who had never met Kira could suggest the possibility. The practical problems were enormous. How had Kira found people to play the kidnappers? How had she decided she could trust them to split the ransom with her? Where had they gone? How had they arranged the phones and the car and everything else?
Worse, only a stone-cold psychopath would subject her family to such trauma.
“You must be joking. You think she would put us through this?”
Fernandes seemed to see he’d gone too far. “I meant only—”
“Or are you saying that I’m part of it too? Brian, the whole family.”
Rebecca’s fury was real. But she saw she had the edge, too. Time to pounce.
“Here’s what we’re going to do, Raul. You drop the nonsense now, the interest, the American guarantee”—get everything off the table while she had the chance—“all the bullshit, or I get on a plane back to D.C. and tell my bosses to pull cooperation on everything. I mean everything. No drugs, no CT. And next time your ambassador to Caracas makes the Venezuelans mad and they cut the embassy power and send a thousand paramilitaries over for a pool party and you come crawling to JSOC asking the Marines to save his ass, it’ll be, sorry, three percent interest.”
Like all good bureaucrats Fernandes knew when he was beaten. He nodded. “Sí, then. No interest, no guarantee. But we still need papers, and you and your husband need to sign.”
“Our pleasure.”
“Excellent,” Wilkerson said, his best fake cheery voice. “Let’s write it, sign it, get them to a bank so we have the money by the time the next text arrives. Doesn’t matter anyway, because the Mossos are going to find her way before then.”
“We’ll do our best,” Barraza said.
“We good then?” Wilkerson locking down the agreement like a good closer.
“Great,” Rebecca said.
Fernandes didn’t say a word.
26
Somewhere in Spain
The white light under the plywood was back. The room was an oven again. Another Spanish afternoon.
Which as far as Kira could tell meant it was Monday, the second full day since they’d taken her. Wasn’t there a show about this? The First 48? If the detectives can’t solve the case in forty-eight hours, they have no chance. Might as well burn the file.
But those were murders, right? And she was still alive. So good news.
* * *
Since the fight between Jacques and Rodrigo the house had been mostly quiet. A television played faintly downstairs, but they’d left her alone. She wondered if they’d made a ransom demand. If they thought Becks and Bri could pay millions of dollars they would be disappointed.
Anyway, how did they plan to escape with the money? Some untraceable cryptocurrency thing like Bitcoin? She wasn’t even sure how Bitcoin worked. Plain old cash or diamonds?
Not her problem. No doubt Jacques had an idea on how to take the money and run. Assuming he really did plan to ransom her and not sell her to the highest bidder—
Steps along the hall. Rodrigo again, based on the heavy tread.
The deadbolt popped back, the door swung open.
Yep, Rodrigo. A plastic bag in his hand. He stood in the doorway and tossed it at her. Inside the bag, a bottle of water and a granola bar.
She wondered why Jacques had sent Rodrigo to deliver the water. Probably just to prove he could. You go, and don’t touch her.
Rodrigo started to close the door.
“Wait, please. The toilet.” And another shot at the razors. Though, truly, she did have to pee. “Please.”
“She’s downstairs. She can take you.”
Kira had almost forgotten about Lilly. She hadn’t been up here once, as if she had decided Kira wasn’t worth her time. Let the boys fight over your skanky American ass.
“I don’t trust her.”
“You trust me?” But he waved his hand for her to get up.
She walked down the hall, looking for anything she might have missed the day before. Nothing.
Into the bathroom. “A shower would be nice.”
“You don’t want a shower.”
He closed the door, leaving her to work out why: Because it means we’re going to give you to someone who wants you clean all over.
“No razors,” he said through the door.
So much for that plan. She pushed aside the grimy shower curtain. A bottle of shampoo and one of conditioner, Spanish, generic. A bar of pink soap. Useless.
On the sink. The razors. The toothbrushes. A tube of Licor del Polo, squeezed haphazardly. Becks would hate that. Becks rolled up toothpaste tubes neatly—
Focus.
Kira eased open the cabinet mirror. Two shelves. On the top, two pill bottles, empty.