When he reappears, it’s with Avery.
My legs fill with cement as he drags her from the vehicle and holds her in front of him.
Her hair looks matted and dirty, her eyes hidden behind a bank of weeping red strands. Her nose and mouth are concealed by a handkerchief which is knotted tight around her face, and her hands are bound behind her back. I can’t make out anything else, but I can tell this: She’s crying. It’s evident in the way her chest is heaving up and down in little quaking shifts. She’s scared. Beyond scared. Terrified.
I’ll kill you for this,I think as I stare at the man.I will fucking end you.
The thought dies the second he plants his gun against her temple.
Something vibrates in my pocket—the phone. I grab it and raise it to my ear.
“Yeah.”
“Transfer the rest of the money.”
“Let her go first.” Despite my anger, I manage to keep my voice steady.
“As soon as you transfer the money.” The voice sounds like it’s been run through a blender. It has to be the driver speaking, though I can’t see enough of him to make out a phone pressed to his ear.
“How do I know you won’t hurt her if I do?” I ask.
“You don’t.”
“Then you won’t get anything.”
The man falls silent, his breath rolling through the phone and into my ear like a mechanical tide. It wasn’t the right thing to say; I pushed him too far, too fast. But I can’t simply transfer the money, either. Not without guaranteeing Avery’s safety first. And where is Gunn? He told me to delay, but has to be in position by now, right? It’s been … I have no clue how long it’s been, but surely long enough. Not that I can risk searching for him in the trees. That would give away the fact I’m here with support. All I can do is stare at the driver—who keeps staring directly back at me.
After what feels like a lifetime, he turns and barks something at the man holding Avery. The man nods and pulls the gun from her head and aims it vaguely in my direction, the barrel hovering a few inches from Avery’s skull.
He fires.
The gunshot echoes off the granite walls like a thunderclap. The bullet pings a stone somewhere to my left. Avery lets out a high, piercing shriek that quickly turns to a low mournful wail. The cry is muffled through the handkerchief—a noise I’ve never heard her make. It’s pure, unfiltered terror. All the blood in my body flushes to my feet.
“The next one goes in her brain.”
I flinch at the voice, don’t realize I’m still smashing the phone to my ear until I hear the words.
“Transfer the money NOW!”
The statement is physical, like a slap to the face. I can’t delay any longer. I pull the phone from my ear, tap the screen, and load my account. What’s left of my money—and Avery’s—stares back at me in seven black digits. Two point four million, all of it about to disappear with a single flick of my finger. It’s so much money—everything we were planning to use to slow down in a few years. To retire early. But right now money doesn’t matter. Money can be replaced. Avery can’t. It’s not even a choice.
I tap the green transfer button, confirm the transaction, and watch the balance in the account evaporate. The screen changes to a confirmation:Transaction complete.
I crush the phone back to my ear. “You have it,” I say.
But no one’s there. The line is dead.
My gaze comes to rest on the man holding Avery. Nothing’s changed. He still has the gun pressed to her head, his fingers roped in her hair. The driver shouts something at him and he stiffens. His jaw dips. His eyes hit mine. For a long, sick moment I think he’s going to do exactly what Gunn said he’d do—take our money and kill Avery anyway. But he doesn’t. He pistol whips her instead.
“No!” I cry.
I give the signal, rubbing the back of my neck as he lets go. Avery collapses in on herself like a ventriloquist’s dummy. The man leaps back into the van and slams the door shut. And then I’m running, pounding toward her as the van spins in a U-turn, kicking up a giant rooster-tail of dust. From somewhere a thought hits, vague and distant: Gunn hasn’t fired a single shot yet. Neither has Holston.
But I don’t care.
All I’m focused on, all I can see, is my wife lying face down in the dirt with her hair spread around her in a halo of red. My voice gushes up my throat thick with panic the moment I reach her. “Avery! Oh, Jesus, Avery! Are you okay? Please, tell me you’re okay!”
I skid to my knees and roll her over, run my hands behind herhead. There’s already a substantial knot rising beneath her hair, the skin hot and sticky with blood. My thoughts splinter and burst.Check for a pulse!I press two fingers against her neck.Find her heartbeat!
