Chapter Thirty-Two
THIRTY-TWO
It was strange how empty the place seemed now, the second time Shepherd pulled into the Kent driveway.
There were still a lot of cars, but most of the uniformed police were gone, leaving a few stragglers behind to monitor phone calls and keep eyes on the family.
He nodded at them politely as he guided Ginny into her home, hand on her elbow.
He always thought hell would be different. Lava, brimstone. Bats, maybe. Skeletons giving orders and stabbing people with giant tridents. As it turned out, hell was just a defense attorney’s home, and Shepherd was the idiot who opened the door and walked right in.
At least it was air-conditioned.
Vincent was hovering near the entrance, still in the suit from earlier, a cell phone to his ear. He saw them and held up a finger. “Listen, I’ll call you right back. Hey, Ginny. Preston.” He stuck the phone in his trouser pocket. “Did you see the press conference? Kids did good, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Ginny agreed. Shepherd could not for the life of him remember if there had been kids at Vincent’s press conference, so he added a noncommittal grunt.
“It was a good thing I did it, too. We just got another call. Come on. Grandfather will want to fill you in himself.”
Grandfather was a super weird way to refer to your grandfather, Shepherd thought. He is your grandfather, but you call him Grandpa or Gramps or something. Grandfather. These people, so highfalutin, can’t even make one measly ransom payment.
Vincent started up the stairs in a hurry, Ginny and Shepherd clambering after. “Another call?” she asked. “From whom? What did they want?”
“Kidnappers,” Vincent said. “More money.” He knocked on the doors with the back of his knuckles twice before throwing them open. “Hey, everybody. Look what the cat dragged in.”
If Ginny was the cat, Shepherd was the hairball, spat unwanted on the carpet.
None of her family acknowledged him. Which was fine.
He wasn’t the family trapped in the gothic horror novel; they were.
He was trapped in some sort of action tragedy, where his life explodes because of his own choices, not because of some supernatural force pressing down on him and making him odd.
“Hey,” he greeted anyway. Because screw them—he had manners.
Ginny put her hand on his forearm, her skin still warm from their time spent in the car. To shut him up or for moral support? He couldn’t tell, but it was probably a mix of both.
“What’s going on?”
“Virginia,” Elwin said her name from behind the desk like a judge reading a death sentence. “You missed the call from whoever has your mother. We heard her voice and confirmed that she’s alive and well.”
Ginny’s knees buckled. Shepherd reached out and grabbed her, tucking her into his side. “Thank God,” she was whispering, her eyes closed. “Thank God, thank God, thank God.”
Bradley Kent walked over to them with his hands in his pockets, but worry in his eyes. “Sweetheart? They also raised the price of the ransom. It’s … completely out of reach for the timeframe they want.”
Shepherd held on to Ginny’s waist as he looked around the room. At the decadence in even the furniture. Nothing in the entire house came in a box, assembly required, with almost every item needed inside. “You don’t have the money?”
“Two million in cash?” Elwin Kent asked. “As shocking as it might seem, no. I don’t have that cash in an easily accessible place. Even banks don’t have that kind of money without advance planning and effort.”
Ginny wiped her nose with her knuckle. “Try something else. A wire transfer?”
“Don’t be silly, Ginny,” her stepmother said from the couch behind them. “These are low-level crooks. Any wire transfer they can set up would be easily traced. Don’t you watch TV?”
Bradley pulled his hand out of his pocket long enough to take his daughter by the shoulder. “We offered that, sweetheart. But they wouldn’t budge. Cash and cash only, by tomorrow night. We don’t have the time or the liquid capital.”
“So … so what?” She swayed on her feet. Shepherd steadied her. “So they … they hurt her? Kill her? And you’re OK with that?”
“Of course not, of course not.” Bradley moved closer to his wife. Current wife. Age-inappropriate wife.
That was unfair. There were lots of reasons to judge the Kents. The age gap was the least reprehensible thing he’d seen, come to think of it.
“Vincent has spoken with the chief of police personally, as well as an assistant director at the FBI’s field office. They are confident they’ll catch the kidnappers before they can follow through on their threats.”
Shepherd’s brow furrowed, his headache reengaging with impressive speed. “Threats? What kinda threats?”
Elwin raised a shoulder and brow in tandem. “They will send her back to us. Piece by piece.”
Ginny fainted. A quiet little huff of air escaped her lips before she fell, fortunately, towards Shepherd’s waiting arms. The huff of air that escaped him at the impact was neither quiet nor little, but he caught her anyway.
Shepherd carried her over the threshold of her bedroom, Scully and Mulder watching from their post on the wall. She was in his arms like an unconscious princess, which, considering her family and her current swooned state, was fairly accurate.
His butt started vibrating.
Shepherd placed Ginny on her bed. Her head hitting the pillow brought her into a post-unconscious state, and she blinked up at him. Her fingers curled into his shirt, her warm breath caressed his chin. “Shepherd,” she whispered from underneath him.
“You fainted,” he whispered back. His butt started vibrating again.
“I did no such thing,” Ginny replied.
Shepherd reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
He hadn’t moved from his place above Ginny, his nose inches away from her face.
She smelled like coconut and vanilla, and minty toothpaste.
“You’re right. It was a full swoon, like a medieval lady.
Hey, Noah”—that was directed to the phone—“what’s up? ”
“Everything’s fine!” Noah chirped with so much force that Shepherd almost missed the other chirping in the background noise. “Everything is fine.”
Shepherd put his weight on one forearm. Ginny had yet to let go of his shirt, but the wide-eyed blinking had turned into a disbelieving glare. “Is that the fire alarm?”
“Um, a little bit.”
“What do you mean, a little bit?”
Ginny’s eyebrows raised—something he noticed more now because of the Botox comment earlier. They didn’t go up very high, but they did go up.
“We have everything under control, OK? We are waving the smoke away now.”
“What do you mean?”
Ginny raised her head and grazed her teeth against his neck.
“The binder said to notify you every time the fire alarm goes off, no matter what, and so I am doing my job and notifying you that the fire alarm is going off, but there’s no fire and barely any smoke damage!”
Ginny’s tongue and lips went next, right at his pulse point. Nipping. Soothing. Sucking.
“Uh,” Shepherd said. He was upset about something just a second ago. What was it again?
“So, everything is fine. You keep enjoying your day off. And I’ll see you soon.” Noah hung up.
Shepherd didn’t notice right away. He also didn’t care anymore, either.
Ginny released him with a sigh and a soft kiss. “Noah’s got the smoke damage taken care of, Shepherd.” She fell back against her pillow, red hair splayed on the lavender pillowcase. “Maybe he can help us save my mom.”
Shepherd rested his forehead against hers. “Maybe. Or maybe … we should ask someone else for help.”
Ginny pushed his shoulders. Shepherd didn’t budge until the second shove, but he only moved away far enough to look at his phone screen.
“Shepherd,” she said, “no.”
He grimaced. “Just hear him out, Ginny. That’s all.”
“But we said—”
“I know, and I still stand by that. I hate him. I hate everyone. But hating everyone isn’t going to get your mom back. And I can’t see any other way out of this. Can you?”
She drummed her fingers on his shoulders, chewed on her bottom lip.
Shepherd kissed her.
Ginny groaned and pushed her forehead against his again. “OK. Put him on speaker. We talk to him together. And just talk.”
Shepherd snuck another kiss. “Just talk.” Propping himself up on one elbow, he called Charlie Cardello on speaker.