Maybe Jack could go home when this was over. Maybe he could cook dinner for his family and help Gavin with his homework.
Jack considered what to do next. He didn’t consider himself a violent person. He wouldn’t have known what to do if anything violent happened in front of him, let alone to him. The best way of getting through to this guy, Ricki guessed, was via money. Maybe due to the circumstances of his past, Jack had secured thousands of dollars in cash and hidden it in odd places around his house—places he felt sure that Addison would never find. That morning, while Addison was showering, he’d gathered all that money and now had it lining his shirt, pants, and wallet. He hoped he didn’t need all of it.
Jack closed the hood of his car and strode to the front door. He couldn’t breathe. He wondered if these were his final moments on earth, if he was walking into a situation from which he wouldn’t be able to escape. But he couldn’t live like this anymore. He rapped his knuckles on the door and told himself to stop gasping for breath. When Ricki opened the door, he snapped his head from left to right, searching for people who might be Jack’s backups.
“Hello?” Ricki said when he didn’t sense a threat.
In response, Jack showed him the notecard that the server had given him. “Why did you have her write this and give it to me?”
Ricki snarled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Annoyance filled Jack’s chest. “You know what this is. Tell me what this is! I can make it worth your while. More than what you gave the server. More than your rent for the month.”
This caught Ricki’s attention.
He ushered Jack into the house, which smelled of coffee and warm tortillas. Jack wondered if he’d get the chance to eat anything the rest of the day or if he’d be chasing his uncle around till night. Ricki slid his hands through his hair and demanded, “How much?”
Jack realized that he had to show some of the cash first. He removed three hundred from his wallet, but he didn’t hand it over yet. “Is anyone else here?” Jack asked.
“Who else would be here?” Ricki demanded.
“An Italian guy,” Jack shot back. “Older. Have you dealt with him?”
“I don’t know any Italian guy,” Ricki said.
Jack’s stomach tightened. “I’m only going to give you this money if you tell the truth.”
“I have no reason to lie to you,” Ricki said, raising his right hand toward the sky.
“Who put you up to the notecard thing?” Jack asked. He wanted to scream, but he knew that wouldn’t put him in good standing with this stranger, especially not in his house.
Ricki turned back toward the counter to pour himself a coffee, as though acting too busy for Jack would illustrate how little he cared about this. “Everything I do, I do for myself,” Ricki said.
Jack closed his eyes. “I get that. I do.”
Ricki turned back around, holding a mug of coffee between his hands.
“Whoever put you up to this,” Jack began, speaking delicately, “can you ask them about their connection to an older Italian man? I need to speak to the Italian man. My Tio.” He snapped his finger against the word “Tio” on the notecard.
Ricki let all the air spill from his lungs. For the first time, Jack considered the idea that maybe his Tio Angelo wasn’t on the island at all. He remembered his father had told him thatTio Angelo had come to threaten Benjamin to his face. After that, Benjamin had learned of “Seth’s” whereabouts via a young woman’s testimony, after he’d paid her to go into the bar and talk to Tio Angelo. But had Benjamin ever actually seen Tio Angelo get on the plane? Was it possible that Tio Angelo had laid a trap for both Benjamin and Jack, and they’d both walked directly into it?
Jack’s heart hammered. Suddenly exhausted, he collapsed on Ricki’s couch, his knees clonking together. He still had the three hundred dollars in his hand. Ricki looked at him as though he’d never seen anyone more pathetic.
“Listen, man,” Ricki said, reaching for the cash and ripping it out of Jack’s grip. “My cousin called me to set the notecard thing up. He told me to go to the diner down the road from my place. It’s a diner where I’m a regular, by the way. A diner where I know all the employees. I took my cousin there when he visited six months ago. So he knew the lay of the land. He knew how quickly I could get there. He told me exactly what to write on the notecard. Listen, man. It means that someone knew exactly where you were and when you were there. That’s something you should consider here. I’m just a pawn in their game.”
Jack’s stomach thrashed and bubbled. For the hundredth time today, he thought he was going to throw up. He couldn’t live like this.
“I want to talk to your cousin,” Jack said.
Ricki folded his arms over his chest and raised his chin. “Family is very important to me.”
“It’s important to me, too,” Jack said. “It’s why I have to find my uncle.”
Ricki snorted. “Your uncle wants to threaten you. That’s what the note sounded like to me.”
“It’s a long, long story,” Jack said, hanging his head.
“All families have long stories,” Ricki pointed out. “All families have drama and chaos. Mine included. It’s why I don’t feel good about giving out my cousin’s phone number.”