Zip remained silent. She did not want to talk about home.
“You local, at least? Don’t look like a Texan.”
Her face crumpled guiltily. “No.”
Reece laughed, lightly. “Then how you get all the way out here? Cher, please. Tell me something, I’m dying here.”
“I . . .” Zip searched the carpet for an answer. “I wanted to help. My daddy. He didn’t know – he never let me – said I always should stay home –” Speaking quicker, upset. “Never follow, never talk to strangers, never think about it –”
“Slow down,” Reece said. “Your daddy ain’t gonna blame you, okay?” Her accent was a clue, at least. Cracked from dryness and crying, but refined, almost British. Fancy folk in country estates adopted accents like that. “You got a big house?”
She shook her head, then stopped rigid, realising she was giving something away.
“All right. I’ll have to earn that trust, won’t I? So you were supposed to stay home but followed your daddy to work, that’s how it went? But these folk picked you up along the way?”
Zip swallowed, then nodded.
“So forget home a second – where might Daddy be?”
She considered this carefully. “There was a big river. A blue pyramid. Grithin.”
“A griffin?”
“Grithin,” Zip accentuated the sound, tongue against her teeth. Definitely moneyed.
“Forgive my ignorance. Grithin it is. Well I don’t know that for dirt, nor a blue pyramid, but I know rivers. Gushing like the Mississippi or piddling like a creek?”
“Mississippi.” Zip liked that word. “Mississippi. Yes. Mississippi. That’s a very big river?”
“The biggest. But that’s three hundred miles away.”
She went quiet again, like she’d done something wrong.
“Hey, I’m not saying that’s not it,” Reece said. “Only that’s a long way for a kid. Your daddy had business there, did he?”
Her lip trembled again, eyes worried. Tired, stressed.
“Tell you what, let’s have a break. Important thing is we’re friends now, ain’t we? I’ll get you a hot drink. Have Caleb put on a Cutjaw stew. You talk when you’re ready, doesn’t have to be a second before.”
He moved towards the door and fear at being left crept into those big eyes. She voiced it in a simple, bleated word: “Reece?”
Reece grinned back in at her. “We’ll take care of you. That’s a promise.”
Leigh-Ann perched on the chair-back with a foot where the girl had been bound, staring hard, wondering what the fuck these yokels were up to. The living room was heady with the stench of stale blood and sweat. The farmer lay against one wall, rolled in a rug, and Stomatt was hanging half off the three-seat sofa. He was even paler than usual, and his bleached-blond hair was patterned like a hyena’s hide with blood and dirt. Leigh-Ann had removed his jacket and wound a clean bandage round his neck, while the farmer’s daughter cowered in an armchair.
Mostly, Leigh-Ann was marvelling at how they’d managed to make a shitty day this much worse. The gunshots from the farmhouse had come right when her nerves were finally calming from the car crash, and the crash had come only when her nerves started to calm after escaping Waco. They’d started the day prepared for a fight but hoping there wouldn’t be one. Only Stomatt had been overjoyed at finding more Steers in the warehouse than they expected. Now at least three of Dustin Fallon’s men were injured or dead and Stomatt was shot. Leigh-Ann didn’t think she’d hit anyone herself, laying down covering fire, but who knew? And now they’d offed a random farmer and had a distraught daughter hostage – a woman even younger than them.
Leigh-Ann moved to a counter and found some mail. Mr Hexley, that’d be the farmer. One addressed to Ms N. She asked, “That you? N?”
The daughter didn’t look up.
“N Hexley. What were you up to here, N? Why you couldn’t leave that kid alone? N, you gonna talk to me?” Leigh-Ann tapped the MAC-10 against her thigh. The daughter saw that. “Come on, N.”
“Nina,” the woman said. “My name’s Nina.”
“There’s a girl. And why’s Nina Hexley kidnapping kids?”
Nina stared back boiling hatred.
Leigh-Ann smiled. Reece entered to interrupt their clash of intellects, so she fixed on him instead. “Here’s a quote, Reece Coburn, circa eighteen minutes ago: ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ Didn’t I warn you never say shit like that? And another one, ‘They’re probably decent folk.’”
“I’ll admit on this occasion I was wrong,” Reece said, scanning Stomatt.
“Don’t he look peaceful? Not running his filthy mouth nor snoring up a storm. Oughta get shot in the throat more often.”
“He gonna be okay?” Reece asked. “He said it only clipped him.”
“He also claims he met Kid Ory – you believed that, too?” Leigh-Ann blew air out her teeth. “Bullet took a chunk of flesh with it, but he’s okay. Just bled more than a little. He’ll get back to pissing us all off once he wakes, mark my words. More than can be said for some.” She nodded to the farmer’s body.
Caleb came in the other door, grumbling. “Had no choice. You saw, didn’t you Reece? He went for my gun. He woulda shot me.”
“No sign of our friend Donny?” Reece asked.
Caleb shook his head. “Got as far as the fence and lost his tracks. Figure he cut across a field on foot, but there’s no houses for miles. His truck’s out front, I reckon – three vehicles, total. I took out the spark plug cables. Can we get going, Reece? This place gives me the creeps.”
There was a question. Half-hour ago they were making good time, now they had a kidnapped child and a house of horrors to deal with. Leigh-Ann said, “That kid okay?”
“Near as I can see,” Reece said. “She’s not saying much. But I figure she’s an awful long way from wherever she’s supposed to be.”
“So are we.”
“We got time. Donny’s not going to the cops, is he? Worst case, he comes back with some friends, and if they’re involved in this I’d happily give them a piece of my mind. But my bet is he’s halfway to Alaska.” He indicated the daughter. “She spoken?”
“Name’s Nina,” Leigh-Ann said. “That’s as far as we got.”
“Nina?” Reece echoed. There were those hate-eyes again. “We’re all sorry about your old man. Even if maybe we shouldn’t be. Wanna explain your side?”
“Go to hell,” Nina said. “Murderers – animals, bastard pigs –”
Leigh-Ann snorted laughter and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry – this bitch is moralising at us? Like, we’re gonna be judged by child molesters?”
“Cut it out, Leigh.” Reece said. “She mightn’t have had a choice. Did you?”
Nina had another insult waiting, but held it in.
“Not so sure it was molesting anyway,” Reece said. “That kid’s well-spoken. Dirty but not hurt. Maybe your old man wanted to lean on her rich parents, Nina?”