Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
When Nolan walked into the adjacent motel room, he found Hunter and Pete sitting at the table, a computer monitor in front of them, beer bottles in hand. On the counter in the kitchenette stood several bottles of various liquors. Korbel brandy. Captain Morgan rum. Grey Goose vodka. The boys were cheap when it came to food, preferring fast food over actual restaurants, but when they drank, they wanted the good stuff.
Next to the liquor sat their latest drone, a sleek black number that Hunter had told him cost more than a grand. They’d bought it right after they’d borrowed money from Nolan because they’d been short on rent, but then they didn’t pay the rent, because in the meantime they’d come across a guy selling this drone on the cheap. And they had to have it. Their toys always came first.
On the table next to the computer monitor sat Dana’s empty purse, the contents dumped alongside it. Both of the guys had identical expressions, right down to the narrowed eyes and furrowed foreheads. Now that they’d cut their hair to have identical buzz cuts, he couldn’t tell them apart, and that was really saying something since he’d known his cousins since the day they were born twenty-eight years earlier.
It was fair to say that the twins looked pissed.
Which was ironic, because if anyone had a right to be angry, it was him. He had a good six inches and eight years on them, which had always made him feel like the grownup in the group. “You two are unbelievable. You know you just committed multiple crimes, right?”
Pete took a sip from his glass. “Calm down, Nolan.”
“Yeah,” Hunter added. “You don’t have to make such a big deal out of it.”
He was the one who needed to calm down? They’d transported a woman a hundred miles from home in the trunk of a car. And it was Dana Broderick, a public figure. Nolan’s stomach lurched at the thought. They were all going to fry.
Nolan said, “You have a lot of nerve getting me involved.” Why hadn’t he questioned them when they’d given him written directions to the Moondust Motel and told him to meet them there? Because they’d said it was a surprise, that’s why. So stupid. He’d guessed they wanted to go fishing or drag racing on a quiet country road, and because he didn’t have anything else planned on Saturday, he went along with it. He wasn’t even suspicious when the Moondust Motel wound up being an abandoned building with boarded-up windows.
He shook his head at how na?ve he’d been. He never dreamt that the surprise would be his favorite author in the back of their car. “What in the hell were you thinking?”
“You agreed to this.” Pete pressed one finger to the table.
“I never agreed to anything!”
“Oh yes you did!” Hunter sounded almost gleeful. “Remember when we talked about it at the bar?”
The blood left his face. What he remembered was a hypothetical conversation. He’d thought it was another one of their ridiculous schemes, like the time they worked for a skylight installer and talked about how easy it would be to break into a mansion by climbing a nearby tree and jumping onto the roof. Or the conversation about how as identical twins they’d be perfect criminals, because they’d never be able to pin it on either one of them without reasonable doubt that it might be the other one. They were always talking crap like that.
One night, over beers at the local bar, Hunter and Pete had told him they’d come up with the perfect crime, and as a fan of crime shows and novels, he was all in. This had happened in the springtime, right after they’d worked on a landscaping crew at Dana Broderick’s house, installing a statuary garden. They’d only been employed by the company for a few months before they had to quit due to their allergy to hard work, but they were there long enough to complete that particular project and take in all the opulence of the Broderick estate. “Get this,” Pete had said. He used that phrase a lot. Get this . “She makes a couple million every year. And for what? Just typing down some words.” He made the motion of pecking at a keyboard.
Hunter had nodded in agreement. “Maybe we should do that? I mean, how hard can it be? Type. Type. Type. Make stuff up. Type some more.” He gestured to his twin and back to himself. “We could do that, easy.”
Pete nodded. “We could probably do it better than her, for sure.”
Ultimately, though, they’d decided that writing a book would be too boring and would take too long. After ruling out novel writing, they went straight to how they’d kidnap the author, who had plenty of money and had never even given them a glance when their boss from the landscaping firm showed her through the completed project. “She thanked him ,” Pete said. “And didn’t even look at us, the ones who actually did all the work. She thinks she’s better than us.” His brother nodded in agreement.
That’s when they’d crafted the plan. Nolan, of course, had never thought they were serious. The twins had a history of petty crime, kid stuff really, but nothing like this.
Hunter and Pete told him that they’d heard about a motel way out in the boonies that was empty but still had electrical power. With its remote location on a quiet country road, it was the perfect place to hide out.
“You’d want to park in back so no one can identify your car,” Nolan said. “And the windows should be covered.”
Hunter nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.”
Somehow, Pete knew she’d be signing books at the bookstore on Saturday. “And chances are, she’ll leave out the back by herself while her assistant gets the car. That’s what she usually does,” he said.
After they’d grabbed her and transported her to the motel, one of them would drive a distance and use her phone to call Dana’s family. They wanted cash. A hundred thousand. “We’ve heard that she keeps a hundred grand in cash in the house. In hundred-dollar bills,” Hunter said.
Nolan had once read that very same thing. It was something Dana had in common with her protagonist, Rebecca Cavanaugh.
“Can you imagine having a hundred thousand dollars just lying around?” Pete asked. “Just sitting in a drawer somewhere.”
Hunter added, “We’re not greedy. For her, that much money is nothing. She’ll barely miss it.”
His brother said, “Yeah. We just want enough to give us some breathing room.”
They kept spinning the tale, thinking of a clever way to cover their tracks, and told him about a novel approach for delivering the money. Even Nolan had to admit that their money exchange idea was nothing he’d ever heard before.
“And after the payoff, we’ll drive her somewhere far away and leave her on a country road. She can find a house and get help on her own. There won’t be any way to trace it back to us.”
“What if the family won’t pay?” Nolan had asked.
Hunter hooted. “What kind of crappy family wouldn’t pay a ransom? Believe me, they’ll pay.” His brother nodded an affirmative.
Nolan downed the last of his beer and set the glass on the coaster. “Sounds like you have it all worked out. What would be my role in all this?”
“You’d want to be involved?” Hunter said, eyeing him suspiciously. Oddly enough, as the only respectable member of a dodgy family, they’d always considered him to be a bit of a failure. They didn’t understand Nolan’s work as an accountant for a huge firm. They had no idea what he did or how well he was paid, but they’d decided it was a loser job. When he’d mentioned traveling for business, they mocked him, so he stopped talking about his trips.
“Of course.” Nolan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She’s my favorite author. You wouldn’t even have to give me any money. I’d just love to meet her.” She was a terrific storyteller and not too bad to look at either. What a woman—smart, creative, beautiful, and full of confidence. He once met her at a book signing, and she gave him a smile that made him feel like they’d been connected in a past life. “I’d be honored to help you kidnap Dana Broderick.”
The twins had exchanged a look. “How about you be the fall guy?” Hunter said with a grin.
“What’s that?” He knew what the term meant but wanted to hear their take on it.
“You babysit the author while we come and go.” Hunter explained that they’d go home at the end of the day, while Nolan stayed on site. “You’ll be the only one who interacts with her. She’ll never see me or Pete. It’s only gonna be a day or two.”
“Okay,” Nolan said with a nod. “I’ll be the fall guy. But what if the police question you and want to know why you drove up north?”
“Get this,” Pete said. “We got a buddy who’ll say we were on a fishing trip with him.”
“We aren’t usually home on the weekend anyway,” Hunter said. “Not unusual for us to be gone.”
“And to cover ourselves, we’ll wear gloves,” his brother added. “Never take them off, not for a second.”
“Sounds like a plan.” At the time he’d been amused and a little impressed by how much thought they’d put into this fictitious enterprise. It had seemed ambitious , and the twins had never shown signs of being ambitious. Usually, they were all about video games and flying their drones.
Since they were babies, they’d always been the simplest of creatures, only living from one moment to the next. He still had a photo of himself as an eight-year-old, looking down curiously at the two babies snuggled together in their crib. He remembered his grandfather putting an arm around his shoulder and saying, “You’re the big one now, Nolan. Promise me you’ll always look after your little cousins.” Wanting his grandpa’s approval, he’d eagerly agreed. Back then, he’d thought of them as a gift. Now they were an added complication in his life, two irresponsible men who constantly needed him to help solve their problems.
But up until now their problems had been manageable. Who knew they’d get involved in something like this?
Now in the seedy motel room, Hunter took a sip of his beer. “You became part of this at the bar, Nolan. Hell, you volunteered, remember?”
Nolan looked at his cousins in disbelief, a sick feeling coming over him. He’d been so clueless, sitting in the parking lot of an abandoned one-story motel waiting for them to show up, wondering what the surprise would be.
He’d been completely clueless until he’d heard Dana scream in the trunk and they told him what they’d done. He’d argued with them to let her go, but they weren’t having it. Pete had interrupted him, saying, “Help her out and escort her to the room.” He gestured to his brother, who’d left to unlock a door, then handed Nolan a ski mask, latex gloves, a burlap bag, and scissors. “Cover your face and put this over her head. Once she’s in the room, find out where her phone is.” This was insanity. Before Nolan could respond, Pete had popped open the trunk and walked away.
Reflexively, Nolan had scrambled to pull on his mask, then covered her head and helped her out of the vehicle, guiding her through the open door to the motel room. Dana Broderick seemed oddly calm, probably in complete shock.
And now they said he’d agreed to this? “I never thought we would actually do it. We were discussing a hypothetical crime, like when writers work out how they’d have their characters commit a bank robbery. If I’d thought for even a single second that you were serious, I’d have talked you out of it.”
Pete said, “Why would we talk about it and not do it?”
“Yeah, that would be dumb,” Hunter said.
Nolan looked around the room. “Who owns this place? Do they know what you’re doing here?”
“Belongs to a buddy.” Hunter gave him a thumbs-up. “And trust me, he doesn’t care what we do here.”
“Even left the electricity on for us.” Pete laughed.
Nolan exhaled loudly, trying not to hyperventilate. Catching his breath, he said, “Okay, here’s what we do next. I’m going home. You never saw me. You two pack up and go home as well, then anonymously call the cops and tell them where she is. If they don’t trace this fiasco back to you, it might be okay.” Probably not, but he wasn’t going to say that.
“Nope. That’s not happening,” Hunter said.
“Then unlock the door, let her go, and drive away,” Nolan suggested. “She’ll get help somehow.”
“We’re not aborting the mission,” Pete said. “We already did the hardest part. Now all we have to do is get the money.”
“A hundred thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills.” Hunter nodded thoughtfully. “And all of it will be ours. All we have to figure out is how to call the family.”
“Yeah, without her phone we’re kind of screwed.” Pete looked to Nolan. “I heard what she said about it maybe being with her assistant or at the bookstore. You’re the smart one. Do you have any ideas?”
Nolan gave him a withering glare. “You’re lucky she doesn’t have her phone or the police would have tracked it already.”
Pete and Hunter exchanged a glance that said they hadn’t thought of that.
On the monitor, Nolan saw Dana come out of the bathroom. Without missing a beat, she stopped in the middle of the room and did a yoga pose, a look of contentment crossing her face. He admired her resolve. Any other woman would be crying or screaming, but not Dana. She was as calm and cool as her book character come to life.
“I gave you some options, and that’s the best I can do.” Nolan had learned long ago that no one could force the twins to do anything they didn’t want to do. “I’m going home now. If you don’t release her soon, I’m going to call the police and tip them off. I can’t be part of this.” He had his hand on the doorknob when he heard his own voice speaking from behind him, the noises of the bar in the background: “Of course. She’s my favorite author. You wouldn’t even have to give me any money. I’d just love to meet her. I’d be honored to help you kidnap Dana Broderick.”
Nolan turned to see Hunter holding up his phone, the sounds of that night playing clearly. “I have a copy at home too,” Hunter said, letting it continue playing. He heard himself say that he’d be the fall guy. He’d said it in jest, and now he actually was going to be one.
“Are you blackmailing me?” Nolan said. “I’ll tell the cops I was kidding. That I never thought you’d do it.”
“And yet you’re here,” Hunter said.
“Come on, Nolan,” Pete said. “Lighten up. We’ve gone this far. Just play along. One more day and it will all be over.”
Nolan ran through all the logistics so far. Could he be traced to the crime? His skin cells may have been on the inside of the ski mask. Dana could give a general description of his physical build and his clothing. She might recognize his voice as well. He hadn’t done anything to disguise it. Would the police believe he’d been kidding? When played back, his voice sounded serious, even to him.
“Get this,” Pete said suddenly. “I have a new plan.” He leaned forward on the table and looked from Hunter to Nolan. “We’ll use the burner phone and call her brother, the agent, using the phone number online. That’s the best way to do it.” He sat back, a satisfied smile crossing his face.