She glanced over at her coworker, his round freckled face and his headful of carrot orange hair. “I’m fine.” She forced a smile that crumbled.
“You don’t look so good,” he said with his usual honesty. He was one of the kindest people she knew, but had a knack for awkward observations. “Are you coming down with something?”
“I don’t think so. Just tired is all.”Just terrified is all, more like it.
Mark reached up to touch her forehead with the back of his hand, motherly concern shining in his eyes. “You sure?”
She smiled, for real this time. “I’m sure.”
They rode down in the elevator together and Mark proved a great distraction, telling her about the date he had coming up on Friday, a gamer chick he met online playingWorld of Warcraft. She laughed along with him as he described his perilous journey to the mall to find a new outfit for the occasion, and she assured him it would go well, and that his date would find him “completely charming.” He blushed at the praise, going red beneath his freckles.
Mark walked her to her car in the dark lot, ensured she was safely inside with the doors locked, and waved before he headed off to his own ride.
Then she was alone with her fear again.
“It’s okay,” she whispered to the dash. “It’s going to beokay.” She cranked the engine and took off.
Fifteen minutes later found her in a seedy part of town with flickering streetlamps and chain link fences, pedestrians lounging suspiciously back against parked cars as she crawled through the residential streets. She’d expected the address to belong to a business of some sort, but instead, 4657 was a small white clapboard house with a narrow front stoop and a carport.
“No,” Whitney said to herself, shaking her head violently back and forth. “Oh no.Hellno.”
She watched movies. She’d seen innumerable episodes ofCSIin syndication. Money drops were made in public places, shopping bags placed in trash cans; envelopes left in restaurant booths while shady men watched from over at the bar. They didn’t happen in tumbledown houses in bad parts of the city. She wasn’t going in there. Shewasn’t. She’d never come back out.
But what about Jason? Madelyn? The girls? Their lives – their life together as a family – was worth more than her own. Yes. But the answer couldn’t be approaching this house. She’d call the number back, demand a different meeting place; she’d call the police right now and have them descend on this location, bust down the door with their ram and haul her brother out of whatever back room he was being held in.
She was reaching for her iPhone in the cup holder when someone knocked on her driver’s side window.
Whitney swallowed a startled shriek, head whipping around.
A man loomed beyond the window, dressed in dark clothes, face obscured by shadows. “Put the phone down,” he said, voice penetrating the thin glass.
She froze, but didn’t comply. This was such a stupid damnmess…
“Put the phone down!” he shouted, and then she saw the silhouette of the gun in his hand.
Okay. No arguing with that. She dropped her phone into her open purse and showed him her pale palms.
“Open the door.”
She undid the locks and popped the latch, and he opened it wide, cold air funneling into the car, bringing with it the sour, sweaty smell of the man standing above her.
“You the sister?” he demanded.
She had to swallow before her tongue would work. “I’m Jason Howard’s sister, yes.”
“Did you bring it?”
“The money? Yes.” She reached toward her purse.
“Hands where I can see them!”
“Okay, okay.” She took a deep, shaky breath through her mouth. “Please…” Her chest tightened with panic. “Please just take it. I can wait here for my brother.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Get out.”
~*~
Inside the small, grubby house, Whitney stood beneath the gaze of two heavy-bodied armed men, while a third counted out the bills she’d brought on the kitchen table. The man doing the counting was smaller than the other two, clearly hired for his brains rather than his brawn, a slight bald patch on his head glowing and greasy beneath the overhead lights. She latched her hands together on the handle of her purse and tried to ignore the droplets of perspiration rolling down her back, beneath her clothes. She prayed and prayed, and then prayed some more. She should have gone to church when her grandmother was still alive and urging her to go, she reflected. Maybe she’d be better at praying.
