After this job was over, after his home boy paid what he owed him-and he was going to pay him, of that Leon had no doubt-he would be set for a long time, living back in the plush and putting on the Ritz, free to do whatever he wanted.
Billy backed the van into the driveway of a four-bedroom, two-story home in a cul-de-sac. They’d visited late last night to organize things there, another bit of planning that wasn’t in Leon’s nature, but which was required this time around, hey, sometimes you did what you had to do when the payoff was worth it.
Inside, everything was in place.
All he had to do was take the Webb ladies in, hunker down, and wait for his money. He had a stack of stolen library books he could skim to pass the time-he was especially looking forward to a new text of Latin phrases-plenty to eat and drink and smoke, and his Glock nine. Everything a growing boy needed.
I amaze myself, I really, really do.
“Open the garage door,” he said to Billy. “Let’s get ready to herd ’em in.”
Billy looked longingly in the rearview mirror once more, and climbed out of the van.
Leon extinguished his cigarette. He pulled off his sunglasses and hooked a glance over his shoulder.
“We’re here, ladies,” he said. “Welcome to Casa de Sharpe.”
21
Simone had earned a doctorate in clinical psychology, had counseled hundreds of individuals, couples, and families over the years through crisis situations, but here, in her hour of need, all of her training, education, and experience deserted her.
She was more frightened than she’d ever been in her life.
The vehicle in which they were traveling had ground to a stop, and Leon had announced that they were home. They had been driving for fifty or sixty minutes, she estimated, which meant they were somewhere in metro Atlanta.
Given her fearful state of mind, they might as well have landed on a different planet.
She was not frightened for herself-she was hardly thinking about herself-she was frightened for Jada. She’d overheard Leon when he’d spoken to Corey on the telephone. Leon had said a lot to her husband, had spewed hundreds of words that had troubled her, but one remark above all the others had sliced through her heart like a hot stiletto blade.
I’ll let my partner do whatever he likes to your little munchkin. .
At home, before they had taped her eyes shut, Simone had seen Leon’s partner. He was a mammoth of a man, with a disconcerting gaze that betrayed a low IQ, and possibly mental illness. She’d seen how he’d looked at Jada.
Please, Lord, keep my baby safe, she prayed. Let no harm come to her.
Throughout this ordeal, she’d kept her attention and energies focused on Jada. She’d whispered words of reassurance in her ear, trusting that Jada would feel her love even if she couldn’t hear what Simone said. She pressed her lips to Jada’s warm cheek. Buried her nose in Jada’s soft hair.
Cuddled as closely together as their restraints would allow, Jada had been crying when they’d first been placed in the vehicle, but she’d soon quieted, drawing in deep breaths, soothed, Simone hoped, by her presence.
If she could stay close to Jada, they could get through this together. Jada gave her the best reason in the world to stay strong.
Although she had no clue how Corey would raise the staggering amount of money Leon had demanded, she would not let herself think about it. It was out of her control, she and her daughter mere pawns in this deadly match between Corey and this mad man. She would concentrate everything she had on Jada, and pray that Corey would somehow come through for them as he’d promised he would.
The engine cut off. She heard doors clatter open.
Cool air swirled inside. The air carried woodsy scents and the songs of chirping birds, none of which told her anything definitive about where they had been taken.
A damp hand grabbed her forearm, fingers digging like hooks into her flesh. She hissed in pain.
“Let’s go, ma cherie,” Leon said.
He wrenched her off the seat, away from Jada. Jada let out a terrified squawk.
“It’s okay, baby,” Simone said. “Mom’s not going anywhere. We’re staying together, we’re only going inside the house.”
Jada’s protests quieted to a whimper.
“I thought she was deaf?” Leon asked.
“You’d never understand,” she said.
He grunted and jerked her outside the vehicle. She swayed on her feet, her abdomen tender from when he’d punched her, her head aching as if she’d suffered a mild concussion when the vase had struck her. She wriggled her fingers. Her hands, chained in front of her, were numb from restricted blood circulation.
Leon pinched her butt. She flinched away.
“Keep your damn hands off me,” she spat.
“My, my, my, so much junk in the trunk.” He snickered. “All right, all right, let’s go in, yeah, let’s go.”
Grabbing her by the bicep, he ushered her across a dank, echoing space that sounded like a garage, and through a doorway. The air was cool and stale. She smelled drywall, dust, paint. Her sneakers tramped across what felt like a hardwood floor.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“The love shack,” he said, and giggled in his weird way.
He shoved her through another doorway. She stumbled forward and tripped over something, losing her balance with a small shout, and landed atop a large, cushioned surface. A mattress?
A door slammed behind her. She heard plodding footsteps in another part of the house, wood creaking. It sounded like someone climbing a staircase.
At the realization, fear clenched her.
“Where’s my daughter?” she said.
“Sit up,” Leon said, “and hold still.”
“Where the hell is that sick bastard taking my baby?”
“Do you want me to remove the tape from your eyes or not? I can leave it on. I’ve got no problem with that, and I’ll let you sit here blind as Stevie Wonder if that’s your choice. Perhaps that would be poetic justice, your daughter deaf, and you blind, what do you think, huh?”
She was almost hyperventilating. She sucked in her bottom lip, tasted blood from when she’d bitten it earlier, and willed her heart rate to slow.
“Okay. . okay,” she said. “Please. . take off the blindfold. Please.”
He ripped the tape from her eyes, tearing away a thin layer of skin and hair in the process.
“You bastard!” she screamed, face burning.
“There we go now, there we go.” He knelt in front of her. “Now I can gaze into those big, pretty brown eyes.”
Wincing, she blinked her sore eyelids, and looked around.
They were in a master bedroom. It had plain white walls, crown molding, a dusty hardwood floor. A large fireplace with a marble mantelpiece. Two long windows barred with thick planks of plywood, bands of gray light filtering inside. A tray ceiling. Overhead, where a fan would have been installed, a bundle of wires dangled like a severed umbilical cord.
There was no furniture except for the full-size mattress on which she sat, and a plastic folding chair a few feet away. A door at the other end of the room led to a shadowed bathroom.
Leon followed her eyes with his feverish gaze. “You like? I would have booked a penthouse at the Ritz, but I had certain rigid privacy requirements. This’ll have to do.”
She glared at him. “I want my daughter in here with me.”
“Billy’s keeping an eye on her.”
“That monster?” She shook her head. “No, he’ll. . he’ll hurt her.”
“Look, I told him to keep his hands off her, and he listens to me, obeys my every word, I’m the Alpha dog of our dynamic duo, so your munchkin’ll be fine-unless you make me angry, do something to piss me off and get on my bad side, in which case, I’ll tell him he can do whatever he wants to her, and who knows what’ll happen, God only knows the incredible perversities Billy could commit while he’s alone with the little angel, ya dig?”