“I’ve suggested it several times. Karl’s a Lindstrom, an ex-naval officer. He doesn’t believe in help. That kind, anyway.”
Something fell in the kitchen, a crash of glass on the floor.
“Scott? You guys okay in there?” Grace called.
Another sound followed, something high, but muted, a muffled cry. The women exchanged a quick glance and moved toward the kitchen. They’d taken only a step when two men pushed through the kitchen doorway. They wore ski masks over their faces, black leather gloves on their hands. Each gripped a boy. One of the men held a handgun. All the air seemed to rush from Jo’s lungs, and something hot and too heavy to hold very long pressed down inside her stomach. Even so, she felt the briefest sense of relief to see that the firearm was pointed not at the children but at her. She tried to speak but felt paralyzed. The two intruders seemed momentarily stuck, too.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man with the handgun finally asked her.
“I was about to ask you the same thing. More or less.” She was surprised that although she could barely breathe, her words sounded calm.
“Take whatever you want,” Grace said. “Leave the boys alone.”
“We’ll take what we want, all right.”
Jo looked at Stevie. Her son’s dark eyes were wide, little holes full of terror, and his mouth was open as if in a soundless cry. Jo wanted to kill the man whose huge hand dug into Stevie’s tiny arm.
“It’s okay, Stevie,” she said.
“Oh, but it ain’t okay,” the man with the handgun said. “Both of you turn around.” He swung the barrel in a tight circle.
Jo hesitated and Grace also did not move. The man with Scott in one hand and the handgun in the other put the barrel to the boy’s head. “Do it now,” he said.
A sound escaped Grace’s throat, not loud, but pitiful. It seemed to hit hard the man who held Stevie. “For Christ’s sake,” he told the other man, “get the gun away from his head.”
“All right.” The barrel swung toward a Tiffany lamp on a walnut end table. The shot shattered more than the glass of the lamp. Whatever had held Stevie silent broke, and he began to whimper.
“Shut up,” the man with the gun said. Then to the other man, “Shut him up.”
“Don’t.” Jo took a step.
The barrel of the handgun was aimed again on her heart. “Don’t even think about it.”
The man who held Stevie said, “Look, you do exactly as we say and no one will get hurt, I promise. What’d you say his name is?”
“Stevie.”
“Okay, Stevie. You’re gonna be fine. Just fine. But you have to do what I tell you, okay?” He waited. “Okay?”
Stevie watched his mother nod, then he nodded, too.
“Good man.” He looked at Jo. “Turn around.”
She did. Slowly. Followed by Grace. So that both had their backs to the boys and the men. Jo heard the sizzle of tape pulled from a roll. Glancing back, she saw that Stevie’s and Scott’s hands were being bound with silver duct tape.
“You okay? Does that hurt?”
Stevie’s captor asked. Stevie shook his head. Scott was secured, too, and a strip of tape went over the boys’ mouths.
“Just tell us what you want,” Grace insisted. “Whatever it is, you can have it.”
The man with the gun said, “Put your hands behind your back. That’s all I want. Right now.”
The women were bound in the same way as the boys. Their mouths were taped.
“What do we do with these two?” Jo felt a light tap on the back of her head.
“Can’t leave ‘em. They come, too.”
“What about the note?”
“On the glass coffee table. He’ll find it. Everyone this way.” The man with the firearm in his hand waved them toward the kitchen.
Milk lay in a puddle on the kitchen floor amid shattered glass. Cookies sat on the table, half eaten.
“Outside.” The man with the gun held the back door open.
They stood on the back deck, in that time of day when the sun had deserted the sky, yet something of it lingered, the memory of light, just enough to illuminate dimly the landscape of the cove. The moon was rising, and stars lay scattered above the trees like pinholes in a dark ceiling.
“This way.” The gunman motioned them to follow and headed down a flagstone path toward the dock. Behind him walked Scott and Stevie, then Grace and Jo. The other man brought up the rear. When they reached the edge of the lake, the gunman called over his shoulder, “We’re all going to take a little dip.” He waded into the water, calf-deep, and began to follow the shoreline. Jo understood. They would leave no tracks in the sandy bottom of the lake. Where the lawn gave way to woods, a small runabout sat on the water, the bowline tied to a sapling on the shore.
“Everybody in.”
The other man steadied the boat and, because their bound hands made it awkward, helped them in. Stevie he lifted bodily and set gently beside Jo.
“Lie down,” the gunman ordered.
The runabout was narrow. They all lay together, nearly on top of one another. The bottom of the boat smelled of fish gut and cut bait and damp wood. Although Jo nestled next to Stevie, she knew she offered him no protection. She heard the crinkle of a tarp flapped open. The next instant they were plunged in darkness. A hand tamped her butt, then her shoulders as the men tucked the edges of the tarp tightly about them.
“I’ll take it from here,” she heard the gunman say. He had a hard, unpleasant voice that made her think of a saw blade biting dry wood. “You know what to do.”
“I know.”
“Don’t look so worried. We just stepped onto the yellow brick road.” The gunman laughed.
The boat was shoved back. The engine sputtered to life. The runabout slowly came around, and Jo felt it carry them away, out of the small cove and onto Iron Lake.
• • •
On the shoreline of the cove, the man in the ski mask watched the silhouette of the boat and its sole upright occupant until they disappeared. He realized he was sweating like a pack mule, and he yanked the ski mask from his head. He ran a hand through his wet hair. The whole time, he’d been barely able to breathe, and he sucked in the night air greedily. He bent and felt the rocky bottom of the lake until he found the right stone, a round one that filled his hand. He wrapped the ski mask around it, bound it in place with duct tape, and threw it as far as he could out into the water of the cove. He took off his gloves and shoved them into his back pocket.
It hadn’t gone badly, although the other woman and her boy had been a surprise. Still, they’d handled it. No one had been hurt. It boded well.
He kept to the water, following the shoreline past Blueberry Creek and finally to his own dock. He stepped onto the old board and slipped out of his sneakers. In the cabin, he put the wet shoes beside the back door to dry, changed his clothes, and finally went to the kitchen where he broke the seal on a fifth of Cutty Sark. He poured three fingers of scotch into a glass and stared at it.
John Sailor LePere had been sober for a long time. But he needed a drink now. Not to steady his nerves. Not to forget his losses. Not to escape his nightmares. He needed, that night, to be what Aurora, Minnesota, believed him to be. A drunken Indian who could no more manage a kidnapping than he could a raising of the dead.
“To you, Billy.”
He lifted his glass to the empty room and he filled his throat with fire.
24
CORK PARKED HIS BRONCO IN THE GARAGE at ten-thirty P.M. He was surprised to see that Jo’s Toyota wasn’t there. Inside the house, everything was quiet. Lights were still on in the living room, and he heard the television turned down low. He found Annie asleep on the couch.
“Sweetheart.” He shook her gently. “Why don’t you go on up to bed.”
She nodded, her eyes still dreamy.
“Did your mom come home?”
“Unh-uh.” She shook her head. “Aunt Rose went to bed a while ago. Jenny’s still out with Sean.”
He watched her stumble up the stairs, then he sat on the sofa himself and stared at the television. MTV. A rap video. He wasn’t watching. He was thinking about the evening at the Quetico.