Stenko: “This is where you need to calm down. This is the kind of situation where you can’t panic. It reminds me of that time we were at the place in Wisconsin and you saw the snake. Remember that? You screamed and cried like a girl until Carmen got a shovel and killed it. It was just a garden snake, not poisonous. But your reaction scared me and this scares me now. Calm down. Think. This is where you need to sit back and try to outthink them.”
“Easy for you to say, Dad. You’re a gangster.”
“Ah, that again,” Stenko sighed.
“I was wondering how long it would be before you brought up that damned snake.”
She couldn’t believe how much she’d bled, how much blood there had been inside her. How for a few frantic minutes all her blood was so eager to spill out of that hole in her leg.
IT HAD HAPPENED SO QUICKLY in a sudden eruption back on the ranch she didn’t see coming. She doubted anyone had.
After Stenko, the Talich Brothers, and the man they called Leo went into the house, she found herself alone on the front lawn. She had no idea how long they’d be inside and she really didn’t want to go in there, but Robert didn’t answer her calls for him. She wished she’d brought the cell phone so she could contact Sheridan and tell her to come get her now, please come get her now…
Inside the house she heard deep voices and sharp skin-to-skin slaps. She hoped Stenko was okay and wasn’t the target of any of the violence, but at the same time she felt sick thinking that he was likely administering the blows. She knew he was capable of anything, but she tried to block that out, tried to pretend he’d left that part of him behind. Because how could a man who was so kind to her be like that?
She yelled for Robert. Either he couldn’t hear her or he refused to answer.
The morning was cool, sunny, still. A beautiful high-mountain day that smelled of pine, grass, and clover. But from inside the house came the sounds of blows and shouts. And a maniacal laugh that gave her chills because she recognized the voice as belonging to Nathanial. The crazy one.
She tried to sit on a lawn chair and wait, but she couldn’t. She was nervous and scared and she didn’t like being alone, separated from Stenko. And who knew where Robert was? Robert and the TracFone, which she hadn’t yet had the chance to use. As she stared at the sky, it dawned on her the blue was marred by the lines across it-lines from power poles that went into the house. Phone lines. She’d forgotten that old-fashioned telephones had to use phone lines.
She jumped to her feet. She’d go inside, find a phone, and call Sheridan, beg her to come get her.
So she opened the front screen door and stepped inside, letting the door close behind her on a spring.
She was repulsed by what she saw. The man named Leo sat behind a table, his back pressed against the wall, his hands on the tabletop. He was next to a large window that overlooked the back pasture. In the distance, Devils Tower shimmered in the cold morning sun. One of Leo’s eyes was swelled shut and his lip was bleeding. Stenko sat across from him with his back to her. Nathanial stood next to Stenko, leaning across the table toward Leo. Chase was off to the side in the room, leaning back against a bookcase. Chase acknowledged her when she came in but turned back to Leo. Corey stood on the other side of Stenko facing Leo, his hands on his hips.
There was a phone on the wall of the dining room, past Corey Talich. No way she could get around him to use it. But there had to be another one somewhere, right? Maybe down the hall? Upstairs?
Nathanial saying, “You lied to us, Leo. You said the boss was dying and squealing to the feds. You said come with you and we’d be all right…”
Stenko saying, “The money, Leo. My money. I know you well enough to know you’ve got cash here. I need that cash and I need all the account numbers and passwords so I can get the rest.”
Corey saying, “I know where the safe is, Stenko. It’s in his office under the desk. I seen it there.”
She thought, his office. There would be a phone in the office. How to get there, though, without being noticed?
Leo saying, “I know I did the wrong thing, Stenko. I know now. I guess I panicked, you know? I shoulda trusted you to do the right thing, but… you know. I mean, we all screw up at times, right? Everybody screws up. I’ll come back-it’ll be like it used to be…”
Nathanial reaching over and slapping him again, hard.
“Jesus, Natty!” Leo complained, his voice cracking with a sob.
“Tell Stenko the fucking numbers for the safe!” Nathanial hissed, leaning in so close to Leo their foreheads were touching.
Leo sobbed out the combination.
Stenko pushed away from the table, saying, “I’ll go get the cash, Leo. But you’ll sit right here and write down the account numbers and the passwords to all the offshore accounts. ALL OF THEM. And you’ll have them all written on that napkin by the time I get back.”
Leo stared dumbly at the napkin and the pen on the table until Nathanial leaned over and cuffed him on the back of his head.
She felt sorry for Leo, who looked weak and soft. He didn’t look evil. He just looked like a man being picked on by bullies. The concept of men hitting men distressed her. They were like overgrown children, no better than animals. She knew the world could be like this-and was-but she wanted no part of it. She wanted to grow up. She wanted to get away.
On the way to the office Stenko saw her standing there and for a brief moment she saw the face and eyes of a monster, a man she’d not seen since that evening in the campground. And although he softened when he saw her, the image lingered, hung in the air like a mask.
“I told you to stay outside,” he said to her. “I don’t want you to see this.”
She didn’t respond, but she hoped her being there would make him change his mind, rethink what he was doing.
It didn’t.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“No,” Stenko said. “I don’t want you around right now. Go outside, April. This will be over soon.”
The way he said it sent a new chill through her.
She said, “I don’t know where Robert is. I don’t know where to go…”
“Out,” Stenko said, raising his voice to her for the first time. “Out. Now.” He paused to make sure she obeyed, and she turned for the door. As she crossed the floor toward the door, she looked over her shoulder to make sure he’d entered the office. He had. So instead of going out through the screen door, she pushed it open hard and let the spring bang it back. Stenko would think she was outside rather than down the hallway. She glanced back to see if the Talich Brothers were watching her. They weren’t. She ducked into the dark hallway, looking for a phone.
While Leo scribbled numbers on a napkin at the table, she could hear him muttering to the Talich Brothers, saying now was their chance to take over the operation, that he’d show them how, that they could become equal partners in everything like they deserved to be, that they didn’t have to answer to Stenko ever again, that it could all be theirs.