The Evil That Men Do by Steve Rollins Page B

soothing hands of her sister, she couldn’t tell which one, on her cheek, stroking it gently, fussing at her, checking her wounds. Ricki cried tears of relief, happiness, emotions too complex for her to grasp all at once. She had to warn her sisters, and spat out the fourth mouthful of water she had been delicately fed onto the floor. She could see her surroundings now; she was in a tool shed of some kind. Where it was, she didn’t know.
    “Roberta, Riley, it’s Joe Cavanaugh! It’s him, It’s Cavanaugh’s son! He wants you to get the Rock for him!”
    When Riley replied, Ricki could hear her voice, although the tinnitus was still present, an annoying whine above the frequency of a mosquito’s wing.
    “We know, Ricki, hold on. We’re going to get you out of here.”
    “Turns out Joe Cavanaugh has been busy, we managed to follow the trail of death back here. You’re in the shed round the back of old Joseph’s house,” Roberta said.
    “How?” Ricki said.
    Despite the danger of Joe coming back, she had to know.
    “Hold still Ricki, I’m trying to get your legs free, but these knots are tight, and it’s heavy rope.” Riley’s voice came from beneath her. “Bobby, pass me a knife or a saw or something.” There was a rummaging and clanging of metal on metal, and in a moment Ricki felt Riley begin sawing through the rope. Roberta took up the story.
    “Turns out that Madeline Frome wanted to defraud the insurance company to keep up with the neighbors, and hid the Rock of Rhodesia in her yard, but someone found it. Anyway, way before that happened, we think Joe Cavanaugh was forcing his father to try and marry into Mrs. Frome’s wealth, but she never had any—not in the last ten years at least. Why, we don’t know yet. We found the box the Rock had been in while sort of following the instructions on the note we received telling us you had been captured. The box was empty, and Frome thought it might have been her gardener, but when he turned up dead, we figured there was only one lead left. We knew Cavanaugh was dead, and we guessed that if he didn’t die of natural causes…”
    “That I killed him for being a useless old bastard.”
    It was the soft voice of Joe Cavanaugh, the younger. Ricki stood up, and Riley fell backwards onto her butt, having sliced through the last threads restraining her elder sister. Roberta whirled, eyes wide. Ricki could see that Roberta had placed her shotgun on a work bench while she had looked for something for Riley to cut her bonds. It was halfway between Joe at the door and the Vaughan sisters, deep in the shed, crowded together where they would be easy pickings for a couple of blasts from their father’s old weapon. Ricki’s eyes were still adjusting to the light, but it didn’t look like Joe had seen the weapon either. He was however hefting a large and sharp looking garden fork.
    “You murderer!” shouted Riley. “You killed Marcos Rubera too!”
    “Yes, that was unfortunate,” said Joe. “You see, I got a tip off from a friend that you had involved the police, against your instructions. That forced me to tie up some loose ends. Rubera had been fired by Madeline, so he was easy to convince to go and steal from her for a cut of the profits—a tiny cut, of course. He knew the grounds of her house better than anyone, so he immediately saw that something had been disturbed. I thought at first he had stolen the necklace for himself, but I believed his story that the box was empty. In the end.”
    Joe eyed the Vaughan sisters meaningfully. Ricki wondered if there was any way to distract Joe long enough for Roberta to grab her gun, but Roberta was directly in front of her, closest to the wicked prongs of his fork, more than a foot of steel on a long wooden handle.
    “Well, you still don’t have the Rock of Rhodesia. We don’t have it either. Looks like your plan failed, Joe.”
    Ricki tried to sound more confident than she was, but the pain of her cracked tooth and