She was trapped in a nightmare.
Seeing her mom tied up in the kitchen was horrifying. Tilly felt so helpless. All she could do was say her mother’s favorite prayer from church over and over.
Tilly didn’t know where they were driving or for how long. But when they stopped, they lifted the suitcase, with her in it, from the trunk, rolled it inside and let her out here, in this scuzzy place.
A hotel, she guessed.
The place smelled like cigarettes and BO. The toilet never stopped hissing. The air conditioner hardly worked. She didn’t know where they were. The creeps had removed the telephone and phone book. They left the TV on a kids’ channel with cartoons for babies and kept the sound low. She tried to sleep but it took hours for the aching in her legs, shoulder and neck to go away.
They gave her teen magazines, pizza, chips, chocolate bars, cookies, soda and stuff. They didn’t hurt her or touch her or yell at her or anything. They kept her tied up and sometimes they asked her about Lyle Galviera, her mom’s boss, if she knew where he was.
Tilly just shook her head, which made her chain jingle a bit.
For, in addition to gagging her and binding her hands, they’d put a metal clamp on her ankle. They secured it to a long dog chain and locked it to some steel pipes, so she could get up and go to the bathroom and stuff.
The chain clinked a little now as she trembled under Ruiz’s gaze.
Just then, sound from the creeps’ TV in the other room spilled into her room. Her heart swelled. Oh my God, that was her mother on TV!
It filled her with hope, like when Lenny’s grasp on her had loosened.
Ruiz kept his attention locked on Tilly and ordered Alfredo in Spanish to shut the TV off. Then he cut the last piece from his apple and took his time chewing it before tossing the core in the overflowing trash can in the corner.
Ruiz stood at the door, his tongue methodically probing his teeth for the apple remnants. Then he carefully wiped the serrated blade clean against his jeans and began tapping it against the palm of his hand.
“It appears your mother has disobeyed my order.”
His voice sounded friendly, but Tilly knew it was phony, because he was breathing hard. Under that fake nice voice, he was pissed.
Tilly was not fooled.
The man was holding a knife.
He just stood there, tapping it in his hand, staring at her for the longest time as if watching some plan play out in his mind. Then he went to the curtains and using his knife, parted them slightly to look at the Golden Cut Processing Plant across the street, listening to the meat saw echoing in the night.
Then he turned to Tilly.
He touched the tip of the blade in his palm.
He’d reached a decision.
“Remember, it was your mother who forced us to take this next step. For the action we’re about to take, I will beg your forgiveness.”
Tilly didn’t understand. Then Ruiz said, “Alfredo, come in here. I am going to need your help.”
The chain chinked as Tilly tensed.
“Your mother does not appreciate who she is dealing with. We will give her a lesson she will never forget.”
DAY 2
15
The flowers were yellow.
There were almost two dozen daffodils, carnations and roses arranged in a yellow ceramic vase with a yellow ribbon and a card for Cora Martin.
The vase was belted to the front passenger seat of the cab that had pulled up this morning to the tangle of police and news vehicles outside Cora’s house.
Since her televised appeal yesterday, people from across the city had brought her balloons, stuffed toys and notes of support. After passing their gifts to police at the line, most well-wishers spoke to the media, offering their teary consolation for Cora.
The cabdriver who’d delivered the yellow bouquet stopped to talk to insistent reporters after he’d handed the vase over the tape to a sheriff’s deputy.
The female Phoenix police officer who’d accepted the flowers passed a wand over the vase then delicately probed the stems with latex-gloved fingers. A detection dog from the K-9 unit sniffed the bouquet before the flowers were taken inside. The FBI agent who’d received them started to set them in the living room with the other items but reconsidered.
She saw Cora on the sofa, hands cupped around a mug of coffee. Her hair was pulled back and her sleep- deprived eyes brimmed with sadness as if she were gazing into an endless pit.
“These look pretty, don’t you think, Cora?”
The agent glanced at Gannon, who was standing nearby, checking his cell phone messages, then she set the vase on the coffee table. The fragrance generated a weak smile from Cora.
“All yellow,” the agent said, “for hope.”
But Cora feared she was running out of hope. Aside from last night’s false alarm at the Burger King in Tempe, the FBI had received no strong leads on Tilly.
And she’d heard nothing from the kidnappers.
The alarm ringing at the back of Cora’s mind grew louder, filling her with doubt. Had she been wrong to go to the police? The way she’d been wrong about so much in her life, running away from her family and making so many mistakes. But that was the past. She’d left it behind and had been rebuilding her life, piece by piece.
Why was this happening?
Was it somehow tied to the unforgivable act she’d committed all those years ago?
Guilt began to tighten its grip on her.
“Are you going to open it?”
The agent indicated the envelope that Cora still held in her hand. She opened it to a simple white card, with an embossed garden scene. She unfolded it, expecting, as with the other cards, an expression of sympathy or something encouraging.
She stopped breathing when she read:
You called police. You pay the price. Remove the flowers and look in the water. Find GALVIERA or more will
