My stomach curdled with the child’s plea.
In the great room, Gerard put his hands in the air and stepped back. Joel gave Stick a final rough thrust, then stood, hands raised. Still cowering together on the couch, Sam and I lifted our hands on level with our ears.
Stick grunted as he stood and brushed himself off. He retrieved the gun. A few vigorous gestures of his weapon, and Joel and Gerard were back on the floor.
With order restored, Skuzzbag dropped his hold on Melissa. She ran back to the bedroom. I could hear her comforting Hannah.
“Okay, guys,” my lip quivered almost uncontrollably, “if it’s me you’re after, then let them go.”
Stick had a new look in his eye. A hard, cold look that sent fear coursing through me. “Nobody’s going anywhere. And lucky for you, I don’t feel like killing you yet.” He looked at his wristwatch. “At least not right away.”
I swallowed. “Great. What are you waiting for?”
“The only one who can save you, Mr. Jacob Russo.”
“My dad?” I almost snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“I guess we’ll see how much he loves his own blood. Or maybe he doesn’t care. And then it’s bang, bang, bang, bang.” He swung his gun to point at each of us, as if we were ducks at an amusement park sideshow.
“Do you even know where my father is?” The last I’d heard, he was MIA.
“That’s what you’re going to tell us, darlin’,” Stick said. He looked at his watch again. “Just a few more minutes and Frank will be here.”
“Frank who?” I asked.
“Majestic,” Joel interjected from his place on the floor. “We’ve already been over this before you got here.”
“That’s the trucking guy my dad turned in—how many years ago?” I was incredulous.
Stick looked up at the ceiling as he calculated. “Um, that would make it twenty-five, twenty-six years. Something like that.”
“He’s taking a pretty big risk just to get back at my dad.”
“I’m sure he feels it’s worth it. Things got a little out of control out here on the peninsula, what with Drake getting killed and Candice going clean and Melissa hiding out. Frank feels like a personal visit to the area might just knock some people back into shape. And if he can haul in your dad while he’s at it, so much the better. He was pretty happy when he heard you turned up after all these years.”
I gritted my teeth. “Is that why those guys tried killing me at Mead Quarry tonight? It’d be pretty hard to get an address out of a corpse. Anyway, Frank Majestic is wasting his time if he thinks I can tell him where my father is.”
“He told me you’d say that. But no one’s stupid enough to believe Jacob Russo hasn’t had some contact with you over the years.”
Nothing like thrusting in the knife and giving it a good twist. I lowered my head at his mocking words. “You’re stupid if you believe he has.”
Sam put a hand on my back. “Come on, Tish. It’s alright. Your dad stayed away because he loved you so much. He never wanted you to have to bump into Bucko here.”
I nodded, feeling a little better at her words.
“Hey,” Stick looked up at the balcony, his voice bellowing through the house. “How long you gonna take up there?”
Skuzzbucket poked his head over the rail. “She’s dressing the kids. We’ll be right down.”
A few minutes later, Melissa headed down the staircase with Andrew on one hip and Hannah clinging to her leg. They picked their way through Gerard and Joel and camped out at the other end of the sofa. Samantha squeezed Missy’s hand as she settled in.
The room got quiet as we waited. Time crept along like a 5K race for inchworms. In Missy’s lap, Andrew played with the string on his pacifier, as if he knew to sit still. Hannah sighed and leaned into her mother.
My head jerked up as I fought sleep. On my shoulder, I felt a gentle thud. Samantha’s head tilted against me as if she was also catching some winks.
The sun was in full gear when the sound of a vehicle chimed in with the chirping of birds. The sleepy occupants of the great room rustled awake.
“Go see if that’s Frank,” Stick ordered.
Skuzzy got up and went in the kitchen. He came back a second later. “Yeah. It’s Frank.”
The back door opened and closed. A moment later a squat man wearing a forest-green polo over a potbelly and khaki slacks entered the great room. His thinning blondish hair was combed over the sparse area on the top of his head.
“Hey, Frank,” Stick said.
“Grampa!” Hannah shouted and ran toward the man.
Grampa? If that guy was Frank Majestic, and he was Hannah’s grandfather, that meant . . .
I turned my head in Melissa’s direction. She looked at me, then cast her eyes to the floor. A blush crept over her face.
I’d been betrayed.
42
“Hey, little pumpkin head,” Frank Majestic said, smiling. He lifted Hannah into his arms.
Safe in her grandfather’s grip, the girl pointed to Stick and Skuzz. “Those are bad guys. They want to hurt my mom. And they’re mean to Uncle Joel and Uncle Gerard.”
The fifty-plus man set Hannah on the ground. He walked toward Skuzzo and slapped him on the back of the head. “What’s wrong with you two, terrorizing my granddaughter? Put away those guns and be civilized.”
The two henchmen tucked their weapons into their waistbands.
“Sure, Frank. Sorry, man,” Stick said.
Melissa stood and walked with Andrew over to her father. “Dad, this is crazy.”
I could only shake my head, stunned by Melissa’s family connections.
“Get your stuff and get in the car,” Frank Majestic said to his daughter, while giving Andrew a little squeeze on the cheek.
Betrayed. Deceived. Used. Backstabbed. If I’d had a thesaurus handy, I’d add fifteen more words to the list. How could Melissa pretend to be some damsel in distress, pleading for my help to escape her abusive, drug-dealing husband, when all along her father was Frank Majestic, the man ultimately responsible for my mother’s death and my father’s exile? My grandfather must have been aware of the connection. That’s why he’d dragged his feet, looking at the situation from every angle before venturing to help Melissa. But then I’d gone and snatched her from the grocery store.
“I want you and these two creeps out of here. Now.” Melissa’s voice shook as she gave orders to her drug lord father.
“Melissa. Sweetheart. It ain’t gonna happen. So just get in the car and I’ll be out when I got what I came for.” Frank’s voice was slithery like Skuzzwad’s.
Melissa latched onto Hannah and pulled her children back to the sofa. “We’re not leaving. If you’re going to hurt someone, you’ll have to do it in front of your grandchildren.”
“Honey, calm down. I’m not here to hurt anyone. I just need a little information, then we’ll break this party up.”
He walked toward me. I stiffened at his approach.
“Little Orphan Annie here is going to tell me where her daddy’s hiding out.” He put his hands on his hips and threw his shoulders back. I’m sure he meant to intimidate, but he ended up looking like the Jolly Green Giant.
“I’ll never tell.” I crossed my arms and clenched my teeth. It was none of his business that I had no clue where the man responsible for half my genetic makeup hung out. Some days I imagined that he was dead like my mother, buried in a grave with JOHN DOE on the headstone, and that’s why he couldn’t come for me. Other days, I
