Page 4 of Run to Ground
Her stunned brain didn’t register the words for a minute. Confused, Jules stared at him. “Then why aren’t you helping me?”
“I am helping you.” He pulled out his cell phone and tapped at his screen. Even the way he did that screamed aggression. Jules’s cell chirped from her purse. Instead of checking the text, she kept her gaze fixed on Mr. Espina. “Call Dennis Lee. I just sent you his number. He’ll get you what you need to take your family…elsewhere.”
“Take?” she repeated, knowing she sounded dazed. The conversation felt surreal.
“Ms. Young.” His gaze sharpened as he leaned forward slightly. It was the most engagement he’d shown for the entire meeting, and she mimicked his posture before she realized what she was doing. “Your father’s Alzheimer’s is getting worse. Your stepmother is not a good person. Your brothers and sister are in a bad situation. You need to get them out.”
“But…” Her voice lowered until barely any sound escaped. “Kidnapping?”
“Sometimes you have to trust what you feel in your gut to be right, even if others are telling you it’s wrong.”
The idea was overwhelming, terrifying, and wonderful, all at the same time. For years, through countless frustrating, futile, expensive custody battles, Jules had followed the rules. It had gotten her nowhere. Her siblings were still stuck in hell, and Jules was broke and desperate enough to work for criminals. Maybe it was time to change the rules. Maybe, if she started playing dirty, her family could win for once.
Maybe instead of working for criminals, she should become one.
“It’d never work.” The tempting dream of just stealing her brothers and sister away crumbled. “There’d be an Amber Alert. Their pictures—my picture—would be everywhere. We wouldn’t even make it out of the state before someone would recognize us. My stepmother would paint me as a monster. No one would believe that she…” Jules couldn’t finish the thought. It was too awful. “I’d go to prison, and the kids would lose their last hope of escape.”
Mr. Espina didn’t look bothered. “I’ll have a talk with your father’s wife. After that, she won’t report the children’s disappearance.”
“Uh…what kind of talk?”
“Nothing violent.” He seemed amused by her wary tone. “I’ll just make her aware that I have information she won’t want getting out.”
Jules clenched her hands into fists. “That won’t work. She won’t care. I’ve been trying to get people to believe me for years, but Courtney has the perfect-mother act down.”
His unruffled expression did not waver. “It will work. I have video.”
“Video?” Her stomach lurched. “You can’t make that public. Sam…”
He raised a hand, and her objection trailed off. “The threat will be enough. She won’t go to the police.”
Jules studied his face as she chewed the inside of her lip. “She won’t just let them go. She’ll hire private investigators if she has to.”
“If that happens, you’ll deal with it.”
“I… Yes.” His calm certainty brought a trickle of optimism. Shecoulddeal with a PI, just one person searching for them, rather than every member of law enforcement, every concerned person who saw their pictures on TV or the Internet. Mr. Espina’s threat just made kidnapping—as crazy as it seemed—a viable possibility.
“Ms. Young.” She was jerked out of her thoughts as Mr. Espina pushed a laptop case across the table toward her. Jules’s gaze bounced from the bag to his face and back again as she tried to figure out what he was doing. “As thanks for what you did for Luis. He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s my brother, and I love him.”
“But…”
“Consider it a bonus that Luis never got around to giving you.” After dropping a few bills on the table, Mr. Espina picked up her crumpled ten and held it out to Jules. With numb fingers, she automatically accepted it. He slid from his seat and moved toward the exit. Jules stared at his back, too bewildered by the entire meeting to call after him. Instead, she watched as he walked out the door.
Refocusing on the laptop bag, she cautiously pulled it to her. It was lighter than she’d expected, and she lowered it to her lap before tugging open the heavy zipper. Inside was a bulky envelope.
Her teeth closing on the sore spot where she’d bitten the inside of her cheek earlier, Jules unfastened the clasp without taking the envelope out of the bag. The unsealed flap opened easily, and she tilted the envelope so she could see inside.
Catching a glimpse of the contents, she restrained a gasp that would’ve carried through the bar and down the street. Instead, she made a small sound, part squeak and part sigh, touching the stacks of twenty-dollar bills with a disbelieving brush of her fingers.
Her heart was racing as thoughts ran through her mind, too quickly for her to make sense of any of them. The first thing she was able to grab hold of was the idea that she’d just been given a whole lot of money—most likelydirtymoney. Jules thought she’d accepted her decision to dive into a life of crime, but the sight of all that cash shocked her.
I can’t keep the money, one part of her brain kept telling her. She barely knew Mr. Espina. For goodness’ sake, she still called himMr. Espina. Who handed off stacks of cash like that to a near stranger?
Apparently, Mr. Espina did. She supposed that was one more thing she knew about Mr. Espina, then.
A hysterical giggle bubbled into her throat, threatening to escape. She swallowed, holding down the laughter that would only draw curious stares. Jules did not want any stares, curious or otherwise—not when she was toting a bag full of dirty money.
Should she keep it?Couldshe keep it?
