Ransom (23 page)

“What about you and Sam? Are you going anywhere? Any plans?”

“Just day camp for him.” She couldn't afford to do much else. Camp for Will had been a stretch, but she didn't want to deny him that. None of the children knew the full extent of their financial ruin yet, although they were aware that things were less lavish than they had been. She still had to explain the full implications of it to them, but she was waiting to do that when she put the house on the market. After that, she knew the ceiling would fall in. In fact, it already had. The kids just didn't know it.

“I'm not crazy about that idea,” Ted said carefully. “Let's see how it goes. When do the others leave?”

“Will leaves tomorrow. Ashley the day after.”

“Good,” Ted said bluntly. He was anxious for them to leave, and reduce the number of targets. Half of them were going. He looked at Rick then. “I'm putting plainclothes boys on this, or should we use guys in uniform?” He knew as soon as he said it that he was asking the wrong man. They constantly disagreed about the concept of protecting potential victims. The police force preferred to make the protection visible, in order to scare perpetrators off, while the FBI liked luring them in to entrap them. But in this case, he wanted to see what, if anything, their suspects would do, and he was inclined to agree with Rick's theories on the subject, to a point. He had already been considering it when they walked into the house.

“Does it matter?” Fernanda asked, confused by all that was happening. Her head was spinning.

“Yes, it does,” Ted said quietly. “It can make a big difference. We may see some action faster if we use plainclothesmen.” She got the point.

“So no one knows they're cops?” He nodded. It all sounded terrifying to her.

“I don't want any of you going anywhere till I get a couple of men assigned to this. Probably later tonight. Did you have plans to go out?”

“I was just going to take the kids out for pizza. We can stay home.”

“That's where I want you,” Ted said firmly. “I'll call you as soon as I talk to the captain. With luck, I can have two men here by midnight.” He was suddenly all business.

“Are they going to sleep here?” She looked startled. She hadn't thought of that, as Ted laughed and Rick smiled.

“Hopefully not. We need them to stay awake and be aware of what's happening. We don't want anyone climbing in your windows, while everyone's asleep. Do you have an alarm?” he asked, but it was obvious that they would, and she nodded. “Use it till they get here.” And then he turned to Rick. “What about you?”

“I'll send two agents over in the morning.” She wouldn't need them before that if she had Ted's guys. And he had to pull two men off other details, and replace them, which took a little time. He turned to Fernanda then, and his eyes were sympathetic. She seemed like a nice woman, and he felt sorry for her, as did Ted. He knew how tough situations like this were. He'd seen a lot of them, both in police work and with the FBI. Potential victims. And witness protection. It could get ugly, and often did. He hoped it wouldn't for her. But there was always that risk. “That means you'll have four men with you, two SFPD and two FBI agents. That should keep you safe. And I think Detective Lee is right about the other two children. It's a good idea to get them out of here.”

She nodded and asked the question that had been tormenting her for the last half hour. “What happens if they try to kidnap us? How would they do it?”

Ted sighed. He hated to answer her question. One thing was for sure. If they wanted money from her, they were not going to kill her, so she could pay the ransom. “They'd probably try to take you by force, ambush you while you're driving, and take a child if you had one with you. Or get in the house. It's not likely to happen if we have four men with you all the time.” And if it did, he knew from experience that someone would get killed, either cops or kidnappers, or both. Hopefully, not her or a child. The men assigned to the detail would be fully cognizant of the risk they were taking. That was part of the job for them, and what they did for a living.

Rick looked at Ted then. “We need fingerprints and hair from the kids before they leave.” He said it as gently as he could, but there was nothing gentle about what he'd just said, and Fernanda looked panicked.

“Why?” But she knew. It was obvious even to her.

“We need it to identify the kids if they get snatched. And we should get prints and hair on you too,” he said apologetically, and Ted intervened.

“I'll send someone over later today,” he said quietly, as Fernanda's mind raced. This was actually happening to her, and her children. It was beyond belief, and she hadn't fully understood it yet, and wondered if she ever would. Maybe they were just imagining it. Maybe they were both crazy and had been doing this for too long. Or worst of all, maybe it was really happening and they were right. There was no way to know. “I'm going to get someone out on the street right away and check plates,” he said more to Rick than to her. “I want to know who's out there.” Rick nodded. And Fernanda wondered if there were really people watching her, or the house. She had had no sense of it whatsoever.

Shortly after that, both men stood up. Ted looked down at her and could see easily how stressed she was. She looked like she was in shock. “I'll call you in a little while, and let you know what's happening and who to expect. In the meantime, lock the doors, turn on the alarm, and don't let the kids go out. For any reason.” As he said it, he handed her his card. He'd given it to her before, but knew she might have lost it, which she had. It was in a drawer somewhere, and she couldn't have found it. She didn't think she'd need it. “If anything unusual happens, call me immediately. My cell phone's on there. And my pager. I'll be in touch in a few hours.” She nodded, unable to answer him, and walked them to the front door. Both men shook hands with her, and as he walked out, Ted turned to look at her with a reassuring expression. He didn't have the heart to leave without saying something to her. “It'll be all right,” he said softly, and then followed Rick down the stairs, as she closed the door behind them and set the alarm.

As they walked out, Peter Morgan saw them leave, and didn't think much of it. This was his first experience with surveillance, which was fortunate for them. Waters would have smelled them five seconds after spotting them. Peter didn't.

Rick got in Ted's car again and looked at his old partner with a dazed expression. “Christ, can you believe anyone could lose that kind of money? The papers said he was worth half a billion dollars, and it can't be that long ago, a year or two maybe. The guy must have been crazy.”

“Yeah,” Ted said, looking unhappy. “Or an irresponsible sonofabitch. If she's telling the truth”—and he had no reason to think she would lie to him, she didn't seem like that kind of person—”she's in a hell of a situation. Particularly with Addison and his boys after her, if they are. They're not going to believe she's out of money.”

“And then what?” Rick said pensively.

“It gets ugly.” Then, they both knew, it was all about SWAT teams, and hostage negotiations, and commando tactics. He just hoped they never got there. If there really was something coming down, Ted Lee was going to do everything in his power to stop it. “My cap-tain's going to think we've been smoking crack,” he said with a grin at Holmquist. “Seems like every time we get together, we get into something.”

“I sure miss that,” Rick said, smiling, and then Ted thanked him for giving him two agents for the detail. He knew he couldn't commit them for long, if nothing happened. Ted didn't know, but he had a feeling something would happen soon. Maybe Addison's arrest the day before would make them anxious, or even panic. He also had a feeling that Addison's leaving the country had something to do with it. If that was the case, something was going to happen in two days, or anytime thereafter. Maybe soon.

Ted drove Rick back to his office, and half an hour later, he walked into his.

“Is the captain in?” he asked the senior officer's secretary, a pretty girl in a blue uniform, and she nodded.

“He's in a rotten mood,” she whispered.

“Good. Me too,” Ted said to her with a grin, and strode into his office.

Will bounded down the stairs from his room, and reached for the front door. Fernanda was at her desk, and instantly stopped him.

“Stop! The alarm is on,” she shouted at him, louder than she needed to, and he stopped in his tracks and looked startled.

“That's weird. I'm just going out for a minute. I need to get my shin guards out of the car.” She had left the station wagon in the driveway when she came in, and knew she couldn't go out to it until the police arrived sometime that night.

“You can't,” she said sternly, and Will looked at her strangely.

“Is something wrong, Mom?” He could see that it was, as she nodded and tears filled her eyes.

“Yeah…no… actually there is. I have to talk to you, Ash, and Sam.”

She had been sitting at her desk trying to figure out what to say to them, and when. She was still trying to absorb what had happened, or might, and all she'd heard from Ted and Rick. It was a lot to swallow, and would be even more so for her kids. They didn't need this any more than she did. They'd been through enough in the past six months, and so had she. But now all she could do was look at Will. There was no point putting it off. She had to tell them. And it looked like now was the time, since Will had just discovered that something was up. “Will you go upstairs and get them, sweetheart? We need to have a family meeting,” she said somberly, and almost choked on the words. The last family meeting they'd had was when their father died and she had told them the news. And the full impact of what she had just said hadn't been lost on Will. He looked at her, with terror in his eyes, and without another word, turned and ran up the stairs to find the others, as Fernanda sat shaking where she sat. All she cared about now was keeping them safe. And she just prayed that the police and the FBI would be able to do that.

Chapter 13

Fernanda's meeting with her children
went as well as it could have gone, under the circumstances. They came down the stairs to the living room five minutes after she had sent Will up for them, after conferring briefly in Sam's bedroom about what might be wrong. Finally, Will told them to just get downstairs, and they did, trailing down the stairs, by order of age, with Will first. All three of them looked worried, as did their mother, as she waited.

She waited until Ash and Sam had settled on the couch, and Will sprawled out in the chair that had been his father's favorite. Instinctively, he had taken it over as soon as Allan disappeared. He was the man of the family now, and did his best whenever possible to fill his father's shoes.

“What's wrong, Mom?” Will asked quietly, as Fernanda looked at them, not sure where to start. There was so much to say, and none of it good.

“We're not sure,” she said honestly. She wanted to tell them as much of the truth as she could. They needed to know, or at least Ted said they did. And she suspected he was right. If she didn't warn them of the potential danger, they might take risks they wouldn't otherwise. “It may be nothing,” she tried to reassure them, and as she said the words, Ashley suddenly panicked, fearing her mother might be sick. She was all they had now. But as their mother went on, they knew it wasn't that. Fernanda thought it was worse. “Maybe nothing will ever come of this,” she started again, as the moments ticked by agonizingly for all of them, “but the police were just here. Apparently they arrested someone yesterday whom they think is a bad man, and something of a crook. He had a big file on your dad with pictures of all of us in it. And apparently he was very interested in your father's success”—she hesi-tated—”and our money.” She didn't want to tell them yet that they no longer had any. They had enough other problems apparently at the moment, and there was still time for that. “They also found in his desk the name and phone number of a man who recently got out of prison. Neither your father nor I know any of these people,” she reassured them, and even to her, this sounded crazy as she told it. The children were staring at her in fascination, without comment or expression. The story was too foreign to them, and too unfamiliar, to even fathom the implications. “They went to search the hotel room of the man who came out of prison, and found the name and number of another man, who is thought to be extremely dangerous, and also just got out of prison. They don't know what the connection is between these three men. But apparently the man the FBI arrested yesterday is in a lot of trouble, and needs a lot of money. And they found our address in the hotel room of one of the men. What the police are afraid of”—she swallowed hard, trying to keep her voice steady with considerable effort—”what they're afraid of is that the man who was arrested might try to kidnap one of us to get the money he needs.” That was it, in a nutshell. The children stared at her for an interminable moment.

“Is that why the alarm is on?” Will looked at her strangely. The whole saga sounded incredible when you heard it, or tried to tell it.

“Yes. The police are going to send two policemen to protect us, and so is the FBI, just for a few weeks, until they see if anything happens. Maybe their theory is all wrong, and maybe no one wants to hurt us. But just in case, they want us to be careful, and they're going to be with us for a while.”

“In the house?” Ashley looked horrified, as her mother nodded. “Can I still go to Tahoe?” Fernanda smiled at the question. At least no one was crying. She suspected correctly that they hadn't fully understood it. Even to her, it sounded like a bad movie, as she nodded at Ashley.

“Yes, you can. The police think it's a good idea for you to get out of town, in fact. You just have to be careful, and keep an eye out for strangers.” But she knew the family Ashley was going with was extremely cautious and attentive, which was why she had agreed to let her go. And she was going to call them and warn them of what was happening before Ashley left.

“I'm not going to camp,” Will suddenly said sternly, with an anguished look at his mother. He got it. More than the others. But he was older. And he was playing the role of protector now, in his father's absence. Fernanda didn't want him to have that burden. At sixteen, he still needed to enjoy the last of his boyhood and childhood.