“What?” Ginny wiped her face, sniffling quietly.
“Yeah. Put it in a duffle bag or two, mix in some fake money. The kidnappers won’t count it at the exchange, right? The bags just need to feel heavy enough.”
Ginny pushed a strand of red hair that had been stuck to her damp cheek behind her ear, and braved a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “That could work, Shepherd. We’d have to set it up so they give us Mom at the same time they take the money, but my grandfather should be able to negotiate that.”
Charlie locked the kitchen door. “I can contribute,” he announced. “Not money, you understand. But”—he reached behind a counter and pulled out two dark-green canvas bags—“I brought you transport. You’re welcome.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cardello.”
Charlie winked again, this time at Ginny. Shepherd pretended not to care. He hardly scowled and harrumphed at all.
“Anytime, kid.” Charlie clapped Shepherd on the shoulder. “Stack ’em up!”
The three of them moved all the money into the bags, Ginny counting as she went, the stacks thudding dully on the counter. The canvas smell of the duffels mixed unpleasantly with the faint mildew of the bills that had been shut away too long and the garlic and tomato that always lingered behind in the kitchen. Shepherd helped her, both of them hoping maybe they miscounted before. Perhaps the extra five hundred thousand dollars was just misplaced. But it was the same as before, minus three grand.
When they were finished, it was pitch-black outside. The kitchen window showed only their reflections, haunted and pale. Shepherd’s muscles ached. Even his eye muscles. Especially his eye muscles.
“We’ll make it work, Ginny,” he said. “OK? Don’t freak out. We’ll fluff it up and talk to your grandfather. We’re gonna get your mom back tomorrow, safe and sound. I promise.”
“You mean today,” Ginny replied. Her voice was quiet, her red hair falling in front of her face. “It’s late, Shepherd.”
“It is late,” Charlie announced. “I gotta get going. But look, it was a pleasure doing business with the both of you.” He cracked his neck. “There’s just one more thing, though, and I am sorry about it.”
Shepherd sighed. He was so sick of this Cardello community-theater-level bullshit. “What, Charlie?”
Charlie reached behind his back and pulled out a gun. “I’m taking the money.”
FORTY-THREE
“It’s not like I’m taking any joy in this, you understand,” Charlie said from behind the gun. Shepherd sat in one of his restaurant’s chairs, with his hands in his lap and his jaw tense, as Ginny tied rope around his wrists. “I don’t like holding lawyers and their grumpy boyfriends hostage. I don’t like aiming guns at anybody! But I really need this money, and you two were the only suckers desperate enough to go get it for me.”
The rope around his wrist bit into his skin. Shepherd hissed. “Too tight.”
Ginny tied it off and glared at Charlie over her shoulder. “Consider this your notice that the Kents are dropping you as a client, Mr. Cardello.”
The ex-gangster’s face fell into an expression of disbelief and sadness. “Aw, don’t be like that, Ginny! This is a one-time thing. You can’t hold it against me.”
“You are literally making me tie up my boss at gunpoint, Charlie! I can be however I want!”
Ginny finished tying the rope around Shepherd’s chest so he was strapped to the chair. Charlie waved his gun at the seat beside Shepherd, which Ginny took with a glare so fierce it scared Shepherd more than the gun. Charlie checked the binds around Shepherd before shoving his gun in his waist band and grabbing a length of rope to tie up Ginny.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Shepherd told his kitchen ceiling. “Robbed bikers no problem. But a canned-cheese-eating loser got one over me.”
“Hey!” Charlie stepped away from Ginny and wiped his palms. “I know I’m robbing you right now, but that’s no reason to be hurtful.”
Ginny snarled. “You know what I’m going to do the second I get out of here?”
“Well, not call the police,” Charlie replied. “What are you gonna say? ‘Hey, my stolen biker money got robbed?’ C’mon.”
“No, I am going to find your ex-wife.”
Charlie stilled. “So?”
“So, I’m going to tell her exactly what you’ve done to us.”
He shrugged a shoulder, struggling for nonchalance. “She’s a con artist. She’ll be proud.”
“Oh, yeah, real proud of stealing the ransom money that would save a kidnapped grandmother.”
