Reckoning and Ruin (24 page)

Chapter Forty-nine

He clomped into the room, the boots heavy on the hardwood. Limping now, which gave his stride an awkward lurch. He moved closer until he was right in front of me, dropped into a crouch. He smelled singed up close, despite the clean clothes, which he'd topped with a ballistic-proof vest.

He looked at me with Boone's eyes, frostbit green. “Cat got your tongue?”

I strained at the tape. “Fuck you.”

He slapped me. Then he pulled my face up, mashing his thumb into the tender flesh of my jaw. Pain went singing through my head, and my eyes watered. I tasted blood.

“That's enough outta you,” he said.

Ivy stood beside him. “She wouldn't talk. I figured I'd let you make her.”

“Aren't you sweet?”

She cast a nervous glance behind her to the empty doorway. “Where's Shane?”

“He's in the car.”

Ivy froze. Something had gone wrong, and she was desperately trying to figure out what it was without tipping her hand. She kept the shotgun, held it by the barrel. She was wishing she'd had it by the stock, finger on the trigger, so that she could level it at Jasper now.

Instead she smiled. “Let's don't make him wait, baby. Let's get the money, pay him off, and be on our way.”

She was seductive, coaxing. Ripe for the taking. And yes, Jasper was hungry for her. But not the way she thought.

He stepped closer, gathered her face in his hands. I saw the flicker in her eyes—relief? fear? uncertainty? Things weren't going as planned. But he ran his fingers through her baby doll curls and kissed her, slow and deep. And I watched, sick to my stomach, because I knew what was coming.

“You think I don't know?” he said.

The flicker again. “Know what, baby?”

He took her shotgun before she knew it, wrenching it from her fingers. She started to say something else, but Jasper spun her around and shoved her toward the door.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's go see Shane.”

She started begging as he dragged her down the hallway. She didn't stop talking—rapid-fire, pleading, desperate. I heard a scuffle, then a scream. Then two shots, one after the other. And then it was quiet, just kicking, scrabbling noises, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor.

When Jasper reappeared in the doorway, he was breathing hard, eyes bright. Blood flecked his hands and stained the vest. “That was unfortunate. She would've been fun for a little while. Now Shane, that's a different story. Hurt like hell to put him down. Like a brother, he seemed to be. Of like mind and heart.” He shook his head. “I counted on them to work together, and instead they go behind my back, killing people for no good reason, looking to take my money—mine—like I was too stupid to figure it out.”

On the television, the screen filled with a different image. Shane. In his uniform. Among the missing, presumed kidnapped. And then Jasper's mug shot. Among the escaped, presumed dangerous.

Jasper sighed. “You're all the family I got, cuz. And I thank you for telling me that John Wilde was missing. That's what made me figure out that those two were up to something. After I confronted him, Shane confessed that things had gone off-plan. A snafu, he said. He was sorry they hadn't told me, he said. But I figured out what they were really up to there, him and Ivy. And it wasn't much from there to figure out who'd really sent him.”

I licked my swollen lips. “You know where the money is. Go get it and hit the road.”

“You and I got some business to attend to first.” He crouched down behind me, stroked the blade lightly against the back of my ankle. “Now, I'm gonna cut off this tape. And as long as you behave, the only thing I'm cuttin' is tape. You hear me? Say you hear me.”

“I hear you.”

He sliced my ankles free. Then he slashed the tape that held me in the chair. He grabbed me by the collar and hauled me upright, the knife at my throat.

“Let me explain my choices here, because I have thought them out. As much as I'd like to flay you alive, I don't have the time. And as much as I'd like to do it in front of Trey Seaver, then fill him full of buckshot, he's too much of a complication to work easily into this scenario.” He tsk-tsked. “Dangerous man you're shacking up with, and I know one when I see one. He's no doubt up now and frantic, calling your phone and getting no answer and imagining all kinds of awfulness happening to you, no way to find you. Which makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. It's second best, but it will do.”

He marched me to the hall. “Now, I do get some delight at the thought of him finding you dead. But again, ain't no cause for that. Maybe I'll just break you. That'll eat him for the rest of his life, which will be good enough. That okay with you? Alive but broken?”

He was lying. He was gonna kill me. After he used me as a hostage. Or a human shield. And he might be quick to flee afterward, or he might be mean enough to stalk Trey down too. He was dangling survival like bait, and I wanted to grab it with both hands, do whatever he said to walk out alive. It was a deadly temptation, and I resisted it.

Jasper's eyes narrowed. “I asked you a question. Deal?”

I tried to keep my voice steady. “Deal.”

“Good. Then let's go.”

“Go where?”

He pushed me into the living room. I averted my eyes from the heap that was Ivy, tried to stay focused even though my head pounded and my legs shook. Jasper stuck the knife in his boot and hoisted a rifle standing beside the front door. He double-checked to make sure it was loaded, then held it up where I could see.

“Shane had nice taste in hunting rifles. Remington Model 700. Drill a hole through a buck's skull at three hundred yards. He fitted it with laser sights and everything. Military grade.”

He aimed it at me, and I saw the green light blossom in front of my heart. I almost dropped to my knees.

“Head for the dock,” he said. “I'm right behind you.”

I walked through the doors, stronger but too unsteady to run. Jasper followed behind me at a nice safe distance, the mounted light on his rifle illuminating my path and blinding me every time I looked back. In the dark, the night dense around us, I couldn't fight the memories that rose, the last time Jasper and I had stalked each other around that dock. I'd detailed that night for the prosecution over and over, but being back in this place on another moon-washed night fired up the fear in a way that telling the story never had.

I saw that the backyard had been hastily evacuated. The girl's toys remained where they'd left them, the dip nets and jars, shovels and soccer balls. The BB-pocked cans they'd used for target practice were scattered at the edge of the clearing, right next to the canoes, which had been hauled up from the dock. A one-person kayak lay flipped over next to the shed, the paddle beside it.

Jasper played the light over it. “Get that and drag it over.”

I stumbled forward. Was he going to try for an escape? It was certainly possible. The river was mostly empty this time of night, and a kayak could slip into the night like a ghost, avoiding whatever road barricades the cops were surely setting up. I'd let him go, not stand in his way one second.

I bent over to grab the tow rope. The kayak was old and battered, waterlogged too, heavy as hell when I hoisted one end…and saw the glint in Jasper's light. I pretended to adjust my grip and looked closer. It was a piece of broken glass, brown, long as my hand and sharp like a dagger. A remnant of the girls' illicit BB shooting.

Jasper noticed my dawdling. “Hurry up. The thing can't be that heavy.”

“It's full of water.”

“So dump it out, idiot.”

I dragged the kayak forward until my right foot rested next to the glass. Then I knelt and tilted the kayak, the water pouring out, the hull obscuring my hand as I grabbed the glass and slipped it up my sleeve, where it rested against the inside of my wrist. I righted the kayak and started to haul it toward the dock.

Jasper interrupted me. “Not thataway.”

“Where then?”

“Where do you think?”

And then I knew the kayak wasn't for him. I knew he wasn't trying for an escape, not yet. He still had his money to get, and I realized with fresh horror where he'd hidden it. And why I was still alive.

Chapter Fifty

I gaped at him. “You hid it in the gator pit?”

Jasper shrugged. “Was a fish pond when I put it there. I gotta tell you, when Ivy told me what Jefferson had done, I was ready to string him up. That little fishing hole had been the perfect hiding spot, easy as pie to get to, nobody gonna be looking there. And then he had to go and stick gators in it. Now it ain't that easy. Lucky for me, I got you. Now get on.”

I couldn't move, couldn't think. I had a sliver of broken glass, all but useless at a distance. Running was futile—Jasper could pick me off in a hot second before I made the woods or the water.

He spoke louder. “I said, move.”

I picked up the kayak and started dragging. He stayed behind me all the way back to the house and down the path to the edge of the pit, which lay silent and dark beyond the pier, surrounded by the chain link fence.

I stared into the water. “You never were going to take Ivy anywhere. She was supposed to be the one wading up in alligators while you and Shane watched.”

“Yeah. She was gonna be useful. And I swear, I thought me and Shane…” He shook his head mournfully. “Ah well, he ain't the first man swayed by a piece of tail, won't be the last. And he turned out to be useful too. For a while.”

I heard splashes, the roar of a bull. The spring fever surged in them, and they rutted and fought and chomped in the frenzy. The males charged anything—logs, canoes—and the females hunkered down near their nests on shore and sunk their teeth into whatever stumbled close.

Jasper marched me down to the edge of the water, right beside the pier. It was concrete around the edges, good for supporting the chain link fence, but soft sand at the banks. The kayak scraped until I got it deep enough to float.

“Bad timing to be rummaging around in a gator pit, I know. But I didn't pick it. Damn Klan breathing down my neck, Ivy and Shane plotting. It made the timeline for getting out a little…what's that fancy word? Compressed. Thank goodness that dang lawyer showed up and gave everybody something else to think about.” He grinned. “Threaten to take a couple million, and people get distracted. Even people like you who don't have a million to take.”

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to slice some bleedy part open and shove him on top of the gators and watch the churning. Revulsion mixed with fury, burned bright. As long as I didn't let the fear overflow, I could ride those. They'd make fine fuel. I was more worried about the dizziness and the nausea, my shaky body and unsteady feet. Whatever Shane had popped me with, it came with damnable aftereffects.

Jasper swung the rifle up, once again pinning me in the light. “Get in. I'll tell you what to do.”

I took a quick inventory. My sneakers were already soaked, the sucking mud pulling at them. My skirt would be a soggy bundle of uselessness. The blouse would offer some protection from sharp rocks and pointy branches, but not gator teeth.

I pointed. “There's a pair of waders in the dock box. Throw them to me.”

“What?”

I dropped the tow rope and shucked the skirt. “You want me messing around in there, you gotta give me some protection.”

Jasper hesitated. “This better not be a trick.”

“You want me to get your damn money or not? If not, shoot me now and wade in yourself!”

He stared at me. I could see the jangly burnt-wire part of him that wanted to do it, and I saw it smoothed over by the efficient no-nonsense part. He needed me swift and successful. Then he could shoot me.

He trained the gun on me as he worked the top of the dock box, feeling around inside until he dragged out Jefferson's hip waders. He chucked them to the edge of the water, where they slapped like a gator tail.

“There. Now get to it. And if you make one sly move—”

“I know, I know.”

I dragged on the heavy rubber. Yes, some protection, but mostly stalling for time. The water was shallow, deepest in the middle around the aerator, maybe ten feet. The waders were too big, but they would keep my shoes on my feet. And I was going to need those shoes. I was gonna need to run, as soon as I got a half-chance. I flexed my fingers and felt the broken glass slide against my skin. There might be other things I had to do before that.

Jasper sent the light to the edge of the pond, where the chain link ran. “I know what you're thinking. But even if you make it out of the water, I'll take you down at the fence. Hundred foot shot. With this here fine rifle, I could make that blindfolded. You hear me?”

I didn't say anything, and the green dot from the rifle centered on my chest. I felt the raw skin on the inside of my wrist burn in the dirty water, and I remembered Trey, and I imagined him standing right there beside me, like we were running a scenario, like we were training. I even heard his voice in my head.

Timing and opportunity. Watch for the convergence.

I took a deep breath, straightened my spine. “What am I looking for?”

“Chain. Goodly length of it.”

“And how am I supposed to find it?”

“Head out to the piling. I'll tell you what to do.”

I waded in. The water was warmer than I expected, thick with coontail moss and lily pads. I slogged my way forward until the kayak got clearance, then I swung myself inside. It was muscle memory, a move I'd made a thousand times, only this was the first time I'd done it at gunpoint.

“Okay. Now what am I—?”

The bump came out of nowhere, like a torpedo. The kayak tilted crazily, and I screamed and grabbed my knees, pulling myself into a ball.

Jasper's voice was irritable. “What happened?”

“Fucking gator! What do think goddamn happened?”

Jasper sent the light down the bank, and a dozen pair of glittery red eyes stared unblinking back. “Probably a mama warning you off her nest. You gotta be more careful.”

I muttered curses, wrapped myself tighter. Waited. The gator didn't return. Definitely a female then. The bulls would not be so generous. I moved like a reptile myself—sluggish, slow, dull. Trey had explained why during our drills at the gun range. Adrenalin shuts down the blood flow to the extremities, routing it to the core. Hands go numb, fingers get clumsy and thick. I could feel it happening to me.

I moved the paddle into the water, and it almost fell from my grasp. “I can't do this! I'm gonna get eaten alive out here!”

“I've seen you swim with sharks. You can do this itty bitty thing.”

I heard another bellow, and felt my stomach go liquid. Jasper fired, and I heard a wallowing thrash. Then silence.

Jasper raised his voice. “You better hurry up. I ain't got a million bullets.”

I tightened my grip on the paddle and stroked shakily for the middle of the pond.