Purgatory Ridge

Another sound followed, something high, but muted, a muffled cry. The women exchanged a quick glance and moved toward the kitchen. They’d taken only a step when two men pushed through the kitchen doorway. They wore ski masks over their faces, black leather gloves on their hands. Each gripped a boy. One of the men held a handgun. All the air seemed to rush from Jo’s lungs, and something hot and too heavy to hold very long pressed down inside her stomach. Even so, she felt the briefest sense of relief to see that the firearm was pointed not at the children but at her. She tried to speak but felt paralyzed. The two intruders seemed momentarily stuck, too.

“Who the fuck are you?” the man with the handgun finally asked her.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. More or less.” She was surprised that although she could barely breathe, her words sounded calm.

“Take whatever you want,” Grace said. “Leave the boys alone.”

“We’ll take what we want, all right.”

Jo looked at Stevie. Her son’s dark eyes were wide, little holes full of terror, and his mouth was open as if in a soundless cry. Jo wanted to kill the man whose huge hand dug into Stevie’s tiny arm.

“It’s okay, Stevie,” she said.

“Oh, but it ain’t okay,” the man with the handgun said. “Both of you turn around.” He swung the barrel in a tight circle.

Jo hesitated and Grace also did not move. The man with Scott in one hand and the handgun in the other put 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.