The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)(87)

“No,” Albert Ellingham said. “It was not.”

“When I got there, I gave them the money. I was holding it together, but they were rattled too. Iris fought because of Alice. She struggled. And they weren’t as stupid as I thought they were, or as harmless. They said that Ellinghams were worth a lot more than two grand each. I offered them five. They both jumped me. I could have taken them under better circumstances, but one of them got me with a wrench. They said they were in charge now. They had moved Iris and Alice to another location and said they had another guy with them, and that guy was ready to shoot and kill them if things didn’t go as they said. They gave me the drop-off instructions. The situation was out of control.”

“So you came to the drop-off the next night,” Ellingham said.

“By that point, I’d had a chance to think,” George Marsh replied. “I had no idea what had happened to Iris and Alice, but I had to try to get them out of it. I would have done anything.”

“But you still took some of the marked bills from the pile,” Albert Ellingham said. “To cover yourself. To frame someone else.”

“I had to show the guys I had something I could use to get them out of trouble, something to make the whole thing go away. I always had a mark in mind—Vorachek. He was trouble. We would all be glad to see him busted. He’d threatened you before. All I had to do was plant some of the money on him. I was going to tell the guys that, that they’d walk away with no problems. I waited for them to contact me. They never did. So I threw myself into the case. I looked into everything I knew about those guys. I shook every contact I had, but that kind of money can put you into the wind. Then Iris turned up in the lake. . . .”

He looked off the side of the boat at the very waters Iris had been floating in.

“Who killed Vorachek?” Albert Ellingham said.

“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of his own popped him. Or it could have been someone in the crowd who was just angry.”

“Iris,” Albert Ellingham said. “Dottie. Anton Vorachek. Three people dead. And then there is my Alice. That is why we are here. That is what I must know. Where is Alice?”

George Marsh finally gathered himself enough to lift his chin and look Albert Ellingham in the eye.

“What good is it,” he asked, “us dying out here?”

“It is a price I am willing to pay.”

“I know where Alice is,” George Marsh said.

The reserve that Albert Ellingham had possessed up to this point left him. He half stood, his fist tight around the rope, his face purpling and the capillaries in his eyes marbling. When he spoke, his voice was a low rumble.

“You just claimed,” Albert said, “that you knew nothing of what happened to Alice. That you were not involved in her direct kidnapping. That you looked for her.”

“And I eventually found her,” Marsh said.

“Is my daughter alive?”

For the first time in this conversation, George Marsh sat back. He loosened his tie and stretched out his legs as if this was again the relaxing afternoon sail he had been promised.

“I have to ask myself,” he said, “is this one of your games? You love games, Albert.”

“This is no game. You tell me where my daughter is or—”

“Or you let go of that rope and we’ll be blown to bits? Is that it? And if I tell you, you’re just going to let me go? Is that what happens? I tell you, and you wind that rope back up and we sail back to shore and then everything is fine and ginger-peachy?”

“We sail back. You get to live.”

“Where?” George Marsh put out his hands and shrugged. “In jail? You know what they would do to me in jail, Albert? A cop who kidnapped a kid? Your kid? I’d be beaten every day until I was made of pulp—probably by the other cops. If I even made it that far. There is no future for me on the shore.”

“If you tell me where Alice is, we could come to an understanding. I don’t care what happens to you if I get my daughter.”

“We’d have to come to one hell of an understanding. How would it work? You’d let me go free, promise me some money, maybe, and then I’d give you her location. No.” Marsh shook his head. “You could never risk it. You can’t let me go. As long as I know what happened to Alice, you need to keep control of me. And if you kill me, then you’ll never know.”

He leaned forward enough to slip out of his jacket. Albert Ellingham watched him, speechless, his face mottled in rage.

“To tell you the truth,” Marsh said, standing now, and rolling his sleeves, “I’m amazed it took you this long. I guess I’ve been waiting for the day when it all dropped, and the day is here. You’re right. It does feel better to tell you. I’m tired of it. And you must be too—all your dirty little secrets. I bet Mackenzie doesn’t even know them all. You, with your newspapers—all those payments you made, the stories you buried, the politicians you kept on a leash. The great Albert Ellingham . . .”

“I did no such—”

“And Alice. I know about Alice too. Is she the biggest secret of all?”

Marsh stood and finished pulling off his jacket, which he sat on the seat behind him. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a lighter.