What Happened to Cass McBride? (5 page)

Leatha's smile was crooked. “He had to buy lessons in understating his wealth. But he was still hired help.

“We moved again. Ted opened his own business. We lived in one of the best sections of one of the most exclusive subdivisions. But not the areas where the houses only go from one family member to the next. Ted wants
that
kind of class.”

“Okay, that's Ted and money. Tell me about Ted and you. Ted and Cass.”

Leatha seemed to think a minute. “The thing with Ted is you have to keep proving yourself to him. Like he keeps proving himself to the world. And I wasn't pretty anymore. Wasn't witty. So, I wasn't any help to him. Now Cass is the way he can get what he wants. Ted
needs
her to marry someone with a pedigree. And he wouldn't sully that with a kidnapping.”

Leatha was through with her coffee. She folded her hands. “Do I sound like a prepared speech? A recitation? It is, really. You have to understand that I've spent years going through this, looking at every little detail over and again. Discussing it with my sister until I wore her patience thin. I have dozens of notebooks filled with my thoughts.”

She sighed. “The only way I can resign myself to the thought that my daughter cares little to nothing for me is to divorce myself emotionally from it.”

Ben nodded. “That's something police know a lot about.”

“Sad, isn't it?” Leatha said.

Ben drank his sissy coffee as Leatha explained her own decision to leave. “She wasn't my daughter anymore. Not in any way that counted. It's not that Cass is heartless. It's that she's never heard her heart. Not yet. She lives in her head. She calculates, figuring the bottom line, just like Ted. And I no longer had a place in her column of credits.”

Sadness overtook her then. “Excuse me, please.” She left the room, heading for the back. Ben imagined the kitchen and bathroom were through the swinging door that Leatha pushed through. He and Scott waited without speaking.

When Leatha returned, her voice shook, but she seemed to know what she wanted to say.

She looked at Ben. Caught his eye and held it. “She and Ted…I don't think they love each other either, not real love, like a daughter and father—it's pretense. For him she's like one of the expensive cars at his dealership—beautiful and shiny, where he can see his reflection.”

“What does Cass get from it?”

Leatha shrugged. “Cass needs to prove herself too. You know, to Ted. It's the only way he'll love her…and…she loves the lights of the showroom floor.”

Her eyes went bright with tears. “Find her, please. Bring her home, even if it's not to me. I need her home and safe.”

KYLE

“You're dickin’ us around. What's a watch on a pink purse got to do with anything? Are you going to quit the crap and tell us what happened?” The young cop shot out of the corner and slammed a palm down on the table in front of my face.

Like someone screaming at me was new. “We're getting there,” I said.

The young cop looked pissed. Too bad. The big cop looked like he might not trust me. If he'd keep listening, he'd catch up. Or if he didn't, I didn't much care.

“David was like my dad. A doormat. But I think my dad gave up on wanting her to love him. Or got enough of it. I don't know if it makes any difference. But he let her walk all over him.”

I looked at the young cop, who was back in his corner. “Is he out there? My dad? You called him, right? Did he even come back?”

The big cop answered. Wanting to keep control in his hands probably. “He's here. Looks like a truck wreck. I don't think he understands. Hell, I still don't understand.”

I started jiggling my leg and looking around the room. Suddenly anxious and jittery. “I know this is off the wall, but it's been bugging me. Do you know if Cass's name is actually Cassandra? I mean, wouldn't that be the final touch of irony? Cassandra was the prophetess of doom.”

CASS

How many hours in this box?

Kyle said Friday. He said he hoped I drank a lot of water on Friday. That means it's not Friday now. It's at least Saturday. I went to bed late, so I don't think this is early morning. He said I took a long time to wake up, long enough that he thought maybe he'd killed me. God knows I'm stiff. And godawful thirsty.

Who knew lying down could hurt so much? My joints ached, and my back. I moved every part of me that I could, but hit wood each time. I found myself working my jaw because I clenched it so hard, hunching one shoulder, then the other; any kind of movement was relief. What did this stiffness mean?

I was shivering again. From fear? Or was I chilled from being underground for so long?

Panic brought my heartbeat to a rapid staccato. I was hyperaware of how dry my mouth was and how I dragged in stale air.

I needed to change the subject.

Cass McBride will not be helpless. She makes things happen.

She wins.

Time to forget where I am.

Put it away.

Plan.

Focus.

Start the campaign.

I learned a lot of things in school, but in the leather pub chair of my father's office I got my real education.

Dad almost always had dinner out. Either with clients or working late at his office. I'd eat alone but wait for him to come home. He'd head straight to his study for his bottle of Dickel and a glass. I'd come in when I knew he'd settled into his chair and loosened his tie. If I were any more like a Labrador retriever, I'd have his slippers in my mouth.

He'd tip his glass to me in acknowledgment. Dad never got drunk, but his boozy breath and relaxed attitude meant it was time for him to reveal the secrets of Ted's world. The world of salesmanship and negotiating the deal.

In one important lesson, Ted nailed me with his steel-blue stare. “You research your customer as much as jour product.” He put down the glass. “Tell me why.
”

“You can't sell the product until you match it to the customer's need?
”

Ted nodded, pleased, then slapped the table, startling me. “Never make it a question. Answer with authority. If you speak with authority, people listen. Walk with confidence. Keep your eyes straight ahead but watch the people around you, using your peripheral vision. Don't get caught off guard. It matters, Cass. It always matters.
”

Sometimes we played chess and he instructed me about his world as he moved his frosted glass pieces around the board.

“It's called a sales campaign for a good reason. It's warfare of a kind. You capture the sale. The battleground is your mind, and your weapons are words.
”

I never beat him at chess. I put him in check once with my clear glass queen. I couldn't interpret his smile. Then in one move he eluded capture and in two more had me in checkmate. “Don't sell your opponent short, Cass. In the art of the deal, you play until it's over. And you don't ever let an opponent stand back up. Don't let him have the chance to take what you've gained.” He knocked my king over with his, and then put his king safely back in the padded box.

I don't know that I ever completely trusted Dad again. And I think that's what he wanted me to learn.

Once he leaned forward and gestured me close as if he was revealing the most important secret of all.

“You don't sell the product, Cass. You sell the customer his own self-doubt. You sell his shortcomings.
”

I guess he saw the doubt in my eyes, so he leaned further in and tapped the chrome desktop. “You have to figure out what he's missing in himself and you wrap that up in a bow and sell it to him.
”

He leaned back into his chair and sipped his drink. “Works like a charm.
”

As Dad gazed unblinkingly at the wall, I wondered briefly which of my self-doubts he had sold back to me. But I shoved that thought away. Then.

When I got older I got pissed that the only thing we talked about was Ted's World. But I still went and I kept listening. I knew what happened if Ted lost interest in you.

Dad swung open the glass doors of our new house, and I bounced inside.

“Mom, look. It's full of all new stuff. It's like living in heaven.
”

The house was white on white and cream. Glass and chrome. I felt wrapped in a cloud, floating through the halls and into my white-on-white room. The house wrapped around the only color, the glittering turquoise pool.

“Mom, aren ‘t you coming in ?
”

I had raced through the house and Mom was still frozen in the doorway.

“Ted, you bought this without me ? You bought all this furniture ?
”

“I had a decorator do it. We're not bringing a thing from the other house.
”

I squealed. “All new clothes!
”

“Sure,” Dad said. “Pastels and turquoise, cream and white—all to look good in the house.
”

Dad looked at Mom. “None of that awful brown you always wear, Leatha. It'd look like someone dropped a big turd on that couch.
”

I laughed at Dad's joke, but Mom didn't.

Mom stopped wearing brown and started wearing a lot of tan and she sort of disappeared. Faded into the walls of that house. Dad stalked through it. His steel-gray suits cutting through the clouds, my peaches and turquoises and pinks providing the color and warmth. Dad and I pulled into a unit and Mom floated alone. She just wasn't all that interesting.

But once she surprised me. That day she wasn't uninteresting at all.

Mom came into the kitchen. She put a suitcase next to the door and clutched a photo album. I recognized it. All my baby pictures. She wore a brownish loose top and tan pants. Shoes that nurses might wear. Where did she get those?

She sat, rested the album on the table but kept her fingers curled around the edge, as if one of us might grab it. Dad and I were eating scrambled
eggs
and toast that I made. He wore a suit with a royal—blue tie and I wore a turquoise silk blouse. Mom looked like a wren at a feeder with two jays.

“I have something to say,” she said. “Do me the courtesy of not interrupting until I'm through.
”

A demand from Mom ? This was new.

“Ted, I'm tired of agreeing with you. I have been stupid but that's changed.
”

Dad put his fork down and sat back in his chair. I could see he was stunned.

“Cass, I'm leaving and I'd like you to come with me. I doubt you will, but I'm begging you to leave.
”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

Louisiana.

Mom was born there. Her sister taught school and her brother-in-law ran a bait shop/beer joint/crawfish boil place on the bayou.

Dad barked a laugh of disbelief. “What are you going to do for money ? I'll hide my assets and you won't get a red cent.
”

“I'm going to waitress for Suzanne and Charlie.
”

“You're going to waitress?” I couldn't hide the shock. “Clean up other people's dirty plates? Take orders and get treated like dirt?
”

“Why not ? Mom said. “It's what I do here.
”

Ooookay. That set me back. Mom was dead-on and it didn't feel good. But like Dad, I had to assess my situation.

Mom loved me. I knew that. But she always would. If I left, Dad would wash his hands of me. To have Dad
and
Mom I had to stay with him. My friends were here. My life was here. And did I really want to trade a big house in a great neighborhood to go to the swamps and grow webs between my toes ?

I'd take webs between my toes now. I'd take scales and a forked tongue. I'd sling crawfish and cut bait on the bayou rather than be here. Not much of a choice. Who's going to say, “Hey, sign me up for a box underground”?

Stop.

No box, ground, under.

My breath went ragged and I pulled it in and held it. Let it out. Slow.

Couldn't even let those words rent space in my head. I felt the adrenaline surge right through me. I was working for Zen. Calm, strong, and in control.

Back to Ted's Teachings.

Plan the Campaign.

First: What is my objective?

No-brainer. I want out of this box. Out from under this ground.

Okay.

Second: How do I achieve my objective?

I can't dig out. I don't know how far under I am. I'll suffocate.

I might wait until someone finds me.

What are the chances of that?

Sobs tightened my throat again.

Easy, Cass, breathe. In, out. In, slow, out, slow.

Great. Rescue—not an option.

So?

The only way out of here is through the guy that put me here. Like that's gonna happen.

Think a minute, though.

If Kyle wanted to kill me, I'd be dead. If he just wanted me to die knowing it was revenge for David, he could put a tape recording in here. There wouldn't be an air pump.

And he put in a walkie.

He wasn't done with me yet.

He wants something.

Something I have.

And if my dad taught me anything, it's that if someone wants something and someone else has it, there's a deal waiting to be made.

BEN

Ben entered the crime lab Saturday night. “Show me.”

“What'da ya want first? What you don't have or what you do?”

“Get the bad news out of the way,” Ben said.

The woman pulled a file from a pile on her desk. Red tab. Flipped it open, ran a French-tip manicured nail down a page.

“Nos on diary, journal, blog, e-mail, or phone text mail. Nothing in the IM's. Prints in the room match housekeeper, father, vie, best friend, and, what I find interesting for a teen girl, no one else. Nada. This kid doesn't let many people in her room.”

She shrugged. “Or maybe they have an efficient housekeeper. Carpet. Love the carpet. Wool. Holds footprints like a glove. Print you saw is the best of six. But the great news about that one is that it's on the carpet but partially on the glass shards.”

“Meaning…?” Ben was smiling.

“Oh yeah, our bad guy is going to have some little cuts in the tread of his shoe. Maybe even glass particles.”