The Trust (23 page)

I grabbed the misshapen envelope, pulling at the layers of tape. The work was infuriating. The tape would not come off fast enough. I tore. I yanked. Again, I checked the room for scissors. None. When I finally fought my way to the paper part of the package, Claire’s eyes widened in horror. She begged me to stop. “No, don’t.”

Too late. With one final heave, I ripped open the package. Ice, a big wad of plastic wrap, I wasn’t sure what. Bits and pieces exploded everywhere.

Something fleshy landed on my tie. Something bloody. Something hidden from the others by the conference room table.

I looked down and almost retched.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

BOARD MEETING

It was most of JoJo’s pinkie.

To this day, I’m embarrassed by what happened next. Disgust, revulsion, nausea—that would be putting it mildly. I lurched backward, almost toppling over. JoJo’s finger disappeared between my legs onto the chair. I would have done anything to get away from the severed digit, as though it contained a contagious disease, some kind of necrotic leprosy.

“What is it?” Claire hid behind her bangs. She watched in horror.

Nobody saw but me. The finger was gray and withering in its gore. It was clean cut, severed two knuckles down from the nail, about an inch long. I never answered Claire.

I couldn’t.

That big wad of plastic wrap—I bent over and picked it up off the floor. Layers were stretched around and around a folded sheet of paper. Inside, protected from moisture and the melting ice that had scattered through the room, was a photo printed on 8½-by-11-inch copy paper like the ransom note.

There were no block letters this time. It was JoJo. Her mouth was wrapped in blue duct tape, her left hand taped to her cheek, her stump exposed and bleeding. But it was her face that got me, the terror, the dried tears, the loss of dignity.

For a moment I forgot JoJo’s finger, the mutilation that made me flinch. I wanted to kill whoever had done this—if only as an act of vengeance on behalf of Palmer. I wanted to find JoJo and save her. Some goon was watching us, reveling in his power. I wanted to reach down the fucker’s throat and pull his ass out his mouth. “Is there anything else in that letter?”

“No.” Claire craned her neck, trying to see over the table, but not daring to peek.

“A name, anything?”

“No.”

“Is that what I think?” Biscuit remained calm, his voice steady, military training in every word.

“Yeah.”

Father Ricardo crossed himself.

“Put it on ice,” Biscuit instructed.

No need to ask twice. I concealed the finger in my hands, shielding Claire from the sight. Downstairs in the kitchen, I wrapped JoJo’s pinkie in tin foil and stuck it in the back of the freezer, behind the ice bucket. Where nobody would discover the foil and investigate the contents. I had no idea when time ran out for reattaching it.

“I’ll call the police,” announced Biscuit, back in the conference room.

Father Ricardo stood up and shook his head, looking to Claire and me for support. “You heard the letter. ‘The woman dies.’”

Tears streamed down Claire’s cheeks. “Who would do this?”

“We’re in over our heads.” Biscuit reached for the conference room phone, one of those gray triangles, a big round speaker built into the middle, and started to dial 911.

“They’ll kill JoJo.” Father Ricardo was adamant, incensed. He punched down the End Call button before Biscuit pressed the final digit.

“They’ll kill her anyway, Reverend. This matter is totally out of our control.”

I agreed with Biscuit. “Every second we wait is too long. There’s nothing worse.”

“How about dead?” Father Ricardo leaned forward on the table, his wide physique imposing. “You call the police—you send JoJo to her grave.”

“What makes you so sure?” I had to ask. The priest was in the soul business, not hostage rescue. No matter what he did in the Philippines.

“Don’t you get it?” he snapped.

“What?” Claire appeared dumbstruck.

“Maybe you’d better level with us, Father.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

BOARD MEETING

“I know who these men are.”

Father Ricardo gazed out the conference room window at St. Philip’s, the Anglican church dating back to 1680. His eyes were glassy, his back bent, his wide physique no longer imposing.

The confidence and spiritual aura—they were gone. He was a man overwhelmed by circumstances. His tortured expression reminded me of JoJo’s face in the photo.

Despair?

The three of us waited for him to continue. Father Ricardo didn’t say anything at first, because he couldn’t. The silence grew ponderous, and I wanted to dial the authorities on the spot. “Who are they, Father?”

He leaned forward, elbows on the conference room table. And using his thumbs, he massaged his temples as though summoning a higher authority for strength. For a moment, I thought he was praying. But when Father Ricardo looked up, I was stunned. We all were. There were tears streaming down his cheeks.

“I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“What do you mean?” My voice was low, controlled, my heart pounding.

“I held back.” His suit was crisp, his face a mask of regret.

“What, Father? What did you hold back?”

“The kids. It’s not petty criminals who maim them. It’s a crime ring. A huge, sophisticated network of Filipino beasts that could teach the American Mafia a thing or two. I don’t know what all they’re into.”

“But you think they took JoJo?” The words were more accusation than question. I could feel my anger welling inside.

“I’m so sorry.” The floodgates opened. Father Ricardo’s tears flowed like the Ashley River.

“I told you they’d come looking for us.” Last Tuesday, he was the one who threw up his hands in exasperation. This time it was me. “You said Cebu and the surrounding islands were safe. And by default, everyone in Charleston.”

“I’m so sorry.” He kept wailing, repeating himself. “We’re just not worth their time.”

“Goddamn it, Father. What have you gotten us into?”

Claire’s jaw dropped, dumbstruck by my temper. She was too numb to speak. But words weren’t necessary to understand her message. The man was broken. I had no right to badger him, a priest of all people.

Biscuit, his words soft and slow as molasses, tried to ease the tension. “Why did the gang come here?”

“I don’t know,” the reverend bawled. “These men have never followed us outside Manila. That’s why I thought the other islands were safe.”

“JoJo Kincaid!” I bellowed. “Two hundred million dollars! What were you thinking?”

“All our plans. I was so wrong,” sobbed the priest. “Now everything is at risk.”

He was frustrating me. I reached over to the phone, ready to call the police.

“Don’t,” Father Ricardo pleaded. “You don’t know these men.”

He wiped the tears from his face, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and blew his nose. Claire slid next to him, leaned over, and hugged him with her right arm. The sight—the man in black crumbling and a woman comforting him—stopped me from dialing.

But not from snapping. “Apparently, you don’t either.”

“Why Charleston?” pressed Biscuit, his voice gentle. “Why’d they grab JoJo Kincaid?”

“I don’t know.” His tears started to flow again.

The big man was onto something. His questions fueled my own curiosity. “Biscuit’s right, Father. The authorities will ask the same thing.”

“We’ve always been insignificant,” he started. “Nothing more than nuisance priests.”

“I get it. A gnat on an elephant. What changed?”

“They learned about our twenty-five-million-dollar wire?” Father Ricardo was struggling to find an answer, anything to end the barrage of questions.

“So they have a guy on the inside. Big deal. Happens all the time in bank operations.”

Claire pushed the bangs from her face and cautioned me with her eyes.

“The Palmetto Foundation,” I continued, my voice more respectful, “wired money to the Manila Society for Children at Risk in the past. And you’ve always been able to hide your activities. There’s got to be something different.”

“I signed a purchase and sale for the hotel.”

Biscuit, ever the real estate lawyer, looked like someone had hit his internal light switch. “Your name is on the contract?”

“My name and the Manila Society for Children at Risk.”

“What’s the price?” I asked.

“Thirty-eight million.”

“We only sent you twenty-five.”

“We forfeit our escrow if we don’t wire the balance in three days. Now do you understand my urgency?”

“The whole thing?” I asked, incredulous. “You forfeit one hundred percent?”

“Yes.”

“How could you be so stupid?”

Father Ricardo glared at me. “I never anticipated a problem, because—”

“Because of what?”

“My deal with Palmer. Which you blew.”

Biscuit shook his head. “Here’s how I see it, Padre. In the past, you operated under the radar. Rent payments, payroll, and ordinary expenses that people forget. Nothing major. Now you commit to a thirty-eight-million-dollar purchase. Twenty-five down. Thirteen to follow. And the bad guys ask, ‘Who is this priest?’ They start their homework.”

“With the help of an insider,” I reminded everybody.

“And before long,” Biscuit drawled, “they wonder, ‘Who’s the sugar daddy funding our boy?’”

“And stealing our workforce from the streets.” I couldn’t keep myself from interrupting. I liked Biscuit’s clarity.

“The bad guys Google the Palmetto Foundation. I know that’s what I would do. And they find Palmer and JoJo all over the Internet, where the whole world can see their money.” Biscuit sat back. “You think that sums it up, Padre?”

“It’s the foundation’s money,” corrected Claire, returning to her seat.

“Palmer and JoJo Kincaid have always been targets.” Father Ricardo sounded defensive, but for the moment his distress was over. “And everybody at this table knows it.”

“We’re in a helluva fix,” I said, parroting Annie’s story about the Texas governor. “You risk losing twenty-five million dollars, Father. This gang wants two hundred million from the Palmetto Foundation. And we don’t know if they’ll return JoJo in one piece.”

*   *   *

Father Ricardo was right about Palmer and JoJo. They had always been the prey. I tell clients all the time, “Big lifestyles make big targets.”

More than once, Palmer rejected my advice to hire bodyguards. He dismissed it as too alarmist. “For chrissakes, Grove, we live in Charleston.”

Not everybody is so cavalier. That’s why I maintain a short list of security services for clients and prospects who express an interest. Same thing with kidnap and ransom insurance, or “K&R,” as it’s known in the trade. When my guys travel to Mexico or Venezuela, I tell them, “You’re crazy if you don’t look into a policy.”

One of Microsoft’s billionaires is the gold standard for personal protection. Journalists love to write about his 414-foot yacht. The helicopter pads and attendant submarines make for good reading. But the ship’s crew is what interests me.

It’s a team of ex–Navy SEALs.

*   *   *

Father Ricardo surveyed Claire, Biscuit, and me. His tears were gone, his resolve back, both of which were a relief to me. When he spoke, his voice was soft, no more than a velvety whisper. But his message reverberated with the power and gravitas that come only from men of the cloth.

“I’ve been fighting these beasts a long time. And, right now, I regret my errors in judgment more than anything else in the world. I’d do anything to turn back the clock. To rescue JoJo. To heal her wounds. If I’m guilty of anything, it’s trying to save more kids. Because I saw no end to the butchery.” He paused a beat. “But know this. If you go to the authorities, if you delay payment, if you second-guess their ransom note, these men will kill her.”

Claire was transfixed.

“You know them personally?” I asked, recalling how his confession began.

“Only as adversaries.”

“But you can get to them, right?”

“Through my team, yes.”

“The mercenaries?”

“I don’t like that term. But our men, one in particular, know the world of these gangsters.”

“Fine. We go to the authorities, Father, and make sure they talk to your guy.”

“U.S. law enforcement can’t move fast enough,” he objected.

“There’s an FBI agent riding my ass. Trust me, she’ll drop everything.” So much for me keeping secrets.

“FBI?” Father Ricardo asked, hearing about the Bureau’s interest for the first time. “What do they know?”

Claire, who had been silent, stood up. She folded her arms across her chest and paced in one direction, then the other, as though organizing a jumble of thoughts. Biscuit, the reverend, and I looked at her.

At first, she addressed me. “Right now, only one thing matters. That’s JoJo. And I want her back. No matter what it costs.”

I bit my tongue, praying she would stop.

“We don’t have two hundred million.” Claire swept back her hair. “Not yet anyway.”

Please don’t go there.

The Palmetto Foundation had $140 million in assets. By Friday, Palmer’s gift of $150 million would take our total to $290 million. In my business, we treat everything on a confidential basis. And neither Biscuit nor Father Ricardo needed to know the extent of our resources.

“Dad’s gift to the Palmetto Foundation—”

“Is irrelevant,” I interrupted. “We need the authorities.”

“Totals one hundred and fifty million,” Claire finished, overriding me.

“It won’t be in the account until Friday.”

She wriggled her palm back and forth, the
Whoa
signal. “I’ll have the money tomorrow.”

I wanted to scream but tamped down my emotions. “A two-hundred-million-dollar payment includes funds from other donors. That’s not right, Claire.”

“Use our forty,” the reverend argued. “That takes you to one ninety.”

“But your escrow?” Biscuit leaned into the conversation. Everybody was talking at once.

“I don’t care if we lose the property,” said Father Ricardo. “I can raise more money. But I can’t live with JoJo’s death on my hands.”