Ryder's Wife

by Sharon Sala

  Decay. Everything around you will fall to decay. Flesh will fall off of your bones and be consumed by the worms.

  Raised in a superstition as old as the land itself, in Lash Marlow’s mind, the curse Casey invoked had begun. He thought about what would happen if he just called the whole thing off. If he could, he would have turned back the clock, stopped what he’d started before it was too late. As always, Lash’s instinct for good was too little, too late.

  * * *

  Roman crouched beneath the low-hanging branches of a weeping willow, watching as Marlow came out of his house and ran into the woods bordering the backyard. He frowned. Whatever it was that had sent him running couldn’t have come at a better time. And still he waited, ever cautious, searching the grounds around the house for signs of other life. Except for the leaves in the trees, nothing moved.

  Like a shadow, he came out from hiding, heading straight toward the dark blue sedan parked in front of the house. Within seconds of reaching it, he had secured a tracking device under the frame and was on his way back when he saw something that gave him pause. The fender of a small white car was just visible through the partially opened door of a nearby shed.

  He frowned. According to the information he’d pulled from the Department of Motor Vehicles, Lash Marlow owned one car—a midnight blue, four-door sedan. He swerved in midstep and bolted for the shed, constantly searching the area for signs. of Marlow’s arrival.

  The car was a small, white compact—at least eight, maybe ten years old. He glanced in at the gauges and whistled softly beneath his breath as he saw the odometer. Less than thirty thousand miles on a ten-year-old car?

  What the hell, he thought. So, maybe Marlow just bought himself a second car and the change of ownership had yet to be registered. The mileage alone would make the car worthwhile. But he couldn’t let go of the notion that he was wrong. This was a little old lady’s car, not the type a man like Marlow would want to be seen driving.

  And then it hit him. Little old lady! As in a woman named Fostoria Biggers? Her name had come up in conjunction with Marlow’s when he’d been into the bank records and he’d thought little of a lawyer being an executor of an estate. It was done every day. But what if…?

  He dropped to his knees. Regardless of why it was here, it was another vehicle that would be at Lash Marlow’s disposal. Without wasting any more time, he affixed a bug to this car as well, and while he was on his knees, his attention was drawn from the car itself to the condition of the tires. He crawled closer. The treads were packed with mud and grass. He picked at the grass. To his surprise, it still bent to the touch. He frowned. Someone had recently been driving this car. But where?

  A door slammed. Roman’s nerves went on alert. It was time to get out. He’d done what he’d come to do.

  * * *

  The call came in at exactly one minute to five. Every man in the room went on alert as Ryder reached for the phone.

  “Ryder Justice speaking.”

  Like before, the voice had been altered. A mechanical whir was audible in the background.

  “This is a recording. In fifteen minutes, Ryder Justice is to bring the money to the corner of Delaney and Fourth. There is a newsstand nearby. It will be closed. Set the bags inside the stand and drive away. If anyone attempts to follow the man who picks them up, Delaney Ruban’s granddaughter will be meat for the ’gators. If you do as you’re told, Casey Justice will be released.”

  The recording ended long before a trace could be made. Ryder cursed beneath his breath as he hung up the phone. He felt sick to his stomach. ’Gator meat? God help them all.

  He started toward the front door. “Put the bags in the car.”

  “Wait!” Wyandott shouted.

  Ryder turned. “Do what I said,” he ordered. “Delaney and Fourth is halfway across town. I’ll be lucky to get there in fifteen minutes as it is.”

  “I want one of my men in the back seat of your car.”

  Ryder grabbed him by the arm and pushed him up against a nearby desk. His voice was shaking. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you want. That’s not your wife someone threatened to feed to the ’gators, it’s mine. Now put the damned bags in the car or I’ll do it myself.”

  Roman peeled Ryder’s hands off of the agent’s jacket. “Easy, brother. He’s just doing his job.”

  Ryder spun, his eyes blazing with anger. “Don’t push me, Roman. I’ve been hanging on the edge of reason for so damned long it hardly matters.” His voice broke. “If I lose Casey—”

  “Put the bags in the car,” Wyandott said. “We won’t be far behind.”

  Ryder pointed at Wyandott. “I don’t know who will pick up these bags after I’m gone, but if one of your men even sneezes in his direction and my wife dies as a direct result, I will kill him…and then you for giving the order.”

  Wyandott’s face reddened, but he stepped aside.

  Within seconds, Ryder was in the car and out of the driveway, leaving a cloud of dust and a group of men running for their cars to keep up. Roman watched from the step until they had all disappeared, and then he jumped in his car and drove out of the driveway in the opposite direction. He had his own agenda to follow.

  Eudora watched from an upstairs window and then returned to her bed in tears. Downstairs in the library, Miles and Erica sat in uneasy silence, now and then venturing a glance at the other without voicing their thoughts.

  Out in the kitchen, Tilly sat in a chair near a window overlooking the drive. Her posture was straight, her expression fixed. Only her eyes revealed her pain. They were wide and tear-filled as she watched for someone to bring her sweet baby home.

  Everyone was waiting for a miracle.

  * * *

  Bernie Pike opened the door to Casey’s room as his partner, Skeet, entered carrying another plate of food and a can of some sort of cola.

  “Last meal,” Skeet said, waving the plate in Casey’s direction.

  The urge to cry was almost more than she could bear. If only she was somewhere else and lying in Ryder’s arms. But she didn’t cry, and she wasn’t in Ryder’s arms, and she crawled off of the bed with undue haste. She wouldn’t put herself in the position of giving Bernie and Skeet any more ideas than they already had. She didn’t know that Lash had threatened everything but death to them if they so much as touched a hair on her head. She didn’t know he’d saved that joy for himself.

  “I thought prisoners were given a choice as to what they wanted to eat.”

  Skeet chuckled and dropped the plate at the foot of the bed and tossed the unopened can of soda beside it.

  “Sorry, sweet thing. You get beans and weiners.”

  Casey glanced at the plate. The only thing good about it was that the small, lunch-size can of beans and weiners was still unopened. “And I was so hoping for your head on a platter.”

  Skeet slapped his leg and laughed, then elbowed Bernie and laughed again. “She’s a hoot, ain’t she Bernie? It’s a damned shame Marlow is gonna ‘do’ her.” Before Casey could think to react, Skeet reached for her breast. “I still think I’d like a little taste of what she has to offer. What Marlow won’t know won’t hurt him, right?”

  Casey grabbed the can of beans from the plate and bounced it off of his head.

  Skeet ducked, but it was too late. He yelped in pain when the can hit the corner of his temple. Seconds later, she was flat on her back on the bed with Skeet on top of her.

  “You bitch! I’ll make you…”

  Bernie cursed and grabbed, pulling his partner off the woman and the bed. “Get away from her, dammit. You heard Marlow. You might want to part with your dillydally, but I don’t. Besides, you asked for it.”

  Skeet’s rage was slow to subside as he considered whether or not Lash Marlow was capable of castrating anyone. Finally, he decided he didn’t want to test the theory enough to try again.

  “You got about two more hours to play hell on this earth, then you can die on an empty stomach,” he yelled,
and out of spite, took the can of beans and weiners and stomped out of the room.

  Bernie looked at Casey and shrugged, as if to say it was all her fault, then shut the door behind him. The lock turned with a sharp, distinct click and when they were gone, Casey dropped to the floor and pulled her knees up close to her chest.

  For the first time since the ordeal had begun, she was losing all hope. And the worst was in knowing Ryder would never know how sorry she was for betraying him by the investigation. They’d parted in anger and she would die with that on her conscience.

  Despair shattered the last of her resolve. She slumped onto the floor, her legs drawn up against her chest in a fetal position, and she started to cry—slow, aching tears that welled and spilled in a continuous flow of pain.

  Casey cried until she lost all track of time. Had it been two hours or two minutes since Skeet’s warning that her time to die was close at hand? Was Lash already on his way? She remembered the wild expression on his face when last she’d seen him.

  “God help me,” she prayed, and then choked on a sob as she realized she was lying in a position to see directly beneath her bed.

  The elongated neck and small, unblinking eyes of the creature beneath her bed were startling, but for Casey, who’d lived in imminent fear for the last three days of being eaten alive, it was a large relief.

  “Well, my word,” she said, and reached under the bed, pulling out a small, brown terrapin that had taken her move as threatening and disappeared into its shell. “So it was you I heard all the time.”

  Sympathetic to the fear that had caused it to retreat, Casey quickly set it free, and as she did, saw something else under the bed that made her heart leap. There, in the corner beneath her bed! It looked like—

  She crawled to her feet and pulled the bed away from the wall just enough to reach behind. When her fingers curled around the butter soft leather, she pulled. She was right! It was her purse.

  She clutched it to her chest as she crawled onto the bed, then held her breath, listening to make sure that Bernie and Skeet were not about to come in.

  Three days ago seemed like a lifetime. Casey couldn’t remember what she’d been carrying in her purse, or even what she’d been doing when she’d gotten the call about Ryder’s wreck. Her fingers were shaking as she undid the clasp. But when she opened it up, her hopes fell. Her shoulders slumped as the dumped the meager contents onto the bed.

  Her wallet was gone, as was the compact cell phone she usually carried. She should have known this would be too good to be true. There wasn’t anything left but a handful of tissues, some pencils and pens, her lipstick and a small, plastic bottle of lotion.

  Frustrated by the letdown, she slammed the purse down on the bed beside her and then winced when something within the purse itself hurt her hand.

  “What in the…?”

  She opened it back up. There was nothing inside but the black satin lining. She tilted it, then thrust in her hand, feeling within the bag itself. Something was there…but not inside…it was beneath…no, between. She pulled at the lining like turning a sock inside out, and saw the rent in the fabric near the clasp.

  Curious now as to what was inside, she stuck her finger in the fragile lining and pulled. It ripped and then parted. Carefully, Casey thrust a finger inside, then another, and searched until she felt something cool and hard and sharp. And as she traced the object’s length, realization dawned. Her hands were shaking as she pulled it out. She tried to think of how the letter opener Lash had given her as a gift had gotten out of her desk drawer and into her purse.

  And then she remembered running back to grab her wallet on the day of the call, and of grabbing a handful of pens along with it as she dropped it inside her purse. That must have been it. She’d gotten the letter opener with everything else. And because it had been so sharp, it had gone straight through the lining and lodged in between.

  She looked toward the door as her fingers curled around the miniature rapier’s silver shaft. It wasn’t much, but it was the first means she’d had of self-defense and she had no intention of letting it go to waste.

  A laugh boomed out in a nearby room. Casey flinched, then shoved the dagger beneath her pillow. Not now, she told herself. Only when it was time. When it was time.

  CHAPTER 16

  Ryder pulled up to the newsstand with less than a minute to spare. He double-parked in the street and grabbed the two bags, moving in an all-out sprint. The stand was closed, just as the kidnapper had promised, but a small, side door stood ajar, and he shouldered his way inside.

  It was little more than three walls and a roof. The half wall that opened up to the public could be propped overhead like a porch, shading the counter beneath. The concrete sidewalk served as its floor, and Ryder dropped both bags on it with a thump and walked out.

  All the way back to the car, he had the impression that he was being watched. He didn’t know whether that came from the Feds who had followed him here, or from the kidnapper waiting for him to leave. When he slid into the driver’s seat and started the car, his instincts kept telling him not to leave—not to leave Casey’s welfare up to kidnappers. But he ignored the urge and drove away, and had never been this afraid in his life—not even the night his plane had crashed—not even when he’d known that Micah was dead. He left with the knowledge that he’d done all he could do. The ransom had been delivered. Hopefully, his next point of contact would be the phone call telling him where to pick up his wife.

  As Ryder drove away, Wyandott and his men began to slip into place around the area. A couple of blocks away, Gant watched from his car with binoculars trained on the door through which Ryder had come and gone.

  And the wait began.

  Five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty. In spite of the coolness of the evening breeze blowing through his window, Gant was starting to sweat. He could just imagine what was going through Wyandott’s mind. The Feds must have been made. If the kidnappers got spooked and didn’t pick up the ransom, he wouldn’t give a plug nickel for Casey Justice’s chance of survival.

  Just when he thought it was over, an old man turned the corner and headed down the street, pulling a little red wagon behind him as he made toward the stand. Gant thought nothing of his presence until the man paused at the door, opened it up and then stepped in, leaving his wagon just outside.

  Gant sat straight up in the seat, adjusting his binoculars for a clearer view as the man emerged. But it wasn’t the bags Ryder had put inside that he was carrying out. It was a large black garbage bag. He tossed it into the wagon and started down the street when Wyandott’s men suddenly converged upon him.

  Gant threw down his binoculars in disbelief and started his car. In spite of the kidnapper’s instructions, Wyandott was pulling him in. God help them all if this stunt got Casey Justice killed.

  * * *

  “You’re under arrest!” Wyandott shouted, as two of his agents wrestled the old man to the ground.

  The terror on the old fellow’s face seemed sincere. “What did I do? What did I do?”

  An agent slapped handcuffs around his wrists while another tore into the bag. But they all stared in disbelief as a cascade of crushed aluminum cans fell onto the street.

  “What the hell?” Wyandott muttered.

  “They’re mine, fair and square,” the old man cried, as they pulled him to his feet. “Anthony gave them to me.”

  Wyandott turned. “Who the hell is Anthony?”

  “The man who owns the newsstand. I pick them up once a week, regular as clockwork. Everyone knows. Anthony doesn’t care. He saves them for me.”

  A knot was beginning to form in the pit of Wyandott’s belly. He pivoted and pointed toward the stand. “Check it out!” Two of the agents were already running as Gant’s car slid to a halt near the curb.

  Gant strode toward Wyandott with murder in his eyes. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Wyandott hunched his shoulders and thrust out his jaw. “Mind your own
damned business.”

  “This is my city. That makes it my business,” Gant yelled. One of the agents came running. “Sir! You’d better come take a look.”

  Everyone converged on the stand, leaving the old man handcuffed and alone in the street near his cans.

  The bags were gone!

  “This is impossible,” Wyandott muttered. “We didn’t take our eyes off of this stand for a second. Not a damned second.”

  Gant stepped inside, and, as he did, caught his toe. He staggered, then looked down. A certainty came over him that they’d been lying in wait for nothing. Chances were that the bags had disappeared seconds after Ryder had left

  “He didn’t take them out, he took them down,” Gant said, pointing toward the slightly raised edge of a lid covering the opening that led down to the sewers.

  Wyandott paled. “Hell.” He grabbed his two-way. “Ambrewster… is that bug sending?”

  The radio crackled, and then the man’s voice came over the air loud and clear. “No sir. Everything is status quo.”

  Gant was on his knees and pulling at the lid when several of the agents followed his lead and began to help. A flashlight was produced, and even though they were yards above them, and it was black as a devil’s heart down below, there was enough light to see two empty bags lying at the foot of the ladder.

  And they had their answer. The signal wasn’t sending because the bags were more or less right where Ryder had left them… minus the three million dollars that had been inside.

  The radio crackled again. Wyandott jerked.

  “Captain…this is Tucker…come in, sir.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Sir, we’ve been following Marlow as you ordered. He parked his car and went into the courthouse at fourteen hundred hours. We have men stationed at every exit and he has yet to come out.”

  Wyandott was starting to worry. He kept thinking of the threat Justice had made to his face. This wasn’t going down as he’d planned.