That meant Simone was safe. Thank God.
“How’s my daughter?” Corey asked.
“The munchkin’s all good. She’s in dreamland.”
Corey exhaled, dared to relax. “Listen, Leon about what happened at the mall-I had no idea the FBI would be there. I never called them.”
“You never spoke to them?”
Corey spoke in a rush. “They came by my house this morning. I had to talk to them-someone ID’d you at the bar last night, when you threw the beer against the wall. They had my name from the credit card receipt. But I promise you, I didn’t tell them that you had my family, and I didn’t tell them about the drop-off. I lied and said I didn’t know where you were, but I guess they didn’t believe me, because obviously they tailed me to the mall.”
“Well, that’s neither here nor there, is it?” Leon’s voice was hushed, almost a whisper. “Still can’t believe you haven’t told the wifey here anything about our illustrious history. Don’t think she appreciates being kept in the dark.”
Corey’s grip on the phone tightened. “I had my reasons.”
“Why don’t you give her those reasons?”
Corey heard a fumbling of the phone, and then Simone came on the line.
“Hey, baby,” she said wearily.
“God, it’s so good to hear your voice,” he said. “How’re you doing?”
“Remember when Jada was stung by a bee?”
He frowned, wondering where this was going. “Yeah, I remember. That was last fall, wasn’t it?”
“That’s how I am right now. That’s how Jada is, too.”
There was something about Simone’s voice. . something artificial that made him suspect there was a different meaning she was hinting toward. He had spoken to Simone every day for over ten years, and whenever he asked her how she was doing, she answered directly, with I’m great or I’m doing okay, or not so hot.
Remember when Jada was stung by a bee? That’s how I am right now. That’s how Jada is, too.
What was she trying to say?
He wanted to ask her to clarify, but if she was being cryptic, it was because she was worried about tipping off Leon. He would have to puzzle over her words on his own.
“Got it,” he said. “Have you seen Jada?”
“No,” she said, with a disappointed sigh. “But he tells me she’s okay.”
“I’m going to bring you and Pumpkin home. I just need you to hang on a little longer. We’re going to get through this.”
“I’m trying, baby, I’m really trying.”
He had never heard her so exhausted and discouraged. She was hanging on, but by the thinnest of threads.
“I can’t begin to explain how sorry I am for not telling you everything,” he said. “I. . I. .”
He couldn’t go on. His tongue felt stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“Explain later,” she said. “Just bring us home.”
“I will. I mean it.”
Leon came back on the line. “Which gives us a perfect segue to the main purpose of this conversation. The rules of the road have officially changed.”
Corey tensed. “What’re you talking about?”
“You screwed up big-time at the mall. For my inconvenience and emotional distress, I’ve decided that I want more money.”
“W-what?”
“I want a million dollars.”
“You want a million dollars,” Corey said, numb.
“That’s a one, followed by six zeroes.”
Corey pressed his hand to his sweaty forehead and stared out the rain-streaked windshield. Cars crawled through the drive-through line, people grabbing a fast dinner on a weeknight, single people on cell phones, mothers with kids bopping in the seats, families in SUVs.
He had never felt more isolated from the flow of ordinary life-and had never wanted it back so badly, high-calorie fast food with his wife and daughter and driving home to watch TV and carouse on the sofa, the whole thing. He’d never craved such simple things so desperately.
“Hello?” Leon was saying. “Earth to C-Note?”
“Yeah?”
“A million dollars,” Leon said. “You’ve got until this Friday morning at ten.”
“You want more money than you demanded before, and you’re giving me less time to get it.”
“Those are the new rules, amigo.”
“Listen, you’re crazy. I can’t do it.”
“I’ll pass that on to your little munchkin. I’ll tell her that daddy gave up on her and mommy before I shoot her in the head.”
“No,” Corey said.
“Then find a way to make it happen.”
“I can’t withdraw ten measly dollars from my account without the FBI knowing about it, Leon. Even if I had a million bucks-and I don’t-I couldn’t get it to you. They’re on to me now.”
“You’ll work it out,” Leon said with maddening calmness. “You don’t have a choice any more.”
Leon hung up. Corey slammed the phone onto the passenger seat.
A million dollars by Friday morning. It was totally impossible. Was Leon lying around picking outrageous sums of money out of the air? Where the hell was he getting this stuff from?
Sitting there, sweating and fuming, he remembered that his BlackBerry had vibrated. He checked it.
Todd had sent him a text message.
Can meet at 9pm 2 chat. 8126 Industrial Blvd,
Covington.
Park in back. Watch out for feds.
See U there.
“You can bet your ass I’ll be there,” Corey said, and hoped that he and Todd, together, could find a way out of these suddenly darker woods.
43
Back in his trailer, Ed popped the tab on his third can of lukewarm beer and chugged half of it in a couple of gulps. He let out a loud burp as he slumped on the tattered La-Z-Boy, a spot from which he hadn’t budged in over an hour.
Three beers in, a warm haze had settled over him, dulling the edge of his fear. He could not remember the last time he’d been so frightened. Probably, it had been during the war, when he’d seen many terrifying things, most of which, gratefully, had faded into the mists of memory.
The small hand at the window had sent him scrambling through the woods, around the lake, and into the security of his trailer, the dogs on his heels, yapping.
Ghost, he kept thinking, pulse pounding. I saw a ghost.
Or was it really a ghost? What if it had been something else?
Like a child, kept prisoner in the room by Them?
He wasn’t sure.
Over a dozen canines swarmed around his recliner, wriggled between and beneath his legs, crawled into his lap, licked at the can in his hand, poked his face with their cold snouts. As he had lately, he scarcely noticed them, which made them vie even more enthusiastically for his affection.
Staring ahead into nothing, he rolled the questions over and over in his mind.
The problem with the ghost theory was that he had never seen a ghost before. He was sixty years old. If ghosts existed, and maybe they did, he figured he would have seen one before this.
Anyway, how had the dog sensed it? The black Lab had known before he had that something was at the window. Could dogs see ghosts, too?
That was why thinking it was a ghost troubled him. It stirred up more questions than it answered.
But a child, imprisoned by Them? That was an idea he could sink his teeth into.
The mysterious figures in the van could have kidnapped the child. They could be keeping the kid in the room. Why else would bars have been on the window?
He had been certain before that They had abducted dogs and were doing terrible things to them in the house. Why not a child? They were monsters, an evil race, and preyed on the innocent and helpless, which included canines and children alike.
He thought about his little girl with her long, silken hair, her smile like the sun. He could visualize her face, but he could not recall her name. He took a sip of beer, as if to lubricate his thoughts, but her name skipped around the edges of his mind, teasingly out of reach.