Carla Neggers - Night’s Landing

“Talk to the president,” Conroy said weakly, passionately. “He’ll do anything for you. You know he will. No one can undo a presidential pardon. He has the sole right. It’s in the Constitution. He knows.”

“There’s a procedure.”

“He doesn’t have to follow it. Presidents pardon hundreds of people.”

“Conroy-John Wesley, there’s no way he’d pardon Nicholas Janssen just because I ask him.”

“Yes. He will. I know he will. So do you.”

She stood upright, the top of her head grazing the dirt and limestone ceiling of the cave. She couldn’t breathe. “You were there that day. With the snake. You saw.”

“Everything. You saved him, Sarah. You saved his life. He didn’t save you.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple. What happened that day isn’t what people believe happened.” Some of the friendly charm had returned to his voice, but he toppled back slightly, dizzy, undoubtedly, from the snakebite. He managed to keep his gun pointed at her. “Tell him about me. Tell him he has a brother. Once news of the pardon gets out, the press will be all over it. They’ll find out about me. I’ll be long gone, living in luxury, but the world will know who I am.”

Sarah forced herself not to let her thoughts leap ahead. “I’ll do as you ask. Just don’t harm Juliet or my parents.”

He seemed relieved. “All right, then. Go. Call the president. You have one hour.”

“What? Conroy-John Wesley, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to reach him in an hour!”

“An hour. If my man in Amsterdam doesn’t hear from me, he kills your parents and disappears.”

“You’re asking the impossible!”

“I’ll contact you. I’ll know when it’s done.” He smiled at her, as if she were a student he believed in who was having a crisis of confidence. “Trust me. President Poe will grant the pardon if you ask him. Don’t delay. Deputy Longstreet won’t last more than an hour where she is.”

Without warning, he bolted, disappearing around the far edge of the cave. He was agile, fit, and he knew the land.

Sarah crept gingerly out of the cave. She couldn’t hear him moving through the woods. A squirrel chattered at her from the branch of a cedar tree.

She had to find Nate, Ethan, get the police here, sort out what of Conroy’s story and demands was real, what was bluff-what was pure fantasy. She made her way through the woods toward the river and the path that led between her family home and the Poe house. Conroy-John Wesley-hadn’t shot her. He hadn’t beaten her up. Physically, she was fine.

You can do this.

She didn’t dare call out and risk Conroy hearing her, deciding she wasn’t cooperating. How could he have her parents? He was a loner-that was what had so worried Leola and Violet, the idea of a teenage boy out here living on his own, alone. Who could he have working for him in Amsterdam? Was he bluffing about having her parents?

Sarah stumbled on an exposed tree root but managed to keep her footing.

The snakebite would kill Conroy. She wasn’t sure if he had an hour. He had to get medical attention.

She pushed back the thoughts and kept moving toward the river, finally reaching the main path. She felt a burst of relief and started to run.

But she heard something and stopped, listening.

A mockingbird. More squirrels.

And something else. A muffled cry-or her imagination, turning the normal sounds of the woods into a human cry.

She was at the junction of the main trail that ran along the top of the bluff and a steep, narrow path, barely a foot wide, that curved down to a cave worn into the limestone above the river.

It had to be where Conroy had stashed Juliet.

Without hesitation, Sarah veered off onto the narrow path. One wrong move, and she’d be in the river. It was a vertical drop into the water, no real riverbank here. The path deteriorated into a foot-wide limestone ledge that led horizontally across the bluff to the cave, the same ledge where she’d come across Wes Poe that day with the snake.

The main path was twenty feet above her, the river twenty feet below her. If she fell, she didn’t know if she’d fare as well as Ethan had.

As she reached the mouth of the cave she heard the muffled yell again. The cave was only about four feet high and twelve feet wide, a dark, dank, claustrophobic slit in the limestone bluff. She and Rob used to like to sit on the edge and throw stones into the river, catch the occasional snake off guard and release it unharmed. But caves weren’t her favorite places.

With a quick intake of breath, she ducked and hurled herself inside.

Juliet Longstreet lay flat on the dirt and rock, in the shadows, her mouth gagged, her hands and feet bound.

Sarah scooted toward her. “You don’t have a bomb or something tied to you that’ll go off if I untie you?”

Juliet shook her head.

The bastard had used one of Ethan’s bandanna’s to gag her, so tightly the fabric cut into the sides of her mouth. Sarah carefully eased the gag down to her chin, until it hung loosely around Juliet’s neck. “Fucking snakes,” she spat. “Goddamn. There were two in here the size of Godzilla. I hate snakes. That bastard’s been bit. I hope it was a poisonous snake.”

“It was. I saw the bite. Are you okay? Were you bit?”

“I’m fine. Get these damn ropes off me, okay? Where’s Nate? He send you in here alone? What the hell’s the matter with him-”

“He’s with Ethan Brooker.”

“The gardener,” Juliet said sarcastically.

Sarah worked on the tight knots that bound Juliet’s wrists behind her. “Conroy thinks he’s the president’s brother. He used to live out here-he must have been a teenager at the time.”

“What, you two sit and chat awhile?”

The knots loosened slightly, but Sarah realized she wasn’t going to get them undone. She pulled and pushed on the rope, stretching it, noticing the marks on Juliet’s wrists that indicated she’d done the same. “He says he has my parents. He said you wouldn’t last here another hour-”

“I wouldn’t if another freaking snake slithered in here. Look, don’t be gentle, okay? Just get the fucking rope off me so I can go after this bastard.”

Using all her strength, Sarah clawed at the rope, felt it and her fingers digging into Juliet’s skin, but, finally, managed to get it below her thumb joints.

Juliet shook the last of the rope off and tackled the one on her feet. She was deathly pale, her lip swollen and bloody, her entire body shaking from pain and exertion. “What does this son of a bitch want?”

Sarah stemmed her rising sense of panic. “He wants me to get Nicholas Janssen a presidential pardon. He thinks Janssen will pay him five million dollars and the world will find out that he’s really the president’s brother.”

“Jesus Christ. The bite’ll slow him down.” Juliet freed her feet and gave a small, involuntary moan, then took a breath and turned to Sarah. “I’ll get him. I thought he was going to throw me in the river after he tied me up. I swear, I’d just as soon he did as be in here with the snakes.”

“Cottonmouths don’t nest the way you see in movies. When they’re born, they scatter. They’re very solitary.”

“Yeah.” She grinned feebly. “A solitary snake is plenty for me. Look, Fontaine let you go, right? He thinks you’re doing his bidding. You’re safe out there. So you go on, get to Nate, and fill him in. Otherwise, I’d have to stay and protect you, and I think we’ll all be better off if I go find this bastard.”

Sarah shook her head. “Juliet, listen to me. You’re in no condition-”

She crawled toward the mouth of the cave. “I’m never living this down. The guys at my apartment, this Brooker character, tied up and left to die in a goddamn cave.” She stuck her head out of the cave, into the sunlight, then rolled back. “Crap.”