Retriever Ransom

Chapter Fifteen

Thompson forced me down into a wheeled desk chair and used a coarse stretch of rope to tie my hands behind me.

Ouch. That hurts," I complained, which only made Thompson pull harder.

Satisfied with his work, he turned to me again. "Finally you get what's coming to you," he hissed.

"I don't understand," I muttered, trying hard not to sound as desperate as I felt. "I get why you don't like me, but what does that have to do with the mayor or his dog?"

Thompson chuckled and shook his head. "Denise," he addressed the woman who I now assumed to be his wife. “Go find that camera we stashed in the pack, just in case. Looks like it will come in handy, after all.”

"On it," she replied and shuffled to the other side of the small cabin, passing the golden retriever as she did.

Marco glanced at up at her briefly, then returned immediately to his rawhide. Some help he was going to be.

"We had no idea we'd find you on our way here," my former boss said. "That was definitely a lucky break. As for the mayor, we didn't kidnap his stupid dog. But from watching his interviews on the local news, it was very obvious that he’d staged the whole thing himself."

I sucked in a sharp breath. How had Thompson figured this out before me? And why did it even matter to him?

His eyes bore into me as he studied my expression. “You always did wear your heart right on your sleeve. You know that? I can see those wheels turning from all the way over here. Yes, anyone with half a brain should have been able to figure out what Mark did. He never did do a good job hiding his... shall we say... loose ethics."

I still didn’t get what he was playing at. “But what does that have to do with you? Why intervene at all?"

"Oh, that's easy," Denise answered for him, returning with the plastic camera in her hands. "Mark Dennison is a terrible mayor, and he never should have been voted in at all.”

"And let me guess, you should have," I spat at Thompson.

He sighed. "No. Unfortunately even with my minor record, I'd never be able to hold office now. Denise on the other hand..."

He glanced over my shoulder and smiled as his wife closed the distance between them. They shared a sickeningly sweet victory kiss. Something much too maudlin for kidnapping thieves, if you asked me.

"I'm going to tell everyone what happened when I get out of here," I promised them both, wishing I could shake my fist to emphasize the point. My hands, however, were still tied uselessly behind my back.

"That's where you're wrong," Thompson informed me. He held the camera up and clicked a button. The flash glared bright in my eyes, and a second later, a Polaroid image popped out.

The picture slowly beginning to emerge from the milky film, and just as I had suspected, my nose had definitely been broken. Blood covered the lower half of my face and I looked as if I’d already lost, but I hadn't given up hope yet.

Somehow I would get out of this.

I had to.

After all, what kind of world did we live in if the good guys didn't win in the end? And make no bones about it, I was definitely the good guy in this situation.

"Nice photo." I forced a smirk, hoping to come across as confident. "Got a frame?"

"Quiet," Denise shouted as she slapped me across the back of the head. "We're in charge here, not you," she reminded me.

As if I'd forgotten.

When I turned in search of Thompson, I found him standing by the door, shrugging back into his winter wear. I didn't know where he was going, but I certainly liked my odds better having only Denise to contend with.

No one said anything as he finished getting ready and then departed with the photo in hand.

Denise came around and hopped onto the desk, crossing her legs at the knee as she eyed me.

"I bet you're wondering where he went." She smiled at me, taking her time with this revelation. "Well, that's the exciting part. The dog may not have been enough to make Dennison resign, but you certainly will be. So thank you for stumbling into our perfect little crime scene here.”

"What are you going to do?" I asked through gritted teeth. "Threaten to kill me if he doesn't resign?”

"Oh no, that would still leave too many loose ends." Denise took a deep breath, then lowered her gaze to meet mine. "We are going to threaten to kill you if he doesn't resign, and then once he resigns, we'll kill you anyway."

She paused to let that sink in, and a shiver tore through my body. I could tell she meant business. "So either way I don't get out of this alive," I summarized for us both.

"Precisely," came her unfeeling response. She lowered herself back to the floor and winced in pain.

My eyes traveled down the length of her pants, where I found that the hem on one leg was torn and bloodied.

She caught me looking and raised the pant leg to show me the nasty wound that had marred her milky skin. "That stupid dog of yours. He didn't have to bite me."

I was glad he had as I watched her hobble through the cabin in search of something. Maybe it would be enough to give me a fighting chance, if only I could escape my bonds before Mr. Thompson returned.

"This will do nicely," Denise said with a satisfied huff. I twisted myself around in the wheeled chair to watch as she pulled a bottle of Glenlivet from a glass cabinet. "Very nicely, indeed."

She brought the bottle and a large shot glass back to the armchair by the fire and took a seat with them clutched in either hand.

"Want some?" she asked with a cruel laugh as she filled her glass and downed the first shot. "Now there's a painkiller I can get behind," she said with a happy sigh.

I could use a painkiller too, but more than anything I could use this as an opportunity. If Denise drank enough of her self-professed medicine to hamper her senses, then I would have her injured and drunk while my mind remained sharp ready to fight for my life.

She poured herself another shot, savoring this one with tiny, discerning sips.

"I never hated you that much," she revealed. "Sure, my husband had always insisted that you were useless even before the senator's unfortunate end, but I saw you more as clueless rather than incompetent. Not that there's much difference in the end, I guess." She shrugged and finished the liquor in her glass.

If I could keep her talking then I could probably keep her drinking. And the surest way to keep any conversation going was to get the other person to talk about herself, of course.

"Must be hard having your husband be tried and convicted of accidental death."

She shrugged again. "It's a small charge. But yes, it wasn't easy to undergo all that public scrutiny while the case was on.”

I nodded. "So that's why you have to make sure to tie up all your loose ends. So that no one has any reason to question you ever again, especially once you yourself step in to run for office."

She pointed at me and made a clicking sound. "You're definitely smarter than my husband claims. I'll give you that."

I watched as she poured a third shot, smiling to myself without saying anything in response.

Yes, I was definitely smarter.

But was I smart enough to wiggle my way out of this one alive?