Sacrifice
Dempsey watched as Buck completed setting the table and brought the women out of the room to eat dinner. Buck helped Mrs. Knight situate her child in a high chair he’d bought somewhere, and then he helped Mrs. Knight into her seat. The younger woman nodded and graciously thanked Buck, but the older one pulled the chair away and seated herself. At least someone didn’t seem to be falling for Buck’s antics. He was a lot of things, but a conscientious host was not one of them. He was a psychopath—a useful psychopath at times but a psychopath all the same. It was the reason Dempsey had hired him. Many people would have qualms about kidnapping a woman and young child on US soil. To Buck, it was just another job. He would be just as unbothered if he were instructed to drown a baby puppy. He didn’t have a conscience, and this made him a very valuable employee.
“You gonna come eat with us, Boss?” Buck yelled from across the room. “We’ve got a place set for ya.”
Dempsey thought about just getting up and leaving, going for a walk around the perimeter, maybe finding the ghost to see how the preparations were coming, but as much as he really didn’t want to engage the prisoners in conversation, he was even more afraid of leaving them alone with Buck. If there was going to be a tea party, he should probably at least be there for damage control. He rose and made his way across the large room toward the table. Knight’s wife started in as soon as he sat down.
“Mr. Dempsey, you don’t look happy to join us.”
“I’m not really much on fraternizing with the guests,” Dempsey said. “I don’t see how it serves any real purpose.”
“So you would rather we eat on the floor of that small room you have us locked in?” The woman didn’t seem intimidated in the least. Anyone observing the conversation might think she was the one with the upper hand. Dempsey had to give Matt credit; he knew how to surround himself with strong women. First Becca, and now this Hope. As he thought of Becca, a sudden wave of emptiness hit him. He quickly pushed it down. He rarely thought of her anymore, and now was not the time to reminisce.
“I’d rather get this job over quickly and efficiently,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of drama and useless questions. So why don’t you just eat and go back to your room.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Dempsey sighed. “And so the useless questions begin. I told you before, but you don’t seem to want to hear. I’m doing this for the money—lots of it. I’m being paid to do a job. I could speculate as to why the client wants you and your family delivered at a certain place and time, but I really don’t care. I just want to get paid.”
“I wasn’t asking about this job,” Hope said. “I was asking why you are in this line of work at all. Young Buck I can possibly understand. He’s been telling us about the horrors of his childhood. But you grew up in a respectable family. Why would a man like you choose a profession like this?”
Dempsey wondered what tales Buck had been telling about his childhood. It truly had been horrible, but most of the horrors had been enacted on the people and animals that had had the misfortune of crossing Buck’s path. He looked over at Buck, who was smiling broadly at him.
“I’d like to know the answer to that question as well,” Buck said.
Dempsey looked Hope directly in the eyes. “I do this type of work because I enjoy it. I enjoy the money. I enjoy the danger. I enjoy the notoriety it brings me. But most of all, I enjoy the game, the opportunity to play in an arena with real life-and-death stakes, where one wrong move can bring disaster, the opportunity to test myself against the best and win. That’s why I’m in this line of work. I get to play the game at the highest level and consistently prove I am the best at what I do.”
Hope’s eyes seemed to bore right into him, past his eyes, through his brain, and deep into his heart. She would know it if he lied to her. But he was not lying. At least not about the game. Above all else, he had always enjoyed the game.
“It sounds very lonely,” Hope said finally.
“Now how could I be lonely with colleagues like Buck around?” Dempsey meant for his tone to be light, but his words seemed to echo hollowly across the big room.
“Do you have a family?” She said it gently, but for some reason, to Dempsey, it felt like a slap in the face. His mother and father were now long dead. They had been the outward persona of a perfect couple and had hid the cold war that had been the reality. His memories of family were not fond ones. He wasn’t sure why anyone would want one. And then, for some reason, he thought of Becca again and wished he hadn’t.
“There are certain sacrifices in my line of work,” Dempsey said. “Family is one of them.”
The woman continued to study him and then looked at her child and the old woman next to her. “Mr. Dempsey,” she said finally. “I don’t think you understand the meaning of sacrificing for family.”
“Maybe I don’t really care to,” he said. And then to Permelia, “Please take that spoon out of your sleeve and put it back on the table.” He was glad to have something to distract him from the direction of the current conversation. “Grinding a spoon into a shiv takes a lot longer than you might think, and it really isn’t going to do you any good.”
Permelia let the spoon fall out of her jacket pocket onto the table with a clang. She sniffed with disgust.
“What’s the matter?” Buck asked Permelia. “You don’t like Thai food? I assure you it is some of the best in the county.” He emphasized his point by taking a big bite.
“I don’t think Wendover, Nevada, is known as a Thai food mecca,” Permelia said. “And the current company makes just about anything hard to swallow. Especially when it could be our last meal.”
Buck looked at Dempsey as if to say he wasn’t the one who had revealed their location. Dempsey studied Permelia with a fresh sense of appreciation. Despite her age and size, she had put Buck on the ground, found a way to escape to the outside, nearly gotten away, and figured out their location. She would definitely need to be searched before being put back in the room. Who knew what else she had managed to appropriate in her sleeves.
“Permelia, it really would be easier on all of us if you would save your escape plans until after we deliver you to the client. And you might as well eat while you can; that bit about this being your last meal is a little overly dramatic,” Dempsey said.
“Is it?” Permelia asked. “I know how this works. If you’re going to let the hostages go, you don’t let them see your faces, you don’t let them know your real names, and you definitely don’t sit down with them and have dinner. You might as well have spelled it out in block letters. We’re toast, and you know it.”
“In most instances, you would be right,” Dempsey said. “But not in this case. First of all, I don’t do much work in this country, and I don’t plan on sticking around after this job, so alerting the authorities to my identity is irrelevant. I’m already on several most-wanted lists. Second, in my line of work, I deal strictly with referrals, and referrals come from reputation. If I kept a mask on during each job, how would anybody know it was me? And Buck likes to see his name in the paper. So you don’t have to worry about us feeding you dinner and then putting a bullet in your head. Our job is to deliver you alive, and that’s what we will do. Otherwise, we don’t get paid.”
“And what about after you deliver us?” Hope said. “The only people I can think of who would hire you to kidnap Matt and his family are terrorists. Do you think they will also give us the courtesy of keeping us alive?”
“That’s not my problem,” Dempsey said. “But I’ll tell you this: your husband has a knack for working himself out of some seemingly impossible situations, and I’m really curious to see if he can get himself out of this one.”
Dempsey began eating his food. With a full mouth, he said, “Permelia, could you please remove that fork from your sock?”