Gone so good that she never looked back.
“Mom had the prescription filled a few months before she left, but she only took about half the pills.”
Roy nodded and lifted the cup of coffee to his lips. Griffin couldn’t read the expression on his face.
They heard the front door open and then the sounds of TJ and Jimbo coming in.
“What’s the word?” Jimbo asked when he walked into the kitchen. Today he was wearing an extra-long stocking cap and padded ski pants. “Have you talked to them?”
“I got off the phone with the dad about twenty minutes ago. He says they can’t raise that kind of money. Not in cash. Not that fast.”
“I’ll bet we can speed things up,” Jimbo said. “Let’s send him a finger.”
Griffin couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“Or an ear,” TJ added.
To Griffin’s intense relief, Roy shook his head. “We do that and they’ll decide she might be dead already and hunt us down with guns blazing. We start chopping off body parts and they’ll figure they’ve got nothing left to lose.”
“Did they say how much they
“A million.” Setting down his coffee cup, Roy scrubbed his face with open palms. “I told him I would call him back.” His voice was glum, even though a few days ago he would have been over the moon about the prospect of getting a million dollars.
“That’s still a lot,” Griffin said. “That’s like $250,000 apiece.”
Roy shook his head. “You’re still a minor, and you still live under my roof. I’m going to watch after your share.”
TJ and Jimbo exchanged a look. “Do you really think that’s fair?” Jimbo asked. “You get a cool half million, and we get only half of that?”
Roy straightened up, and Jimbo and TJ automatically took a step back.
“Hey, I’m the one who is taking all the risks here. She’s on my property, and it’s my voice that’s getting tape-recorded every time I call. And I’m the one figuring out the logistics.”
“Logistics?” TJ echoed. It was clear the word wasn’t quite familiar.
“The plans. When I call back, I’ll tell the dad to be ready to make the drop at three this morning. Then, at three, I’ll tell him to drive someplace. But when he gets there, we’ll tell him to take another phone we’ll have waiting and ditch his first one. I’ll have one of you there watching to make sure he does leave his phone. The new phone will have outgoing calls disabled. So he won’t be able to tip anyone off. And then I’ll call him on the new phone and tell him to make the drop at Ironwood Road.” Ironwood Road was a long stretch that linked together two other equally desolate roads. It was quiet no matter what time of the day or night it was. At three in the morning in the middle of winter, it would be dead. “And I’ll have one of you watching Ironwood Road before he even knows that’s the drop site. Then we’ll grab the money and leave the bag in case they put something in it, like a tracer or those exploding dye packs they use on bank robbers. Then we’ll come back here and split up the money and go our separate ways.”
Jimbo let out a whistle. “Sounds slick.”
Griffin didn’t care about the money. The idea of it didn’t even seem real. “After we get the money, then what?”
“I think we should all get out of town,” Roy said. “I know I am. I’m headed down to the airport to get on the first flight I can find to someplace warm where they put an umbrella in your drink.”
“Wait, we won’t be working here no more?” TJ looked confused.
“You won’t need to work, dummy.” Jimbo shook his head. “That’s the whole point. You won’t need to work for years and years. If we go down to someplace where they don’t ever see tourists and haven’t jacked up their prices, we’ll never run out of money.”
Griffin couldn’t believe they seemed to have forgotten the girl who was in the middle of all this. “But what about Cheyenne?”
Roy’s face twisted. “What about her?”
“We’ll let her go, right? We’ve never used our names. And of course she has no idea what we look like.” Griffin made his voice as certain as he could. Hearing Cheyenne say,
Roy looked skeptical. “Sooner or later, she’ll tell them something that will let them know exactly where we are.”
Griffin remembered his earlier conversation with Cheyenne. “Not if we’re careful, she won’t. For one thing, she’s the daughter of Nike’s president. Do you know how many people would want a piece of that pie? When you call back, you can say something to make them think it’s all about Nike. They’ll spend years tracking down every person who’s protested against them or worked there. And they’ll never find us. Because they won’t realize it was random. That it didn’t have anything to do with Nike at all.”
Roy thought about this for a while. The other three were silent, watching him.
“On the way to the airport we can slip up into Washington and drop her off along a logging road or something,” Griffin said. “Point her in the right direction and tell her to start walking. And by the time somebody finds her, we’ll be on the beach. With our mai tais.”
“Of course,” Roy said. Griffin was pretty sure Roy had never said “of course” before in his life.
At least not when he meant it.
INTELLIGENT DISOBEDIENCE
For a few minutes after she woke up, Cheyenne didn’t know where she was. And then she remembered. And wished she hadn’t.
By the sliver of light she could see with her left eye, Cheyenne decided that it was morning. Real light was warmer, somehow, than light that came from a bulb. But when she felt her watch, she was surprised to find it was one twenty. So afternoon, not morning. Then someone opened the bedroom door. Cheyenne braced herself.
“Are you awake?” When she heard Griffin’s voice, relief flooded through her.
“Yeah.” She pushed herself up until her back was against the wall.
“I brought you some Advil to keep your fever down and another one of those antibiotics. Plus OJ to wash it down with and some crackers. I’ll put the crackers at nine o’clock.”
She felt him settle on the bed by her feet, and then he put the glass in one hand and the pills in the other.
“Thanks,” she said, trying to sound like she meant it. “When am I going home?”
“Soon. My dad’s just making the final arrangements. There’s going to be a drop tonight at three, and then we’ll drive you someplace and let you go.” His voice changed to a whisper, and he leaned close enough that she could feel his breath stir her hair. “The thing is, you can’t let on that you know my name or my dad’s name. You have to act like you don’t know anything.”
Cheyenne nodded, biting her lip.
Griffin’s soft whisper continued. “You know how you told me about how many enemies your dad must have? They’ll probably say some stuff to try to make you think that you being kidnapped is connected to Nike. Pretend like you believe them.”
Cheyenne didn’t know who to believe. “Griffin, you’ve got to promise that they will let me go. Promise me.”
He was quiet for a long time. Finally he whispered, “I promise.”
Cheyenne started shivering, and it wasn’t just from being sick. She was afraid that Griffin’s hesitation had said more than his words.
