that Molly can see the blood vessels in his eyes. She doesn’t answer him. She holds still, even as he traces his fingertip along her neck. It takes all the control she has not to shudder.
No telling what his next move might be. Molly doesn’t find out. There’s the sound of heavy footsteps on the spiral stairs: Jimmy coming down from the steeple.
Kelly and Nick hear it, too, and they react in different ways. By the time Jimmy reaches the bottom of the stairs, Nick’s gun is back in his pocket. He looks sheepish: a child caught misbehaving. Kelly withdraws his finger from Molly’s neck, but he keeps his knife out and doesn’t move away.
“What are you doing?” Jimmy asks him.
“Nothing,” Kelly says.
“Seems like something.”
Kelly winks at Molly as if they’ve shared a secret. Then turns away from her and stands.
“We’ve been talking,” he says. “That’s all.”
Jimmy’s carrying a pair of binoculars and a rifle with a scope. He props the rifle against the wall on the other side of the loft. Approaches Kelly and hands him the binoculars.
“Make yourself useful,” he says. “Go keep watch.”
Kelly goes, and as Molly listens to the trudge of his steps on the staircase, she feels a change in the air. It’s not exactly relief. It’s more like trading one menace for another. Like when the wild dog that’s been stalking you gets chased off by a wolf.
Jimmy stands near her feet staring down at her. He’s got a sheath on his belt that holds the hunting knife he used to kill Tom Clinton. Molly half expects him to draw it out and kneel beside her, like Kelly did. Jimmy has rough hands. Thick fingers. She doesn’t want to feel them on her face.
The knife stays in its sheath. Jimmy comes over to the wall and leans against it. Eases himself down until he’s sitting beside her.
“What did Kelly say to you?” he asks.
Molly answers in a quiet voice. “He’s wondering if you’ll let him rape me after Sean’s dead.”
Jimmy nods. “That’s about his speed.” He lets out a sigh and brings his knees up. The heels of his boots scrape along the floor. “Do you think I’d let him do that?”
“I don’t know,” Molly says.
“I wouldn’t. I’m not a savage.”
Molly is staring straight ahead, but she can feel him beside her, and she can smell his sweat.
“It’s tempting though,” Jimmy says. “The idea of hurting you. It’s crossed my mind. As a means to an end, as a way to hurt Sean. All those years you were gone, I had a lot of time to think about ways to hurt him.”
“What have you come up with?” Molly asks.
“Nothing good. I can let my mind go to dark places, but the things I see tend to be crude. Cutting off limbs. Cole followed Sean to war, and he came back missing a foot. Now I’ve got you. I wonder what it might be like to give you back to Sean without your feet.”
She turns to look at him, and he seems almost embarrassed. She watches him shrug.
“I told you,” he says. “Crude. It’s only an idea. I’m not going to act on it. Imagination is always better than the real thing anyway. When we came here, when I saw this place from outside, I pictured a heavy wooden cross over the altar. I thought I might tie you to it. So that when Sean walked in here, you would be the first thing he’d see. But there’s no cross. We’ll have to get along without it.”
He reaches over to pat her shoulder. “You shouldn’t worry about this. It’ll go quickly once Sean gets here. It used to be, when I pictured it, I thought I would need to make a speech. But that’s wrong. Sean knows what this is about. There aren’t any words that can make it better or worse. It just needs to be done.”
It’s clear to Molly what he’s doing: trying to sound reasonable. She isn’t buying it.
“That’s a lie,” she says. “It doesn’t need to be done. That’s something you’ve told yourself. It’s not what Cole would
want. Cole loved Sean, and Sean loved him. Like a brother.”
Jimmy makes a face like he’s been stung. She sees it in profile.
“You don’t know anything,” he says.
“I know Sean.”
He shakes his head, angry. “You only see what he shows you. I know him. He wasn’t Cole’s brother, or mine, but we tried to make him part of our family. We did that for him, after his mother died. It should have meant something.”
“It did,” Molly says.
“No,” says Jimmy. “Not when it counted. Not when it came to that idiotic burglary.” He turns and meets Molly’s eyes. “I tried to stop it,” he says. “Did Sean ever tell you?”
“Yes,” she says. “A long time after.”
“It was around a week before Cole died. I learned what they were planning. I went to Sean’s apartment to talk him out of it.”
“The way I heard it, you did more than talk,” Molly says. “You just about knocked him through a wall.”
Jimmy is quiet for a moment, and when he speaks his voice is almost gentle. “I wanted him to listen. Sean was never good at listening. I wanted to make him understand: He could do what he wanted with his own life, but it was wrong to risk Cole’s life for nothing. For money. I thought I’d gotten through to him. He promised he would call it off, and I believed him. But it was a lie.”
He seems sad, and in the silence that follows Molly searches for a way to reach him. To defend Sean.
“He never thought Cole would die,” she says. “He thought they would both be safe.”
“I know what he thought,” Jimmy says, tipping his head back against the wall of the choir loft. “I know what both of them thought. They were children, but they had been to war and they had come back alive. They thought they were invincible. Cole was always like that, even as a little kid. But Sean should have known better. I warned him.”
His voice is turning hard again. Molly tries one more time to get through to him. “I was with Sean after,” she says. “What happened to Cole broke him. He wasn’t the same—”
Jimmy lifts a hand to cut her off. “Don’t try to tell me he’s paid.”
