Ransom Read online

  “Did you bring us more pictures?” Sam asked with interest, as Ted smiled at him.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Who is it this time?” Sam was acting like the official deputy Ted had made him the last time. He tried to sound blasé about it, as his mother smiled. There wasn't much to smile at right now. Ted had called and told her about Morgan. Apparently, he'd been outside for weeks, and she'd never seen him once. It didn't say much for her powers of observation, and she was worried. Ted had told her that there would be four men at her house shortly after midnight. Two SFPD and two FBI. Sam was very excited about it, and wanted to know from Ted if they'd be wearing guns. Sam had asked his mother earlier, but wanted confirmation from him.

  “Yes, they will,” Ted responded, as he took the mug shot out of the manila envelope he had brought with him, and handed it to Will. “Is this the man you saw in the car across the street?”

  Will looked at it for less than a minute, nodded, and handed it back to Ted. “Yes, it is.” He looked slightly sheepish. It had never occurred to him to tell his mother that he had seen a man in a car who had smiled at him. He just thought it was a random coincidence that he had seen him twice. He looked like a nice guy. And something like his dad.

  Ted circulated the mug shot around the table. Neither Ashley nor Sam recognized him, but when the photograph reached Fernanda, she sat and stared at it for a long time. She knew she had seen him somewhere, but couldn't remember where. And then suddenly, she remembered him. It had either been at the supermarket, or the bookshop. She remembered dropping something and his picking it up, and just as Will had said, it had struck her at the time that he looked like Allan. She explained the circumstances to Ted.

  “Do you remember when that was?” he asked calmly, and she said that it had been sometime in the past few weeks, but she wasn't sure when, which confirmed that he had been watching them for a while. “He's out there now,” he explained quietly to the kids, and Ashley gasped. “And we're not going to do anything about it. We want to see who comes to talk to him, if anyone, who spells him off, and what they're up to. When you go outside, I don't want you to look for him, or notice him, or acknowledge him. We don't want to scare him off. Just act like you don't know anything about it,” Ted said calmly.

  “Was he out there just now?” Ashley asked, and Ted nodded. He knew the car now, from Detective Jamison's description, and where it was. But he hadn't even appeared to notice it. Ted was driving his own car, and chatted and smiled with the young cop he'd brought with him, trying to propagate the myth that he was a friend bringing his son over to visit. They actually looked convincing. The young policeman looked the same age as her older children and in fact, wasn't too much older.

  “Do you think he knows you're a cop?” Will asked him.

  “I hope not. But you never know. He might. I'm hoping he just thinks I'm a friend of your mom's for now.” But there was no question, when they put four men on the detail, it was going to attract attention and would inevitably warn Morgan and his cohorts of something. It would be a double-edged sword once that happened. The police lost the advantage of anonymity, but it also warned the kidnappers to proceed with caution, or it could scare them off completely, although Ted considered that unlikely. They had no other choice. Fernanda and her family needed protection. And if it scared the man off for good, that was all right too. But above all, she needed a police presence there to protect her and her children. Some of the cops on the detail were probably going to be women, which might create a distraction at first, and make it less obvious that cops were on the scene. But sooner or later, four adults arriving twice a day, going everywhere with Fernanda and the children, and staying there twenty-four hours a day was going to attract considerable attention, and more than likely alarm them. Ted knew there was nothing else they could do for the moment. The captain had also discussed putting what he called a 10B out front, which was an unmarked police car with a plainclothes policeman in it. But Ted didn't think they needed one, and having Peter Morgan and a cop staring at each other in parked cars seemed foolish, even to him. The local station was going to be making passing calls to keep an eye on them, and that would be helpful too, and enough for the moment.

  By the time they finished talking about it, the young officer Ted had brought with him was ready. He had put paper towels down, and set up his kits on them. His briefcase lay open, and two full fingerprinting kits were lying next to the sink. One had black ink, and the other red. Ted asked them all to step up to the sink. He asked Will to go first.

  “Why do you have to fingerprint us?” Sam asked with interest. He was just tall enough to see what Will and the detective were doing. It was a fine art, as he rolled Will's fingers expertly side to side across the pad, and then rolled them again on a chart, which showed each finger of his hands. He rolled them to make sure they were clear, and Will was surprised to discover that the ink didn't leave his fingers dirty. They did red ones first, and then black. Will understood why they were being fingerprinted, as did Ashley and Fernanda, but no one wanted to explain it to Sam. It was in case one of them got kidnapped, or killed, with the fingerprints, their bodies could be identified. It was not a cheering prospect.

  “The police just want to know who you are, Sam,” Ted said simply. “There are a lot of ways to do that. But this one works. Your fingerprints will stay the same for the rest of your life.” It was a piece of information he didn't need, but it helped. Ashley went next. Then her mother, and finally Sam was last. His fingerprints looked tiny on the cards.

  “Why are we doing red and black?” Sam inquired as the detective took his prints for a second time.

  “The black ones are for SFPD,” Ted explained, “the red ones are for the FBI. They like to be fancier than we are.” He smiled at him, as the others stood by and watched. They were huddled together as though they took strength in standing close to one another, and Fernanda was hovering over them like a mother hen.

  “Why does the FBI like red?” Fernanda asked.

  “Just to be different, I guess,” the detective doing them said. Other than that, there was no real reason. But fingerprints done in red always belonged to the FBI.

  As soon as he finished doing the fingerprints, he took out a small pair of scissors, and he turned to Sam with a cautious smile. “Can I snip a little piece of your hair, son?” he asked politely, as Sam looked at him wide-eyed.

  “Why?”

  “We can tell a lot of things from people's hair. It's called a DNA match.” This was a lesson none of them needed, but like the rest of it, they had no choice.

  “You mean like if I get kidnapped?” Sam looked frightened, and the man hesitated, as Fernanda stepped in.

  “They just want us to do it, Sam. I'm going to do it too.” She took the scissors from the man, snipped a tiny wisp of Sam's hair, then her own, and then her other children's. She made as little fuss about it as she could, and thought it seemed less ominous if she did it for them, rather than a stranger. Shortly after that, talking quietly amongst themselves, the children went upstairs. Sam wanted to stay with her, but Will took him by the hand and said he wanted to talk to him. He thought his mother wanted to talk to Ted about what was happening, and he assumed correctly that Sam would get scared. There was a lot happening to them. A lot had already occurred in a very short time. And Fernanda knew that after midnight, with four armed policemen in the house night and day, their lives would dramatically change.

  “We're going to need photographs of them,” Ted said quietly to Fernanda, after the others left the room. “And descriptions. Height, weight, distinguishing marks, everything you can give us. But the hair and fingerprints will help.”

  “Will all this really make a difference if they get kidnapped?” She hated even asking him that, but she needed to know. All she could think of now was what it would be like if they took one of her children. It was so frightening, she couldn't even hold the thought in her mind for long.

  “It could make a bi
g difference, especially with someone as young as Sam.” He didn't want to tell her that sometimes children that age got snatched, and only turned up ten years later, living other lives with other people, having been kept prisoner in another country or state, and fingerprints and hair would help the authorities identify him, whether dead or alive. In the case of Will or Ashley, the circumstances that would lead them to need hair or fingerprints would be far more dire. And in this case, with a ransom involved, these kids weren't going to disappear into other lives. They were going to be taken, held, and hopefully returned when the ransom was paid. All Ted could hope, if it happened, was that no one would get harmed, and the kidnappers would keep the kids alive. He was going to do everything he could to see that it didn't happen. But they had to be prepared for all contingencies, and the hair and fingerprints they'd taken were important for them to have. He told Fernanda to get him the rest of the information as soon as possible. And a little while later, they left.

  She sat alone in the kitchen with the empty pizza box after that, staring into space, wondering how all this had happened, and how soon it would be over. All she could hope now was that the men plotting against her, if they really were, would be caught. She still clung to her doubts, hoping that it was all someone's imagination, and not something that would really happen. The prospect of that was so terrifying that if she had let herself think about it, she would have gotten hysterical, and never let her children out of the house. She was doing everything she could to stay calm, and not frighten them excessively, given the circumstances. And she thought she was doing a good job of staying calm, until she put the empty pizza box in the fridge, poured orange juice in a cup of tea, and put the clean towels in the garbage.

  “Okay, calm down,” she said to herself out loud, “everything's going to be fine.” But as she put the towels away in the right place, she saw that her hands were shaking. It was all too terrifying to imagine, and she couldn't help but think of Allan and wish he were there. She wondered what he would have done about it all. She had the feeling that he would have handled it far more competently and coolly than she had.

  “You okay, Mom?” Will asked as he walked into the kitchen for some ice cream, just as she was leaving to come upstairs.

  “I guess,” she said honestly, looking tired. The day had left her feeling exhausted. “I don't love this.” She sat down in a chair at the table next to him, while he ate his ice cream.

  “You still want me to go to camp?” he asked, looking worried, and she nodded.

  “Yes, I do, sweetheart.” She wished Sam were going with him. She didn't want any of them to be waiting in the house with her, for bad things to happen. But Sam was too young, and she was going to keep him close to her. Ted had suggested that they go out as little as possible. He wasn't crazy about her being in a car, waiting to be ambushed. They had already discussed whether the officers would ride with her, or follow her. Ted preferred them in the car. Rick and the captain wanted her followed. It was the issue of being live bait again. And as a result, Ted suggested that if at all possible, she go nowhere.

  Fernanda called the family hosting Ashley at Tahoe that night, and explained the situation to them, in strictest confidence. They told her how sorry they were, and assured her that they'd keep a close eye on Ashley, and she thanked them. They said they understood about the rotation of sheriff's deputies that would be watching, and felt more comfortable knowing someone would be there to protect Ashley. Neither Ted nor Rick felt she would be pursued in Tahoe, but they both felt it was a good idea to be cautious. And Fernanda was relieved to know that she'd be safe there.

  Fernanda was lying on her bed that night, when the doorbell rang, and all four officers arrived together. Peter Morgan had gone home by then, and never saw them. He knew from her normal routines that she was in for the night by then. He usually left at nine-thirty or ten, and rarely later, except when she and the kids went to the movies. But that night, he had gone home early. She'd been at home all night, as had the kids, and he'd gone back to his hotel. He was almost sorry it was almost over. He liked knowing he was close to her and the children, and loved imagining what they were doing, as he glimpsed them from time to time at the windows.

  Fernanda thought of calling Jack Waterman that night, to tell him what was happening, but she was too tired, and it sounded too crazy. What was she going to tell him? That a bunch of bad guys had a file about them, and one of them had been sitting in a parked car for weeks, watching them? And then what? There was still no concrete evidence that anyone wanted to kidnap them, just endless suspicions. It all sounded insane, even to her. And there was nothing he could do anyway. She thought she should wait a few days to see what happened, before she called him. He had been through enough drama with her about the money. And she and Sam were seeing him that weekend anyway. He was taking them to Napa the day after Ashley left for Tahoe. There was plenty of time to tell Jack then, so she never called him.

  The officers who arrived at midnight were extremely polite, and after looking around the house, they decided to base themselves in the kitchen. There was coffee and food. She offered to make sandwiches for them, and they told her it wasn't necessary, but they thanked her for her kindness, and settled in.

  There were four men, two from the San Francisco Police Department, two from the FBI, as Ted told her there would be, and they sat down and engaged in friendly banter, as she made coffee for them. They knew the alarm was on, and she showed them how to work it. Two of them took their jackets off, and she saw their guns hanging in their shoulder holsters, and another on their belt. She suddenly felt as though she were involved in some sort of resistance movement, or underground, surrounded by guerrillas. Seeing their artillery made her feel at the same time vulnerable and protected. No matter how friendly they were, their very presence in the house seemed ominous. And just as she was about to go upstairs, the doorbell rang. Two of the police officers came out of the kitchen rapidly, and went to answer it. She was surprised to see Ted a moment later in the hallway.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked him, as she felt her heart beat faster in panic. Or maybe for once, it would be good news. She realized instantly that if it had been good news, he probably would have called her.

  “No, everything's fine. I just thought I'd stop by on the way home and see how things were going.” The men had gone back to the kitchen by then. She knew they were planning to be there till noon. The next shift after that would be there from noon to midnight. Which meant that the next day, her children would be having breakfast with men in holsters at their kitchen table. It reminded her of The Godfather, when they went to the mattresses. The only problem was that this was her life, and not a movie. And if it was a movie, it was a very bad one. “Are the boys behaving?” Ted asked as he looked at her. She looked so tired that just as a friendly gesture, he wished he could put his arms around her, but he didn't.

  “They've been very nice to me,” she said in a small voice, and he wondered if she'd been crying. She looked so tired and so frightened, although he had been impressed earlier by how calm she was in front of the children.

  “They're supposed to be nice to you.” He smiled at her. “I don't want to intrude. You must be exhausted. I just thought I'd check on them, and show the flag. It never hurts. If you have any problems with them, call me.” He spoke of them like his children, and they were in some ways. A lot of the men and women who worked for him were young, and seemed like kids to him. He had also asked that they assign some women to the detail. He thought it might be easier and less frightening for Fernanda and the children. But the first shift was all male, and they were talking quietly in the kitchen, while Ted and Fernanda chatted in the hallway. “Are you holding up all right?”

  “More or less.” It was an incredible amount of pressure, waiting for something to happen.

  “Hopefully, it'll be over soon. We'll catch these guys doing something stupid. They always do. Like hold up a liquor store right before they were supposed
to pull off something much more important. You've got to remember, all these guys were in prison, which tells you that they weren't a great success at whatever they did before this. We're counting on that factor to help us. Some of them even want to get caught. It's a lot of work being outside, and having to make an honest living. They'd rather go back to prison and have three free meals a day, and a roof over their heads courtesy of your taxes. We're not going to let anything happen to you or the kids, Fernanda.” It was the first time he had called her by her first name, and she smiled at him. Just listening to him, she felt a little better. He was quiet and reassuring.

  “It's just so scary. It's horrible to think of people like that who want to hurt us. Thank you for everything you're doing,” she said sincerely.

  “It is horrible. And scary. And you don't have to thank me. What I'm doing is what I get paid for.” She could tell that he was good at what he did, and she had been impressed by Rick Holmquist too, the man who had done the fingerprints so carefully, and even the four armed men in her kitchen. There was an air of calm competence about all of them.

  “It looks like a movie,” she said with a rueful smile, as she sat down on the stairs under the Viennese chandelier, and he sat down next to her. They sat whispering like two kids in the darkness. “I'm glad Will is leaving tomorrow. I wish I could get them all out of here, not just Will and Ash. This is scary for Sam.” It was for her too, and Ted knew that.