Foxy Roxy (35 page)

“Okay, then, where’s your crew?”

“My crew?”

“You can’t move this thing by yourself. It’s very heavy. It probably weighs at least a ton. You’ll need help.”

“I very much doubt that.”

Roxy shrugged. “See for yourself. It’s outside.”

Henry considered her information for a moment, as if finally realizing she might be speaking the truth. Then he said, “Let’s take a look, shall we?”

Roxy led the way, listening to Henry and the dog behind her. The dog leaped around on the ramp, happy to be outside. When they reached the back of the truck, Roxy tugged aside one edge of the tarp to show the large sandaled foot of the statue.

“See? He’s seven feet tall, made of solid marble. The two of us couldn’t get him into your van if we worked all night.”

Henry began to frown. He reached up and put one hand on the statue’s foot. He gave it a shove, but the dead weight didn’t budge. “How did you get it up there?”

“The winch.” She pointed. “Plus I had help. I can winch it down to the ground, but after that, we’re on our own.”

Henry contemplated the problem. Finally, he said, “You planned this, didn’t you?”

“I did what you told me to do. I can’t help it if you’re unprepared.”

“I’m not leaving without the Achilles.”

“And I’m not leaving without my daughter.”

“So,” Henry said at last, “what do you suggest?”

“We need help. If you don’t have a weightlifter on speed dial, I could call the guy who works for me.”

Music from the bar across the street wailed while Henry considered her proposition. “Can he keep his mouth shut?”

“He’s trustworthy.”

Henry made his decision. “Okay, call him. But the same rules apply.”

The amiable dog came over and nuzzled Roxy’s hand. She patted his neck without thinking. But she shook her head. “I’m not going to help you, Paxton. Not until you show me Sage. I want to know she’s all right.”

“She’s fine.”

“No. I’ll make a trade with you now. Show me Sage, and I’ll get you some muscle.”

Henry walked away from the truck to think. The big dog resisted going with him—he wanted to stay with Roxy—but Henry yanked the leash. The dog dug his forepaws into the gravel. Henry stopped short, his arm pulled tight. He let fly a curse and dropped the leash. Startled to find himself free, the dog shook his entire body as if shaking off bathwater and then galumphed around in a circle.

Roxy ignored the dog and trained her gaze on Henry. “I’ll keep my side of this bargain, Paxton. You can have the statue. It’s brought me nothing but bad luck since I first put my hands on it. But I want Sage. I want to see her now, and then I’ll call my guy to help load.”

Henry said, “If you think you can double-cross me, you’d better think again. I’ve got years of strategizing under my belt, you know.”

Through gritted teeth, Roxy said, “I believe you. I don’t care about the statue now. Just give me my kid.”

Henry shrugged. “Okay. This way.”

He led her back into the cavernous mill, and they walked past the cargo van, across the vast floor. The place was very cold—somehow colder than outside. The air of abandonment made Roxy’s teeth chatter. She clamped her jaw tight, though, determined not to let Henry guess how truly terrified she was.

Henry led the way to the farthest corner of the building, where some office space had been created with corrugated walls and heavy glass windows. Someone had tried to smash one window, but it hadn’t shattered. A starburst of cracks emanated from a center. When Roxy looked closer, she saw it was a bullet hole in the glass.

Henry pushed the unlocked door open and stopped. “Watch your step. There’s some junk on the floor.”

It was very dark. Underfoot, Roxy accidentally kicked a clutter of scattered textbooks, open pages fluttering. Pencils and a torn notebook lay in a circle, as if Sage’s backpack had been upended and shaken out. The sight of it brought a hot rush up from Roxy’s heart.

They were in some kind of supervisor’s office with a set of iron spiral stairs that led upward. Henry went over to the stairs, bowed slightly, and said, “After you.”

Roxy grabbed the hand railing and started up. She itched to kick Henry’s head. Maybe knock him to the floor below. Maybe she could overpower him, she thought. She longed to beat the shit out of him.

But there was Sage still to consider. Roxy felt her way up the stairs, straining to see in the darkness.

On the second floor she found herself in a kind of viewing room with a huge plate-glass window that overlooked the mill floor.

She glanced around the small space. “Where is she?”

Henry pointed. “Bathroom.”

Roxy darted forward, pushing her way through a narrow door. On the floor, huddled in darkness, lay a lumpy shape.

“Sage,” Roxy whispered, and she flung herself down next to her daughter.

Sage struggled up, and the gleam in her eyes was fierce. She made an awful noise in her throat, and Roxy reached to remove the tape from her mouth.

But Sage yanked her face away and shook her head, tears springing to her eyes. The tape had been partially torn from her cheek already, and Roxy could see her skin had torn with it.

“Oh, baby.” Roxy cupped Sage’s cheek. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

Sage nodded fiercely, then shook her head, then tried to laugh. But she began to choke, too, and Roxy calmed her with hands on her shoulders. “It’s okay,” she soothed. “Don’t try to talk. We’ll be out of here in a minute, I promise.”

Sage nodded, but her gaze left Roxy’s face to look over her shoulder, and her eyes hardened.

Still on her knees on the cold concrete, Roxy turned to Henry. “Honest to God, Paxton, if you’ve hurt her, I’m going to kill you dead.”

He smiled. “No need for that. You can see she’s perfectly fine.”

“I’m taking her out of here now.”

“Let’s wait until—”

“No, we’re going now.”

“Make your call first. Do you have your phone?”

Roxy whipped her phone from her jeans and punched Loretta’s number.

Henry said, “Put it on speaker, so we can all hear what you’re saying.”

Holding Sage upright with one arm, Roxy put the phone to her ear with the other hand. She prayed Nooch would answer.

It was Loretta who picked up right away.

“Lo,” Roxy said, “I need to speak to Nooch.”

“He’s eating me out of house and home!” Loretta cried. “The sooner you get him out of here, the less chance I’ll kill him.”

“I need to talk to him right away, Loretta. It’s important.”

“All right, all right. But you owe me for an entire pan of stuffed shells.”

Nooch’s voice came next. Amiable, as always. “Hi, Rox.”

“I need you to borrow Loretta’s car.”

“Huh?”

“Tell Loretta you need to borrow her car,” Roxy said curtly. She kept her eyes on Henry’s face as she spoke. She gave the rest of her orders directly, listing Henry’s rules. “Do you understand, Nooch?”

“Yeah,” he said, but he still sounded confused. “You want me to come tonight?”

“Right now,” Roxy said. “Right away.”

Henry put his hand on the handle of the gun in his belt. “Hang up.”

Roxy obeyed, praying that Nooch had got the message straight. She pocketed her phone and helped Sage to her feet.

Henry didn’t protest. But he didn’t make any move to assist, either. Roxy hoisted Sage upright before she realized the teenager’s ankles were taped together. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, too. It was a struggle for Sage to move at all—she could hardly shuffle her feet—but she was determined.

Roxy could feel her daughter shuddering with cold, too, so she buffed her arms and roughly rubbed her back as they stumbled toward the spiral stairs. Roxy went first, essentially dragging Sage downward.

On the main floor of the mill, the Great Dane came loping out of the darkness, delighted to see Sage. He jumped up on her, and all of them nearly fell to the concrete floor. Roxy shoved the clumsy dog away and headed for the cargo van, half dragging Sage with her.

When they reached the van, Sage was breathing heavily through her nose. Frightened by how labored her daughter sounded, Roxy sat her down in the open door and tried to loosen the tape around her mouth. Sage cried out, but held still so Roxy could continue. Roxy winced each time a tiny bit of tape came free. But for Sage, the pain must have been intense. Tears rolled down her cheek and she kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut, but she didn’t protest.

Behind them, Henry said, “How long will it take for your associate to arrive?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Roxy guessed. “Maybe half an hour.”

“And you guarantee he won’t be bringing the police?”

She shook her head. “You heard everything. He’s on probation, see. If he gets caught committing any kind of crime, he’ll go to jail. I’m trying to keep him out of trouble. We don’t want the cops involved.”

“Convenient for me,” Henry remarked. “What’s he on probation for?”

“Assault. But it was a long time ago.”

Roxy had worked half of the tape free and then slipped her finger into Sage’s mouth. Out came a sodden hunk of cloth. Sage sucked air gratefully and leaned against the open door of the van as if exhausted. She pulled a grimace at the stench of gasoline still hanging around the vehicle.

A heavy quilted blanket lay on the floor of the van—the kind of blanket movers used to wrap furniture. Roxy grabbed it and bundled it around Sage as best she could manage. Then she set to work on freeing Sage’s ankles.

Sage’s voice was barely a croak. “Good news, Mom.”

Roxy’s heart nearly overflowed. Trust Sage to find the silver lining in the middle of a kidnapping. “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“I got my period.”

Roxy’s first reaction, oddly enough, was disappointment. Then, seeing the relief in Sage’s battered face, she hugged her daughter.

“That’s enough of that,” Henry said. “She’s comfortable enough for the moment. Let’s you and me start to get the Achilles off your truck. I want to get out of here.”

Roxy hardened her heart and stood back from Sage. “In a rush all of a sudden?”

“Things haven’t exactly gone according to plan,” Henry conceded.

“Ever since you killed Kaylee, you mean?”

Henry didn’t answer, but he narrowed his eyes. Sage sat very still, listening.

Henry jerked his head. “Let’s go, Roxy.”

She hated leaving Sage behind. But she obeyed and walked with Henry back to the loading dock.

Out of Sage’s earshot, Roxy said, “I assume you killed Kaylee because you figured out she saw you shoot Julius.”

Henry laughed. “She tried to blackmail me. Did she tell you that? I don’t know why she bothered. There was a good chance she might actually have inherited this property. It’s going to be quite valuable someday soon.”

“So I’ve heard. What made you pull the trigger on Julius? You have some kind of disagreement?”

“He was backing out on a promise,” Henry admitted, after only a heartbeat of hesitation. “We presumed his mother was in her final coma, so I revised her will one last time—in his favor so he could whisk his girlfriend off on a midlife crisis that even Hugh Hefner would envy. You don’t need to hear the legal details. I was supposed to receive the Achilles in payment for my services. Imagine my dismay when I went to collect and Julius had chickened out and changed his mind.”

“And the statue was gone,” Roxy said.

“Exactly. He backed out on our deal, and I was left hanging to take the blame for tampering with my client’s legal affairs. I couldn’t let him ruin my career. And I must admit, I lost my temper.”

“Did the Delaneys see you shoot him?”

“How did you guess?”

“I knew they were lying when they said Julius hired them to frighten Kaylee. And why would they make up such a stupid lie? Unless you were standing right there, holding a gun on them?”

“They weren’t very imaginative, I admit.”

“And you paid them to keep your secret?”

“Yes. Who knew I was buying a television from Walmart and feeding a snake?”

Roxy stopped at the top of the ramp. She tried to imagine the confrontation between Julius and Henry at the mansion. Julius had seemed upset. He probably knew he was going to argue with Henry. And when Henry came along to discuss the financial matters, Julius had to break the bad news that their self-serving plot was off. The fact that Roxy had stolen the statue at exactly the wrong moment had triggered Henry’s reaction.

“And to think I had sex with you,” Roxy said.

“An unexpected bonus for me,” Henry replied.

“You’re in some trouble now, Paxton. And I’m not talking about premature ejaculation.”

He let the insult pass. “Things are unraveling a bit, aren’t they? Fortunately, I have a place to go to in the Caribbean.”

“You think you can ship the statue there?”

“No, no. I have a place to store it for a while first. Eventually, I’ll make arrangements to sell the statue. I do have some connections.”

“You mean Arden Hyde?”

Henry laughed. “Heavens, no. Arden can barely tie her own shoes. I had hoped to pin some blame on her, but I’ve run out of time, haven’t I?”

“The police are going to figure out where the gun came from.”

“I’ll be out of town before that happens. And I’ve saved up a perfectly respectable nest egg, so I can live comfortably until the time is right to put the statue on the market. Shall we?”

Roxy went down the ramp to the truck. With Paxton watching, she unstrapped the handcart and unhooked the winch. The chain rattled down with a noise that echoed back at them from the high walls of the abandoned mill.

Henry said, “I’m almost sorry things had to end this way between us, Roxy.”

She continued to ready her equipment. “Oh, yeah?”

“I suppose it’s a cliché to say we could have made some beautiful Caribbean music together. I like you. And I’ll admit I’m attracted to you, too.”

“Despite the chip on my shoulder?”

He smiled. “That’s part of your charm, I suppose.”

She glanced at him. “There’s still time, you know.”

His face registered surprise. “Time to make a little whoopee? With your daughter watching?”

“My truck’s right here. There’s plenty of room inside. And you owe me. I’ll give you a chance to prove you’re not such a rotten lover after all.”