“Thank you, mister, and please hurry back,” Joshua said.
Cory stopped in to see Ralph one more time and found he had put the gun away.
“I’ll be back with Patty in the morning.”
“The boy, as you call him, is fine in the room upstairs until I return. I instructed him to lock the door and not to let anyone inside. If I hear that anyone breached that room before I get back, without this house on fire, or you don’t honor Patty’s decision tomorrow, I’ll run you and everyone else here up that mountain the hard way. See you in the morning.”
Ralph called out as he was leaving. “Let’s get this place picked up! We’ve got company coming!”
Picking up Drake at the front door, they met with Mac a quarter mile down the road.
Cory relayed his story to all present, as well as John, Bill and Samuel over the radio, hoping not to have to tell it twice or talk to Yin about the steps of negotiation he blew on the last number.
All, with the exception of Yin, were present and agreed it was a good start, but nobody expected the group on the hill to just pick up and leave that easy.
Patty, of course, wanted nothing to do with talking to Ralph, just as Cory and Mac expected when they approached her with the proposal.
She agreed, however, as long as Cory was in the room at all times and Joshua did not hear the conversation.
* * * *
Sleep was distant for many this night, and Patty got hardly any.
Mac would give it one more night before he and Cory would make midnight rounds. He spoke with Sarah tonight, and he envisioned her instinctively holding the radio in one hand with the other on her stomach.
* * * *
Samuel dropped off Patty at the Ranch at breakfast time for a briefing with Mac and Cory.
They both advised her on what to say and what not to, once she was asked the obvious question about wanting to stay up there with Ralph. She responded immediately with “Not in a million years!”, getting a smile out of Rico.
“Try not to agitate him and don’t mention anything about Rico,” they advised her.
“He’s a piece of work, for sure, but I’ll try to keep calm. And don’t worry, Rico. I won’t mention your name. I already saw the trouble it caused Mac, and that wasn’t even true.”
She kissed Rico like they had been dating for weeks and asked him not to worry, just go back to work.
The ride up was much the same as yesterday, with two differences. They had Patty in tow, and both Cory and Drake were armed with rifles and two concealed-carry pistols.
This time, walking up to the front door, they were asked right in.
Cory looked at a puzzled Drake, nodding discreetly towards the nearly spotless floors all across the house.
Cory wasn’t surprised, seeing the body under the blanket left exactly where it had been yesterday and the odor no better.
Clean house…check, he thought. One dead person still inside…check.
Patty held her nose as they walked back to Ralph’s room.
Drake, without being asked, removed the woman from the house, and finding a shovel out back he set out to give her a proper burial.
None of the bystanders offered to help and they stayed a fair distance away, giving him enough privacy to duck behind the work shed, where he lifted the old rotting plywood that covered the top and discreetly picked the lock on the cellar door.
Drake thought it was well hidden, and he wouldn’t have found it if he had not seen Mr. MacDonald go inside several times over the past year. Quickly down the 12 stairs, he shone his flashlight, scanning the compact room with ceilings low enough to force him to duck down.
Mr. MacDonald was meticulous about labeling each heavy plastic bin—the kind that would withstand most anything that nature could throw at it. It only took a few minutes for Drake to find what he was looking for inside a small daypack that he put over his shoulder. He left the cellar door locked and concealed, just as he had found it…
She locked eyes with him as he looked up. A beautiful light-skinned African American girl of maybe 16 or 18, he couldn’t be sure. Her long hair and big brown eyes gave her an exotic look. Had she seen him go into the cellar? He couldn’t be sure but thought it likely.
She smiled and disappeared into the trees, running away from the house, making him wonder if it had just been his imagination. He hadn’t seen her before in the numerous times he had observed the property.
* * * *
Cory and Patty entered the dim-lit room where Ralph lay propped up on the bed.
“Patty,” called out Ralph. “I’ve missed you so much.”
She didn’t respond.
“I’m sure you have missed me,” he said as a statement. “Cory, you can wait outside while we talk, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, but I do,” Cory replied. “I’ll stay right here,” he added, looking at a relieved Patty.
“Okay, then how have you been, my love?”
“I didn’t ever expect to see you again,” she responded without acknowledging his question. “Then I hear my son is gone, kidnapped at gunpoint by men directed by his father. But it’s funny, because I knew it wasn’t him you wanted; you never did. What sort of man doesn’t want his only son around him? What sort of man beats his only son until he can no longer stand. What sort of man has his only son so scared of another beating that he will lie to protect the one man in this world whose God-given job is to protect his son? What sort of man?...”
“Okay,
