Page 20 of Wintering with George

“You’re not a nice man.”

“Everybody knows that,” he assured me. “But the trust can be broken if…?”

He trailed off, so he wanted me to use my brain. “I’m tired.”

“I don’t care.”

I took a breath. “Oh. If the boys are kidnapped, the trust can be used to pay a ransom.”

“Ding, ding, ding.”

“That makes no sense, though. You should have seen the guys Vladek sent. There was no kidnapping going on. They could have had those boys out of this house before their parents got back, but they were fucking around.”

“What? Wait.”

He was quiet so long, I nearly nodded off.

“Okay, the idiots from earlier—because I’m looking at mug shots of some real losers here—they were there to scare Brad into working with Vladek.”

“Working?”

“Paying.”

“Ah.”

“I suspect Brad was waiting for money to come in from end-of-the-year investments in January, and would have paid Vladek the money he owes him then.”

Or from the profits from sales on Thomasin’s website of whatever she sold during her live stream later tonight. Either way, Brad would have made good on the loan. “But Vladek didn’t want to wait, so he sent goons to scare Brad into paying.”

“I think so, yeah,” Chris surmised.

I was wrong earlier. There weren’t only two possible scenarios. There were three, and this was it: a home invasion had been staged to terrify Brad when he saw how easily Vladek could put men in his home. They were supposed to get in and out, but Thomasin and Brad weren’t home, there were dogs outside making a racket, and everything had just gone to absolute shit once I showed up.

“But now you have a real problem,” Chris instructed me.

“Which is?”

“There’s an actual K and R contract out on the kids.”

“Which means Vladek’s not sending any more of his own guys. He’s outsourcing now.”

“Correct.”

Fuck. “When?”

“You’ve got a few hours. The contract went active about an hour ago, so it’ll take people time to get on planes. I don’t know anyone operating in the Pacific Northwest, so they’ll be coming in from California, Mexico, and the East Coast.”

“How much is the contract for?”

“Looks like either 500K or half of whatever Vladek gets from the boys’ trust fund.”

“So basically, the boys are really the only ones in play.”

“Yes.”

“Meaning Brad and Thomasin are disposable.”

“Yep. The trust will pay out through lawyers. Mom and Dad are not necessary.”