Kill Tide Page 18

  Pepper rubbed his forehead. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to listen and not talk. Rule one. Got that, dummy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take your next right and pull into the Dill lot.”

  “Got it.” It was the parking lot for Dill Beach, one of the most popular beaches in New Albion.

  “Park near the walkway. The girl stays in the car and you walk down to the beach with the money bag.”

  “No way,” said Pepper, without thinking. “I’m not leaving her in a dark parking lot alone. And she needs to pee,” said Pepper.

  “What?”

  “The girl. She needs the bathroom.”

  “Are you fucking with me, you piece of shit? Leave her and do what I say.”

  “Hey, I know you have all the cards. I’m not fucking with you. You want the money, I’ll bring it. But the girl stays with me.”

  There was a long enough pause that Pepper wondered if the man had disconnected the call.

  “You get her to pee in a bush, or right in the parking lot. This is almost over, don’t fuck it up now. Grab the money bag and the two of you get down to the beach.”

  Pepper parked in the Dill lot, and he and Shauna got out. She was crying again. Pepper grabbed the money bag from the trunk and stood a distance away while the girl squatted next to bushes and peed for a long time.

  “Clock’s ticking, dummy,” said the man on the phone. “Walk down the path. Since the girl’s along for the ride, send her in front, carrying the bag. You second.”

  Pepper didn’t want to push the wacko any further, so they did as he instructed. But Pepper stayed right behind her, with one hand on her shoulder. Shauna could barely carry the bag, it was so heavy.

  They reached the beach and walked forward. There was a partial moon and Pepper could see the silvery sand and the dark ocean. The tide was almost all the way in.

  “Dig a hole in the sand and bury the bag, right beside the biggest log in front of you. Right there.”

  How could the Snatcher have watched them so closely, at every stop? Did he have night-vision cameras set up and was in some kind of control center, watching from a safe distance?

  Only one way to find out. Pepper walked forty feet away from the big log. “Right here?” he asked.

  “Yes. Right by the log. Bury the bag, then go back to the car and drive back to town, slowly. If I see a cop near Dill Beach in the next hour—”

  Pepper interrupted. “Let me guess, the girls die. I think you watch too many bad movies.” He felt a bit emboldened, knowing the Snatcher wasn’t watching his every move. “Now that you’re getting paid, when are you letting the girls go?”

  “Just do it, dummy,” said the man. “I’ll release the girls tomorrow, after I’ve checked the money’s not fake or marked.” The call cut off.

  Pepper walked back to the big log and buried the duffel bag in a shallow hole. Shauna helped. She seemed much better now that she’d peed.

  When they finished, he took her hand and led her back to the car.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  After driving the Chrysler 300 back to the Addisons’ house, Pepper followed Shauna inside, trying to look more in control. Like the whole crazy ransom drop had been no big deal.

  His dad met him at the doorway and gave him a big hug, then a slap on the shoulder. He looked visibly relieved.

  Everyone gathered in the living room, including the parents of both Emmas. Shauna was sitting on her mother’s lap, receiving a long hug. He didn’t see the Bailey boy. Had someone found him a bed to go to sleep?

  The officers filled Pepper in on the progress of the situation. They were getting regular updates from the tactical van.

  An officer called the FBI agents in the van, and Pepper slowly repeated for them everything he and Shauna had done.

  “We started sweating when we lost audio contact with you,” said one of the FBI agents. “But our drones saw everything.”

  Pepper learned that high-level drones with night vision had followed him and Shauna, marking every stop. The drones had been high enough and small enough that there was very little risk the Greenhead Snatcher could have spotted them. They had watched Pepper throw the first two bags and bury the third bag.

  “The snipers from the Statie SWAT team are watching each bag you dropped off,” said the FBI agent over the radio. “They’ve got ghillie suits and are basically invisible. Nobody’s getting away with any of the three bags. Which one has the two million?”

  “The one we buried at Dill Beach,” said Pepper. He explained the other two were just dummy bags, and an agent radioed the SWAT team surveilling Dill Beach to notify them they were guarding the key location.

  Pepper reviewed everything he and Shauna had done, bit by bit. When he got to the part about them arriving at the Lower Cape Shopping Center, he told the FBI agents about seeing Scooter McCord standing near the storefronts. And Fester Timmins arriving too in his minivan.

  The FBI asked Pepper’s dad to send officers to McCord’s and Timmins’ houses to take them into custody if they were there.

  Pepper finished relating the blow-by-blow of the ransom drop. Then all they had to do was wait for the Snatcher to step into their trap.

  The SWAT teams waited an hour and everyone at the Addison house waited too. Then they waited another hour. But nothing happened. The Greenhead Snatcher didn’t show up to retrieve the money bag.

  “It doesn’t make any sense. Could the Snatcher have dug up the bag immediately? Before the SWAT team arrived?”

  “The drone would have spotted him. It would have spotted anything bigger than a crab that got near that bag.”

  They waited one more hour. Then the FBI made a decision and radioed the beach surveillance team. “Team three—make sure the money bag’s still in place.”

  Everyone in the house waited some more.

  The word came back. One of the SWAT team members had crawled forward and confirmed. The bag was still buried in the sand beside the log where Pepper had left it. But the SWAT team member had looked inside the bag and there was a problem. It wasn’t filled with money.

  “Come again?” asked an FBI voice over the radio.

  “It’s full to the top with Cape Cod tourism pamphlets,” said a SWAT team officer. “Whale watching, that kind of shit. No money.”

  “That can’t be right!” blurted Pepper. He’d been clear about which bag held the money—the one farthest to the right in the trunk. And he’d taken out the bags, working from left to right. There was no way he’d mixed them up. It was impossible.

  The FBI radioed the other two SWAT teams, at the marsh and at the bridge. Each team stealthily retrieved a black bag.

  Both bags were also full of tourism pamphlets.

  Everyone in the Addisons’ living room sat in stunned silence. No one spoke up from the tactical mobile van either. They were all dumbfounded.

  “I don’t get it,” said Mr. Addison finally. “Which of the three bags had the money?”

  “None of them,” said an FBI agent over the radio.

  “What? Then where’s my damned money?”

  Everyone looked at Pepper, some with accusations on their faces.

  “We shouldn’t have let the kid do it,” said Mr. Bailey.

  “Check the trunk of the Chrysler,” said Agent Flintstone. “We’re back at the house—come on out.”

  They all hurried out. The tactical mobile van was parked in the driveway behind the Chrysler. Agents Flintstone and Rubble climbed out, along with two technicians.

  “We already checked the trunk,” said an investigator from the sheriff’s office. “We searched the whole car and deactivated the Snatcher’s dashboard cameras. The trunk was empty.”

  Agent Flintstone walked to the Chrysler’s trunk and looked in. Everyone crowded around. The trunk was empty. He pulled back the black felt carpeting lining the trunk bed, and everyone saw a seam running around the floor of the trunk. At the end closest to the rear bu
mper were two hinges.

  “Sonofabitch,” said Agent Rubble. He crawled under the rear of the car, and a moment later there was a click and the bottom of the trunk dropped away.

  Everyone followed the FBI agents back in the tactical mobile van, and Agent Flintstone told the tech to pull up the drone surveillance footage—from the time Pepper and Shauna left the Addisons’ house. Pepper was at the rear of the group, but he was tall enough to see over everyone’s heads. They watched video play back in real time…to the shopping plaza, then to the high school. There was no sound, just the video.

  They watched Pepper and Shauna transfer the bundles of money to the black bag, then watched them undress. Everyone stayed quiet as they watched Pepper and Shauna get back into the Chrysler, wait for a long while, then drive away.

  “Stop,” said Rubble. “What’s that?” He pointed at the spot where the Chrysler 300 was parked a moment before.

  “A storm drain, looks like,” said the technician, zooming in on the spot.

  Pepper’s heart sank.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” said someone to Pepper’s left. A state police investigator? Pepper hadn’t met him.

  The technician replayed the footage with the Chrysler 300 in the high school parking lot.

  “It has to be the storm drain,” said Agent Flintstone. “Our kidnapper must have lifted the drain and accessed the trunk from below after the kid put the money inside. While they were out in front of the car, getting undressed. Or while they waited in the car after that.”

  Shit. The Snatcher had gotten away with the money, and the girls were still missing.

  “And the footage of this parking lot ends when they drove away in the Chrysler,” confirmed the technician. Both drones stayed with the car.

  “Unbelievable,” said Pepper’s dad.

  Most of them just stood silently, shocked by the mission’s failure.

  “Well, he said he’ll let the Emmas go tomorrow,” said Pepper, trying to help.

  “It’s never tomorrow,” said Agent Rubble roughly, but his partner put his hand on his arm, stopping him from saying more.

  Mr. Addison turned in the crowd and found Pepper. “Didn’t you look in the bag at the beach before you buried it?” he asked.

  Pepper shook his head miserably. “Why would I do that? I did what the FBI said to do. And what the Snatcher said over the phone. Straight up.”

  “I knew we shouldn’t have sent the kid,” said Mr. Addison.

  The comment made Pepper’s stomach tighten in a quick, hard knot. Because he knew the comment was true. The kidnapper had called him a dummy and had made him look like it. And the Emmas were still who the hell knows where…

  Everyone was looking at Pepper but seemed to be trying not to look at him. Like this failure was all his fault. His cheeks flooded with shame and anger.

  He’d done his damned best. He and a fourteen-year-old girl had taken a lot more personal risk than any of them had. They were being epically unfair.

  If Pepper’s efforts hadn’t been good enough, all of these law enforcement professionals should step up and catch the Snatcher themselves.

  Because he wasn’t volunteering to stick his neck out again.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Emma Bailey was still trying. There wasn’t much she could do physically, all tied up in the darkness, listening to New Emma sniffle. But she wouldn’t give up.

  When their kidnapper arrived the next time (the next day?), her plan was to pry. She needed to get more information. Who the hell was he? Where were they?

  If she could get him talking, she might learn something to help her convince the asshole to forget this whole thing and let them go.

  And having a plan would hopefully take her mind off her hunger. Emma had debated giving up on the no-food, no-water thing, but maybe she was putting a bit of time pressure on whatever the hell this guy was pulling.

  When the man eventually arrived with his lantern and took the covering off Emma’s eyes, it surprised her to see he wasn’t wearing his Shrek mask. Their kidnapper was a white guy, his face a little too heavy like the rest of him. No beard or anything. Kind of ordinary. Not looking much like the monster he was…

  “Hey, did everything go okay with the ransom payment?” she asked super politely. She would try being nice for a while and see if he gave up any helpful info.

  The man gave Emma a surprised look. Then he laughed. “For us it did.”

  “Great! So when’ll you let us go?”

  The man was freeing up New Emma and attaching her longer bicycle chain. “You ever hear of a dowry?” he asked.

  “No, what’s that?” asked New Emma.

  Emma knew what it meant. It meant he wasn’t going to let them go. Shit.

  “Hey,” said Emma. “You don’t look as old as you sounded with that mask on. How old are you?”

  “Old enough. A lot younger than your dads.”

  Whatever. “Are you from the Cape? Are we still in Eastham?”

  This time the man didn’t respond.

  New Emma shuffled off to the toilet chair, but Emma stayed behind, still trying to get scraps of info out of the man.

  “I’ve been calling you Shrek, because, you know, the mask. What should we call you?”

  “Call me anything you want, for now. We’ll get better acquainted soon.”

  Emma was frustrated and hungry and thirsty, and even more scared than before. She wasn’t learning anything helpful. “Suit yourself. But could you please put the Shrek mask back on? So your face doesn’t scare the kid?”

  The man shook a finger at her. “You need to change your attitude. That’s not the way a good wife acts.”

  “Screw you!”

  The man laughed. “Not until after our wedding…”

  Uh-oh.

  Emma stopped talking. She did her thing with the toilet chair. She drank some chalky water but again didn’t eat. She saw him notice. Good.

  When the man started hog-tying New Emma with her short bike chain and the plastic tie wraps, Emma said, “How about you take us for a walk? You can keep us on the stupid chains if you’re afraid we might get away. We gotta stretch our legs!”

  The man shook his head. “You need to earn that kind of bonus.” The man finished with New Emma, who again said nothing and didn’t resist him at all. She seemed pretty much catatonic, or possibly in shock. If those were two different things?

  The man crowded close to Emma to switch her to the shorter chain and tie up her hands and feet as usual. This time he paused before pulling on her eye mask and ball gag.

  “I’ll be happy to tell you all about me,” he said in a quiet voice. “Just not yet. Trust me, darling.” And the man stayed close, forcing eye contact.

  A cold shiver slid down her neck. She couldn’t move much, but she didn’t recoil away from him. She stood her ground and tried not to throw up a little in her mouth.

  The man moved his face even closer to hers until their noses were almost touching.

  She didn’t move.

  Then he leaned forward and kissed her, roughly and firmly.

  Emma froze for a second, not reacting. Then her lips opened and she bit the hell out of his lip. She felt her teeth sink in deep. Tasted blood flow. Felt the man try to tear loose. She held on with her teeth like an animal. Fuck him!

  He slapped her across the head as he pulled back, stunning her. But she still didn’t release her teeth from his lip. He basically had to tear his lip free.

  She saw blood streaming down his face, his eyes wide.

  He slapped her head again, harder. He pulled up his shirt and pressed it against his ripped, bleeding lip.

  “Little bitch!” he yelled. “I ought to choke you right here.” His threat sounded a little ridiculous, muffled by his shirt.

  He forgot to gag Emma’s mouth and cover her eyes as he stormed off with the lantern, leaving the girls alone again in the dark. So, another minor victory for her.

  Emma stretched out as f
ar as she could with her legs and found the foot of New Emma across from her. And this time New Emma pressed against Emma’s foot. Tentatively the first time. Then twice more, stronger. Then she kept her foot pressed there. As if New Emma was trying to communicate with Emma—the first sign of spirit from the younger girl since she had arrived in their hellhole.

  “We’ll be okay,” she said to New Emma. “We gotta be tough and have each other’s backs, okay? Just be ready if we get a chance to escape or something.”

  New Emma made a noise through her ball gag and pressed against Emma’s foot again, harder than before.

  On Tuesday morning, Pepper trudged up the police station steps.

  He wasn’t going to take the blame for the botched ransom drop. It was the FBI’s show, and he’d been a reluctant volunteer. He didn’t care what anyone said.

  The door opened as he reached it, and the man held it open with a mock bow. “Hey, it’s the two-million-dollar man!” It was Fester Timmins, and he had a shit-eating grin on his face. And some gas station aviator sunglasses.

  How the hell did Fester Timmins know the details of the ransom drop screwup? If he knew, did the entire world?

  Pepper groaned.

  “I was just giving the detectives my statement about Dennis Cole,” Timmins said. “Doing my duty. You think Cole got too close to the Greenhead Snatcher? Got too close and pftttttt?” He drew his finger across his throat as he made the weird noise.

  Was Timmins trying to imitate the sound of a knife cutting a throat?

  Pepper still hadn’t learned a good reason for Timmins to have arrived at Dennis Cole’s house so soon after Pepper called 911. And he thought the man’s arrival at the shopping center during the ransom drop stank even more—how was the guy so wired in to everything going on?

  “Hey, you’re the investigator,” said Pepper, and kept walking.

  “Ryan! I wanted to talk to you about—”

  But Pepper was through the front door and it closed on whatever Fester Timmons wanted to talk about. Because Pepper didn’t.