Speak Now (10 page)

Before I quite realized what was happening, the second man made a swift smooth gesture and the man with the paper sank silently to the floor. Brenda let out a short yelp and the second man, who was crouching over the first, looked up at her quickly with his finger to his lips. Then he looked at me and, I swear, winked.

What the hell— “Jack!” I whispered urgently. “Is that you?”

He was busy cutting through the tape that bound Cece’s wrists and ankles. Then he did the same for Brenda. They rubbed their wrists and looked dazed as he stood to face me. “Hi, Pumpkin,” he said through the mask. “You ready to go?”

Chapter 11

“What the hell—” I stammered as Jack cut my hands and ankles free. “How the hell—”

He pulled his mask up, kissed me quickly, then pulled it down again. “We’ll talk later, okay?” He turned to Brenda. “Nice to see you again.”

She nodded blankly. “Hi, Jack.”

“And you must be Cece.” My cousin had been eyeing the man on the floor with loathing. She looked up when Jack said her name.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Nice to meet you, too. Are we ready?” He looked at the three of us. “Nobody’s hurt? You can run if you have to?”

“We’re fine,” I said.

“Okay. Here’s the plan. I’ll lead the way and you follow me closely. As far as I can tell there’s a force of five tonight.” He looked to Cece for confirmation, but she was focused on the fallen man again. He went on. “So with this one down and the one I took out to get this,” he gestured to his clothes, “that leaves three more we need to worry about.”

What the hell did he mean, the one he “took out”?

“I heard two of them playing a video game in another part of the house, so they should still be occupied. If we’re lucky the third will be calling in to report on the mission, so we should be able to get out of here all right.” He pulled a gun from the small of his back and made a deft one-handed movement that caused metallic snapping-into-place sounds.

“I’ll go first, up the stairs as far as the kitchen door. If I don’t see anyone there, you follow me. We go straight through the kitchen and out the back door, then straight to the van in the driveway. The keys are in the ignition. Everybody clear?”

Brenda and I nodded mutely. “Cece!” Jack said sharply. “Do you understand?”

She looked at Jack, looked back at the man on the floor, then at Jack again. Then she viciously kicked the bound man in the head. “I’m ready.”

Jack nodded and went to the door. He gestured that we should all line up along the wall behind him. I stood closest to him, then Cece, and Brenda brought up the rear. Jack stood with his back to the wall, holding the gun in both hands at chest level. Then he spun quickly and opened the door, pointing the gun. He looked at us and nodded. All clear. We heard him mount the stairs swiftly. I peeked out when I heard the door to the kitchen open. He turned back and waved us on.

We got up the stairs as quickly and silently as we could. The kitchen was lit up like a football stadium, and open space stretched for about a mile to the back door.

While we waited, Jack stood beside the hall doorway in the same commando stance he’d used downstairs. Again he spun quickly to see what lurked beyond, and again he turned and waved us forward. “Go!” he hissed. We went.

At the other end of the kitchen, I peeked out the door. I didn’t see anyone on the driveway. “It’s clear,” I whispered to Jack, who was still guarding the hall.

“Run!”

I could have sworn my feet never touched the ground, but I heard the crunch of the gravel so I knew that couldn’t be true. Cece stumbled and fell halfway down the drive. Brenda and I picked her up and half-dragged her the rest of the way. She mumbled “Weaker than I thought,” and we both hissed “Shut up!” I looked back and saw Jack silhouetted in the kitchen doorway, gun drawn.

We had almost made it to the van when I heard the first shout from the house.

“Get in!” Jack called, sprinting toward us. We piled in the driver’s-side door. I went first, then pulled Cece in behind me while Brenda pushed from behind. Jack spun and crouched in the shadow of the van, gun pointed at the kitchen door. He shouted over his shoulder, “Start the car!”

Brenda was in the driver’s seat. She looked wildly at me. “Do it!” I yelled, and she fumbled to find the key in the ignition.

Then the shooting started.

I screamed, and Brenda screamed, and I threw myself across her trying to get to Jack. She pushed me off, still screaming, but finally managed to get the van started.

Cece, in the back of the van, seemed to snap into focus with the sound of the first shot. When a bullet hit the van Brenda and I screamed again, but Cece yelled “Shut the fuck up!” and pulled open the heavy sliding cargo door.

I vaulted into the back of the van, calling for Jack, who I could now see was still firing from his position by the rear wheel. He turned around, yelling “Go!” and dove for the door opening.

Brenda hit the gas with Jack’s legs still dangling outside, and Cece and I hauled him in just before the van made a sharp turn onto the main road that could have sent us all flying out.

I lay on the floor of the van with Jack on top of me, both of us gasping for air, as Cece dragged the big door shut. The sudden quiet was deafening.

“Is everybody okay?” Brenda called from up front. “Is anybody hurt?”

“We’re fine,” I yelled. “Cece, find a light or something.”

She felt along the ceiling until she found a switch. The rear of the van was suddenly brightly illuminated.

“Pumpkin,” Jack said from on top of me, “I think I’m going to need a little help here.”

I looked down, saw the blood, and screamed.

***

My scream set Brenda off again, and this time Cece joined in. Over us all, Jack shouted “Calm down! Just calm down!” but it took us a while.

Brenda pulled off the road. “Why are you stopping?” Jack yelled. “Don’t stop! Keep going!”

“You’re hurt,” she shouted. “And besides—” she looked in the rearview mirror— “I don’t think anyone’s following us.”

“Still, keep going.” Jack struggled to sit up.

“Stay where you are,” I told him, wiggling out from under him and making him lie flat on the floor. “Where are you hurt? How bad is it?”

He managed a rakish grin. “Just a flesh wound, baby.” Then his eyes fluttered closed. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

“Brenda, get us to a hospital,” I ordered. “Where’s the nearest one?”

“No!” Jack’s eyes flew open. “No hospital. They have to report gunshot wounds.”

“Which is what you have, which is why we’re going to a hospital.”

He leaned on his right elbow and managed to get himself to an upright position. “Charley, no hospital. It just grazed my shoulder. I’ll be fine. Brenda,” he said with raised voice, “how fast can you get us to Harry’s place in Hillsborough?”

She looked from me to Jack, then turned and put the van in gear. “Fast.”

“Don’t get arrested,” Jack warned. “Just get us there, okay?”

“Okay,” she said grimly.

Cece and I helped Jack to a fairly comfortable position leaning against the side of the van. Then I tore the black sweater from around his neck, using the bullet hole as a starting point. There was a lot of blood.

“Jack,” I said softly. “Please let us take you to a hospital.”

“It looks worse than it is,” he said. “Just make a compress for now to slow down the bleeding.” He closed his eyes.

I looked around for something to make a compress from, then settled for pulling my shirt off and tearing it into pieces. I ripped the sleeves off, then folded the rest into a large bandage, and used the sleeves to tie it around Jack’s arm and hold it in place. The wound was on his left shoulder, about three inches from his neck. I tried not to think about what would have happened if it had been a little further down or to the right.

“Hey,” Jack said, eyeing my bra as I tightened the bandage. “What are you trying to do? Give me something to live for?”

“I swear to God if you keep joking about it I’ll kill you myself,” I told him.

“Toll plaza!” Cece called from the passenger seat. “I need to turn off the inside lights if we don’t want questions.”

I nodded and she flipped off the light. Outside, we could see the beginnings of sunrise on the city.

We made the rest of the trip in silence. I wedged my body between Jack’s and the cold steel side of the van, and held on to him until we got to Harry’s.

Chapter 12

We made it to Hillsborough as the neighborhood was waking up. Papers were being delivered, landscapers were unloading equipment from battered pickup trucks, nannies were putting executive children into Volvo station wagons. It all seemed so normal. Except for us.

Brenda had begun to cry quietly as she turned onto Harry’s street, brushing her tears away angrily. Cece, who had been alternating between silent stupor and manic fidgeting for most of the trip, now kicked the fidgeting up a notch. By the time we turned onto the drive she was simultaneously biting her nails, tapping her feet, twitching, and humming tunelessly.

I held on to my bleeding husband.

“See? We made it. No problem,” he winced as the van lurched one last time before stopping. “Thanks, Brenda.”

She turned back to look at us, blinking back tears. “I’m sorry,” she said, gesturing helplessly to her face. “I can’t stop.”

“Well, stop,” Cece snapped. “We’re here, right? And everything’s fine, right? So cut it out.” She fumbled with the door handle, couldn’t open it, so settled for slamming her fist against the window.

“It’s okay,” Brenda said softly, and reached over to unlock the door. “It’s okay.”

Harry chose that moment to explode out the front door, running down the stairs and sprinting across the lawn yelling “Where is she? Is she all right?”

Cece squared her shoulders and took a deep breath, then hopped out of the van. “Hey, Pop,” she called with complete nonchalance.

Harry nearly knocked her over, throwing his arms around her and repeating “Thank God, thank God, thank God.” He just rocked her for a moment, then seemed to remember there were other people present. He pushed his daughter away, demanding “Are you all right? Did those bastards hurt you? If they did anything to you I’ll—”

“I’m fine, Harry,” Cece said. “Nothing a triple espresso can’t fix.” Harry clasped her closely again, and she submitted, but only for a moment. She pulled away, jerking her head in the direction of the van. “I think the new hubby is the one you need to be worried about.”

Harry looked up in panic as Brenda pulled the van door open, revealing Jack and his sodden bandage, me, shirtless, trying to help him up, and a whole lot of blood. “Goddamn!” he yelled.

“Not as bad as it looks, I’m sure,” said the calm voice of Gordon, who had materialized behind Harry with a blanket in his arms. He hopped lightly into the van and touched Jack gently on his wounded shoulder. “All right?” he asked.

“Never better.” Jack allowed his uninjured arm to be draped across Gordon’s shoulders. “What’s for breakfast?”

Gordon handed the blanket to me, averting his eyes from my bra. “We wouldn’t want the neighbors to talk,” he said, and helped Jack out of the van.

“What the hell happened?” Harry demanded. Then, registering the fact that Brenda and I were present, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Perhaps,” suggested Gordon, “we might better have that dis cussion indoors?”

“Absolutely,” agreed Jack.

“Well— What— Right!” Harry sputtered. “Yes, first things first, let’s get you taken care of.” He put his arm around Cece and followed Jack and Gordon up the path to the house. I opened the blanket for Brenda to come in with me, and we followed.

***

Gordon deposited Jack on one of the sofas in the great room and hurried off for bandages. He returned in seconds pushing a cart containing a variety of surgical-looking stainless steel instruments laid out precisely on clean cloths, along with a collection of medicinal bottles, cotton swabs, bandages, and white tape. Jack looked from the trolley to Gordon’s face and back to the trolley again.

“I thought some preparation for this possibility might not be inappropriate,” Gordon explained.

“Certainly not,” Jack agreed.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” I asked the chef, as he picked up a small, sharp pair of scissors.

“I have had some medical training, yes,” he replied, snipping at the makeshift compress that used to be my DKNY long sleeve silk tee.

“Then have at it.” Jack leaned his head back on the cushion and closed his eyes.

“Shouldn’t we call a doctor?” Harry asked doubtfully.

“No,” said a voice from across the room.

Jack opened his eyes and turned toward the stranger. “Hey, Mike.”

Mike? Computer guy Mike? He stood silhouetted in the doorway, but I saw it was the same guy who’d surprised me, in a rather similar state of undress, in my hotel room a few days ago.

“Mike,” I said, realization dawning. “You were driving the Lexus.”

He grinned at me. “Hi, Charley.” He closed the big front door and joined us around the couch. To Harry he said “You really should keep your doors closed when you’re harboring a possible fugitive, sir.” And to Jack, “Is that bad enough to need a doctor?”

Jack looked at Gordon, who narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “No.”

“Fugitive? What do you mean fugitive?” I demanded.

Mike gestured toward Jack’s shoulder. “I’m guessing that wasn’t the only shot fired in Mill Valley last night.”

“How did you know it was Mill Valley?” Cece spoke up suspiciously.

“It’s all over the news.” He looked at her. “You must be the girl in question.” He held out his hand. “Glad you’re all right.” She extended her hand automatically, and they shook. “What do you say we go scare up some coffee?” She nodded mutely and followed him to the kitchen.

Harry watched his daughter walk away. “Well I’ll be damned.” He turned to Brenda. “Are you all right? Do you need anything?”

She smiled weakly. “A hot shower and a week of sleep.”

“The first shouldn’t be a problem. Come with me.” As Harry led her out of the room Brenda looked over her shoulder to shoot me a “should I?” look. I gave her a “go ahead” wave.

“How would you feel about a painkiller?” Gordon asked Jack.

“Not yet.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said, sitting next to him, out of Gordon’s way, and reaching for his hand. “At least have a slug of whiskey and a bullet to bite on.”

Jack smiled. “That’s my girl.” He squeezed my hand, then just about wrenched it off as Gordon started cleaning the wound and assessing the damage.

“Could have been a lot worse,” he summarized after a few minutes of swabbing and probing, enough to cause a fresh sheen of sweat to appear on Jack’s face. “A couple of stitches wouldn’t be out of place.”

“Later,” Jack said. “When you can give me something for the pain. Just bandage it up for now, okay?” Gordon looked like he was going to argue, then shook his head and reached for a stack of gauze pads. Jack took a deep breath. “Right now I want to hear what Cece can tell us, before she’s had a chance to sleep off any interesting details.”

“Not fucking likely,” Cece said, carrying a tray of mugs into the room. Mike followed her with an enormous coffee pot. I know I swore off the stuff in the oleander bushes, but to hell with that. I reached for a mug.

Harry returned without Brenda. He threw an oversized gray tee-shirt in my direction and I quickly put it on. He spoke to Cece. “Do you think you can talk about it?”

“Hell yes.”

“I’ll get some breakfast,” Gordon murmured, and slipped away.

Cece told us pretty much the same version of things she’d related to Brenda and me back in the basement. Jack and Mike stopped her frequently to ask for details about Tom Nelson. They probed her for an exact description, including voice characteristics and any mannerisms she could remember. There wasn’t much. He’d told her he was thirty-eight, and a doctor who’d graduated from Harvard Medical School.

“That part checked out,” Harry volunteered. Cece gave him an accusing look, and he protested, “Of course I checked him out! You think I’m going to let you shack up with someone you just met and not verify a few facts?”

“How did you verify them?” Jack asked, before they could open up an old argument.

“Hmm? Oh.” Harry broke off a staring contest with his daughter. “I used McIntyre and Zipfel. They did some sort of Internet search.” McIntyre and Zipfel was the firm of private investigators that Harry regularly used for background checks. He had a different agency entirely for tailing people and tapping phones, and yet another for providing security.

Jack and Mike exchanged a look. “Simple,” Mike said.

“Excuse me?” I asked. “What’s simple?” Mike was beginning to get on my nerves. I kept forgetting he was in the room and then jumping when he spoke.

“Simple enough to hack into the Harvard registrar and add a name and a degree,” he explained.

“That’s simple?” Harry seemed shocked.

“For the right guy, yeah.” Mike nodded.

I could see that McIntyre and Zipfel were in for a Harry-style ass-kicking at some point in the not too distant future.

“What else did you find out about him?” Jack asked.

Harry thought. “No marriage records. No criminal records. They didn’t check his job history, so I don’t know where he worked before the rehab center—”

Cece cleared her throat. “About that…”

We all looked at her.

“He didn’t exactly work there.” She looked up at the beamed ceiling.

“What in the hell do you mean he didn’t work there?” Harry sputtered, but Jack held up his hand to quiet him.

“Cece, he was a patient?” I suggested.

She nodded.

“And you let Harry think he worked there when you told him the guy was a doctor,” Jack continued.

She nodded again, then turned to face her open-mouthed father. “Well, what was I going to say? That he was a junkie? It happens to a lot of doctors, you know!”

“Right, except he wasn’t a doctor,” Mike pointed out.

“And probably wasn’t a junkie,” Jack agreed.

Cece seemed frozen in mid-protest. “Then why?…what?…”

“Are you suggesting,” I asked, “that this guy checked himself into a rehab just to meet Cece?”

Neither my husband nor his know-it-all friend answered.

“No,” Cece said. “It was all a setup?” She raised her voice. “Answer me!”

“It’s possible,” Jack said.

None of us spoke until Cece uttered a heartfelt “Bastard!”

***

When the rest of the group went to the dining room in search of Gordon and breakfast, I went upstairs to see how Brenda was doing. I found her coming out of one of the guest rooms.

“Brenda!” I could hardly believe it was her. “You’re gorgeous!”

With her hair uncharacteristically loose and hanging luxuriously down her back, and her face flushed from a hot shower, she looked positively glamorous. She was wearing a form-fitting silk robe that hugged her curvy figure. It was green and blue and violet, patterned in peacock feathers, and the colors were perfect on her.

“Well, I admit it’s a little more…something…than what I normally wear,” she said, looking down at herself. “Is it too tight?”

“It’s perfect!” Why did she always hide her body under drapey folds of fabric and oversized sweaters?

She grinned. “Harry left it out for me in the guestroom for after my shower. Along with these.” She stuck her foot out from beneath the robe to reveal purple feathered mules. She giggled. “I feel like a Chinese princess.”

“You look like one,” I agreed. “How are you feeling?”

“Famished! Is there anything to eat?”

“Come with me. Gordon—and I’m beginning to suspect he’s actually Clark Kent—has been up to something in the kitchen.”

***

In between mouthfuls of huevos rancheros and corn muffins, we told Cece what had happened in her absence.

“You mean you didn’t even notice I was gone for six days?” she interrupted the narrative.

“Well, it’s not like you stay in touch!” Harry said defensively. “If I called in the cavalry every time you didn’t pick up the phone we’d be in a constant state of alert around here!”

“Well if you didn’t attack me every time I talked to you, maybe I’d want to call more often!”

They glared at each other.

Lovely. I changed the subject by asking Jack the question that had been bothering me since the ransom drop. “How did you know where the exchange was going to be? How did you know to be hiding in the trees?”

He and Mike exchanged glances, and again I felt a wave of irritation. Mike seemed to know more about what was happening to my family than I did.

Jack cleared his throat. “They gave us two hours’ notice for the drop. As soon as they told us where it was supposed to be I called Mike and we came up with our plan.”

“Why?” Brenda asked. “Why didn’t you think they’d bring Cece? Why did you think you’d need to follow them?”

“Good question.” Harry looked at her approvingly.

Mike answered. “It wasn’t enough money.”

“That’s for damn sure,” Cece agreed. “Six hundred thousand!” She snorted and pushed her plate away from her. She’d hardly eaten anything.

Jack continued. “We suspected it wasn’t about the money. It seemed to be more about…” he faltered.

“Fucking with my head,” Cece finished for him.

Jack nodded briefly. “And Harry’s. All of ours.”

Mike spoke up. “Kidnapping isn’t really about the victim, usually. They’re just, um, a tool that’s used to get the ransom. A cause that’s used to create an effect.”

Mr. Sensitivity didn’t seem to notice Cece flinch at being called a “tool.” He went on. “But in this case the desired effect doesn’t seem to have been the money.”

Gordon cleared his throat. We all turned to look at him, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Speaking of money…This was in the van.” He held up a bag. It took me about two seconds to realize where I’d seen it before.

“The ransom!”

Harry and Mike trampled each other in their rush to take the bag from Gordon and open it. Stacks of cash spilled out onto the breakfast table. We all stared at it, stunned into silence.

When someone finally spoke it was Brenda, sounding like the professor she was, working out a logic problem. “All right. If it wasn’t about the money, what was it about? It seems like everything was orchestrated just to lure us out to Mill Valley to rescue Cece.” She looked at Harry as if struck by a sudden thought. “When they called you, did you ask to send someone else to bring the money or was that their idea?”

As Harry realized the implication of the question his face twisted in anger. “Goddamn! That sonofabitch said I should send someone else! Said he didn’t want me keeling over from a coronary in the middle of everything!” His fist came down on the table. “Goddamn!”