Perfect Grave

Chapter Fifty-Four

B itter northwest winds were forking like a serpent’s tongue over the Olympic Mountains and reconverging over Puget Sound to deliver a thunderstorm to Seattle.

Rhonda Boland had finished an overtime shift at the supermarket. Her feet were throbbing and her back was aching as she arrived at Alice Valeeni’s house. Alice was the Italian grandmother who lived three doors down from the Boland home and watched Brady whenever Rhonda needed help.

The early evening sky had turned black and winds were kicking up when Rhonda and Brady arrived home. They ordered Brady’s favorite, a large pizza with the works.

They spent the rest of the evening watching a rerun of Planet of the Apes.

Afterward, Brady got into bed with a Superman comic and Rhonda drew a hot bath. She added a ribbon of fragrant bubble bath she’d picked up from the discount bin because the cap had split. It saved her three bucks. The bubbles smelled like roses.

Like the roses on Sister Anne’s casket.

Easing herself into the water, Rhonda tried not to think of her money problems. Tried not to bother God again about Brady. But it was impossible. Not an hour, not a minute, not a second passed that she did not agonize over the prospect of losing her son.

Please don’t take him. Please. He’s all I have. Please.

She stifled a sob with her hands until the moment passed.

Soaking in the bubbles, the hot water soothing her, Rhonda considered her life so far, her dreams, the choices she’d made, and all that fate had visited upon her. She scolded herself, told herself that no matter how bad she thought she’d had it, someone, somewhere had it worse.

Again, Rhonda asked God to forgive her. She was sorry. She was just so tired. The hot water relaxed her. It felt good. So soothing. The water was so warm, like a Caribbean beach, the warm azure sea caressing her toes, palm fronds hissing in the breeze. Her muscles slackened. She grew drowsy and fell asleep, dreaming of palm trees and a better life when thunder woke her.

She didn’t know how long she’d been sleeping.

Rhonda drained the tub, slipped on her robe. She was exhausted, ready for bed as she padded through the still house, switching off lights. She knew every creak and groan of her home. She heard the hiss of the rain, punctuated with the rumble of thunder. The TV was off. The refrigerator clicked and ran with a rattle as she double-checked the locks on the doors.

Everything was fine. Secure.

Before going to her bedroom, Rhonda started for Brady’s room to check on him. His reading light was on, his door half open.

A few steps away, Rhonda froze.

Brady’s bed squeaked in a way she’d never heard before. Then everything went quiet.

Deathly quiet. Something wasn’t right.

“Brady?”

Nothing but the rain. Rhonda moved closer to the door.

“Brady, honey, are you up?”

A shadow flickered like a passing spirit on her son’s bedroom wall.

“Okay, sweetie, joke’s over, mommy’s ti-”

The bed squeak-creaked again, this time with a faint desperate vocal sound as Rhonda inched closer to the door.

She didn’t believe what she saw.

It couldn’t be real.

Before her jaw opened to shriek, before her brain could issue the cognitive command to react, her knees buckled, and she steadied herself against the door frame.

“Oh, Jesus!”

Brady was sitting up on the edge of his bed, fear pushing his eyes wide open.

A man’s right gloved hand was clamped over Brady’s mouth. In his left, the man held a serrated hunting knife.

Rhonda stepped toward them and met the man’s cold eyes.

“Don’t you fucking move!” he said.

“Please, please, let him go.”

“Do as I say and he’ll live.”

“What do you want? Who are you?”

“Sit down and listen.”

Rhonda held her arms toward Brady.

“Sit!”

Rhonda sat on Brady’s swivel chair near his desk.

“This will be simple. I think your pup here’s already grasped the concept of property when we met in the park the other day. Right, sport?”

“Please don’t hurt him. Oh, please.”

“Your husband was Jack Boland, that’s what he called himself.”

Rhonda nodded.

“He owes me from an old business transaction and I’ve come to collect.”

“Business? But his landscaping business failed when he died. I’m paying off all of his debts.”

“This was old business.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know you. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Was it gambling? Because he gambled.”

“We were partners on a project. I kept up my end and now I want my money. In full. With interest!”

“How much? I don’t understand. The accountants-I mean-we don’t-”

“One and a half million dollars.”

“My God!”

“I know you have it.”

“No. We have nothing. You’ve made a mistake.”

“Don’t lie! Don’t you fucking lie!”

“Mister, I don’t know who you are, or what you think you know! But you’re wrong! Look around! Look at how we live! I’m a supermarket cashier! Jack left us in debt! My son’s sick and I don’t know how I’m going to pay for the operation he needs to save his life! You’re wrong about us!”

“Look on the computer keyboard.”

“What?”

“Look!”

Rhonda turned in the chair and picked up a snapshot she’d never seen before. Brady with Sister Anne Braxton, the murdered nun. Taken at his school.

“Where did you get this?”

“From Sister Anne. I saw you and your pup here at her funeral. Both of you.”

Rhonda’s control swirled between fear and anger.

“I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Don’t move!”

The man reached into his rear pocket for handcuffs, snapping them on Brady, deftly binding him to his headboard, keeping the knife to his throat and Rhonda at bay.

“Don’t!” Brady shouted.

Instantly the man backhanded his fist across Rhonda’s face, shocking her as he reached under the bed for a large roll of duct tape, swiftly peeling and spinning it around her until she was restrained in Brady’s chair in a silver cocoon.

Then he grabbed the cup of water on the desk. Next to it were four pills. He showed her the brand marking on the pills.

“These are sleeping pills, Rhonda. Harmless.”

He shoved them in her mouth and held her nose and clamped his gloved hand over her face as she struggled.

“Swallow them now!”

“Leave my mom alone!”

She continued resisting.

“Swallow the goddam pills or I’ll keep you awake to watch him bleed!”

She swallowed them. He let her breathe and checked her mouth, his finger roughly probing under her tongue and along her gums.

“When you wake, find a way to get yourself out of this tape because I’m going to call. When I do, you will have twenty-four hours to clear your husband’s debt with me. I’m going to be watching you. If you contact the police, or anyone, you will never see your pup again. I’ve got a perfect grave ready for him. Do you believe me?”

Rhonda nodded.

He drew his face close until his eyes burned into hers.

“You’ll never know the price I’ve paid, or the things I’ve done to find you! You will get me my money! I’ll contact you with more instructions. When I have my money, your pup comes back. Be smart, Rhonda. Your asshole husband held my money. Find it and we’re done! Fuck up, and you’re going to another funeral.”

As the man looped tape around Rhonda’s mouth, she would not take her eyes from Brady.

She prayed.

Soon her muscles refused to obey her and she grew semiconscious. She wanted to call the police. She wanted to run screaming into the street but her body was turning to stone.

Her eyes started to flicker.

Her lids became heavy.

She couldn’t hold them open.

Her final image was of Brady and the glint of the knife against his throat.