Casey hurt all over. Her head pounded, and her ribs throbbed, maybe not broken, but bruised, for sure. Her eyes, when she opened them, didn’t open far, and even when they did she couldn’t see anything in the dark. She tried to raise a hand to feel her face, and to remove the gag from her mouth, but her arms were tied behind her, roped in with her feet. Her cheek lay against a dirt floor, and her nostrils were filled with the tangy scent of peat moss and vegetation.
She closed her eyes, trying to remember what had happened. The last she could picture was the sight of Death’s anxious eyes in the unfamiliar back seat, just before she blacked out. She didn’t want to think about what had caused her to do that.
Voices mumbled in the background. Angry, low. Men. She had no idea what time it was, or whether anyone even knew she was gone. The kids. She took a sharp breath, gasping at the shot of pain it sent through her body. Were the kids all right? Where had they…the pizza place. They’d gone inside. Had they stayed inside? God, please let them have stayed inside.
“The kids are fine. Freaked out, but otherwise okay.” Death sat against a bag of fertilizer, hands clasped tightly at bended knees. “You, on the other hand…I thought you looked bad yesterday.”
Casey groaned.
“Martin called the cops as soon as he and the first two got inside. Told them there was a bad fight out back of the restaurant, and men with guns. He probably should have just told them to get there fast, because with his warning they weren’t about to come without back-up, and they took forever getting there. By the time they arrived you were long gone. The teenagers were a mess, all trying to talk at the same time, and the cops weren’t sure who or what to believe.”
Death leaned over and placed both hands on Casey’s ribs. For once it felt good—like an ice pack. Casey moaned, and Death shushed her gently. “It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Although I had to say I wasn’t sure if you were about to get your wish and go with me to the other side.”
Casey’s eyes blinked open. Had she really been that close? That close, only to come back here, to this pain, and this place?
“Sorry, hon,” Death said. “You have to hold on a little longer.”
Casey looked past Death’s face toward the ceiling. Her eyes were adjusting enough she could see foliage above Death’s head. Unfamiliar foliage. She let her eyes close again. Yonkers’ greenhouse. That’s where she was.
“Drove right here,” Death said. “Like Yonkers was expecting you to be delivered. Haven’t seen the man yet, but from the sound of their conversation he’s coming soon, and they’re not happy. You still haven’t given them what they want.”
A surprise, since Casey couldn’t remember what she’d given them. As long as she hadn’t given them the kids. The kids…her eyes opened. Were the kids okay?
“The kids are fine.” Death smoothed her hair with a chilly hand. “I told you that a minute ago. They’re all with their parents. Safe and sound.”
Casey relaxed, wincing as her ribs moved.
“Uh-oh,” Death said. “Here he comes.”
An overhead door opened and a vehicle drove into the building, its headlights illuminating the jungle standing over Casey. She was surrounded by plants and trees—hidden from the sight of anyone who might stumble in unawares. The overhead door slid shut, and the car turned off. “Where is she?” The voice was loud, echoing in Casey’s head.
“Over here.”
Casey looked up at Death, who crouched over her protectively. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I won’t leave you.”
Casey tried to take comfort in the cold cushion at her back.
“So. This is our troublemaker.” The man squatted, studying her face. “Looks like she ran into a little trouble herself.”
Casey blinked up at him. Yonkers. She recognized him from the photo in the paper. He was clean-shaven, with a receding hairline, and seemed to be wearing a suit. This was the man everyone was talking about? The guy they were so loyal to? He looked like…like a dentist.
“Seems you know a little bit more than is good for you, don’t you?” Yonkers studied her, as if confused. “But I don’t know you. Should I? I usually know people who come around, or I’ve at least seen them before.” He looked at her some more. “Of course, it’s hard to tell with your face being all…” He wrinkled his nose. “Dix!” He stood and Dixon appeared at his elbow, also looking down at Casey. His nose was swollen, and already the skin around his eyes was turning black and blue. “Bring her into my office. We’re expecting a delivery tonight and I don’t think it’s necessary to show off our little problem here.”
“Sure thing.”
Yonkers patted his hands together, as if shedding them of dirt, and walked back the way he’d come.
“Miff!” Dixon said. “Help me move this.”
Mifflin was chewing gum when he got there, his mouth open, like an ugly horse. Casey closed her eyes and braced herself, turning her face toward Death’s chill.
“Hang in there,” Death whispered. “It’s going to be—”
“Aaah.” Casey groaned beneath the gag as the men gripped her, one under each arm.
Dixon laughed. “Little bit of your own there, girl. Can’t say any of us feel too bad about it.”
Mifflin grunted. “Not sorry at all.”
Casey’s head hung as they dragged her, bound feet scraping the ground, toward the far end of the room. They took her through a doorway, banging her against the doorjamb, and held her up.
“Put her there.”
They dumped her onto a reclining lawn chair and she fell off, smashing her nose on the floor.
“On the chair,” Yonkers said. “Untie those things if you have to.”
“But Yonk, if we let her loose her she could—”
“Look at her, Craig. Do you really think she’s in any shape to escape?”
“It’s not escape I’m worried about.”
Yonkers snorted. “I didn’t realize you were such a little girl, Mifflin. Especially when surrounded by your team. Now untie her.”
Mifflin was anything but gentle as he worked at the knots. He finally got so frustrated he sawed through them with a knife, managing to knick Casey several times as he did it. Finally, he and Dixon grabbed her and threw her onto the chair.
Casey pressed the side of her face into the weave of the seat. L’Ankou. Please. Take me away.
“Not now, dearheart. It’s not your time.” Death ran cold fingers through her hair.
“Now,” Yonkers said. “Miss…Jones, was it? I suppose that’s as good a name as any at this point. Miss Jones, I understand you were in the truck with our unfortunate friend Evan a few days ago.”
Casey breathed around the gag in her mouth. Evan? Who was Evan again?
“The trucker,” Death whispered. “Evan Tague.”
Right.
“Dix,” Yonkers said. “Take that thing off her face.”
Dixon untied the knot on the gag, yanking out some of her hair in the process, and unwound the fabric from her face. She stretched her mouth open and shut, easing the pain.
“How was it you were in Evan’s truck, Miss Jones? Had you planned to meet somewhere?” He waited, and when she didn’t answer asked, “Just how deep were you into this with him?”
She swallowed, her mouth dry from breathing through it, and tried to speak. Her voice wouldn’t come.
“A drink, Mifflin. Do I have to tell you everything?”
Mifflin left the room and came back with a glass of water, probably straight from the hose. He poured it on her face, some of it actually making it into her mouth. She tried again. “Hitched. Ride.”
“Oh, I see. You hitched a ride. From where?”
Where had she been? She thought she shouldn’t tell him. Somehow it didn’t seem… “O…hio.”
“Ah, yes, Ohio. Lovely state. We do lots of business with people in Ohio. And you just happened to be traipsing along in Ohio when Evan drove up with his wealth of stolen information, is that right?”
Was she supposed to answer?
“Answer him.” Dixon kicked the chair, jarring her so that she could hardly catch her breath from the pain shooting through her ribs.
“Dix, give her some time. She can’t think straight, since you guys got so carried away. There, has she fainted now?” Casey’s eyes opened to slits, and she saw Yonkers sitting behind a desk, his hands folded on top. A large window, blinds down, framed him as he watched her. “Oh, you’re awake. Good.” He came around to the front of the desk, pulling an upright lawn chair a few feet from her. He sat and leaned over, his face inches from hers. “When did you and Evan join forces?”
What day of the week had it been? How long ago? “S-Sun…day.”
“Ah, Sunday. Just hours before his little accident. Such a shame. A shame things worked out the way they did—for both of you. You know, we really didn’t want Evan to die.” He tilted his head, looking into her eyes. Was that sorrow she saw there?
She blinked as he went fuzzy around the edges.
“Miss Jones?” He patted her cheek roughly. “Miss Jones?” He sat up, sighing loudly. “Well, congratulations, guys, you’ve done her in so hard she’s no good to us at all.”
“Can we get rid of her, then?” Mifflin sounded all too eager.
Casey strained to keep her eyes open—she wasn’t about to let him kill her with her eyes closed.
“No you can’t get rid of her, you idiot. We need her. We need what she has. And unless you know where it is…”
“You know I don’t.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Casey’s eyes drifted shut as she held on to the understanding that Mifflin wouldn’t be killing her just that moment.
“The kids,” Dixon said. “The teenagers.”
Casey kept her eyes shut, but her heart beat faster.
“What about them?” Casey heard Yonkers get up and move behind his desk.
“Don’t you think they know where it is?”
“The Cross kid told us to look at the shed. We did. It wasn’t there.”
“But—”
“He thought you were a cop, Dix, remember? He would have told you. Look, haven’t we been over this?”
A phone rang, and Dixon answered. After a brief conversation his phone slapped shut. “He’s here.”
“Good. Let’s get him in and out. No reason to keep him while we’ve got other…complications.”
“You got it. This is Sandy Greene, though. He was pretty pissed she called him. He probably wouldn’t mind getting a few punches in.”
He and Mifflin both laughed, and shuffled toward the door. Casey listened as hard as she could when they’d gone. Only one person breathing.
“Yonkers,” Death whispered. “He’s the only one left. Can you move?”
She certainly couldn’t take Yonkers out, if that’s what Death was wondering. Yonkers had been right to tell his men not to worry.
“Just try to do something,” Death said. “Move a finger. A toe. He’s not watching.”
She managed to move both. When she’d done that, she concentrated on her hand. Her left wrist seemed to be the one part of her that didn’t hurt.
“Well, that’s a plus,” Death said. “How about an ankle?”
The left one seemed okay. In fact, from what she could tell she didn’t have any broken bones except for maybe some ribs. She’d had broken ribs before, and what she was feeling was very familiar. There was no telling what kind of internal bleeding she was suffering—she vaguely remembered getting hit numerous times in her abdomen.
“Yonk?” Westing’s voice jerked Casey back into the room, and she held as still as she could. “Want to see this? Sandy got some extras, and I’m not sure what you want done with them.”
Yonkers growled. “How many times do I have to tell these guys? No extras—just what’s on the paperwork.”
“I know.”
“There’s a reason these people can’t drive legit anymore. Too stupid.”
Yonkers’ footsteps followed Westing’s, and the door slammed shut. Casey’s impulse was to relax, but she knew this could be her only chance to get free. Or, if not free, to at least arm herself. Biting her lip, she eased into a sitting position, sliding her legs off the chair, her feet on the floor. Her vision swam.
“Steady,” Death said. “I can’t catch you, you know.”
Casey took as deep a breath as she could and looked at the top of Yonkers’ desk. Papers. A clock. Picture frames. Not much within reach. She stretched as far as she could and snagged a pencil. Not newly sharpened, but when you were thrusting lead into someone, it didn’t need to be.
“Coming back!” Death hissed.
Footsteps and angry voices were heading their way.
Casey slid the pencil up her shirt and lay back on the chair just as the door opened.
“But they were just sitting there!” a man said. “A whole pallet of Wiis. Don’t tell me you can’t unload those.”
“Of course I can,” Yonkers said. “And I can come up with paperwork for them, too. But what if you would have been stopped? What if someone had found those in your load? You don’t have the authorization for them.”
“I hid them way in the front, no one would’ve checked in— Hey, who’s that?”
Casey knew he was talking about her. She held down her fear. Dixon had wanted to let Greene have a crack at her. Would Yonkers allow it? She thought about the pencil hidden in her shirt and wondered how much damage she could do with it before the rest of the guys stopped her.
“That,” Yonkers said, “is someone who crossed me.”
The statement hung in the air.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Greene finally said. “It won’t happen again. You have my word.”
“And your word is so good. Get out of here. And keep your hands off things that aren’t on the orders.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Go.”
Footsteps shuffled, and left.
“Tell me why we hired him, again?” Yonkers, sounding irritated.
“Friend of Dix’s,” Westing said. “Got into trouble for hitting his wife and needed to go underground. Wasn’t a driver, but Dix said the man could learn, and he’s been doing okay.”
“Until tonight. If he does it again we’ll have to cut him loose.”
“I’ll warn him.”
Westing left, and Casey allowed her eyes to open a crack. Yonkers sat behind his desk, shaking his head. All this time she’d been thinking of him as some mysterious, evil man behind a vast trucking conspiracy. Looking at him now, in his suit, surrounded by greenery, it was hard to think of him as being behind anything more evil than killing plants. It was his buddies she had to worry about. They were the loose cannons.
Yonkers closed his eyes and clenched a pen in his hand for several moments before standing suddenly and walking around the desk. Casey closed her eyes and concentrated on being limp.
Yonkers sat in the other lawn chair—Casey could hear it creak—and she felt his breath as he leaned toward her. He grabbed her face in his hand and turned it this way and that before tossing it back toward the chair. “Westing!”
Casey hoped he didn’t see her jump.
“Yeah?”
“I’m going home. She’ll probably wake up in a while. If she does, find out what she knows…without killing her. We don’t need any more bodies.”
“Sure thing. What if she dies anyway?”
Yonkers paused. “You were supposed to keep Dix from—I told you I needed her alive. Preferably able to talk.”
“You know how Dix gets. He was always that way, even in high school.”
“I know. But this time…we can’t do this kind of thing. It’s going to get out. Talk to him, will you?”
“Okay, Yonk.”
“And if something happens…I don’t know. Cover her with mulch and we’ll figure something out.”
Yonkers left, but Casey could feel Westing still with her in the room. He came close, and she concentrated on relaxing, as if she were unconscious.
He poked her with the toe of his shoe. “I don’t know who you are, lady, but I’m telling you–you give us what we want, or you’ll be sorry. So will those precious kids you found. Dix and Mifflin get a little crazy when they get mad. And when they want their money.” He gave her another little shove with his foot, then left the room, closing the door solidly behind him.