“He’s coming to.” It was a woman’s voice.
His eyes focused in the dim light, and he saw that the two women and their sons were watching him. “What happened?”
“Your friend,” the Fitzgerald woman said bitterly.
LePere remembered everything up until coming into the fish house. “He knocked me cold?”
“He hit you with a big flashlight,” the O’Connor woman explained. “We were afraid you might be dead.”
The back of his head hurt. He tried to wiggle free of his bonds, but the rope was so tight that it bit painfully into his muscles and cut off the circulation so that his hands were numb. He was hog-tied, several coils looped around his arms and chest, his hands pulled behind him and secured to his bound ankles.
“How long have I been out?” he asked.
“Two or three hours,” Jo O’Connor replied.
LePere looked toward the door. “Has he been back?”
“No. He took a bunch of things from the shelves that he apparently thought we might try to use to escape, and he left. We haven’t seen him since.”
“Did he say anything?”
The Fitzgerald woman gave a short, unhappy laugh. “He looked down at you and said something about landing a bigmouth bass. Who is he?”
LePere hesitated before he said, “His name is Bridger.” Between the stuffy air and the rope that squeezed his chest, he could barely breathe. “It’s hot in here.”
“Your friend Bridger shut all the windows,” Grace Fitzgerald told him. “I guess he was afraid we might scream and be heard.”
“There’s no one to hear you out here,” LePere said.
The sound of gravel underfoot came from just outside the door, and then the rattle of the lock being undone. Wesley Bridger stepped inside and switched on the light. “Back among the living, Chief?” He held a filet knife in a gloved hand. LePere recognized the knife as one from the kitchen in his cabin on Iron Lake.
“What’s going on, Wes?”
“Just dropping a few more crumbs for the cops to follow.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You never did. And that’s been the beauty all along.” Bridger looked everyone in the fish house over carefully. “Who goes under the blade of old Doc Bridger? Let me see.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” LePere demanded.
“Just following the plan. Mine, not yours.” He laughed when he saw the look on LePere’s face. “You look so lost, Chief. Let me explain a few things.” He grabbed an old wooden crate, turned it over, and sat down. He tugged the glove off his left hand and tested the tip of the filet knife against his thumb. When he’d easily drawn blood, he smiled and wiped the blade clean on his pants. “Chief, it never was what it seemed. That wreck you’re so goddamned interested in was never anything to me except a door to your trust.”
“What was so important about my trust?”
“Two million dollars.” Bridger opened his arms toward the women and the boys. “See, Chief, I knew about you and the Teasdale. And there you were, right across the cove from the last of the Fitzgeralds. All I had to do was stir up the hate that was bubbling inside you.”
“It was a lie, all that about the Teasdale being sabotaged?”
“Not all of it. I did help sink a Libyan freighter. So I suppose the Teasdale could have been sabotaged in the same way, but it really didn’t matter. I gave you what you wanted, someone to blame for all your misery. Oh, and by the way, it was me who destroyed all your equipment here. I needed you to be desperate enough to agree to help me.”
“There never was a boat watching us when we dived?”
“It’s been my experience that if you tell someone the grass is full of snakes, even a crooked stick looks dangerous.” A mock sadness came into his voice. “And now, the unkindest cut of all. You were always going to die, Chief. Just like them.” He nodded toward the others. “You see, the only way for two people to keep a secret is if one of them is dead.” Bridger stood up. “Time to spill a little blood.”
“No,” LePere said.
Bridger laughed. “Relax. I want only a little blood. The cops will look your way eventually, and I need enough blood to let them know you brought your hostages here. What happened to the women and children after that”—he shrugged—“will always be a mystery. So… who will it be?”
“Take my blood,” Grace Fitzgerald said.
“Ah, you saw me looking at young Scotty there, didn’t you? I wish I’d had a mother like you. Maybe I’d have turned out differently. What do you think?”
“Just do it,” the Fitzgerald woman said.
Bridger put the glove back on his hand and reached behind her with his knife. She gave a small gasp. He lifted the blade that was bright with a glistening of crimson. “You’ll bleed a bit more onto the floor, but it’s only superficial, Grace. And I wouldn’t worry about infection. There’s not really going to be enough time for germs to get a foothold.” He walked back to the door. “I need all of you mobile for a while longer. If you’re inclined to believe in God, I’d start right now making amends.”
“You enjoy this,” the O’Connor woman said.
“More than you can imagine.”
He hit the light switch and locked the door. The fish house was quiet and filled with a blue evanescence that crept in through the windows. Twilight, LePere knew. It was nearly time for the ransom to take place. He heard the engine of the van turn over. A moment later, the vehicle rattled away toward the highway.
“Ms. O’Connor, do you think you can move?” he asked.
“Some.”
“There’s a metal box on the wall next to the washbasin. Sometimes my father used the basin to clean himself and to shave after he was done with the day’s catch. He put his used razor blades in there so nobody would get cut with them. So far as I know, he never emptied it.”
The O’Connor woman worked herself into a standing position and hopped across the floor. She knelt, then lay down, and positioned herself near the wall. She lifted her legs, tried to reach the box, and had to readjust. It was an awkward position that, with her hands bound behind her, put a lot of strain on her shoulders, and LePere heard her grunt in pain as she raised her legs again toward the box.
“Just kick it?” she gasped.
“That,” LePere said, “and pray.”
40
THE DECISION HAD ALREADY BEEN MADE before Cork arrived, the decision that made everything go bad.
Two million dollars had been delivered to Lindstrom’s home on Grace Cove at seven-twenty P.M. It had come in bundles of hundred-dollar bills, packed in two large metal cases, and accompanied by Lucky Knudsen and three additional state troopers. George LeDuc had come along as well, bringing with him a simple, no-interest agreement for repayment that Karl Lindstrom signed. Afterward, the two men shook hands. Not a single attorney was present.
By the time Cork had hiked from LePere’s cabin to the big log home, the worst heat of the day had passed, and the media were again out in full force. Still, he entered the house without drawing much notice. Inside, he found Lindstrom, and the agents of the FBI and BCA, Lucky Knudsen, and Wally Schanno all gathered around the dining-room table. The metal cases that contained the ransom money were open. Also on the table were two empty black cases the same size as those that held the money. Kay glanced at her watch and said, sounding a little put out, “Mr. O’Connor. I’m glad you’re finally here.”
Cork let her peevishness slide. He walked to the table and looked at the cases full of hundred-dollar bills. Although he’d never seen so much in one place at one time, he didn’t think of it as a lot of money. To him, it was the possibility of Jo and Stevie in his arms again. Yet, no matter how many millions it might have been, he didn’t trust it. In the transaction ahead, in the commerce of human lives, there were no guarantees, no warranties, no legal recourse. If things went bad, there was just dead.
“What’s going on?” he asked, eyeing the empty black cases.<
br />
“I was in the process of explaining the plan,” Kay said.
“What plan?”
“We’ve been trying to reach you.”
“You’ve just reached me. What plan?”
Kay held up an electronic device about the size and shape of a deck of cards. “This is a Global Positioning System transmitter. It’s designed to be hidden in this case.” She reached into one of the empty cases and flipped open a small compartment that was hidden in the thick lining. She put the transmitter in place and closed the compartment door. “You see? It’s not obvious in any way. It may allow us to follow the money once it’s been picked up after the drop. We’re hoping it will lead us to where your wife and son and Mr. Lindstrom’s family are being held.”
“Can it be detected electronically?” Cork asked.
“Well, yes. But the kidnapper would need some pretty sophisticated equipment for that.”
“The kidnapper’s been prepared so far,” Cork pointed out.
“Do you have a better idea?” Kay’s eyes were a clear green and at that moment rather sharp in their regard of Cork. She hadn’t had a decent interval of sleep since she’d arrived, and it was beginning to show.
He glanced at the hollowed face of Karl Lindstrom. “You’ve agreed?”
Lindstrom nodded once. “Like she said, Cork, it’s a chance at least. I don’t know what else to do.”
“Wally?” Cork asked.
Schanno shrugged. “I’m out of my league here, Cork.”
Cork looked to Agent David Earl, who stood back a little from the others. “What about you?”
“I think unless you have a definite suspect in mind…” Earl paused, probably wondering if Cork had found anything substantial at LePere’s cabin. “I think,” he began again, “that if it were my family, I’d be willing at this point to try anything. And probably to put my trust in nothing. I wish there were more to offer you, O’Connor.”
Although it wasn’t dark yet, the curtains had been drawn across the windows. The dining room was lit by lamps and the light from the chandelier. By most standards, the dining room was large, but to Cork the walls seemed too close and the room airless.
“All right,” he finally said. “How’s it going to work?”
Agent Kay explained that as soon as she knew the drop site, she would have it surrounded by officers with night-vision equipment. When the kidnapper attempted to make the pickup, a decision would be made whether to apprehend at that point. If the determination were made not to detain the kidnapper, a car with tracking capability would be ready to follow. When movement ceased, the area would be quickly secured and, it was hoped, the hostages located and freed.
“We’re planning in the dark in a lot of ways,” she admitted. “And I won’t bullshit you. There’s a good deal of risk involved. Well?” She looked at Cork and Lindstrom for final approval.
Lindstrom spoke first. “It seems to me we go with the plan. It’s that or just give him the money and hope for the best. And, believe me, I’m not inclined in the least to trust this person. What about you, Cork?”
“Let’s go after him,” Cork replied grimly.
41
FIRST JO HAD EXHAUSTED HERSELF trying to kick loose from the wall of the fish house the metal repository full of old razor blades, then Grace Fitzgerald had done the same. The screws that anchored the metal box were sunk deep into hard wood, and in the end it was the strength of the two women that had finally yielded. The fish house, filled for a long while with the desperate thump of shoe soles against wood and metal—a sound that offered some hope—fell into silence. The light through the closed windows was fading. Eventually darkness would close in.
Darkness and silence, Jo thought. Like a grave.
Although she was tired and sore, she kicked herself mentally beyond the temptation for despair. For Stevie’s sake. “How long before this Bridger comes back?”
“If he sticks to his plan,” LePere replied, “the drop will be made at ten o’clock. He’ll do some maneuvering then to make sure he’s not followed. Give him an hour, hour and a half to get back here. So we have maybe two and a half hours, at best.”
“Two and a half hours,” Jo said. Not much time, but it was something. “All right.”
“Do you have an idea?” LePere asked.
She didn’t. Except not to remain on the floor like someone already dead. She scooted to the wall and pushed herself into a standing position. Grace followed her example, saying, “I’m with you, whatever.”
Jo looked the room over carefully. She wasn’t seeing anything she hadn’t seen before, but she was trying to see it in a different way. The nearly empty shelves, the long tables where for years fish had been gutted and cut, the windows. She paused, thinking for a moment it might be possible to break a window and to use a shard of glass to cut free. Unfortunately, the windows were all too high to reach—too high for someone like her, anyway, someone with her hands bound behind her. She eyed the washbasin, the slender wooden cabinet above it, the floor drain. She came back to the washbasin and the cabinet above it.
“Your father, when he shaved, what did he use for a mirror?”
LePere closed his eyes, remembering. “He had… something… inside the cabinet.”
“Glass?” she asked.
“I don’t remember.”
Jo hopped toward the cabinet. She put her belly against the washbasin and leaned toward the cabinet door. There was a wooden knob on the left-hand side that she intended to take between her teeth and use to pull the door open. As she leaned, she realized she wasn’t quite tall enough to reach. She resettled herself and leaned forward again. This time, she lifted her feet off the ground as she set her weight full on the edge of the washbasin, hoping the fixture would hold for a few seconds while she got her teeth around the knob on the cabinet door. Unfortunately, the basin shifted. Jo fell forward, hit her head on the wall, and tumbled to the floor.
“Are you all right?” Grace asked.
“Mommy?” Stevie called in a frightened voice.
“I’m fine, honey,” she said. “Mommy’s just fine.” In the growing dark, she turned her gaze toward Grace. “You’re taller than I am.”
As Jo worked herself up, Grace Fitzgerald hopped to the washbasin.
“Careful,” Jo cautioned her. “It’s not as solid as that damn razor blade box.”
Grace was able to keep her feet on the ground as she took the knob between her teeth and pulled the cabinet door open. The shelves were empty, but a glass mirror had been affixed to the inside of the door. Grace looked at it, then at Jo. “How do we break it?”
Jo surprised herself with a slight smile. “In a situation like this, it’s best to use one’s head. Can you open the door all the way?”
Putting her long nose to good use, Grace nudged the door so that it swung clear of the basin. Jo hopped into position with the back of her head against the glass.
“Oh, Jo, be careful,” Grace cried.
Jo closed her eyes and tapped her head against the glass. Nothing. Harder, she told herself. Again, nothing. Damn. She threw her head back and heard the glass shatter, and she tensed for the feel of it cutting her.
“Let me see,” Grace said.
Jo turned her head.
“There’s no blood.”
Jo realized she was holding her breath. She let out a deep sigh of relief. “Okay. We’re getting there. Now, Grace, can you get a piece of the broken glass off the floor?”
Grace knelt, then went down on her butt, and slid to where shards littered the old wood planking. She lay on her side, rolled a bit so that she could sweep her fingers across the floor. “I’ve got one. It’s pretty fragile, I think, but the edges feel good and sharp.”
“Grace, I’m going to lie down with my back to yours. I want you to try to cut the tape that’s around my wrists.”
Jo maneuvered herself to the floor and edged backward until she felt Grace Fitzgerald’s bound arms touch her own. She repositioned herse
lf—careful of the shattered glass under her—so that her wrists were even with Grace’s hands. She waited. “Well?”
“Jo, I’ll be cutting awfully close to your wrists. I’m afraid if I slip—”
“Do we have a choice?” Jo broke in.
“All right. But, Jo, if it goes wrong… I’m sorry.”
“You’ll do fine, Grace.”
She made her words sound strong and positive, although she knew that the skin at her wrists was very thin and the glass very sharp and it wouldn’t take much of an error for an edge to slice right through to an artery.
“Here I go.”
Jo closed her eyes. A moment later, she felt the prick of a jagged edge. “That’s me,” she told Grace quickly.
“Sorry. How’s that?”
“I don’t feel anything. You must be on the tape now.”
The process was awkward and slow, mostly because Grace was reluctant to put a lot of pressure against the duct tape. As it turned out, she wasn’t concerned just about Jo.
“Are you all right?” Jo asked, hearing small, painful grunts from Grace.
“I may be doing more damage to my fingers than the tape,” she answered. “The glass is getting slippery. And I don’t think it’s from sweat.”
“I can feel the tape beginning to give. Can you stay with it?”
“I’d cut off a finger if I thought it would get us out of here. Unhhh.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Mom?” Scott called out with concern.
“I’m fine. Just fine. How you doing, kiddo?”
“Feeling a little sick.”
“Hang on, sport. We’ll all be out of here in a minute.”
Grace took a deep breath. Jo felt again the cut of the glass on the tape, and the grip around her wrists loosened dramatically. She forced her hands apart, breaking the last of the tape that held her. She sat up quickly, picked up a piece of broken glass, and cut her ankles free.
“Now you,” she said to Grace.
The light had faded almost completely. The fish house was filled with a deep, dismal gray that was all the narrow windows would admit of twilight. Although color was nearly impossible to tell, Jo knew that in a stronger light, the dark that dripped over Grace Fitzgerald’s right hand would have been bright red.