The Ransom Page 7

  She reached under the passenger-side fender. She and Steph had used David’s car to go shopping the previous month when Steph’s car was in the shop. Steph had left the keys in the ignition and locked them out of the car. She’d called David, almost in tears. David had patiently explained that it wasn’t a problem because he’d hidden a key for such a mishap. It was taped inside a fender. Nicole had been meaning to do the same with her own car but hadn’t gotten around to it.

  She drove David’s car into the garage and parked it in her spare parking space. She put the key back where she’d found it and got into her own car.

  She felt shaky and sick with worry about Steph, at a loss as to how she could get through the day pretending that nothing was wrong. Had she done the right thing calling the police? What if the kidnappers found out? What would they do to Steph? Nicole couldn’t shake the feeling she’d made a terrible mistake.

  Six

  Stephanie woke with a start. Sunshine was leaking through the small, high-placed windows that were her only source of light. Her watch said ten thirty. It was still morning.

  She pulled herself out of bed and, a little steadier on her feet, made her way to a closed door she hadn’t seen earlier. She opened it and flipped on the light. A single bare bulb emitted just enough light so she could see spider webs in the corners. Careful not to touch them, she used the toilet. There was no soap, hot water, or towel. She rinsed her hands, splashed some cold water on her face, and wiped her hands on her nightgown. The water and cold cement floor made her shiver so much her teeth began to chatter.

  She pulled the blanket from the bed and, using it for a wrap, headed for the stairs leading up to the closed door. The staircase was rickety, and quite a few steps were so weak that they buckled slightly when she put her weight on them. She went up slowly, one step at a time, gripping the handrail. At the top, she saw that an uneven, square slot had been cut in the door. It was covered by what looked like a crudely made flap on the other side. Beneath the opening, a piece of wood, held up by brackets, formed a slightly crooked shelf.

  She tried the door. Finding it locked, she started beating on it, screaming, “Help!” and “Let me out of here.” There was no response. She stopped pounding when she noticed a light switch on the wall next to the door. She flipped it, but nothing happened. Looking around, she spotted a single light bulb, dusty and burned out, suspended from the ceiling on a long cord. She turned her attention to the flap that covered the opening in the door, pushing on it. Nothing happened. It seemed to be locked from the other side.

  She resumed pounding on the door. “Hey!” she yelled. “I’m cold and hungry.” She banged and shouted until her voice was hoarse, but the place was silent. At one point, the floorboards overhead creaked, raising her hopes. When the sound stopped, she decided it was probably just the house settling as the day warmed up. Exhausted by her efforts and sick with fear, she started back downstairs. She was halfway down when a noise behind her made her look up. The slot in the door opened, and something slid onto the shelf from the other side.

  She hurried back up to find a tray holding a mug, a bowl with a spoon in it, and a folded sheet of paper. The tray was brown plastic and looked as if it had been stolen from a cafeteria. She started to pick it up, then reconsidered. With the tray in her hands, she wouldn’t be able to see where to put her feet as she descended the stairs. A fall onto the cement could be the end of her. Instead, she tucked the note under her arm, picked up the cup, and climbed down.

  She sat on the bottom step and took a sip from the cup. It was coffee, floating with loose grounds. Someone had made it camp-style, boiling coffee grounds in a saucepan. Although it was bitter, it was nice and hot. She sipped it greedily, holding the cup with both hands to warm them. She drank it all before setting the mug down. Only then did she pull out the note to read it. She had to hold it up to catch the light. The message was written in block letters on lined paper that appeared to have been torn from a notebook. It said, “You can stop yelling. Nobody can hear you. Just stay put and don’t try to escape. All we want is the money. Don’t make us hurt you.”

  The mention of money puzzled her only for a moment. She didn’t have more than a couple of hundred dollars in her account, but Nicole did. A lot of it. These people had kidnapped her to get at Nicole’s bequest. At first, the idea was hard to process. She’d read about three recent kidnappings. One victim had been released, but the other two had not. Were the same people who’d taken her responsible for the other kidnappings? She had no doubt Nicole would part with the money to buy her freedom. At the same time, she wondered if her captors would let her go once the money was paid.

  Her nose was running from the cold, and her immediate discomfort took over her thoughts. She was freezing, and she wanted more coffee, a hot meal, some blankets, and a coat or jacket to wear over her thin nightgown. She had to figure out a way to communicate with her captors, who seemed determined not to interact with her. If she had a pen, she could write her requests on the back of this note and slip it under the door. But no such luck.

  Now, in the dim light that reached her, she saw that the basement didn’t have four solid walls. On one side was a crude partition of wood slats. She went over to peer between them. What she saw was the dark crawl space under the house. This was the source of the moldy smell. Some distance away, an open vent of some kind admitted a small amount of light. It occurred to her that she could crawl over to the vent and see if it was big enough to squeeze through. But the smell told her it was damp under there. She couldn’t imagine herself worming her way through damp soil that might be riddled with spider webs and rats’ nests.

  Instead, she braved the stairs again and resumed banging on the door. “It’s freezing down here. I need more blankets, hot food, something warm to wear, and another mug of coffee,” she yelled. Then, even louder, “Please!”

  There was no answer. As she was standing there, she heard a door slam and the sound of a car start up and drive away. Were they leaving her alone here? She beat on the door again, screaming, “Don’t leave me like this!” But the house was silent.

  With a sense of defeat, she took the bowl from the shelf and carried it back downstairs. The bowl contained some kind of cold, sugar-coated cereal—frosted flakes, as it turned out—soggily floating in milk. Despite the cereal’s lack of appeal, she ate every bit of it. When she finished, she felt a little better. She sat awhile, trying to calm herself so she could figure out what to do. If she were Nicole, she thought, she’d already have picked the lock and escaped.

  All at once, she felt irresistibly sleepy and all thought of escape evaporated. She lay down on the bed, wrapped herself in the blanket, and—still cold—went back to sleep.

  Seven

  As soon as Nicole pulled out of her garage, she pushed the button on her steering wheel to activate her phone and called her office. Joanne, Nicole’s closest friend at work, answered.

  “My car won’t start,” Nicole lied, “I’m waiting for the auto club. They’re really busy right now, so I might not make it in for a while.”

  “I’ll spread the word you’ll be in late,” Joanne said. Her voice was muffled, as if she had her mouth full. “Anything urgent on your desk?”

  “Nothing,” Nicole said. “Whatever it is you’re eating sounds good.” She could picture Joanne, plump and always talking about whatever new diet she was on, making the morning’s exception with a cookie, leftover birthday cake, or some other treat from the break room.

  There was a pause while Joanne made chewing noises. “No. It’s horrible. Some gluten-free protein bar Jerry’s been raving about. He brought in a box and left it in the break room like a carton of doughnuts. But it’s, like, the worst.” There was a pause before she continued. “There, I spit it out. When you get here, steer clear of Jerry’s High Octane Bars. See you!”

  Her call to the office out of the way, Nicole set out on her errands. She stopped at a tiny convenience store for a burner phone and, once bac
k in the car, used it to call Arnault. He didn’t pick up, so she left a message with her new phone number.

  Her next stop was the bank on the first floor of her office building. She filled out a withdrawal slip for two thousand dollars and got in line to wait for a teller. That was when she noticed Kevin James motioning her over to his desk.

  When she shook her head and pointed to the row of tellers, he got up and came over. “You don’t need to wait, Nicole,” he said. “I’ll be happy to help you.”

  Just then, Nicole felt a hand on her shoulder. It was the bank’s manager, James Blagg. She’d been on Blagg’s radar ever since she first opened an account. He’d recognized her from the previous year’s headlines and seemed to regard her as some kind of celebrity.

  Reluctantly, she followed Blagg into his office. The special treatment he lavished on her took a lot more time than waiting for a teller. In Nicole’s opinion, Blagg was a little off. He dressed in the traditional bank manager’s uniform, a navy suit of undistinguished tailoring, a striped tie, and a light blue shirt. But the outfit clashed with the way he wore his dark hair sticking up in spikes, a do that could only be accomplished with a liberal application of styling gel and time spent primping before a mirror. Worse yet were his large, brown-leather, plug-style earrings, which fit in with the hair, but not the suit. She wondered how recently upper management had gotten a look at him.

  “Have a seat, Nicole,” he said. “How can I help you today?”

  “I need to make a withdrawal,” she said, handing him the withdrawal slip. “I’d like it all in twenty-dollar bills.”

  He studied the slip a moment and flashed her a smile. “Feeling generous today, eh?”

  She looked at him in consternation.

  “It was a jest,” he said. “Now that you’ve come into some wealth, I was suggesting you might feel magnanimous enough to give a handout to some of our homeless.” He tilted his head at her, smiling, waiting for her to get the joke.

  Nicole failed to return his smile, and he blustered. “None of my business, of course. Wait here. I’ll get the funds you requested.”

  When he was gone, Nicole looked around his office, wondering if anything new had been added since her last visit, when she signed the final papers for her mortgage. There were still no family photos or clues to any hobbies. Instead, a couple of generic landscape paintings graced the walls. His sole personal touch was a framed certificate that occupied a small easel on his desk. It said he was a member of Mensa, the society whose only requirement was an IQ score in the 98th percentile or higher. She had noticed Blagg never used a short word when a long one would do. She glanced at the certificate and wondered, once again, why anyone would need to broadcast this information to others.

  As Nicole waited, she grew impatient. She was late for the office and itched with the impulse to get up and leave. But, no, she had to pick up this money. She sighed and sat back in her chair.

  Finally, Blagg returned with a stack of bills. He counted them into piles and tapped each pile on the desktop to even up the edges before combining them into a single stack. Then he went about tapping the edges again. Finally, he fastened the stack with a rubber band and handed it to her.

  “Thanks,” Nicole said, getting up to leave.

  Blagg gave her big smile. “Have a great day, Nicole. I mean it.”

  “Same to you, James,” On her way out of the bank, she retrieved a deposit envelope from the supply station. Realizing that all of the bills wouldn’t fit into a single envelope, she pulled out another. She divided the money in half, stuffed it in the envelopes, and shoved them into her purse. She was glad she’d thought to bring along her largest handbag. Aside from the envelopes of money, her wallet, and sunglasses, the bag contained a small cannister of pepper spray, her keys, cell phone, and the new burner phone. At the bottom was her gun, a small Smith and Wesson revolver. She couldn’t decide which she hated most, the gun or target practice. Even so, she’d felt compelled to carry a weapon after a couple of brushes with violence. And practice was an absolute necessity. If she was to carry a gun, she had to know how to use it.

  By the time Nicole arrived at the office it was twelve thirty, and the place was deserted; everyone had gone to lunch. She closed her office door, took the money out of her purse, and locked both in the full-length cupboard where she kept her coat and personal property.

  She sat down and stared at her computer screen for a while, unable to focus on work. Her mind kept slipping back to Stephanie and what she might be going through. Nicole refused to consider the idea that Steph might already be dead. It was bad enough that her sister was a kidnap victim, who might be tied up in the trunk of a car or in an abandoned basement or a warehouse somewhere, terrified about what might happen next.

  Would the kidnappers hurt her? Rape her? Kill her? Nicole’s thoughts went back to the first time she held the newborn they were to call Stephanie. At the age of seven, Nicole had been thrilled at the thought of a little sister, even when people reminded her that she wouldn’t be the baby anymore. She remembered Steph as a toddler who followed her around and called her “Nini.” The grown-up Stephanie was now five-foot-eleven and towered over Nicole. Even so, Nicole had never gotten past the idea that it was her job to watch out for Steph and protect her. Now, look what had happened. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Would she ever see her sister again?

  Nicole went into the bathroom, dried her tears, and splashed cold water on her face. Once she returned to her desk, she forced herself to take another look at the little information she’d gathered so far.

  Rexton said that Ashley claimed she was born in the Philippines, the daughter of a United States serviceman. Nicole went to the website where government records were stored. After a bit of searching, she found a registry of births to service members stationed abroad between 1950 and 2012.

  Ashley’s records said she was twenty-eight, and Robert Rexton had said that before marrying into the Rexton family, her name had been Ashley Rose Knowles.

  Nicole skipped down to the Ks, and bingo, there she was: Ashley Rose Knowles born to Sgt. First Class Alphonse Knowles and Alicia Beckman Knowles, August 28, 1991. Manila, PHL.”

  The record carried a link. She clicked on it and found herself looking at an image of the actual birth certificate. She took a screen shot and printed it out. This proved nothing, of course, but Nicole felt she was getting somewhere. She now had the names of Ashley’s parents. How many Alphonse Knowles could there be? He should be easy to track down. If he was still living, maybe he’d be willing to tell her something about Ashley. Even if he wouldn’t answer questions, he and Ashley’s mother deserved to hear what had happened to their daughter.

  Before she had a chance to follow up, her phone rang. It was the guard downstairs asking permission to admit a Greg Arnault. Nicole gave the go-ahead. A few minutes later, Joanne, who’d just returned from lunch, showed up at her door with Arnault in tow.

  “Greg here was looking for your office,” From Joanne’s smile and pink cheeks, it was clear she found the detective attractive.

  In fact, Arnault had cleaned up surprisingly well. He’d recently shaved, and his hair was neatly combed. He was dressed in khakis and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up, like the techies who showed up when an office computer went haywire. What he didn’t look like was a police detective.

  “Hey!” His voice was flirtatious. Nicole had to admit that she liked this version of Arnault a lot better than the one she’d met before.

  “Hey,” she said, ushering him into her office. Joanne was still standing there, eyebrows raised. Nicole flushed as she closed the door on Joanne and her curiosity.

  Arnault was carrying a black computer bag with a shoulder strap. He gave her a long, unreadable look before saying, “Let’s get to work.” Without asking permission, he scooped the papers on her desk into a single, disorderly pile, shoving it aside. She was annoyed, thinking about the time it would take to get the papers ba
ck in order.

  Arnault set his bag down and pulled out stacks of newsprint cut in the same size as paper bills. “I’ll need the money you withdrew to make bundles of twenties.”

  “Here, I’ll get it for you.” She unlocked her cupboard and pulled out the envelopes from the bank. She watched while he made stacks of the fake bills with a handful of real twenties at either end. Next, he bundled each stack with an official-looking magenta band marked $2,000.00. He did this deftly, like an experienced player shuffling a deck of cards. When he was done, he had ten bundles of bills. He put them into the computer bag he’d brought and handed it to her.

  “This is ready for the drop,” he said. “Since you have no other way to communicate with these people, I want you to put a note in the bag. Tell them you need proof of life before you hand over any more. Ask for a photo of your sister holding up the current day’s newspaper.”

  He studied Nicole’s face a moment, then added, “Don’t let this add to your worries. It’s just protocol. We have every reason to believe Stephanie is alive, and we’ll bring her home safe. I also want to assure you we’ll be looking out for you when you deliver the money. We’ll follow you from the time you leave home—discreetly, of course. More officers will be staked out at the park.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “I know how hard this is. How are you holding up?”

  She felt tears welling up. “No sympathy, please, or I’ll turn into a puddle.”

  “That’s completely understandable. Go home and try not to worry too much. We’ll wait for the kidnappers to show so we can follow them. If they don’t go directly to where they’re holding your sister, we’ll wait until they do. When you go to bed, keep the burner phone nearby. But don’t expect to hear from me until morning.”