Lethal Ransom

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “Thank you. Let me finish putting this food together.” She elbowed him aside in the tiny galley kitchen, then proceeded to stir ingredients into the pot with an economy of movement that said she had performed such actions many times.

  Nick retreated to his stool and texted Callahan about getting a female marshal to pick up clothes and whatever else Kristen wanted. Within a quarter hour, Kristen had made a list and Nick passed it along.

  Then the day stretched before them with Sean working in his office, Gina heading off to the nearby restaurant where she worked and Kristen’s cell phone lying on the coffee table in the center of the living room where she and Nick retreated.

  Her phone wasn’t silent. In truth, it rang or pinged with incoming texts so often she set it to silent. Her office wanted to know if she was coming into work. What appeared to be friends texted to see if she was all right and what was going on. To each, under Nick’s instruction, she responded that she couldn’t talk about the situation, but she was safe and well.

  After texting this for perhaps the tenth time, she glanced at Nick, a crease between her smooth, dark gold eyebrows. “What if these men have access to the tower to triangulate where my phone is located?”

  “It’s not likely they’d find exactly where you are. Lakeview is pretty densely populated. But Sean has this house under constant surveillance from outdoor cameras.” Nick hesitated then told her what he had learned from his own messages. “But because that is not an impossibility, you will have to go somewhere else tomorrow morning if we haven’t heard from the kidnappers.”

  “And if we have?” Her gaze challenged him.

  He shrugged. “You’ll still have to go somewhere else.”

  She nodded and picked up a paperback novel from a stack on a side table. Nick read the news on his phone and tried not to fall asleep. At lunchtime, Sean emerged from his office to offer to make sandwiches. Kristen leaped up and took over the duty. Before they finished eating, a series of beeps rang from the office and Sean went to check on the alarm.

  “We’re about to have company,” he announced upon his return to the dining room.

  A moment later, one of the female marshals knocked on the door. She wheeled a suitcase. “Where’s your computer?” she asked without giving anyone a greeting.

  “What do you need my computer for?” Kristen asked.

  “It shouldn’t have been given back to you. We need to take it to our office, Kristen.” The deputy marshal, who Nick didn’t know, looked at Nick rather than Kristen. “We need to look for clues.”

  “That information is private.” Kristen gripped the retractable handle of her suitcase so hard Nick was sure she would rip it out of its track. “I work on client files on that computer.”

  “That’s what we need to look at,” the deputy marshal said.

  Kristen was shaking her head before the woman finished her brief explanation. “No one looks at those files other than me without the permission of each of our clients or a warrant.”

  “Then we’ll get a warrant.” The deputy marshal left with a none-too-gentle closing of the door.

  Without a word, Kristen stalked into the guest room and shut the door behind her. Despite outside cameras, Nick watched the door as though she could slip away.

  In a few minutes, she emerged wearing jeans and a T-shirt that fit her, along with thong sandals that probably felt better on her sore feet than flat slippers. Still not speaking, she went straight to her phone and checked for messages.

  When she glanced up, her eyes were wet.

  “What’s wrong?” Nick held out his hand, wanting the phone.

  Instead, she gripped his fingers. “It’s from my father’s secretary. She can’t reach him either.”

  Nick let her hold his hand. “Is that unusual?”

  “My father had a cell phone all my life. It’s never far from his hand.”

  “Where is he?” Nick tried to sound calm, as if interested only out of politeness, while his mind spun over the possibility that the kidnapping of Judge Lang and saying they really wanted Kristen was a ruse. Her father wouldn’t be the first spouse to try to get rid of a partner in a horrendous way.

  “He’s in Switzerland,” Kristen said.

  “Then he could be out of cell range?”

  “In Zurich?” Kristen’s thumbs flew across her screen. “His secretary says he hasn’t been at his hotel for two days.”

  “Do you want me to have someone look into whether or not he’s come back to the States?”

  She lowered the phone. “You can do that?”

  “I can’t, but I can get another agency to do it.”

  He called Callahan. Within fifteen minutes, they knew that Stephen Lang had not returned to the US. As far as anyone knew, he was still in Switzerland and merely out of cell range. But a lack of contact for two days raised suspicions.

  The way Kristen rotated from reading files on her computer, to pacing the house, or starting back to the coffee table every time her phone pinged, then away again suggested to Nick she was worried.

  In the middle of the afternoon, he made coffee and raided Gina’s stash of cookies, then urged Kristen to sit and have a break. “Your feet must hurt.”

  “A little.” She flopped onto a chair. “I see nothing significant in the files on my laptop. I should go to my office and look through files there. Not that I know how that will help. It would take weeks to eliminate anyone with a grudge or whatever is motivating this.”

  As if on cue, Kristen’s cell phone rang. Both of them jumped and turned toward the device in its shiny red case.

  Unknown Caller

  Hand visibly shaking, Kristen reached for the phone.

  FIVE

  Kristen clicked the answer button, but when she opened her mouth to say hello, nothing came out. Part of her brain hoped a robotic voice or a prerecorded message would begin to play signaling a sales call of some kind or just a scammer.

  Then Nick slipped the phone from her nerveless fingers and tilted it so that speaker mode toggled to on. The action gave Kristen the moment she needed to gather her wits and croak out, “Who...is this?”

  “Listen, as I’m only saying this once.” The voice sounded like a robocaller, mechanical and nearly flat in tone.

  The inhuman voice continued with a time and location for the exchange. Kristen forced her brain to concentrate, to remember every detail. She knew the marshals were recording the call so they would know, but she didn’t have that luxury. If she was going to go, whether they wanted her there or not—which of course they did not—she had to pay attention and forget nothing.

  “You better have all that,” the voice said.

  “Wait,” Kristen tried to interject.

  That bloodcurdling scream sounded across the ether as it had the night before, and the call ended.

  Kristen thought she was going to be sick.

  Nick laid the phone on the table and touched her hand. “Deep breath, Kristen. That was prerecorded.”

  “All of it?”

  “All of it. That was a computer reading everything.”

  “But the scream?”

  Not her mother. Her mother wouldn’t scream. Would she?

  “As easily copied from a horror movie as real.” Nick gave her an encouraging smile. “We’ll have your mother back in a few hours.”

  “How without me?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Can’t? Won’t? Or you don’t know?” She met his gaze with a challenging one of her own.

  “I don’t know exactly, but there are methods—”

  “Which often fail.”

  “Nothing is foolproof.”

  “Letting me go so we can find out what they want—I mean, why they want me—is foolproof.”

  “No one would agree to that, Kristen. Besides the fact yo
u’re a civilian, these men don’t play by rules. They might keep or even kill both of you.”

  Before Kristen came up with an argument for that one, Nick’s phone rang. He stood as he answered it, and headed for the front door, taking her phone with him.

  Despite the chill at which Sean and Gina kept their house, Kristen grew hot all over. She wasn’t sure if it was the way Nick dismissed her usefulness by pointing out her civilian status, as though civilians didn’t count, or how he picked up her phone when he left for a private conversation. She only knew she was angry more than scared. These men had terrorized her and run her off the road. They had taken and possibly hurt her mother because they wanted something from Kristen. They had tried to kidnap her. The police and marshals had lost the one man who might have given them answers. Yet she was not supposed to be involved.

  Somehow, she was going to be there tonight to make sure her mom was freed. More, she was going to ensure she learned why these men were after her so the marshals would know how to stop them. She knew she was in danger. She didn’t think they wanted to kill her, at least not yet. If they only wanted her dead, they would have managed that too easily on the side of the expressway. They might want information she couldn’t give them either literally or ethically. What would happen to her, she didn’t know. But surely she could figure out something, some way to elude them. She was intelligent. She graduated at the top of her class from the University of Chicago.

  Through the front window, she noticed that Nick had walked off the porch to talk. So he wanted to make sure she didn’t overhear. That action added fuel to her fire to not cooperate with the Marshals Service or any other law enforcement agency involved. She didn’t like being treated like a child who had to be kept in the dark about the issues that truly mattered.

  Too often, her parents had done that. She’d learned of her mother’s nomination to the federal bench from the newspaper, not her mother. She had been fourteen and Mom thought her too young to worry about the process. Mom’s way of protecting Kristen.

  Mom and Dad always tried to protect her. They had purchased a condo for her as a graduation gift, even though neither approved of her choice of careers. But they made sure it was in the suburbs not far from their house, though they knew she wanted to live in the city where her commute would be shorter and she could walk to restaurants and the grocery store. The first time Mom was threatened, Kristen had been dragged into the situation, grabbed out of class by marshals and locked in a safehouse, terrified and told too little until the threat was over. The second time, she knew nothing until the incident had passed.

  And Mom had protected her the day before from something. Kristen knew Mom had been keeping something to herself, had been too quick to notice the SUV and jump to the conclusion it was up to no good. If she had told Kristen, maybe matters would have turned out differently.

  Even allowing the men to take her and not Kristen had been a form of protection. The greatest form of protection.

  Restless, Kristen rose and opened the front door. Behind her, Sean’s office door opened. In front of her and in the planter-strewn courtyard between the carriage house and the apartment building, Nick looked up.

  Kristen set her hands on her hips. “I’d like my phone back so I can call my dad again.”

  She wanted to leave him a voice mail if nothing else, to let him know what she intended to do. Just in case something went wrong. He needed to know. Kristen wasn’t sure he deserved to know, going off the grid as he apparently had. At least she presumed he had disappeared voluntarily. Surely these kidnappers hadn’t found him in Switzerland.

  Another worry she did not need. She had to believe he, at least, was safe.

  Nick said something into his phone she couldn’t quite hear, then returned it to his pocket before he climbed the porch steps. “We’ll get you another phone.”

  “But all my numbers are in that one you took away from me.”

  “I know. It’s terrible how we don’t know anything without our phones anymore.” Nick grinned.

  Kristen looked away so her foolish female side didn’t respond to the charm of that grin.

  “I can let you copy all the numbers.” Nick drew out her phone, though he didn’t give it to her. “Will that help?”

  “I guess it’ll have to.”

  She must appear to cooperate.

  “I’m sure Sean can give you some paper and a pencil.” Nick kept coming toward her, so Kristen had to step out of the doorway and let him pass. Except he didn’t cross the threshold.

  “After you, madam.” He gave her a little bow.

  “Do you think I’m going to run out the door if you go first?” Kristen made herself laugh. “You could probably catch me in five minutes or less.”

  “Probably, but I’d rather not have to try.”

  Kristen shrugged and strolled into the house. Sean was making coffee in the kitchen. “There’s paper and pencils on my desk, Kristen. Help yourself.”

  “You have about a half hour to copy all the names you want,” Nick said as he locked the front door. “Someone will be here to pick you up then.”

  “Pick me up?” Kristen spun around halfway across the dining room. “Pick me up for what?”

  “In the light of this phone call, we are placing you in protective custody until Her Honor is released.”

  “But I thought...tomorrow...” Kristen’s mind raced.

  She had counted on being able to get away tonight, elude Nick in the dark. Now she would have to find a way to do so in the daylight, not as easy. Not easy at all. Probably impossible without a ruse.

  She would find one.

  “Then let me get that paper.” As though she wasn’t in the least bothered by the protective custody idea, she continued to the office, where she located paper and pencils. The room was small but efficiently set up with a desk with a monitor, and smaller tables containing a printer and other monitors. One of those monitors showed a split-screen view of the exterior of the carriage house. Kristen recognized the views—outside the front door. Outside the dining room, outside her bedroom. None outside the bathroom. Turning away from the screens, she headed for the dining room to spread the paper and pencils out on the table.

  Nick offered her coffee, fetched them each a cup, then joined her at the table. He laid her phone between them. More texts from friends filled the screen. No missed calls. Nothing from her father.

  Kristen unlocked the phone and scrolled through her contacts. Her parents’ and boss’s numbers. Her closest friends’. Who else? Her pastor’s number, maybe? Why not.

  The contacts copied, she folded the half sheet and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans.

  “That’s all?” Nick asked.

  Kristen shrugged. “All I should need for the next day or two.”

  “But we’ll need your phone for evidence, you know.”

  She hadn’t thought of that—that keeping her phone would be as good as permanent.

  “I think the rest should be in the cloud and I can transfer them when I get a new phone.” She made herself smile. “I know it’s on a giant server somewhere, but I like thinking about a fluffy white cloud in the sky holding all my pictures and numbers and appointments. And one day it’ll get too heavy and dark and all those pictures and numbers will just tumble from the sky.”

  Nick looked bemused.

  Kristen laughed for real this time and rose. “I’m really not going nuts, Deputy Marshal Sandoval. Just a little stir-crazy.” She grimaced. “And it’s going to be worse in—” she made air quotes “—protective custody. And if they’re coming to take me away soon, I better make sure all my stuff is together.”

  She left Nick at the table and retreated to the guest room. Her stuff was still together. All she could take with her was her purse, which was fortunately a fairly large cross-body satchel. She stuffed some toiletries inside along with a
few other necessities, then slipped into the bathroom.

  The carriage house had been built at least a hundred years ago and had obviously not included two bathrooms en suite. Probably not even one. Either Sean and Gina or previous owners had added such luxuries. But they had kept the original exterior of the old building, which meant the bathroom boasted a window on one wall that could be opened. Not a large window, but big enough for Kristen to wriggle through. The problem lay in the drop to the ground. The carriage house was built over a basement only half cut into the ground. That made the drop a minimum of ten feet. She could dangle from her hands and fall, but if she landed incorrectly, she could twist an ankle or worse. Not to mention the impact of landing on her still-sore feet.

  She would do it. She had to get away before she was locked into some prison, even if it was a comfortable house or hotel room, her every move guarded for her own good.

  Time was wasting. Shortly, Nick would be knocking on the door. Worse, if a female deputy marshal showed up, they might break into the bathroom to see what was taking Kristen so long.

  Making sure her purse was tightly zipped, she dropped it into the bushes outside the window. Those plants would help break her own fall. She hated the idea of crushing them, but they would grow back. This was only June. Listening for anyone coming into the bedroom, Kristen climbed onto the vanity, then stepped on top of the tank. She practically had to manage a handstand to go out feetfirst, but with her hands braced on the vanity, her torso twisted, she got one leg and then the other over the sill. Immediately, gravity took over and she began to slide. For a heartbeat, she feared she would crash to the ground in an uncontrolled descent. A cry rose in her throat. She clamped her mouth shut to keep any sound inside and flung out her hands to catch the edge of the sill.

  Her fall stopped with an abruptness that wrenched her shoulders. She gasped with pain. One of her sneakers, loosely tied so she could keep her feet bandaged, fell into the shrubbery beside her purse.

  She had underestimated the ten-foot fall. Surely, it must have been at least fifteen or twenty. She was going to break something for sure. Without the upper body strength to drag herself back inside the window, and the idea of being locked up while her mother suffered or worse driving her on, Kristen let go.