I took Marshall Avenue west toward Minneapolis, turned off at Mississippi River Boulevard on the St. Paul side of the river, and drove south. With no particular place to go, I reverted back to the time just after I first earned my license and drove simply for the sake of driving. The boulevard was a popular track in those days, especially when we managed to lure girls into the car. Somehow we got it into our heads that following the meandering Mississippi was a romantic drive. Toward the end of the road we’d hit a series of sharp curves. My friends and I used to call them the SOBs—the Slide Over Babies. The idea was that if you took the curves fast enough, the girl would be compelled to slide across the seat and end up next to you, which we always assumed was where she wanted to be anyway. I can’t honestly remember a single instance when this maneuver was successful, but I had friends who swore that it had worked for them. At least that’s how I explained it to the FBI agents who I assumed were hanging on my every word. I could see Bobby in my mind’s eye turning to Shelby and saying, “I would never do anything so crass,” and Shelby giving him her famous I-can’t-believe-I-married-this-guy smile and telling him, “No, of course not.”
I was coming out of the SOBs when my cell rang. I picked it off the seat next to me. The digital display said the call was coming from someone called Gazelle. I could only assume that Gazelle was a woman and Scottie had stolen her phone, but what did I know—Gazelle could have been a bartender at the Gay Nineties.
“Where are you?” his mechanically altered voice said.
“Mississippi Boulevard, near the Ford Bridge.”
“You got a ways to go, then. You know where Parade Stadium is?”
“Parade Stadium,” I said for the benefit of all those listening. “Yeah, I know where it is.”
“Park in the lot.”
After he hung up I said, “Gentlemen, we’re going to Minneapolis.” I spoke loudly, hoping both the body wire and the microphone on my altered navigational system picked it up. I remembered that Honsa cautioned me not to look for his agents. They’ll be around, he said. It didn’t fill me with confidence. After a few anxious moments I added, “If you can hear me, someone beep a horn.” No one did. “God, I hope this works,” I said to no one in par tic u lar.
Parade Stadium was little more than a few bleachers wrapped around a baseball diamond. It had been considered state-of-the-art when it was built in the 1950s. Not so much now. Still, from the parking lot I had a spectacular skyline view of downtown Minneapolis and was within strolling distance of both the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. There were three cars in the lot—two near the entrance and a pale blue Toyota Corolla hatchback near the center. I parked between them, turned off my Audi, and waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
I kept twisting in my seat, looking for someone, anyone. There were no pedestrians, not even a neighbor walking a dog, and the only vehicles I spied were zooming along I-394 just north of the stadium. At first I kept a running commentary for the agents I dearly hoped were listening on the other end of the wire. As the minutes ticked by and I became more apprehensive, I stopped talking altogether. I knew Scottie was out there somewhere watching, and I slowly became convinced that he had spotted the tails.
At least twenty minutes had passed by my watch before my cell phone rang. The sound of it startled me. I spoke into it too quickly.
“Yeah,” I said.
“What’s the matter, McKenzie? Nervous?”
“I thought it was Cities 97 and I had just won tickets to see Prince.”
“Talkin’ like that, what, do you think this is a game?” Scottie said. It occurred to me then that he was as nervous as I was.
“No.”
“You do what I tell you to do and keep your mouth shut.”
Yeah, why don’t you? my inner voice agreed.
“Yes,” I said.
“See the Toyota?” Scottie asked.
“I see it.”
“Park behind it.”
I set the cell on the seat without shutting it down, started the Audi, and drove to the rear of the Corolla. I retrieved the cell and said, “Now what?” My head swiveled from the elegant homes on Kenwood Parkway to the Walker to the Sculpture Garden to I-394. I saw no one.
“Get out of your car.”
I shut off the Audi, opened the door, and slid out. “Now what?” I repeated.
“Take the money out of your car and put it in the backseat of the Toyota. The door is unlocked. Do not get back into your car. I’m watching you, McKenzie.”
I did what I was told. The kidnapper must have been close, because he saw me handling the aluminum cases. “Why three cases, McKenzie?” he said.
“It wouldn’t fit into just one,” I said. “The money weighs seventy-seven pounds.”
The way he inhaled made me think that he was as surprised by that as I had been. “Okay,” he said. “Get in the Toyota. Stay away from your car.”
I used the remote control on my key chain to lock the doors to my Audi and dropped the keys into the pocket of my sports jacket. I slid behind the wheel of the Toyota. “Now what?” I said again.
“The keys are under the floor mat.”
I found them there.
“Start driving,” Scottie said.
“Where?” I asked.
“I don’t care. Just drive. And don’t forget—I can see you.”
He hung up. I started the car; the engine roared to life immediately. The Toyota might have been thirty years old, yet it was well preserved. I put it in gear and drove out of the parking lot. I spoke into my chest.
“I’m driving a 1977 Toyota Corolla.” I recited the license plate number. I explained what had happened, emphasizing that when I left the Audi, I lost the car’s microphone and its GPS system, just as Harry had predicted. “I have no idea what Scottie is planning next. He might be running me around the Twin Cities to make sure I’m not being followed. He might be off to check on another location, take up a position where he can watch, and when he’s ready send me there. What do I know?”
I maneuvered the Toyota onto Hennepin Avenue and headed toward Uptown. Along the way I told the agents that the car had not been hot-wired; if the Toyota was stolen, it had been stolen with the keys in the ignition. “You should check to see if there have been any recent car-jackings,” I said. I knew that the FBI and certainly Bobby Dunston didn’t need my advice. It made me feel better to give it just the same.
It was twenty minutes later and I was circling Lake Calhoun for the third time, wondering once again if something had gone terribly wrong, when the cell rang.
The Franklin Avenue Bridge connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul was officially named the Cappelen Memorial Bridge after the man who designed it, only no one ever called it that. It opened in 1923, and at one time it was one of the largest bridges to span the Mississippi River, but its four lanes didn’t carry as much traffic as they once did; the freeway bridge farther up the river now took most of it. Still, there were plenty of irate drivers stacked up behind me when I stopped the Toyota in the center of the bridge, put it in park, and activated the flashing emergency lights.
“I did what you told me,” I said into the cell phone. “Now what?”
“Get out.”
I did, but first I shut off the engine and removed the key just in case Scottie was planning a fast one—get me out of the way so he or his partner could boost the Toyota with the money in the back seat. He could have been concealed in one of the cars behind me. Why not?
A man was standing on the sidewalk and staring at me with angry eyes when I exited the car. He was wearing long brown hair in a ponytail and carrying a heavy backpack, yet he looked at least a decade too old for college. I wondered if he was a veteran who had paid for his University of Minnesota tuition by serving in the military; there was plenty of off-campus housing nearby. Or maybe he was a professional student who was studying everything at nearby Augsburg College except how to live in the real world. If he was a professor, I feared for the future of higher education.
“You can’t park here,” he said. I rounded the car and stepped on the sidewalk. “Did you hear me? I said you can’t park here.”
“Who is it?” Scottie asked. The cell was pressed hard against my ear.
“Some guy, don’t worry about it.”
“Get rid of him.”
“Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“Hey,” said the student. “I’m talking to you.”
“Walk to the railing,” Scottie said.
I moved forward. The student attempted to block my path. I brushed past him.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“What?” Scottie said.
“Don’t push me,” the student said. He grabbed my arm. I nearly dropped the cell pulling it free.
“Get out of my way,” I told him.
“You can’t park here. Lookit.” He pointed at the avenue with his thumb. “Traffic is backing up.”
He was right. The few cars behind the Toyota had become a long line; they were shifting into the second lane whenever an opening appeared.
“This is an emergency,” I said.
I reached the bridge railing and looked down at the Mississippi River below. The bridge was only fifty-five feet above the water, but it might as well have been as high as Mount McKinley. My acrophobia kicked in, and I took two anxious steps backward. I’ve been afraid of heights since I was a kid. It doesn’t bother me much when I’m in a tall building looking out a window, or even when I’m on a plane. Yet in the open on, say, I don’t know, a bridge, it causes my heart to pound and my breath to grow short and gives me a feeling in my stomach that says I’m about to get hit by a really big meteor. My friends theorize my fear was triggered by some repressed childhood experience. They’re mistaken. The reason I’m afraid of falling from a great height is that I can’t fly.
“What emergency?” the student wanted to know.
“What’s going on?” Scottie said.
“I don’t see any emergency,” said the student.
“What do you want me to do?” I said into the phone.
“Get your car off the bridge,” said the student.
“Throw your cell phone into the river,” said Scottie.
“What?” I asked.
“You heard me,” the student said.
“You heard me,” Scottie said.
“I can’t do that,” I said.
“Do you think you’re something special?” the student asked.
“Throw it in,” Scottie said.
“How are we going to stay in touch?” I asked.
“I have it covered. Now throw the damn phone into the river. Let me see you do it.”
I glanced up and down the bridge. On the west side there were a number of fashionable homes. On the east I could see an auto repair shop and a store where you could get your furniture reupholstered. I didn’t see anyone speaking on a phone; I didn’t see anyone waving from a parked car.
“I’m waiting,” Scottie said.
I held the cell phone above my head for a few beats, then flung it as far as I could. It seemed to hover in the air for a moment, then arch down toward the river. I didn’t watch it fall.
“What are you doing?” the student said. “You can’t pollute the river with your junk.”
“Would you please shut the hell up?” I said. I pivoted away from the railing and moved toward the car. I took two steps before the student grabbed my arm again, taking hold of my elbow.
“I’m reporting you,” he said.
I pulled my elbow free and jabbed him in the face with it, catching him just below his nose. His head snapped back, and his hand quickly covered his mouth; blood trickled through his fingers. At the same time, I stepped toward him, swung my left leg around, hooking my foot behind his right knee, and swept upward. That, plus the weight of his backpack, was enough to put him down. The student hit the sidewalk with a dull thud, coming to rest on top of the backpack. He flailed his arms like a turtle on its back. His upper lip had been torn, and blood flowed down his chin. Some of it got into his mouth when he shouted at me.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m sorry.” I was shouting, too, and pointing my finger. “I’m sorry I hit you, but I haven’t got time to be a nice guy.” I retreated to the Toyota. The drivers queued up behind me seemed relieved when I put it into gear and drove off. I was off the bridge and going east on Franklin when I heard a cell phone ring. It took a few confusing moments before I found it in the glove compartment.
“Yes,” I said.
“I saw you hit the kid,” the voice said. “You must really be pissed off.”
“What now?”
“Getting a little frustrated, McKenzie?”
“What now?”
“Just drive. I’ll tell you where in a minute.”
Scottie rang off. I dropped the phone on the seat next to me and spoke into my chest.
“I don’t know where I’m going,” I said. “He just wants me to drive again. He’s probably setting up the next rendezvous.” I liked that word so much I repeated it. “Rendezvous.” What else would you call it?
“You probably heard what happened on the bridge. I’m sorry about that. I hope I didn’t hurt that guy too much. Some people just don’t know when to mind their own business. I’m concerned, though. Not about the guy on the bridge, the kidnappers. I think they have a plan. What I mean by plan, I think Scottie’s trying to strip me of all my wires. First we lose the GPS and microphone in my car. Now my cell phone. It makes me nervous about what we have left.”
Franklin Avenue continued east to the freeway. I hung a left and then a right and followed University Avenue into St. Paul. I began to feel the way I had on the bridge looking down—the escalating heartbeat, the shortness of breath, the anxiety.
“Driving around like this is starting to get on my nerves,” I said aloud. “Do I dare risk stopping? I don’t have a tail, I’m sure of that. Maybe I should stop. There’s Porky’s Drive-In up a ways on University. I could pull in, sit in the car, have a Cherry Coke, wait for Scottie to call. Do you think I could risk that?”
Porky’s loomed up on my right. I drove past it.
“Maybe not.”
After Labor Day, the county pulls the lifeguards off the wooden towers at the various lakes it supervises. The rule was you swam at your own risk, but that didn’t stop a half-dozen teenagers from frolicking on the beach at McCarrons Lake. Why they weren’t in school, I couldn’t say. There were also a couple of young women sprawled on blankets and jumbo-sized towels intent on catching what was left of the summer’s rays. A middle-aged jogger leaned against the now-closed snack shack and stretched. He was wearing headphones; sweat stained the front and back of his shirt, and I thought he might be one of Honsa’s agents. There was another man parked in an SUV near the entrance of the asphalt parking lot. He sat behind his steering wheel while reading a newspaper and eating a Dairy Queen sundae. I figured he might be an agent, too.
I was sitting in the Toyota in the parking lot where Scottie had told me to park, in the row nearest the beach and facing the water. Twisting in my seat I could see several other cars in the lot, but whom they belonged to I couldn’t say. There were empty picnic tables scattered through the park and unused playground equipment near the beach. Traffic moved incessantly on Rice Street. There were two strip malls up near Larpenteur Avenue, plus a fast-food joint, a car wash, a pawnshop, a bank, a school bus depot, and a Dairy Queen that had not yet closed for the season. Modest houses ringed the lake. Scottie could have been anywhere, and after a while I stopped searching for him.
As before, I waited.
Finally the cell rang.
“Yeah,” I said.
“There’s a Plymouth Reliant in the row behind you and off to your right,” Scottie said.
I found it easily enough. Tan, with plenty of rust, one of Plymouth’s highly touted K-cars.
“I see it,” I said.
“Boxers or briefs?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you wear boxers or briefs?”
“Getting a little personal, aren’t we?”
Scottie chuckled. “You’re gonna love this, McKenzie,” he said.
“Love what?”
“I want you to get out of your car and walk to the lake and jump in.” “Jump in?”
“First you’re going to strip down to your skivvies, then jump in.”
While I hesitated, Honsa’s words came back to me: Whatever Thomforde tells you to do, you do. No arguments. No discussion. If he tells you to jump in a lake, you jump. Understand?
“You hear me, McKenzie?” Scottie asked.
“I hear you.”
I stepped out of the Toyota and walked to the water’s edge. The beach seemed more stone than sand, and the tiny rocks crunched under my feet. The teenagers didn’t seem to notice me. I figured that was going to change in a hurry.
“Start stripping,” Scottie said.
I set the cell on the sand next to me. It was about seventy-three degrees, a comfortable temperature, I thought until I removed my shoes and socks and stood barefoot. Next came my sports coat. My polo shirt was going to be tricky. While facing the open water, I pulled the back of the shirt up and over my head so that it covered my chest. With my right hand I gripped the body wire through the material of the shirt and yanked quickly. The wire, tape, and a fistful of chest hair came off, leaving a red blotch between my nipples that I hoped Scottie couldn’t detect at a distance. I tried not to wince as I dropped the shirt and wire on top of my jacket. Next came my jeans. I peeled them off carefully. The plastic box containing the GPS transmitter peeked out from under the hem of my blue boxers. The way the tape holding it was wrapped around my inner thigh, there was no way I could remove it without Scottie noticing. And if I could have, what then? I dropped the jeans on top of my other clothes, retrieved the cell phone, and stood with my legs close together.
“You’re not embarrassed, are you, McKenzie?” Scottie asked.
“Do you care?”
Scottie thought that was funny. “Take off your watch, too,” he said. I did, dropping it on top of my jeans. He hadn’t noticed the slight bulge in my shorts.
“All right,” he told me. “You know what to do. Jump in the lake.”
I set the phone on my clothes and walked into the water. You would have thought that the lake would have retained some of its summer heat. It hadn’t. Goose bumps formed all over my body, and I began to shiver. I was convinced my feet were turning blue. I plowed into the lake until the water was covering my knees. Half the teenagers had stopped what they were doing to watch me, probably wondering what that old man was doing. I dove in. The shock to my system was so great that for a panicky moment I convinced myself I was having a heart attack. Still, I stayed underwater as long as I could. I came up gasping; the cold had knocked the breath out of me. I turned and pushed through the icy lake toward the beach. The water had pasted the boxers to my skin, and you could easily discern the outline of the plastic box if you looked hard. I moved quickly to the cell phone and turned sideways so Scottie wouldn’t look.
“What now?” I said.
“Cold, was it, McKenzie?”
“Invigorating,” I said. “What now?”
“Leave your clothes. Take nothing. Walk to the Toyota. I’m watching you.”
I did what Scottie said while holding the phone to my ear. I was shivering, and my teeth began to chatter. The teenagers had found something else to occupy their attention. The jogger near the snack shack had disappeared; the driver parked at the entrance to the parking lot had moved on. So much for Honsa’s agents, my inner voice said.
When I reached the car, Scottie told me to remove the aluminum cases and transfer them to the Reliant. I carried a case in each hand and the third tucked under my arm. I walked so that one of the cases was in front of my boxers. The cell was in my mouth. The cases were heavy and the going was awkward, yet the effort seemed to warm me. I set the cases next to the car and returned the cell phone to my ear.
“This is where it pays for you to be real smart, McKenzie, cuz if you fuck up I’ll kill both you and the girl.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Open the cases, remove the money one packet at a time, and set them inside the trunk of the Reliant. Listen to me, McKenzie. Are you listening?”
“I’m listening.”
“We’ll bring the girl to you when we make the exchange. But there’s going to be a gun pointed at her head. Now, we’re going to take that money out of the trunk, one packet at a time, and if we see a GPS or listening device or any kind of bug, she dies and then you die. Ain’t gonna be no discussion about it, neither.”
“I understand.”
“Be smart, McKenzie.”
The trunk wasn’t locked; the lid was resting on top of the latch, and it came up easily. I got the impression that Scottie was positioned so that he could see into the trunk, which put him across Rice Street at a bar called the Chalet, or someplace near it. I made an effort not to look.
I worked the combination on the cases and unlocked them one at a time. I had forgotten which one contained the GPS transmitter, and I was careful when I handled each packet of money so that I wouldn’t put it into the trunk by accident. I found it in the second case. I used my body to block Scottie’s view while I unwrapped a packet of twenties from around the device. I put the money in the trunk and slid the box under the car. I was putting all of my trust into the GPS transmitter taped between my legs. I thought, This damn thing had better be waterproof or I’m going to shoot Harry.
I finished the job, tossing the empty cases aside, and slammed the trunk lid closed.
“What now?” I said into the cell.
“That’s a lot of money,” Scottie said.
“One million bucks.”
“For some reason, I didn’t think there’d be that many bills.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get in the car.”
I did as I was told. The sun had baked the Reliant while it sat in the parking lot, and I was grateful for the warmth I found inside. The keys were in the ignition. The engine started hard; it was a decade younger than the Toyota, but the Reliant had not aged nearly as gracefully. The engine ran rough, and the exhaust was thick.
“Start driving,” Scottie said.
The address the kidnapper gave me was for a shotgun house located in the Badlands, not too far from Scottie’s halfway house—not far from the St. Paul Police Department, either, for that matter. The house had once been yellow, but over time the paint had faded to the color of urine; the white trim was now gray. There was a FOR SALE sign in front of it. From where I was parked, I could see a half-dozen brightly colored Realtors’ signs in front of structures up and down the street. Some of the houses were old with crumbling concrete sidewalks and frayed shingles. Others were new, freshly painted multi-family units. A white sixteen-foot moving truck, its huge doors open and its ramp down, was parked in front of a pristine duplex on the next block. I didn’t see any movers, but I was willing to bet they were going, not coming. Despite attempts to revive the Badlands over the decades, the ancient neighborhood had been unable to shake off the distinctive aura of rust.
I rolled down the windows of the Reliant and waited. I listened to the engine ticking off its heat and the rumble of freeway traffic in the distance; I smelled the exhaust and burning oil that could have come from the freeway or the Plymouth or both; I watched the street. There were a half-dozen cars parked on both sides in front of me and a few more behind, yet I saw no one. Still, that didn’t mean there weren’t people watching intently from their windows. The possibility made me wonder if this was the end of the line or just another brief stop in the kidnappers’ circuitous route. Yes, the location was handy to several freeways. It was also wide open to witnesses.
I waited.
And waited some more.
Nothing moved until a dirty red, late-model Pontiac Vibe station wagon approached from the opposite direction. It swept past and swung down on the wrong side of the street behind me. I watched in my rearview mirror as it backed along the curb until there was only a short space between my bumper and its tailgate. The Vibe was a small vehicle with a wimpy four-cylinder engine that had about as much pickup as a road grader, and I thought, They’re going to try to get away in this? Kids on skateboards could outrace a Vibe.
I stared at the back of the driver’s head with such intensity that I didn’t hear or see anyone approach the Reliant until the kidnapper spoke.
“Put both hands on the steering wheel,” he said.
His words startled me. I turned to look out the passenger window. A man dressed in white coveralls and a black ski mask was squatting on the cracked sidewalk about a yard away; I didn’t know if he came from the yellow house or not. He had one arm wrapped around Victoria Dunston’s shoulder and neck and another carelessly gripping a nine-millimeter automatic. He was pointing the gun at the girl’s ear, yet she did not respond to it at all. She stood stoically, her jaw set, her eyes glittering.
“I said put both hands on the steering wheel.”
I did what the kidnapper told me while staring into Victoria’s eyes. I found there exactly what I prayed I’d find—rage, pure and untempered by humiliation or embarrassment or disorientation or shock or fear. She was angry, but she wasn’t hurt. The sight of her nearly made me smile. She’s all right, my inner voice told me. She’s going to be fine.
“Here she is all safe and sound.” The kidnapper spoke as if he had cotton in his mouth. He was still trying to hide his identity, yet it was Scottie—I knew it.
“This is how it’s gonna work, you listening, McKenzie?”
“I’m listening.”
“How ’bout you?” Scottie nudged Victoria. She didn’t answer. “Now you’re quiet. I gotta tell ya, McKenzie. This girl, she’s got some mouth on her. The things she said to me—I thought you had to be married to hear girls talk like that.”
“Possibly she was upset,” I said.
“Oh, she’s upset. Ain’t that the truth, huh, honey?”
Victoria didn’t reply.
“This is how it’s going to work,” Scottie said. “I’m going to stand here with the girl and you’re going to sit there with your hands on the steering wheel. My partner is going to transfer the money from your trunk to the back of the wagon, one packet at a time, like we said. He had better not see any kind of GPS or listening device. If he does, you’re both dead.” I flashed on the device taped to my thigh. I squeezed my legs together, forced myself not to look down for fear of attracting Scottie’s attention to it. “If it’s cool, if we’re satisfied, the girl, she goes into your car and the both of you drive away. We do the same. No harm, no foul. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Pop the trunk. There’s a lever between the seat and the door.”
I did what I was told. Afterward, I gripped the steering wheel in the ten and two positions and worked to control my anger.
“This won’t take long,” Scottie said.
I heard Scottie’s partner get out of the Vibe and open the rear hatch of the station wagon, but I couldn’t see him—the trunk lid of the Reliant blocked my view. I spent most of my time watching Scottie and Victoria. Scottie should have kept his eyes on me. Instead, he was watching his partner. Victoria stared straight ahead.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
Scottie answered for her. “I said so, didn’t I?”
Victoria remained silent.
I wanted her to speak. I wanted her to smile. I wanted her to tell me how lame I looked sitting there in my wet shorts. Maybe if I made a joke. Only nothing came to me. I sat in the car, watching Victoria’s face, my hands gripping the steering wheel tighter and tighter until the knuckles were white. After a couple of minutes, I heard the hatch of the station wagon close.
“We ready?” Scottie asked.
I didn’t hear an answer, but Scottie must have been satisfied.
“A deal’s a deal,” he said. He took his arm away and pushed Victoria forward. “Get in the car,” he said. Victoria opened the door, slid in next to me, and closed the door. She still didn’t speak.
“Buckle your seat belt, honey,” I told her.
She glared at me and shook her head as if she thought I were seriously deranged, but she buckled her belt.
“Okay,” said Scottie. “You can go.”
He put his gun in his pocket.
I started up the car, put it in gear.
“You’re an asshole, Scottie,” I said and hit the accelerator. “I’ll be seeing you real soon.” I glanced at him in the rearview as I sped down the street. From his body language, he looked like he had just been zapped with a Taser. I liked the look.
It bothered me that I didn’t see any police vehicles as I maneuvered the Reliant through the Badlands and onto I-94. Don’t let them get away, don’t let them get away, my inner voice chanted.
Victoria stifled a sob next to me. It was the first sound she’d made since I found her.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She nodded.
“You’re safe now,” I said. “You’ll be home soon.”
“I expected Daddy to come and get me,” she said. Her voice was low, almost a whisper.
“Your father wanted to be here, sweetie. The kidnappers wouldn’t let him. They were afraid of what he might have done.”
“They were afraid of Daddy?”
“Big-time.”
“Because they thought he might kill them?”
“Yep.”
“Would he have?”
“Once he knew you were safe? Yeah, there was a real good chance.”
“I’m glad, then, glad Daddy isn’t here. I don’t want them dead. I want them arrested so I can testify in court, so I can tell them that I wasn’t afraid, tell them that they didn’t make me afraid.”
She was crying now. I reached across the seat and rested my hand on her shoulder.
“I don’t want to cry,” she said.
“It’s okay, Tory. Cry all you want.”
She brushed my hand away. “I don’t want to cry!” A moment later, she said, “I wasn’t afraid.”
“I know.”
“I hate those fuckers.”
“I don’t blame you.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence until we reached the block where Victoria lived.
“McKenzie,” Victoria said.
“Yes, sweetie.”
“Please don’t tell Mom and Dad that I used the F-word.”