Chapter 30
Pike’s furied disbelief was palpable as he spat out, “You told your kid?”
“He’s the one who told me, Pike.” Bram sighed.
“He saw you hiking up Mariah in the middle of the night. He’s the one who found other things, too.
The proof of what happened to Ginny. He didn’t understand any of it until he saw the body.
But then he put two and two together. That’s how clear it all is.
A child figured it out.” A forced casualness as Bram added, “Honestly, I’m surprised he only blabbed to me.
He gossips. His mother’s son, you know? Weak.
I’ve tried to explain to him how life works, but she sheltered him; wouldn’t let me teach him consequences the way my father taught me. ”
Zach’s hand went sweaty. He set the phone on his lap and wiped his palms on his pants. He checked the room around him, as if Pike’s newly exposed Underself might be snaking toward his neck.
The betrayal of it. The danger. And though Bram had berated Zach countless times for weakness, for showing any emotion but anger, hearing his father say such things behind his back was a new and deeper humiliation.
Pike’s voice was threaded through with tension. “So you were trying to blackmail me even knowing full well you couldn’t keep your kid quiet.”
“No. That always had to be another…obstacle. That we need to solve.” Bram paused. “You heard about my wife passing?”
“Yeah.”
“I had a couple of life insurance policies on her. One was a key person policy. Through the business.”
“What? For your wife? Those type of policies are only for like, major executives, aren’t they, so the business isn’t kneecapped if they die and there’s turmoil or whatever.
Did she even work…” Pike’s protests faded out, probably recalling, the way Zach was, that Ajax Property Tech was as counterfeit as one of those false-fronted buildings dotting old Colorado towns and the sets of Western movies.
From the street it might appear to have an imposing number of stories, but another angle shattered the illusion to reveal an overly tall facade slapped on one sad, squat level.
“The checks you handed out—that money is from the key person insurance payout?”
“Yep.”
“So there’s—you said there’s a few policies? Is there more money?”
“Enough to cash you out. Enough to tide me over long enough to let crypto rebound. Let my shorts have time to succeed.”
“Christ, man.” Pike’s outrage still held, but now it was tinged with exhaustion. “You were out there using my money to speculate on crypto and short stocks? Isn’t crypto at, like, prepandemic lows? And what’d you short?”
A cold edge to his father’s voice. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Fine, whatever. But if you’ve got these insurance payouts, why are you even bothering trying to get money from me?”
“There’s a…wrinkle, I guess you could say. My wife didn’t know about the key person policy. But her standard policy? She changed it. So that I’m not the beneficiary.”
“Okay. And who is?”
“My kids. Each gets half the payout.”
“You can’t—can you even do that? Give that kind of money to a kid?”
“Sure. Just have to put it in a trust. Designate a manager.”
A sardonic laugh from Pike. “Sounds like she had your number. Sounds like she outsmarted you.”
A hot acidity crept into his father’s carefully controlled voice.
“Please. She didn’t understand any of it.
She never understood how life works. Didn’t understand the…
implications. I set up the trusts so I was manager for both, which would’ve meant carte blanche, basically.
But that stupid—she changed the trustee to her sister.
And her sister? Nasty woman. Hates me for no reason.
Always has. But it was a double payout, Pike.
Massive! Because they ruled it an accidental death.
And under the trust, I get paid if something were to—happen. ”
Pike went quiet, as if absorbing this, sorting through it, before asking, “What does this have to do with me?”
During the long silence that ensued, Zach imagined that Pike, like Zach himself, was waiting for Bram to explain what all this actually meant.
There had been something his mother said about a trust during that final argument, something about how her own lawyer had been worried by it, but Zach hadn’t understood it then, and the words remained impenetrably adult now.
“Wait, wait.” Pike said at last. “Are you saying you’ll keep quiet if…two kids? Oh, no. No way. I’m not—Ginny—that was a—that was different—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bram snapped. “The policy paid out into separate trusts for each kid.”
“But your sister-in-law—”
“What can she do? Nothing. It’s not her money. It’s mine. I was the one—my payments, my loans!—who set it up, who paid the premiums. The trusts are clear on what happens.”
“No way. No.”
“Man up, Pike. Don’t pretend you’re some innocent. You murdered Ginny and tossed her over a cliff because she didn’t want you. You don’t even feel bad—and why should you? What did she expect? And now, here you are, outraged? Give me a break!”
A strange, heaving sound was met instantly by Bram’s voice, brimming with the arching lash of his Underself.
“Don’t think for one second you can intimidate me, Pike.
I’m not some woman half your size. And you’re not stupid.
You know that even if you get rid of me, you still would have to get rid of the kid.
And you have to know you could never explain two of us.
But if something…changes…with my insurance situation, I’ll cut you in.
Fully cash you out. Plus, say, twenty percent?
That’ll more than cover your debt. You can rub your dad’s face in your success, because you’ll have money to build with.
And you’ll have dirt on me, too. Which is your guarantee I won’t be back with my hand out. ”
“He’s just a—Jesus.”
Bram gave a snorting laugh. “Jesus is right. God didn’t hesitate, with his son.”
“You’re God now?”
“When it comes to my family I am. That’s how it is. But what I am, really, Pike, is a businessman. And when I see an opportunity, I take it.”
Pike’s voice, cutting but quiet. “You remind me of him. My father.”
“And you remind me of my kid, handed everything and still whining about your mean dad. You’ve got no clue.
My dad kicked my ass every day of my life.
Didn’t give me a penny to cut me off from.
And I hated him for it. But guess what? Because of him I’m a fighter.
I know how things really work. I’ve always known.
It’s time to toughen up, Pike. It’s time to do something for yourself. ”
Zach pressed Mr. Fantastic against his chest, mind flooded with ink-black terror over the righteous, vindictive voice of the Underself.
“We’d never get away with it,” Pike said.
“Somewhere up there are four dead bodies. Two avalanches. And the snow’s still falling.
Conditions are hell. Dave’s already convinced Ginny got lost, that a bear or something chewed on her.
Probably one did. Tomorrow, three of us head down the trail to try to get help.
And two come back telling a story about more bad luck. ”
A scoffing sound from Pike before he said, “Why wait? Just grab the kid now, drag him down the mountain.”
But Bram responded matter-of-factly, as if Pike’s suggestion was reasonable, as if sarcasm hadn’t drenched every word.
“The storm’s still going. It’s dark. If rescue’s coming at all, it won’t be until the weather clears and it’s light out.
I bet when you dumped Ginny you kept the hut in sight, because you knew you’d never find your way back otherwise.
But to make this believable we need to head down the trail through the woods, make it look like I told Dave, and we’re just going to find a cell signal to call Mountain Rescue.
But the trail’s snowed over. The trail markers are far apart.
To try in the dark? It’s stupid to think we’d manage to do anything but get lost, and fast. And the way I dosed them?
They won’t wake up just from us talking down here, and they would be real out of it if they did wake up, but a loud noise, or being jostled?
Someone could wake up all right. How the hell would we explain that to Dave, if he or Russ sees us grabbing the kid in the middle of the night?
No, I’ll set an alarm on vibrate so it’ll only wake me.
Wake him quietly when it’s light. Tell him we need his help.
He’ll buy that. All the attitude he’s been giving everyone, his snide looks?
Kid thinks we’re all idiots about the backcountry compared to him.
So in the morning, down we go. Come back with a sob story for Dave.
You think anyone would blink? You think they’d call it anything but tragedy? ”
“Your wife dies, leaves your kid money, and then something happens to him, too? The avalanches, four dead, and then another accident? Of course there’ll be questions.”
“That’s the thing.” Bram sounded eager, even excited.
“The conditions, the mistakes, four dead already? It’ll all just be the same event, really, and so much to sort through, so much to dig out and try to find.
And all the way up here. With no witnesses.
With the snow still falling. And an arrogant kid who made stupid choices.
It just has to happen so it looks like an act of God.
Looks as accidental as the rest. Though—where’s Ginny’s car? ”
A pause before Pike responded, “At another lot. Close.”
“Good. It was shoved off the road or something. There might be a problem. That might be impossible to explain. But that’s good.”
“The cops, they’ll have to investigate. The sheriff or whatever.”
“Let them. They’ll find blunt force and suffocation, right?
That’s what’s to be expected after all we’ve been through.
Avalanches, snowstorms, everyone out of their depth.
Sure, a few people might make a fuss. Ginny’s brother, maybe.
My sister-in-law. But Arlo most of all. You have to know he’ll pull all the focus.
Even with what happened to Shane clear as day, the media, search and rescue, law enforcement, you name it, they’ll all be absolutely salivating over Shane.
That’ll only help us. I’ll be devastated.
Beside myself. You and me’ll tell the same stories, and Dave won’t know better than to join in.
Who would think, who would really believe, that this was somehow planned?
Especially if the evidence I told you about doesn’t…
appear.” Bram’s voice lowered into a soothing, instructive tone.
“People want to believe these things happen for a reason. Think about it. Ginny was unprepared. She got lost. Kids are disobedient. Fragile. Jon and Shane made fatal mistakes. The guide nearly got us all killed. They’ll blame the snow, the conditions, bad luck.
But they’ll mostly blame whoever doesn’t come back. ”
The sound of footsteps grew and faded, grew and faded, and Zach imagined one of the men pacing back and forth. At last Pike said, “You want it done, you do it. And I’ll say whatever you want.”
A long silence. “I can’t rely on myself to do it. Not…close up. Like it’ll need to happen.”
“So this is all just you talking tough, basically. You can’t even stomach doing it yourself, but you expect me to?”
“I’m not arrogant enough to think I’m reliable to do it.
You have more…distance. Even if I’ve got no choices, even if I’ve been pushed to these extremes, I’m still a father.
But I can accept it. And you’ve already shown you’ve got what it takes.
It’s a problem you can solve for us both. This gets us each what we need.”
Bram’s voice had a familiar curl, his tone a soothing manipulation.
He was trying to sound human, ready to admit weaknesses in a way that hid the ruthlessness of his Underself.
It all made Zach instantly sure that the only reason Bram had enlisted Pike was so that he’d have someone to blame.
Zach pictured Bram cornered, holding up clean hands, and saying, “You see? I didn’t do anything at all.
” The idea he would stay silent for Pike, a man he ridiculed, a man who had already admitted his uselessness to Bram because he didn’t have enough money to buy him off, was, to Zach, utterly absurd.
What seemed likely was that his father would let Pike take the fall if he needed to, and he’d use the threat of the earring’s evidence to wring Pike dry for the rest of his living days.
But Pike didn’t know Bram the way Zach did.
“I—I can’t, it’s different it—”
“After Ginny, you know how it is. How simple it is. The first time you think it, picture it? In a way—it’s already done.
” Bram sounded soft, almost dreamy. “The rest is just waiting for the moment. That moment when everything comes together. A new life, right there, for you to step into. Isn’t that how it was? With Ginny?”
A long pause.
“I remember—her makeup. Too much mascara. For who? It was like that. Already done. Once I saw that.”
“Yes. Neither of us have a choice here, Pike. But both of us can face things. And you know as well as I do what needs to be done.”
Another pause. The sound of a wood knot popping in the fire.
“How much money is it, exactly?”