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“Your son wasn’t,” I point out, as mildly as I can. “And he’s a better man than you’ll ever be. Richer, too.”
“Not when I get the ransom money.” He laughs. “Your family will pay. Emerson will pay. They’ll both hand over everything they have for your safety. There’s no limit.” It hurts to hear him repeat what Leo said. My brother made the offer knowing it would expose him to this. And now it’s happening. “It’ll come to me immediately, won’t it? That was the promise.”
I glance at the driver, whose hands are steady on the wheel. The two of them are used to this, but they don’t seem like professionals. I don’t trust them to keep me alive. Not even a payout can guarantee that. From the way he leered at me, the best I can hope for is that they’ll return me alive. Alive doesn’t mean okay. Alive can be a technicality.
Compared to those men, Emerson’s dad isn’t nearly as calm. He taps his fingers on his knee and stares into space. He laughed about money, but he’s desperate.
A man like this doesn’t have many options. He can’t rely on his sons. Not after the way he hurt them. He probably can’t rely on anyone.
Emerson’s father leans back against the side of the van. He’s settling in. They must plan on driving for a while.
That’s not good. With every second that goes by, we get farther from Emerson’s house. Farther from the ocean. I have to stay by the water. If I lose track of it, that means everyone I love is far away.
I do some more deep breathing and pretend, as hard as I can, that this is a normal conversation. A tough one, maybe, but one we could have if I wasn’t zip-tied and stolen.
“Do you care about him?” It’s easy to sound curious, because I am. “Emerson, I mean. Do you care about him at all?”
His father’s eyebrows go up. He’s surprised at the question. A frown crosses his face like a shadow, followed by disdain. He can’t maintain either expression. I think he does care about Emerson. Sinclair and Will, too. He’s just a weak man who cares about himself more.
I don’t let any of my fears show on my face while I wait for his answer. I don’t want him to know how afraid I am. All I want to communicate is that I’m listening. I’ve practiced this lots of times. At parties and church and school. I’m being attentive. And then, in a layer over that, I pretend I’m Leo, with his silences and his strength. I pretend I’m Eva, who always keeps her composure.
“The boys were always trouble,” he says.
“That doesn’t sound like Emerson.’
His father’s hand becomes a fist over one of his thighs. “No one knows how hard it was to raise them. No one understands half of what happened.”
“What did happen? Emerson’s never told me.”
A heavy sigh. He’s tired, I think. And not just because this man is in the middle of orchestrating a hostage situation. The rest of his life, too.
“Their mother left.” He taps his fingers on his leg, jittery, remembering. Pure sorrow flashes across his face. It happens so fast it could have been light reflected from the rearview mirror. His voice gets quieter. “She left me. I was stuck with three boys. And yeah, I was shitty at it. What the fuck did anyone expect me to do? I had to—I had to work.”
He glares at me, as if I’m the one who judged him for his parenting.
“Of course you did,” I agree, like Eva would. “You had to put food on the table.”
“I had to keep them in line. Like I said, they were trouble.”
“How so?”
He narrows his eyes. “Sinclair was always off doing something fucking foolish. Will started fights every goddamn day at school. And Emerson…”
“Tell me about him.” I heard his voice change when he said Emerson’s name.
“He had anxiety.” A car passes us in the other lane, lighting up his face. I see distance there, and sadness. The inadequacy he must have felt. “More than that. It was extreme.”
“I know a little bit about that.”
The inside of the van gets darker. It’s night now. Emerson’s dad is suspicious. His eyes glint in the faint light from the dashboard. My pulse rushes faster. I keep my face very, very calm.
He can’t help himself. He wants to talk.
“It was related to places.” It occurs to me that maybe he’s telling me this because he doesn’t think I’ll be alive to remember it. I can’t use it against him if I’m dead. “He couldn’t go anywhere. Getting him to school every day was a fucking nightmare. He fought me every day. Didn’t care that I had to work. I couldn’t spend every morning dragging him to that fucking building.” His fist closes. Opens. “He’d have a full-blown panic attack every time we had to move. It would just—it would go on and on. Nothing I could say—” He looks me directly in the eyes. “We moved all the time because landlords were bastards about the rent.”
I’ve never worried about rent in my life. Even if I struggled to sell paintings, even if I missed shifts at the gallery, Leo would never allow me to get evicted. Emerson’s father didn’t have anyone to cover him.
“It can be hard to know what to do,” I offer.
