Purgatory Ridge

“Sit down, Jen,” Cork said. “You, too, Annie.”

The girls looked at their father a moment, then exchanged a glance between them. Cork hated seeing the dark veil that dropped over both their faces. They did as he asked, sat at the kitchen table. They eyed their aunt and saw there, too, something worrisome.

“Is somebody-like-dead?” Jenny asked, not seriously.

“Just listen a moment.”

A dark understanding seemed to come to Jenny. “Where’s Mom?”

“Yeah,” Annie added. “And Stevie?”

Cork didn’t know how to tell them any way but outright. “They’ve been kidnapped.”

“Right.” Jenny laughed. When her father didn’t, she asked, “That was a joke, wasn’t it?”

“No joke, Jen.”

“Kidnapped?” Either the word or the context seemed incomprehensible to Annie. “How? When?”

“Last night. At Grace Fitzgerald’s home. From the note that was left, it’s pretty clear that Ms. Fitzgerald and her son were the targets. Your mother and Stevie were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“They’re okay?”

Cork couldn’t tell if Jenny was insisting or asking, but he replied firmly, “Yes.”

Annie still looked puzzled. “How do we get them back?”

“Mr. Lindstrom is working on putting together the money the kidnappers have asked for.” He avoided using the word demanded.

“How much?”

“Two million dollars.”

“He has it, right?”

“He’ll get it, Jen.”

Her eyes took on an unfocused look and moved slowly away from her father. She stared out the kitchen window. Annie looked down at the tabletop.

“You okay?” he asked them both.

“It’s not fair,” Jenny said, under her breath. Cork reached out to take her hand, but she drew away. Her eyes seemed full of accusation. “Everything was good again. Everything was finally right again. How could you let this happen?”

“We’ll get through this,” Cork said. “We’ll get them back, I promise.” He stood up and stepped toward her, wanting to take her in his arms, to give her the only comfort he could, but she shoved him away.

“How can you make a promise like that? You’re not the sheriff anymore. What can you do?”

“Jenny-” Rose began, a soft admonition in her voice.

Jenny stormed from the kitchen, leaving behind her a question that cut to the heart of the matter as quickly and cleanly as a butcher’s knife.

Annie put herself in her father’s arms. “What can you do?” she echoed, holding to him desperately, her voice choked with tears.

He laid his cheek against her hair. “I don’t know, sweetheart,” he said.

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” Rose stood up decisively. “I’m going to do what I always do on Sunday mornings. I’m going to church. And I’m going to pray my heart out.”

Annie looked up at her father.

Cork offered her the best he could. “For now, that’s about all anyone can do.”

27

THEY HAD COME TO HIS CABIN IN THE NIGHT, just as Bridger predicted they would. Knocked on his door. Politely at first, then with a firm and heavy fist.

“Sheriff’s department, Mr. LePere,” they’d said to identify themselves. Two of them. A woman in a deputy’s uniform and a man in a suit. He’d seen the woman before, at the sheriff’s office in the days when he was routinely hauled in for drunk and disorderly. She recognized him, too. He saw it in her face when she caught the whiskey smell on his breath and saw the nearly empty fifth in his hand, most of which he’d poured down the sink hours ago.

“Yeah?” he said, feigning both drunkenness and anger. “Wha’ the hell do you want? I may be drunk, but I’m drunk in my own house. There’s no law against that so far as I know.”

“Just to ask you a few questions,” the woman said.

He swayed a bit as he stood in the open doorway. “Like what?”

“Have you been home all evening?” the man in the suit asked.

“Who’re you?”

“Agent Earl. Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.” He flashed an ID. LePere had caught the odor of cigarette smoke wafting off his clothing. “Have you been here all evening?”

“All evening,” LePere said. “Me ‘n’ ol’ Cutty ‘n’ Clint Eastwood.” He stepped back, stumbling just a little, so that they could see the television and the video playing on the screen-The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

“Did you happen to look outside at all?” the deputy asked.

“Maybe I glanced now ‘n’ then.”

“Did you notice any activity on the lake?”

“Can’t see the lake from here. Only the cove.”

“Did you see anything on the cove?”

“Loons, maybe.”

“No boats?” the man asked.

“Boats, I’d’ve noticed. ‘Less it was dark.”

“How about on the road?” the man asked. “Did you see any vehicles moving along the road to the cove?”

LePere eyed the man as if he were a simpleton, and he lifted the hand in which he held the scotch bottle and pointed into the dark behind the intruders. “You take a look back there. Can you see the road? Hell, too many trees to see anything, even if I was looking. And I wasn’t. Say, what’s all this about, anyway?”

“We’re trying to find some folks that may be lost,” the deputy said.