If she was out here, she was being damn quiet about it.
Ethan got his chocolate out of his pocket and unwrapped it, popped it into his mouth. It was dark chocolate, filled with gooey caramel. Thick.
He didn’t know Vermont. He didn’t know the Longstreets. Teenage girls. He was so damn far out of his element, he was eating Vermont-made chocolate.
A flutter of paper caught his attention, and he picked it up, then saw a wallet—a man’s wallet. And tracks in the grass and mud. A canoe or a kayak had been there, and recently.
The paper was a boarding pass for Ham’s flight from Dallas to LaGuardia.
And the wallet belonged to him.
Ethan took a breath. A red squirrel chattered at him from a hemlock branch. Somewhere in the thickets, a duck squawked. Ham was a genius, but he was also a romantic and an idealist. If he believed his parents had paid off his kidnappers on the sly and in so doing had endangered others, he’d want to make up for their narrow-sightedness, their willingness to put themselves ahead of anything—anyone—else.
Ethan tucked the boarding pass and the wallet into his jacket pocket and walked out to a pine tree on a rocky point where he had a better view of that end of the lake.
He stood under the pine tree.
The squirrel had quieted. He’d scared off the duck.
Something bobbed in the water out by a small lake house tucked on the shore.
A kayak.
Ham sank onto his knees in the tall grass and waited for another poke from Tatro’s walking stick. They’d left the path to the spring and had taken another one, less well-traveled, up to an old board-and-batten barn. It looked empty, long abandoned. They were behind it, on the side overlooking the lake, in what had once obviously been a small field but now was overgrown with briars, grapevines, barberry, honeysuckle and poison sumac—probably poison ivy, too.
The blow came, hard to the small of his back, but Ham didn’t moan or make any noise at all. The last time he’d collapsed, Tatro had threatened to knock him out cold or kill him. Ham had no reason to doubt him. The bastard enjoyed inflicting pain.
Soundlessly, Ham staggered to his feet. As it was, he’d be pissing blood for a week.
Tatro leaned in close to him, his foul breath on Ham’s neck. “I want my emeralds.”
“I’m here to see Juliet Longstreet. The marshal. I told you.” Ham kept his voice low, just as Tatro had. “I’m not lying.”
“That bitch. Did you give her my emeralds? Did Brooker give them to her? I know you stole them, you asshole. Left me with rocks. What did you do, use them to pay Brooker?” Tatro snorted. “I like that. Stealing from me to pay for your rescue.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“I know people who can make you talk.”
“Yeah? Well, remember, they’re willing to die for the cause. I bet you’re not. You’re just in this for the money. They’re using you. Don’t you see that?”
Tatro shoved the stick into Ham’s kidneys again, but grabbed him by his waistband to keep him on his feet. Ham’s head spun. No way would he ever tell this bastard that the emeralds were in his kayak. Thank God he’d left his hip-pack behind, after all. Taking Tatro back down to the lake, trying to buy himself time, was out of the question. Too risky. He didn’t want them to run into Wendy. Let her get to safety. Let her get to the cops.
And once Tatro got the emeralds, Ham would be floating facedown in the lake or dead and buried in some rocky Vermont hole.
A door to the barn opened. It was a regular door, to Ham’s left toward the far end of the barn. In the middle was a wide door—for animals and wagons—but it was boarded shut.
“Hang on, Bobby.” Another man’s voice came from inside the barn, quiet and soothing, with an undertone of authority. “Let’s think this through.”
Ham breathed through his clenched teeth, his deep breaths only worsening the pain.
Tatro eased off. “You told me to get this fuck—”
“I know, I know. But we have a problem. Wendy Longstreet took off this morning. Her family’s out looking for her.”
“She was at the lake.” Tatro poked Ham with the stick, but not as hard. “This fuck yelled for her to call the cops. I figured I’d dump him back here and go find her.”
“I’ll go. The girl trusts me.”
With that gentle, reassuring voice, Ham thought, anyone would. “Don’t hurt her,” he said. “It’s my fault—”
“Shh, shh. Don’t worry, Mr. Carhill.” The man tucked a finger under Ham’s chin and lifted his head. “I think some of those bites are infected.”
Tatro grunted. “He stole my emeralds. I told you—”
The man came out of the barn, showing himself. He was lean and fit, with a shaved head. He continued to address Tatro. “And I told you that you shouldn’t take matters into your own hands. That’s how you landed in jail. I can buy us some time. Once Wendy’s back with her family, she’ll tell them everything. By then, we’ll be gone. I don’t believe in taking innocent lives.”