Inherit the Bones

Chapter Forty-one

The station was quiet, and in spite of all that had happened, life in Cedar Valley went on as usual, chugging along as reliably as a locomotive on an engineer’s schedule. I had an inch-high stack of paperwork to deal with, routine court notices on prior cases, a few summons that I would need to appear for, as a witness for the prosecution, an unpaid annual permit license fee that I could write off for tax purposes, and a dozen other things that had taken a backseat to the Nicky Bellington case.

Thoughts of Annika continued to bloom in my mind and I felt myself interrupted again and again with worry.

I spent a few hours working the pile, then called it a day at seven.

At home, more mail and correspondence had built itself into a tower that threatened to topple over if I breathed on it wrong. I spent an hour paying bills, filing paperwork, and tossing a backlog of catalogs and circulars into the blue recycling bin we kept out back. Seamus ate and then I ate, a bowl of shredded wheat with blueberries and walnuts tossed in for good measure.

I hoped for a word or two from Brody but my electronic in-box was empty. Thinking about Brody made me think about Celeste Takashima. I hated someone that I’d never even met. I hated that she knew me-she knew the man I loved and made love to, the eyes and mouth I woke up to, the genes that I carried in my belly.

Stop it, I told myself.

I crawled into bed and instead of the Woodsman, I dreamed of a wide snowfield in Alaska, white and pure and empty as far as the eye could see. It should have been peaceful but it filled me with panic, all that space and nothing to fill the horizon. A frozen wasteland, a barren land void of humanity or life.

At six, my cell rang. The shrill ring beat my alarm clock by fifteen minutes.

It was the chief. “How soon can you get to the Bellingtons’?”

I was already pulling off my pajamas. “I can be there in thirty. Annika?”

“Terry found a ransom note rolled up in his morning copy of the Denver Post,” Chavez replied. “Half a mil.”

I whistled. “Cash?”

“What else? See you in twenty-five,” he said, and hung up.

I skipped a shower and instead threw on clothes and brushed my teeth and ran a hairbrush through my hair and pulled it up high into a ponytail. The roads were clear and I made it to the Bellingtons’ in just under a half hour.

Their driveway was full. I recognized the chief’s car, and Finn’s Porsche. The others, a black Range Rover with government stickers, and a mud-colored Jeep, and a red Ford Focus, I’d never seen before.

This time we met in the library, a dark-paneled room that was crowded. In addition to myself, Finn, and Chief Chavez, there was Pearl Gold, Terry and Ellen Bellington, and a lawyer who introduced himself as Dick Tremble. There was also a man in a black suit whose name I didn’t catch. He stood against the wall, his hands in his pockets, his eyes half-open.

A fed.

We were in the midst of ten different conversations when the lawyer, Dick Tremble, began waving his arms and clearing his throat. When that didn’t work, he called out “excuse me” and then said it again, louder.

“Excuse me, can we get a little order in here?” he asked.

We looked over at him, a tall, thin whippet of a man with a fringe of hair above his ears and below his nose. His mustache covered his upper lip and drooped down, like Yosemite Sam in that old cartoon. But his accent was pure Boston and his suit Savile Row all the way.

Once he had our attention, though, he seemed to lose focus. He stared first at the mayor, then at the chief, and finally at the federal agent, who stared back with a smirk, his hands still in his pockets, his eyes taking in everything.

Chief Chavez took control. “Let’s see the note, Terry.”

Mayor Bellington held up a clear ziplock bag, inside of which was a typed note. He read, “We have your daughter. If you want to keep her in one piece, do as we ask. We’ll expect five hundred thousand dollars to be deposited into this account. You have forty-eight hours.”

The ten-digit number for a bank account in Europe was scrawled in pen below the typed message.

Pearl Gold let out a whistle, her rouged lips continuing to pucker long after the sound had ended. “Half a million dollars. Sir, if this got out, this could set a bad precedent-”

The mayor interrupted her with a tone like a slap. “My daughter, Pearl. I’d give everything.”

He walked across the room to a sideboard and poured brandy out of a crystal decanter and into a low tumbler. He held the glass up to the light and swirled the liquid, admiring the deep amber glow. Then he tossed it back in one long swallow.

Ellen Bellington sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She leaned against the long desk that anchored the center of the library, its surface bare, its lines sleek. “Dear, it’s not even eight o’clock in the morning. I really don’t see how drinking can-”

The sound of shattered glass cut Ellen off in her tracks, and she sighed again. Pearl Gold patted her on the shoulder, then walked over to the far wall and knelt and picked up large shards of the tumbler.

The mayor casually picked up a second tumbler and poured another inch of brandy. “Leave it, Pearl. Dear wife, I wish you’d stop treating me like a fucking child. And I wish, that for once in your goddamn life, your frigid soul could show a little warmth. Our daughter’s life is in the hands of greedy, bad, evil men.”

Ellen hissed back at him. “Screw you, you slimy worm. Just because I don’t go to pieces like a ninny doesn’t mean I’m not heartbroken. That girl is my heart. The only way I could even comprehend accepting, let alone understanding, Nicky’s death was because of her. And now she’s gone, too. And you, horrible man that you are, are all I have left.”

Chief Chavez raised his hands, “Ellen, please-”

But she turned on him, too, and raised a hand in his direction, holding it high like a witch casting a spell with her words. “And you, you are worthless. Why don’t you go back to what your people are good at, namely washing my car and picking produce in the field.”

The chief’s face paled and his hands fell to his sides.

The lawyer, Dick Tremble, cleared his throat and stepped forward, his mustache moving up and down with each word. “All right, we’re all under a hell of a lot of stress here. None of this is going to help get Annika back. And that’s our goal right now, isn’t it?”

He waited until we all nodded. “Terence, Ellen, what’s the bottom line here?”

Mayor Bellington set the tumbler down and, coming to some decision, nodded. “Dick, I’d like you to prepare the money. Angel, you and your team have done a hell of a job but this is out of your league. On my attorney’s advice I’ve reported Annika’s kidnapping to the FBI.”

At this, the still unnamed fed removed his hands from his suit pockets and stepped forward. He stared at Chief Chavez. When he spoke, it was like ice cracking in March, thin and cold and unforgiving.

“Take an hour and get your files together.”

Angel Chavez shook his head slowly. “I can’t do that, partner. We are this close”-he held up two fingers and squeezed them together-“to solving the murder of Annika’s brother. This kidnapping is, I’m sure, related.”

The man with the voice like ice brushed an invisible speck of dirt from his arm and then one at a time straightened out his shirt cuffs. “Oh, you can keep your dead, my friend. We just want the live one. Ransom, possible state line crossing, this is big-boy stuff.”

Had I missed something?

“What do you mean, state lines?”

The federal agent swung his head in my direction, his shoulders and torso and legs remaining still. His eyes made their way down my body, resting a moment on my swollen belly, then swung back up and stopped somewhere between my neck and my eyes. Then he grinned, and I decided he could keep his smile to himself. I preferred the blank look of contempt.

“We have reason to believe the kidnapper, or kidnappers, have taken Miss Bellington out of Colorado. I can’t say more without compromising the case.”

“You’ve seen the same ransom note we have. Is there something else?”

But the fed was silent, and at my side, Finn gave me a nudge.

There was more talk, of the European account-probably Swiss-and next steps, but I was only half listening. I thought the chief was right, the kidnapping and Nicky’s murder were related. But it was unclear how. The obvious thought was some kind of a vendetta against the Bellington family, but that didn’t add up when we factored in the Woodsman and the McKenzie boys. Maybe Annika’s kidnapping wasn’t related at all, but simply the action of someone taking advantage of Terry Bellington’s fragile state in light of his son’s recent murder and his father’s death.

The fed and Dick Tremble and Pearl Gold huddled at the desk, strategizing. Chief Chavez and Finn sat on one of the couches, speaking in low tones. Ignoring Ellen and the mayor, who hadn’t spoken directly to each other since their ugly outburst, I went in search of Mrs. Watkins, the nanny, Terry’s sister.

I found her in the kitchen, putting together a tray of breakfast items that would in all likelihood go uneaten. Her eyes were swollen and her nose bright red. Not for the first time, I wondered at what she saw and heard inside the Bellington manor. I wouldn’t have traded places with her for all the gold in the world.

Her hands were busying with a thin-bladed knife and a cedar plank heavy with smoked salmon.

“I know most of you have already eaten, but I really don’t know how else to help,” she said without looking up.

“I’m sure the chief and my partner won’t pass up an offer of breakfast, Mrs. Watkins.”

Mrs. Watkins set down her knife. “Call me Hannah, please. If Annika were here, I’d be making pancakes, her favorite. Lord knows where the pancakes go; she’s as thin as a reed. She’ll eat a dozen of ’em in one sitting, covered with syrup and butter, with bacon extra crispy on the side. Ever since she was a little girl, she’s loved her sweets and her salty.”

Her smile dropped and she sniffled. “I shouldn’t tell you this, Detective.”

“What’s that?”

“Annika told me I’m more of a mother to her than Ellen Bellington has ever been,” Mrs. Watkins said, her voice low and proud. She was tall and for the first time, I saw the resemblance between her and Terry and Frank. It was faint, the way it is sometimes between male and female relatives, but it was there nonetheless.

“Nicky and Annika were the best part of my life. All I’ve ever done is try to keep watch over those kids, protect them from all the crap that life can throw at you. Well, I’ve sure done a piss-poor job, haven’t I? One kid dead, one kid kidnapped,” Mrs. Watkins said. “And now Dad’s gone, too.”

“I’m so sorry, Hannah. From what I can tell, you’ve taken care of the entire family.”

With a nod, she thanked me and began spreading cream cheese on toasted bagels. “I always have. My father made it clear, family is the only thing you’ve got at the end of the day. Friends come and go; lovers will leave you in the morning. But family? Family sticks together.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she paused to wipe at them with a paper towel. “Sometimes I feel like this family is cursed. So much death…”

It was the most I’d ever heard the woman say at one time. It was as though her father’s death and Annika’s disappearance had loosened some dam in her. I took a gamble.

“Mrs. Bellington thought you might know where Annika kept an address book? I hate to search her whole room, as I know the FBI will do so later today.”

Ellen Bellington hadn’t said anything of the sort but I thought it worth a try.

Hannah Watkins shook her head. “No, you know kids these days. Everything’s on their phones.”

She gave me a sly look and slid something out of the pocket of her white apron. I couldn’t tell what it was, other than the object was small and dark.

“I should probably have given this to that FBI agent,” the housekeeper said. “But he isn’t a very nice man.”

She slid the shiny, black object across the counter to me and then began arranging the bagels on a tray. She said, “I guess I’ll just have to tell them I don’t remember the last time I saw it. Truth be told, I’m not sure what good it will do you. She’s got another phone, a newer model, that she uses now. This one probably doesn’t have much information on it.”

It was better than nothing.

I whispered a thank-you and left the kitchen, tucking the phone into my purse as I went. In the library, I found Finn still on the couch, awkwardly seated next to Terry Bellington, looking at a photo album that Terry balanced on his lap. Chief Chavez and the fed were looking at something on the desk. Dick Tremble and Ellen Bellington were nowhere to be seen.

I gave Finn a jerk of my head, a “let’s go,” and he half shrugged in response, an “I’m trapped” kind of message.

I was anxious to take a look at Annika’s phone and start calling her friends, maybe even her boyfriend, but I needed Finn’s stronger tech skills to bypass her password. I sighed and sat in one of the wing chairs and crossed my ankles to keep my feet from bouncing.

C’mon, c’mon.

The Peanut did a few flips in my belly and my thoughts drifted away to Brody and Alaska and a parka as pink as Pepto-Bismol.

I half listened as Terry slowly turned the pages, pausing to point to something and murmur a name or a date. I heard him mention Nicky’s name, and Annika’s. At the big desk in the middle of the room, the fed and Pearl Gold continued examining some documents. They were soon joined by the lawyer and Dick Tremble. The lawyer got on the phone and spoke in low tones with the head of some bank.

Someone lit a fire in the fireplace and the room was warm and twice I felt myself drifting off, thinking a nap would be lovely. At some point, I looked up and over at the duo on the couch, just as Terry was turning another page.

I watched as the color fell from Finn’s face.

His eyes first narrowed and then grew as wide and as bright as suns. Slowly he raised them until he was looking right at me, and his mouth fell gently open.

Then Terry was elbowing him, and turning the page, and the color rose back into Finn’s face and then some, until his cheeks were as flushed as roses.