Chapter 15 #2
“Marlow. He brought the ransom money.”
Ryder pointed toward the bags on the desk and the men who were working on securing tracking devices within the bags.
It was when Roman started toward the desk that the notion hovering in the back of Ryder’s mind started to take shape.
“Hey, Gant.”
Gant looked up. “Yeah?”
“Marlow was gone when the kidnapper called, remember?” Gant nodded.
“Then who told him how the money was to be paid?”
“I did,” Gant said, then glanced at Wyandott, who had already expressed some displeasure in the way Gant had handled things thus far. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy to accumulate that much money in small bills. Thought he needed as much time as possible.”
But that wasn’t what Ryder needed to know. “No…exactly what did you tell him?”
“I don’t follow you,” Gant said. “What are you getting at?”
Ryder’s nerves were on edge. The more he thought about Lash, the more certain he became. “I want to know what you told him to bring.”
“I said something to the effect that we needed three million dollars in small, unmarked bills by noon today.”
“Did you tell him what denominations?”
“I told him no hundred dollars bills. Everything had to be smaller than one hundred dollar bills.”
Oh, my God. What if Roman was right on target about Lash Marlow’s involvement all along? “Then did you or any of your men ever play that tape for Marlow?”
“What tape?” Gant asked.
“The one you made when the ransom call came in.” Gant shrugged. “I don’t know. I know I didn’t.” He looked at Wyandott. “Did you or any of your men?” All answers were negative.
The flesh crawled on the back of Ryder’s neck. “Then can any of you explain to me why Marlow just quoted the kidnapper’s exact terminology of the request he made for ransom?”
Roman pivoted, already following the line of his brother’s thoughts. “I wasn’t in here. What did Marlow say?”
Ryder stared around the room, daring the men to disagree. “You all heard him. He said, ‘Three million dollars in unmarked bills. None of them larger in denomination than a fifty, none of them smaller than a five.”’
“Son of a bitch.” Gant’s epitaph was echoed in more than one man’s thoughts. “If memory serves, that’s just about word for word.”
Wyandott looked surprised, then began issuing new orders as Ryder turned and started running. Roman caught him at the door.
“You can’t do what you’re thinking.”
Ryder yanked himself free. His words came out a cold, even tone. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
Roman tightened his hold. “That’s where you’re wrong.
I know exactly what you’re thinking, and I don’t blame you one bit.
But you’ve got to think of Casey. If Marlow is involved and he’s alerted before the drop even goes down, what’s going to happen to her?
Better yet, how the hell would we know where to find her? ”
Ryder hit the wall with the flat of his palm and then wiped a hand across his face. Every time he took a step he wanted to run, but to where? What had they done with his wife?
“My God,” he said. “What the hell do you expect me to do? Wait until someone brings her back to me in a body bag?”
Roman got up in his face, and this time, he was the one on the defensive. “No, I expect you to let me do my job.”
Ryder doubled his fists and refused to give an inch, even to his brother. Helpless in the face of so much logic, the urge to lash out was overwhelming.
Roman sighed. He didn’t understand this kind of commitment between a man and a woman, but he’d seen enough of it to know it went beyond any blood ties.
And as he gazed into his brother’s face, he had a flashback of a little boy with mud in his hair and fire in his eyes.
He remembered that same little boy had not only whipped the boy who’d beaten him up to take away his baseball, but he’d gotten the ball back, too.
Even then, Ryder Justice had been a force with which to reckon.
“So, what’s it going to be?” Roman asked.
Even though the urge to argue was overwhelming, Ryder relented, slumping against the wall. “Then do it. Just know that every step you take I’m going to be on your heels.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, brother, but that will come later. Right now, there’s one little thing I need to do before the day gets any older, and I don’t want help in getting it done.”
It felt wrong, and it hurt like hell to watch Roman going out the door without him, but Ryder stood his ground. Roman was right. He’d asked for his help. The least he could do was give him the leeway to do it.
“Give ’em hell, Roman.”
Roman looked back, just as he started out the door. “Is there any other way?”
* * *
Lash was making himself a ham and cheese sandwich. He’d even gotten out his mother’s good china on which to eat it. He slathered mustard on one slice of bread and mayonnaise on the other. And why not? It’s about time things started going my way.
The sandwich was thick with meat, cheese, and lettuce. He pushed a toothpick into an olive, then topped his sandwich by stabbing the toothpick into the bread with a flourish. Now there was only one thing left. He opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of wine. Chilled to perfection.
He walked out of the kitchen toward the old dining hall with china, wine and food in hand. When he stepped inside, there was a feeling of relief unlike any he’d ever known.
Spiderwebs draped the dust-covered chandelier above the table like torn and tattered lace.
One of the panes was out at the top of a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the back of the property and there was a bird’s nest in the corner of the room.
But Lash didn’t see the ruin and decay. His jubilation was focused on former glory and future renovation.
The cork popped on the wine and he smiled to himself as he filled his glass. As he sipped, the chill of the grape and the dry, vintage taste of fine wine tingled on his tongue. He set the half-empty glass down in a patch of sunlight, admiring the way a sunbeam pierced the liquid.
He pulled the toothpick out of his food, popped the olive into his mouth, and chewed down. There was an instant awareness of an odd, unfamiliar taste as he gasped and spit the olive out into his hand.
And the moment he saw it, his flesh crawled.
Somewhere within his mind, a drumbeat sounded.
Then it began to hammer, faster and faster until he couldn’t move—couldn’t speak.
He heard a cry, and then the faint, but unmistakable, sounds of a woman’s soft voice.
The language was French, spoken in the patois of the slaves his great-great-grandfather had once owned.
He jumped up from his chair and flung what was left of the olive onto the dust-covered table before running out of the room.
The celebration and his meal were forgotten in the horror of what he’d just seen.
And as the sounds of his footsteps faded away, the carcass of a small, white worm fell out of the olive and into the patch of sunlight beaming down through the wine.
Lash ran out of the house and into the woods, searching for a solace his mind couldn’t find. To any other person, it would have been an unfortunate choice of an olive from a nearly full jar, but to Lash, it was the first step in a curse that had started to come true.
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…?