The man’s tone became harsh. “Listen, man, if you don’t want to follow rules and mess
with the girl after you were told not to, that’s your funeral. But I ain’t gonna get shot for
you. Now, you can turn around and we’ll forget all about this, or you can keep going and I will
make this your funeral.”
I held my breath as Griff stood facing the two men in a standoff while he considered his next
move. I felt like a dwarf among giants.
He turned back to me, slightly smiling. “I guess we’re not gonna get anywhere here.” He
hooked my arm around his and led me away.
We walked along the property line, passing armed guards every once in a while. None spoke to
either Griff or me. Griff remained silent, sulking. When I was sure we were out of earshot from
any of the guards, I asked, “Who ordered you to not mess with me?”
“Spider, who else?” he said.
I couldn’t imagine why Spider would care who I hung out with. “Why?”
“Who knows why these thugs do anything. I don’t think they know themselves half the time.”
I glanced around. “What’s out there? I mean, we’re in the middle of nowhere. What could be so
dangerous out on the road that we can’t take a walk?”
Griff cackled. “You’re right, there’s nothing out there. It’s not so much them wanting to
prevent you from getting hurt out there. It’s more about them wanting to keep you in here.”
“Why?” I asked again.
“Beats me,” Griff shrugged. “One thing I do know though, eventually everything leads to money
for them. So whatever their reasons for keeping you here alive it probably has something to do
with money.”
A shiver went down the back of my legs.
“Look around you, Ginger,” he said. “The big house in the middle of nowhere, the brutes with
the guns. This isn’t a vacation, and these guys are definitely not tour guides. They’re
crooks. All of them. Except for the kid, maybe—I think that Kid’s too young to understand, but
he’ll eventually become like the rest of them. He has no chance of ever getting out.” A light
seemed to go off in Griff’s head. “C’mon. I have to show you something.”
We quickened our walk to an almost jog and made our way back up the driveway. We passed the
front of the house and followed the driveway down, going the opposite direction to where the
driveway bent to the right. As we neared a bunch of bushes, I found that the driveway kept going
through the trees and down a small hill. At the bottom, there was a large garage with another
guard pacing back and forth by the tree line.
“What’s this?” I asked as we approached.
“This is where the no-rankers sleep.” He was proud of this.
We walked through the side door and into the garage.
The garage was more like a showroom. Parked side by side was an array of cars. I had no idea
what kind of cars they were, but they looked really shiny. As we walked past each car, Griff
rhymed off with passion the various car brands and explained in great detail each car’s
particularities; make, model, horsepower, torque, engine. It was all beyond my understanding,
but it sounded good.
I was told that the car parked nearest to the door was a silver Ferrari; it gleamed under the
fluorescent lights that hung above it. Next to it was a lime green Lamborghini, followed by a
red Porsche, a burgundy Rolls-Royce, a black Aston Martin and a canary yellow Maserati—a
rainbow of expensive cars.
In some ways, Griff reminded me of my brother. Bill had also been a car aficionado. As a
teenager, the walls of his bedroom had been plastered with pictures of cars that he had ripped
from magazines. Of course, he also had pictures of half-naked women—though these women were
usually straddling a car.
We reached the end of the showroom and walked through a doorway. Hanging off nails on the wall
were masses of vanity plates from all states and even a few from Canada and Mexico.
“This is what I mean. These guys are real good at hiding, and I’d venture a bet that none of
those cars were bought off a car lot,” Griff said.
Something hanging off the wall caught my attention. I moved in closer.
Stuffed in a clear plastic bag that hung off one of the nails were hundreds of driver identity
cards. I was staggered. I immediately recognized the grinning face that was on the ID that was
on top of the stack. It was Bill’s face, though the ID indicated that the man in the picture
was ‘Buzz Killington’ from Arkansas. I pulled the bag off the nail and unzipped it. There were
more drivers’ licenses that had my brother’s face. I also found cards from other states and
countries with Cameron, Spider, and Carly’s pictures on them. Like my brother’s cards, they
had different names attached to the faces.
I pulled one of Bill’s cards out of the bag and struggled to swallow.