would be that obvious. He even rolled the king-size bed out of place, but he found no loose square of carpet concealing a floor vault.
Mitch worked through two bathrooms, a hall closet, and two spare bedrooms that had not been furnished. Nothing.
Downstairs, he began in the mahogany-paneled, book-lined study. There were so many potential hiding places that he had only half finished with the room when he glanced at his watch and saw it was 11:33.
The kidnappers would be calling in twenty-seven minutes.
In the kitchen, he picked up the pistol and went to the laundry room. When he opened the door, the stink of urine met him.
He switched on the light and found Anson in misery.
Most of the flood had been soaked up by his pants, his socks, his shoes, but a small yellow puddle had formed on the tiles at the feet of the chair.
Other than rage, the closest thing sociopaths have to human emotions is self-love and self-pity, the only love and only pity of which they are capable. Their extreme self-love is beyond mere rampant egomania.
Psychotic self-love includes nothing as worthy as self-respect, but it does encompass a kind of overweening pride. Anson could not feel shame, but his pride had fallen from a high place into a swamp of self-pity.
His tan could not conceal an ashen undertone. His face appeared spongy, fungoid. The bloodshot eyes were filmy pools of torment.
'Look what you've done to me,' he said.
'You did it to yourself.'
If self-pity left room in him for anger, he hid it well.
'This is sick, man.'
'It's way sick,' Mitch agreed.
'You're having a good laugh.'
'No. Nothing funny here.'
''You're laughing inside.'
'I hate this.'
'If you hate this, where's your shame now?'
Mitch said nothing.
'Where's your red face? Where's my blushing brother?'
'We're running out of time, Anson. They'll be calling soon. I want the cash.'
'What do I get? What's in it for me? Why am I supposed to just give and give?'
Arm extended full length, assuming the posture that Campbell had taken with Mitch himself, he pointed the gun at his brother's face.
'You give me the money, and I'll let you live.'
'What kind of life would I have?'
'You keep everything else you've got. I pay the ransom, take care of this without the police ever knowing there was a kidnapping, so nobody has to get a statement from you.'
No doubt Anson was thinking about Daniel and Kathy.
'You go on like before,' Mitch lied, 'make whatever kind of life you want.'
Anson would have been able to pin their parents' deaths on Mitch with ease if Mitch had been dead and buried in a desert grave beyond discovery. Not so easy now.
'I give you the money,' Anson said, 'you set me loose.'
'That's right.'
Dubious, he said, 'How?'
'Before I leave to make the trade, I Taser you again, and then I take off the cuffs. I leave while you're still twitching.'
Anson thought it over.
'Come on, pirate boy. Give up the treasure. If you don't tell me before the phone rings, it's over.'
Anson met his eyes.
Mitch didn't look away. 'I'll do it.'
'You're just like me,' Anson said.
'If that's what you want to think.'
Anson's gaze didn't waver. His eyes were bold. His eyes were direct and probing.
He was shackled to a chair. His shoulders ached and his arms ached. He had wet his pants. He was staring down the muzzle of a gun.
Yet his eyes were steady, and full of calculation. A graveyard rat, having tunneled to make nests in a series of skulls, seemed now to occupy this living head, peering out with rat-quick cunning.
'There's a floor safe in the kitchen,' Anson said.
Chapter 48
The lower cabinet to the left of the sink featured two roll-out shelves. They contained pots and pans.
Mitch unloaded the shelves and detached them from the tracks in which they rolled, exposing the floor of the cabinet in perhaps one minute.
In the four corners were what appeared to be small wooden angle braces. They were in fact pins holding the otherwise unsecured floor panel in place.
He removed the pins, lifted the floor out of the cabinet, and exposed the concrete slab on which the house had been built. Sunk in the concrete was a floor safe.
The combination that Anson had given him worked on the first try. The heavy lid hinged away from him.
The fireproof box measured approximately two feet long, eighteen inches wide, and one foot deep. Inside were thick packets of hundred-dollar bills in kitchen plastic wrap sealed with clear tape.
The safe also contained a manila envelope. According to Anson, it held bearer bonds issued by a Swiss bank. They were almost as liquid as the hundred-dollar bills but more compact and easier to transport across borders.
Mitch transferred the treasure to the kitchen table and checked the contents of the envelope. He counted six bonds denominated in U.S. dollars, one hundred thousand each, payable to the bearer regardless of whether or not he had been the purchaser.
Just a day previous, he would never have expected to be in possession of so much money; and he doubted that he would ever find himself with this much cash again in his life. Yet he experienced not even the briefest amazement or delight at the sight of such wealth.
This was Holly's ransom, and he was grateful to have it. This money was also why she had been kidnapped, and for that reason, he regarded it with such antipathy that he was loath to touch it.
The kitchen clock read 11:54.
Six minutes until the call.
He returned to the laundry, where he had left the door open and the light on.
As self-involved as he was self-saturated, Anson sat in the wet chair but was somewhere else. He didn't come back to the moment until Mitch spoke to him.
'Six hundred thousand in bonds. How much in cash?'
'The rest of it,' Anson said.
'The rest of the two million? So there's a million four hundred thousand in cash?'
'That's what I said. Isn't that what I said?'
'I'm going to count it.'
'Go ahead.'
'If it's not all there, the deal is off. I don't turn you loose when I leave.'
In frustration, Anson rattled his handcuffs against the chair. 'What're you trying to do to me?'
'I'm just saying how it is. For me to keep the deal, you have to keep the deal. I'll start counting now.'
