Purgatory Ridge

He sat again in the rocker. “How does that saying go? Know the truth and the truth will set you free. For a long, long time, I’ve felt like a man in prison. You find the truth and it won’t matter what they do to me. I’ll still be free.”

Grace asked cautiously, “Will you let us go now?”

“I can’t. But soon.”

“Why?” Jo asked. “The other man?”

“He’s not a good man,” Grace said.

LePere nodded his agreement. “But I owe him.”

“And how do you intend to repay him?” Jo asked.

“We go through with the ransom. He takes the money-all of it-and disappears. After he’s gone, I set you free, and I take the rap.”

“I told you, my husband may not be able to raise the ransom.”

“Then we’ll take whatever he can give and that will have to do. For me, it was never about money.”

“What about your partner?”

“I’ll take care of him.”

“Never trust a man who’d hurt a child or a woman.”

“He hurt you?”

“Not me. Grace.”

He gave Grace Fitzgerald a questioning look and she nodded.

“It won’t happen again, I give you my word.”

“Let us go,” Grace tried again. “I promise we-”

LePere didn’t let her finish. He stood up and cut her off, saying, “Your sons will be worried.”

Jo and Grace pushed themselves up from the sofa. LePere opened a kitchen drawer and took out a roll of gray duct tape. “Turn around,” he said to Grace.

“Is that still necessary?” she asked.

He just stared at her. His dark eyes were tired but firm. Grace turned around. He taped her hands and led the two women outside.

The moon pushed their shadows ahead of them across the yard to the fish house. LePere stepped in front and took a moment to fumble the key into the lock. As the door swung wide, Jo thought how like a gaping mouth was the darkened opening, waiting to swallow her again. The moment the thought occurred to her, she was startled to see a small silver tongue flick out from that black mouth and lick at John LePere’s belly. LePere grunted and stepped back. The tongue darted again. This time Jo realized that it was the knife blade, glinting in the light of the moon. She didn’t have a chance to cry out, to move at all before LePere snatched the boy and lifted him off the ground. Boy and man struggled briefly, the knife thrust high above them, the sharp, clean steel fired by moonlight. The blade fell and lay on the ground, still glowing as if white-hot. The boy became a dark, empty sack in the powerful grip of John LePere.

“Let him go,” Grace Fitzgerald cried, for it was Scott whom LePere held.

Then another form shot from the fish house and hit LePere low. The man stumbled but did not go down. The small dark figure attached itself to LePere’s legs and little grunts escaped as he tried to topple a man nearly two times his height and several times his weight. The boy in LePere’s grasp resumed his own struggle, flailing his arms and legs wildly.

“Stevie,” Jo called out. “It’s all right. Let the man go.”

And Grace ordered, “Scott, stop. He’s not going to hurt us.”

All the parts of John LePere, who seemed to have become many-headed and many-limbed, grew still. He put Scott down and the boy ran to his mother. Stevie let go his hold and he, too, joined his mother. LePere bent forward-slowly, it seemed-and picked up the knife. The blade threw a reflection of moonlight across his eyes. He looked at the boys.

“That was a brave thing to do.”

His left hand went to his stomach. Jo could see a dark staining on his shirt.

“You’re cut,” she said.

He tugged his shirt tail loose from his pants and took a look beneath. “It’s only a nick.” He stepped into the fish house and turned on the light. “Everybody back inside.”

They filed past him. He taped the boys’ hands again, but he didn’t bother to tape their ankles or their mouths. He looked at the shelves of equipment from which Jo had taken the knife.

“There may be something else in there that tempts you. Please don’t. It will be over soon,” he promised. “And you’ll be with your families again.”

“One thing,” Grace said.

“Yes?”

“The other man. Don’t leave us alone with him.”

“I give you my word.”

He put them in the dark and locked the door. Jo listened to his slow step as he crossed the yard to his house, to that place that once had held family for him but never would again.

36

THE SUN WAS JUST RISING as Cork approached the turnoff to Grace Cove. He’d left Henry Meloux at the cabin on Crow Point less than an hour before. It had been a long night, and warrior though he was, Meloux was an old man and very tired. George LeDuc sat on the passenger’s side of the Bronco. He was nodding, nearly asleep, the night’s labor having taken its toll on him as well. Cork pulled a small prescription bottle from his shirt pocket and popped the tab with his thumb. Using his forearms to manage the steering wheel, he tapped two white tablets into the palm of his hand. He tossed the tablets into his mouth and swallowed them dry. He snapped the lid back on and returned the bottle to his shirt pocket. That would keep him for a while.