Ransom River by Meg Gardiner Page B

funky old homes. The neighborhood was guarded by orange trees and weighty pines, and butted up against the dry foothills at the northern edge of the city. Beyond the back wall, empty fields of yellowed grass led to lemon and avocado orchards. Rows of trees curved neatly over hillsides, vivid green. Beyond, the mountains rose, rocky and blue, outlined crisply against the sky.
    Rory said, “Remember my worst-case-scenario game?”
    As a teenager, she used to panic at the thought of things going wrong. At the starting line before a race, she would nearly freak out.
What if I lose?
Doom,
she thought. Shame. Expulsion from school. Poverty. Economic collapse, bread riots, flying monkeys attacking from the sky. Until, one day, about to vomit with nerves, she thought,
What’s
really
the worst that could happen?
Would she be dragged to the center of the football field and burned at the stake? No. She’d have to look at some other runner’s ass accelerating away from her. Big deal.
    Since then, when faced with a challenging situation, she always asked,
Worst-case scenario?
And generally, the worst was not apocalyptic. Not slavery, prostitution, tattoos, or a job at the drive-through window at Arby’s. Yet.
    Of course, some scenarios had turned out worse than she’d thought possible. Briefly she heard a shriek of metal and had a vision of sudden endings—of plans, love, possibilities. She forced it away.
    “When I got called to jury duty, I asked myself, what’s the worst that can happen? And I thought, I’ll have to decide the fate of two people charged with murder and bear the weight of that decision. I miscalculated.”
    “No reason ‘taken hostage’ should have come up on your worst-case dartboard,” Petra said.
    “That’s not the worst case.” She turned. “The cops think I was working with the gunmen.”
    Petra lowered her mug. “Girl, what the fuck?”
    “They have video of the siege. And…” Her head pounded. “The gunmenchose people to go with them. Me. I thought it was random, but apparently not.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “That’s the problem. I don’t know. And I’m scared.”
    “The cops are scaring all the hostages, I’ll bet. Rory, it’s a dirty trick.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “They’re hard-case cops. They think the gunmen were working with an inside man, so they try to frighten the shit out of all the hostages by accusing them of complicity.”
    Hard-case cops.
Memory flickered again. Seth Colder, Mr. Once-upon-a-Hard-Case himself.
    Petra said, “The cops probably have no clue what happened, so they accuse everybody to see if anyone freaks and confesses. It’s a dirty, low-down trick. Christ, Aurora. Do you really think you’re so special?”
    Rory had to laugh. “Maybe not.”
    But she recalled the grainy courtroom video. Reagan, stepping across prone bodies, aiming straight at her.
    She said, “Last night I put in a call to one of my old law profs. David Goldstein—he was my advisor at UCLA. I left a message telling him I need a referral to an attorney.”
    “You’re an attorney.”
    “But not a fool. I need a criminal lawyer.”
    For a second she felt leaden. How could she afford to hire somebody competent, who might want several thousand bucks up front as a retainer? Sell her car? How much could she even get for a beat-up Subaru?
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
She didn’t want to admit that she’d been knocked down again. More like bitch-slapped into a wall.
    Petra crossed to her side. “It’s going to be okay.” She put a hand on her back. “Come on. Get coffee. The messages are on the machine. Including one from your aunt.”
    “What?”
    “Your aunt Amber called. Worried, wants to know all about it.”
    Rory’s mouth slowly fell open. “Every time I think I’ve considered the worst case, the world creates a scenario beyond my imagination.”

    Downstairs in the kitchen, Rory listened to the messages on the machine. Friends had called, and high