the barrel to the boy’s head. “Do it now,” he said.
A sound escaped Grace’s throat, not loud, but pitiful. It seemed to hit hard the man who held Stevie. “For Christ’s sake,” he told the other man, “get the gun away from his head.”
“All right.” The barrel swung toward a Tiffany lamp on a walnut end table. The shot shattered more than the glass of the lamp. Whatever had held Stevie silent broke, and he began to whimper.
“Shut up,” the man with the gun said. Then to the other man, “Shut him up.”
“Don’t.” Jo took a step.
The barrel of the handgun was aimed again on her heart. “Don’t even think about it.”
The man who held Stevie said, “Look, you do exactly as we say and no one will get hurt, I promise. What’d you say his name is?”
“Stevie.”
“Okay, Stevie. You’re gonna be fine. Just fine. But you have to do what I tell you, okay?” He waited. “Okay?”
Stevie watched his mother nod, then he nodded, too.
“Good man.” He looked at Jo. “Turn around.”
She did. Slowly. Followed by Grace. So that both had their backs to the boys and the men. Jo heard the sizzle of tape pulled from a roll. Glancing back, she saw that Stevie’s and Scott’s hands were being bound with silver duct tape.
“You okay? Does that hurt?”
Stevie’s captor asked. Stevie shook his head. Scott was secured, too, and a strip of tape went over the boys’ mouths.
“Just tell us what you want,” Grace insisted. “Whatever it is, you can have it.”
The man with the gun said, “Put your hands behind your back. That’s all I want. Right now.”
The women were bound in the same way as the boys. Their mouths were taped.
“What do we do with these two?” Jo felt a light tap on the back of her head.
“Can’t leave ‘em. They come, too.”
“What about the note?”
“On the glass coffee table. He’ll find it. Everyone this way.” The man with the firearm in his hand waved them toward the kitchen.
Milk lay in a puddle on the kitchen floor amid shattered glass. Cookies sat on the table, half eaten.
“Outside.” The man with the gun held the back door open.
They stood on the back deck, in that time of day when the sun had deserted the sky, yet something of it lingered, the memory of light, just enough to illuminate dimly the landscape of the cove. The moon was rising, and stars lay scattered above the trees like pinholes in a dark ceiling.
“This way.” The gunman motioned them to follow and headed down a flagstone path toward the dock. Behind him walked Scott and Stevie, then Grace and Jo. The other man brought up the rear. When they reached the edge of the lake, the gunman called over his shoulder, “We’re all going to take a little dip.” He waded into the water, calf-deep, and began to follow the shoreline. Jo understood. They would leave no tracks in the sandy bottom of the lake. Where the lawn gave way to woods, a small runabout sat on the water, the bowline tied to a sapling on the shore.
“Everybody in.”
The other man steadied the boat and, because their bound hands made it awkward, helped them in. Stevie he lifted bodily and set gently beside Jo.
“Lie down,” the gunman ordered.
The runabout was narrow. They all lay together, nearly on top of one another. The bottom of the boat smelled of fish gut and cut bait and damp wood. Although Jo nestled next to Stevie, she knew she offered him no protection. She heard the crinkle of a tarp flapped open. The next instant they were plunged in darkness. A hand tamped her butt, then her shoulders as the men tucked the edges of the tarp tightly about them.
“I’ll take it from here,” she heard the gunman say. He had a hard, unpleasant voice that made her think of a saw blade biting dry wood. “You know what to do.”
“I know.”
“Don’t look so worried. We just stepped onto the yellow brick road.” The gunman laughed.
The boat was shoved back. The engine sputtered to life. The runabout slowly came around, and Jo felt it carry them away, out of the small cove and onto Iron Lake.
• • •
On the shoreline of the cove, the man in the ski mask watched the silhouette of the boat and its sole upright occupant until they disappeared. He realized he was sweating like a pack mule, and he yanked the ski mask from his head. He ran a hand through his wet hair. The whole time, he’d been barely able to breathe, and he sucked in the night air greedily. He bent and felt the rocky bottom of the lake until he found the right stone, a round one that filled his hand. He wrapped the ski mask around it, bound it in place with duct tape, and threw it as far as he could out into the water of the cove. He took off his gloves and shoved them into his back pocket.
It hadn’t gone badly, although the other woman and her boy had been a surprise. Still, they’d handled it. No one had been hurt. It boded well.
He kept to the water, following the shoreline past Blueberry Creek and finally to his own dock. He stepped onto the old board and slipped out of his sneakers. In the cabin, he put the wet shoes beside the back door to dry, changed his clothes, and finally went to the kitchen where he broke the seal on a fifth of Cutty Sark. He poured three fingers of scotch into a glass and stared at it.
John Sailor LePere had been sober for a long time. But he needed a drink now. Not to steady his nerves. Not to forget his losses. Not to escape his nightmares. He needed, that night, to be what Aurora, Minnesota, believed him to be. A drunken Indian who could no more manage a kidnapping than he could a raising of the dead.
“To you, Billy.”
He lifted his glass to the empty room and he filled his throat with fire.
24
CORK PARKED HIS BRONCO IN THE GARAGE at ten-thirty P.M. He was surprised to see that Jo’s Toyota wasn’t there. Inside the house, everything was quiet. Lights were still on in the living room, and he heard the television turned down low. He found Annie asleep on the couch.
“Sweetheart.” He shook her gently. “Why don’t you go on up to bed.”
She nodded, her eyes still dreamy.
“Did your mom come home?”
“Unh-uh.” She shook her head. “Aunt Rose went to bed a while ago. Jenny’s still out with Sean.”
He watched her stumble up the stairs, then he sat on the sofa himself and stared at the television. MTV. A rap video. He wasn’t watching. He was thinking about the evening at the Quetico.
He’d sat next to Karl Lindstrom during dinner. The man had barely touched his food. But he’d had a drink to his lips nearly the whole time. Although he seemed to attend to the conversation at the table, his eyes were clearly scanning the room, checking to see if Death had an invitation. Despite the air conditioning, he was sweating heavily as he rose to make his way to the podium. When he spoke, however, his voice and manner betrayed not at all his concern. He appeared relaxed, very much in control, and he delivered a pretty good speech about balancing the need for growth and profit against the absolute duty to ensure the integrity of the earth for future generations. The only allusion he made to his own recent brush with death was to say at the outset, “It is, indeed, a pleasure to be here this evening, appearing before you in living color.”
Although he listened, Cork was carefully watching the large room. With Schanno’s men and the state patrol posted at every door, it would have been suicide for Eco-Warrior to try anything. Still, you never knew.
Nothing happened. Lindstrom finished his address to huge applause, rejoined the men at his table, and proceeded to further calm his nerves with a couple more scotch and sodas. He’d had enough alcohol by the end that Schanno insisted on having a deputy escort him home. Lindstrom didn’t argue.
