hundred thousand dollars to any person I deem worthy, with one stipulation.”
“What’s that?” Rob said.
Trish’s lips curled into a sneer. She spoke the word with contempt. “Rumplestilskin.”
Callie nodded.
Rob said, “Rumple—whatever you’re saying, what’s it mean?”
Trish said, “The fairy tale. She wants our first born unless we can guess the name of her boss.”
“What?” Rob said. “That’s crazy. We’re not even pregnant.”
Callie laughed. “Trish, you’re right about there being a catch. But it has nothing to do with naming a gnome or giving up future children.”
“Then what, you want us to rob a bank for you? Kill someone?”
Callie shook her head.
“So what’s the catch?” Trish said.
“If you accept the contents of this suitcase,” Callie said, “someone will die.”
Trish said, “All right, that’s enough. This is obviously some type of TV show, but it’s the cruelest way to punk someone I’ve ever seen. Here’s an idea for the next one: get a normal-looking woman instead of a beautiful model. And don’t use all the flowery New Age language. Who’s going to buy that bullshit? Okay, so where’s the camera—in the suitcase?”
The suitcase.
From the moment Callie lifted the lid, Rob had been transfixed. He’d finally found something more compelling to stare at than Callie’s chest. Even now he couldn’t take his eyes off the cash. “Do we get some sort of fee if you put this on TV?”
Callie shook her head. “Sorry, no TV, no hidden cameras.”
“Then it doesn’t make sense.”
“Like I said, it’s a social experiment. My boss is fed up with the criminal justice system in this country. He’s tired of seeing murderers set free due to sloppy police work, slick attorneys, and stupid jurors. So, like a vigilante, he goes after murderers who remain unpunished. He feels he’s doing society a favor. But society loses when any person dies, no matter how evil, so my boss wants to pay something forward for the life he takes.”
“That’s a crock of shit,” Trish said. “If he really believed that, he’d pay the victims’ families instead of total strangers.”
“Too risky. The police could establish a pattern. So my boss does the next best thing, he helps anonymous members of society. Each time my boss kills a murderer he pays society up to one hundred thousand dollars. And today you get to be society.”
Trish was about to comment, but Rob got there first. He was definitely getting more intrigued. “Why us?”
“A loan officer forwarded your application to my boss and said you were decent people, about to lose everything.”
Trish said, “You represented yourself as a loan officer.”
“I did.”
“And you’re not.”
“I’m a different type of loan officer.”
“And what type is that?”
“The type that brings cash to the table,” Callie said.
“In a suitcase,” Trish said.
Trish looked at the cash as if seeing the possibilities for the first time. She said, “If what you’re saying is true, and
