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“How much?” I repeated, working hard to keep the anger out of my voice.
She was silent for a beat. “Ten. Ten thousand to get me back on my feet.”
I released a long, jagged sigh.
“It’s only money, Becky.” She rolled her eyes. “And looking at the Briskens, it looks like this would be nothing for them.”
A sudden reality hit me that this had been my life with this woman. Each and every time she had needed money, she’d come to me. And she clearly knew the Briskens had the means. Not like I was surprised. But still, my fear only heightened at this new reality—that she’d gone to a great extent to research them. That only meant that her desperation ran deep.
Now that she had connected the two, she would always use me as leverage against them. If there was a bounty on my head, Charles would pay whatever it was to keep me safe. I knew that much.
I swallowed down the bile that had crept up my throat. “Let Mary go, and I’ll get you what you need.”And get you in jail.
She laughed again as she pulled off the highway. “Do you think I’m stupid, Becky? You know your mother better than that.”
I gritted my teeth.How dare she!My blood was beginning to boil. “There are cops swarming the school. Mary’s father has a whole security team scouring the vicinity. There’s no way this will end well, Kate, so just let her go.”
She shook her head, slow and patient. “That’s not going to happen, and you know that.”
I did know that. I knew how she was, how greed drove her, but still … I had to try. There was no way I was going to allow her to get away with this. If anything, she’d come back again. I knew that much. She’d use the Briskens as her personal ATM, and I wouldn’t allow that.
She pulled in front of a run-down house. It was as if we had stepped into a different world altogether—boarded-up houses, unkempt lawns, bars on windows of the surrounding residences.
The phone ringing had me glancing up. Kate reached over and ripped the phone from Mary’s hand with such force that Mary cowered into me, her face flipping to a state of shock.
“Helloooo,” Kate cooed. “Hi, Charles.”
I felt disgusted with her. Her voice, her motives, her character. She knew who these men were. She knew that Charles was Mary’s father.
My stomach dropped, and I surveyed my area again. She hadn’t blindfolded me. If only I could talk to him and tell him where we were, but a bigger part of me knew that he was already tracking my phone.
“So, we can make this really easy. I’ll tell you the location where you can pick up Becky and Mary, but first things first. I need you to drop a pickup fee. No cops. No funny business. I’ll text you the information once we get settled.”
I gaped at her from the backseat. She wasn’t this dumb. Of course there would be cops. Kate would be in jail, no doubt, before her hands touched the green.
“They’re fine,” she said into the phone, like she was talking about her own children and this was just another day. “I told you, I’ll text you where to drop the money.”
She wasn’t thinking clearly. But I knew my mother wasn’t the smartest. With her, the execution was the hardest; finishing anything was not her strong suit. Maybe she’d conjured this crazy plan in her head and researched how to get to this point, but she’d never take this to the end.
Confidence filled my shoulders because I could do this.
I broke up my plan in steps.
First step. Get Mary out of this situation.
Then, call the authorities and give them all the information to catch this woman.
I strained my ears to hear Charles’s voice on the other line, but I could barely hear him.
“No cops,” she repeated. “No crazy shit or else …” Her voice lowered. “You don’t want me to finish that sentence.” She extended the phone to me. “He wants to talk to the girl.”
“Mary. Her name is Mary.” I seethed.
The fury I felt toward this woman almost choked me. My mood veered sharply to anger. I couldn’t believe she had put Mary in this danger. I breathed through the next seconds, and that few moments only solidified my resolve to put this woman in jail.
When Mary placed the phone on her ear, her voice quivered, her tone changing, most likely because she’d overheard the conversation. “Daddy?” Hearing her father’s voice had her smiling. “I’m okay, Daddy. Yeah, Miss Kate and I had ice cream.” Her voice lowered. “Yeah, we’re in the car.”
I grabbed the phone before Mary could give away more information, causing my mother’s evil to come out in full force.
