“I know,” Lisa said. “This is hard and scary for all of us, but I think it’s the right thing to do.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Ethan said. “A lot of good things have happened to us here, but a lot of bad things, too, like Dad, and the new stuff.”
“We’ll talk—” Lisa swallowed “—we’ll talk about it some more tomorrow.”
She watched the fire in her children’s eyes, thinking how much she needed them and how you can take nothing, not even the next moment in life, for granted.
“Mom,” Ethan said. “Tomorrow we’re going to put some of Dad’s ashes in the lake and around the cabin, right?”
“Yes.”
“And that way no matter who owns the cabin, or takes over, it will always belong to Dad and us, sort of, right?”
The flames reflected the tear tracks glistening on Lisa’s face.
“Yes, always.”
Thunder rolled, splitting the sky.
Lisa felt a raindrop as one sizzled on the fire, then another.
“Okay, time to get inside! Grab what you can!”
The rain came in torrents.
They watched the storm over the lake for half an hour before Lisa got Ethan and Taylor into bed. Then she hauled herself to the loft, exhausted. She had a lot to do in the morning. Jack Gannon was coming to interview her. After that, she needed to start sorting and storing things. Lisa went through a mental checklist as she listened to the rain hissing on the lake.
It was hypnotic.
She felt herself sinking for seconds, minutes, hours, she didn’t know how long. She fell asleep unable to stop her thoughts of recent days from assailing her. They replayed over and over again until she was unsure if she was thinking them, or dreaming them, or dreaming about tape.
Its distinctive peel when pulled hard from the roll.
It sounded so real.
Lisa was thinking about it, hearing it.
She woke.
It was still storming. Lisa got up and peered down from the loft, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. She saw nothing unusual.
Deciding to check on the kids, she went down the loft stairs, puzzled over what was making that noise.
Lisa switched the light on and froze.
Her stomach contracted.
Ethan’s and Taylor’s eyes, wide as saucers, pleaded to her.
Duct tape covered their mouths.
Their hands were taped in front of them. Their bodies and legs were bound to the kitchen chairs that were turned from the table. Tears streamed down their faces, snot flowed from their noses. The polished blade of a large hunting knife glinted as it gingerly scraped along Ethan’s quivering throat.
Nate Unger was holding the knife. He was wearing latex gloves and watching Lisa.
Ivan Felk was sitting next to Lisa’s children, glaring at her.
He was wearing latex gloves and holding a gun.
Lisa saw the cobra tattoos on their wrists, exactly like the one on the man who had murdered the agent and had held a gun to her head.
“No! Please, no!”
Lisa flew to her children.
Felk smacked Lisa’s face, sending her to the floor. Pulling her by her hair, he then hoisted her up as Unger gently brushed his knife over Taylor’s neck, her screams muffled by tape.
“God, no! Please don’t hurt my kids!”
Felk shoved Lisa into a chair and bound her with tape.
“Please, leave us alone! Please! We’ve done nothing.”
Lisa continued pleading until he pressed a strip over her mouth. Felk nodded, and Unger, who had a holstered gun strapped to his leg, lifted Taylor, chair and all, and carried her to her bedroom.
Lisa began thrashing, screaming under her tape. Unger returned for Ethan and carried him off to his room.
Felk positioned himself in a chair opposite Lisa.
“Here’s how this will go,” he said. “We’ll remove the tape from your mouth, you’ll cooperate. We’ll finish things and leave. Fair enough?”
Lisa nodded.
Unger ripped the tape from her mouth.
Felk held up her lost supermarket ID.
“You were there, on the floor beside the cop,” Felk said. “What did you tell the FBI?”
Seconds ticked by as Lisa grasped the gravity of every aspect; the men had not covered their faces, which meant she could clearly identify them. They wore gloves.
Her mind spun until Felk yelled at her
“What did you tell the FBI?”
“Your tattoo—I described it—it was all I saw.”
“What else?”
“That’s it—that’s all I saw. Please let my children go.”
“What else does the FBI know?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying!”
Felk nodded to the children’s rooms.
“Want me to send my friend in there to bring back pieces of your pups? Maybe start with a finger and an ear, the same way the motherfuckers in Afghanistan are doing it to my people?”
“Don’t you touch them! I swear I don’t know! The FBI didn’t tell me anything!”
“Did we leave anything behind?”
“I don’t know!”
“How did they get to our people in San Francisco?”
“Please, I don’t know.”
“DON’T FUCKING LIE TO ME!”
Felk thrust his tattooed wrist to within inches of her face.
“This is the symbol of good men who sacrificed everything for people like you. But now these men are going to die because you, an insignificant piece of nothing from Queens, got in the way.”
Felk drew his face to Lisa’s.
“I should’ve fucking wasted you when I had the chance. It’s a mistake I won’t make twice. You’re going to suffer the same agony my men and my brother have suffered, long and slow. This is my vengeance.”
