Nicole Graves 04: The Ransom

by Nancy Boyarsky

  “By all means, tell him. It may help jog loose some of those memories. But don’t press him on what he remembers. These things take time, and it doesn’t help to make him more anxious.”

  When Nicole returned to David, he again asked for Stephanie, looking genuinely worried.

  Nicole sat down, took his hand, and told him what had happened.

  “I think I knew this.” His voice was shaky. “I mean, it doesn’t seem real, more like something I dreamed.” He stared at her intently and gulped. “How do I call the nurse? I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Nicole pushed the call button. Mindy appeared, located a kidney shaped bowl, and handed it to David. Instead of taking it, he broke down in great, heaving sobs. As he began to gain control of himself, he tried to speak.

  “Sorry,” Nicole said. “I didn’t get what you said.”

  “This is all my fault. I know it is, if only I could remember. God, my head hurts. I can’t think.”

  “None of this is your fault, David. Try to let it go.” Nicole turned to the nurse, who was staring at David. She seemed as startled as Nicole by what he’d just said.

  “Can you get him some pain meds and maybe a sedative?” Nicole said. “Aside from his headache, he’s confused and agitated. This can’t be good.”

  “I don’t know,” Mindy said. “They don’t like to overmedicate patients with head injuries. I’ll try to find his doctor and see if he’ll prescribe something.” She hurried away.

  David went on talking, blaming himself for something he was unable to remember. As Nicole listened, she found David’s words more and more disturbing. Arnault had mentioned the possibility that David might be involved in the kidnapping. What if it was true? In his present state, his defenses were down, as was his ability to dissemble. What If he was admitting to something he’d actually done. What if he really was mixed up in the kidnapping? Nicole, who’d been holding his hand, dropped it.

  Just then Mindy returned, carrying a syringe. She administered the shot, and it was only a moment or two before David was asleep. Unable to sit there any more with her terrible thoughts, Nicole got up and found her way back through the maze of corridors. After asking directions, she went over an indoor bridge she didn’t remember crossing on her way in. From there, she located the parking structure and her car.

  Back in her condo, she felt sick about Steph’s disappearance, and David’s confused rambling had upset her even more. She thought of Josh, her ex-fiancé. If this had happened a year ago, he’d have been here to comfort her. There were times she still missed him. For several months after she’d broken up with him and moved out, she’d sometimes come home to find him waiting in front of the apartment she was renting at the time. She’d let him in, they’d send out for food, and he’d end up spending the night. She’d hated herself for her weakness. She was preventing him from getting over her, which he had to do. He needed someone who wanted the same quiet life he did. Nicole knew that would never be her.

  The last time she’d seen him, six months before, she hadn’t let him in but had broken things off completely. As yet, she hadn’t been interested in dating and had refused when friends attempted to fix her up. It seemed like too much work, too fraught with problems. And when she allowed herself to be honest about it, she had to admit she was still a little in love with Josh.

  She thought of Arnault. There was definitely some chemistry between them. But she knew it would come to nothing. First came the ethics involved; he was a cop working on a case involving her sister. And even if they’d met under different circumstances, it would never work out. She’d been involved with a law enforcement type before and had learned her lesson. People who went into this line of work were married to the job. She wondered if she was overgeneralizing. There must be exceptions. Still, she thought, it wasn’t worth the risk of going through the pain of another breakup.

  She glanced at her watch. It was almost seven o’clock in the evening, and she was beginning to feel hungry. When she looked in the refrigerator—empty of all but some eggs, a limp head of lettuce and a half loaf of bread in the freezer—she thought of the food she’d left at the market. Foraging through her cupboards, she located a can of tuna. She thought of defrosting the bread and making a grilled tuna sandwich but was too dispirited to make the effort. Instead, she pulled a box of crackers from the cupboard. She made herself a cup of tea, put the tuna and crackers on a plate, and placed this sorry excuse for a meal on a tray. She carried it into her study and turned on her computer. As she ate, she forced herself to focus on what she’d learned from Mr. and Mrs. Knowles.

  She started going through property records of people who’d lived next to the Knowles’s during the years Ashley would have been in her teens. It was a while before she found a family named Reese who were the Knowles’s neighbors 12 years before. Alphonse had been close when he’d recollected the name as Meese. The Reeses had two daughters, Jessica and Melanie. Both had continued living with their parents past the age of 18 when they’d gotten jobs and established their own credit. That put them both on the database.

  Nicole’s next search focused on Jessica. Among the material that came up was a photo of the woman she knew as Ashley. She didn’t look nearly as good as she had in recent pictures. Instead of being a glamorous blonde, Jessica was disheveled and devoid of makeup. her brown hair was falling out of a messy pony tail, as if she hadn’t combed it that morning. She was scowling, and for good reason. There was a number under the photo, and it was a police mug shot.

  Nicole read Jessica’s records with great interest. The most recent entry was dated seven years ago: an outstanding arrest warrant for failing to report to her parole officer. A previous record showed she’d been granted early release from a five-year sentence in the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility. She’d been convicted of fraud and theft, but the record gave no details of her crimes. Fortunately, the New Mexico Enquirer was indexed, and Nicole easily located an article that mentioned Jessica Reese as a member of a ring of crooks posing as caregivers for the elderly. They’d been convicted of bilking people out of their Social Security checks and emptying their checking accounts. Going back farther, Nicole came across New Mexico Youth Authority records from Jessica’s teen years, but these were sealed.

  Nicole made copies of the records and newspaper article to include with the report she was preparing for Robert Rexton. She couldn’t give the information to the police. But she was pretty sure Rexton would hand it on to the detectives looking into his son’s murder.

  When she finished printing out Jessica Reese’s records, she glanced at her watch. It was nine forty-five p.m. The ransom drop wasn’t until eleven o’clock, and Griffith Park was only a little over six miles away. But the only route was through Hollywood. Even at night, traffic through the area was a nightmare. There was continuous gridlock around the iconic corner of Hollywood and Vine with its bright lights, garish neon signs, and celebrity billboards. After a moment’s thought, she decided she might as well leave early. If people were still in the park, she’d wait in her car until they cleared out.

  She grabbed her purse and the computer bag with the money Arnault had prepared for her. Only now did she remember she was supposed to include a note demanding proof of life. She went to the kitchen drawer where she kept a pen and pad of paper, tore off a sheet, and scrawled the message. After dropping it in the bag, she went down to her car.

  Traffic was worse than she could have imagined. She didn’t reach her destination until ten thirty, a half-hour before the appointed time. Centennial Park was a small, fenced off area just before the entrance to Griffith Park proper. She parked by the fence and took the path to her destination. Up ahead, the small recreational area of Centennial Park was brightly lit. This seemed puzzling at a time of night when few people would be out. Once inside the small park, she understood. The lights were there to discourage the homeless from using the area to sleep, but this hadn’t worked. At least a dozen figures swathed in blankets a
nd tarps lay on the grass, surrounding an enclave of small, round tents. She wondered if any of these people were the cops Arnault said would be here.

  She headed for the only sizable tree, an enormous fir looming over a modest white stucco building. A sign in front welcomed her to the Centennial Park Senior Center. From where she stood, she couldn’t see any hollow in the big tree’s trunk. She glanced around at the sleeping figures. Then, satisfied no one was watching, she walked around the tree, pretending to be looking for something in the scrubby grass. On the other side, she spotted a sizable hollow in the trunk. She checked again to be sure she was unobserved before dropping the bag into the hole. Mission accomplished, she scurried back to her car, locked herself in, and headed home.

  Eight

  The night passed, and Stephanie slept like the dead. Only as she got up, shivering with cold, did she realize she was sick. Her dripping nose was now accompanied by a sore throat and a cough. Along with hunger, a solid mass of fear had settled in the pit of her stomach.

  All her worries came flooding back. What had happened to David? Had these people hurt him? Killed him? Would she ever see him and Nicole again? She thought of the news stories about the recent kidnappings, the fact that two victims were missing. As far as she knew, they’d never been found. Had they been killed? Did these people plan to kill her, too?

  A rattling sound at the top of the stairs caught her attention. It sounded as if something had been shoved through the slot in the door. Hoping for food, she hurried up as fast as she could. A tray sat on the shelf, holding the same offerings as the day before, a bowl of cereal and a mug. She ignored them and started banging on the door.

  “It’s freezing down here, and I’m starving. I need a solid meal and blankets and warm clothes. The light is burned out. Someone has to put in a new bulb.” As an afterthought, she added, “And I need toilet paper.”

  There was no answer, although she could hear someone walking around. She pounded harder and shouted her requests again, this time in a succinct list: “Food, blankets, clothes, light bulb, toilet paper. Please!!”

  The footsteps stopped, but there was still no response. She went back down the stairs with the cup and bowl and got back in bed. Swaddled in her blanket, she took a sip of what was in the mug, expecting coffee. This time it was tea, bitter and barely warm, as if it had sat out, steeping, for a good, long while. She drank it anyway. She took a spoonful of cereal and almost spit it out. The milk had gone sour. It had probably been left unrefrigerated overnight. Famished, she forced herself to eat it, despite the taste. This might be the only meal she’d get today.

  Footsteps started up again. Suddenly the door at the top of the stairs opened. A figure—just a silhouette in black—tossed a bundle down the stairs and closed the door. The whole process had taken only seconds, too quick for her to get a look at who it was.

  It was obvious that this person was trying to avoid being seen. Her captors were afraid she’d be able to identify them. She found this slightly reassuring. It suggested they meant to release her. If they planned to kill her, they wouldn’t care whether she saw them or not.

  The objects he’d tossed into the basement dropped to the floor with barely a sound. She got up to take a look. To her surprise, the bundle included almost everything she’d requested. There were two blankets, men’s sweatpants, a sweater, and a roll of toilet paper. Missing were the lightbulb and food. The blankets were full of dust and the clothes stank of sweat and a musky, masculine odor that didn’t bear thinking about. There were no socks, shoes, or slippers, nothing to cover her feet. That would be her next request.

  Despite the way the clothes smelled, she was so cold that she quickly put them on. She had to make adjustments. The sweater was huge and had holes in the elbows. These didn’t matter since she had to fold up her sleeves several times to free her hands. The pant legs had to be rolled up as well, and the waist was too loose, even with the cord pulled as tight as it would go.

  As soon as she stood up, the pants slipped down around her hips and were in danger of falling down. She tucked the bulky sweater inside, and the added girth stabilized the pants. Feeling a bit warmer, she folded the blankets. She was just setting them on the bed when she heard the flap open and something else slid onto the shelf.

  She hurried up again to find a large flashlight sitting there. She’d been hoping for food, but was glad to get the flashlight. Its beam was strong, which meant the batteries were fresh. She waved it around the basement for her first good look at her surroundings. The place was filthy; no wonder it smelled. The walls were covered with cobwebs, the floor splotched with stains of varying darkness and scattered rat droppings. It really did resemble a dungeon. On the other hand, there were no instruments of torture or indication that anyone else had been held prisoner here.

  She decided to give the basement a thorough exploration. If there was a way out besides the locked door at the head of the stairs, she was determined to find it. Without the flashlight, it had been too dark for her to see under the stairs or into the crawl space. The low hum of a motor had stirred her curiosity. Was a generator being charged? Did home generators need charging? She had no idea.

  The sound was coming from under the stairs. Focusing the beam of her flashlight into the darkness, she noticed a huge spider web across the entry to the space. Unlike most, Stephanie wasn’t afraid of spiders. At age eight, she’d fallen under the spell of Charlotte’s Web and had become fascinated with arachnids. She’d read every book she could find about them. She loved closeups of their faces with their multiple pairs of eyes and, most especially, the way they could sail on a breeze to spin their webs across wide spaces. To her, they were magical.

  Stephanie had gone through a phase of catching spiders and keeping them in jars with holes carefully punctured in the tops. She’d even given the spiders names, which she wrote on the jars with a marker. But when she noticed their high mortality rate, she realized these creatures didn’t do well in captivity, and she stopped trying to make pets of them. Even as an adult, she’d never step on a spider she found inside. Instead, she’d capture it in a glass, slip a piece of cardboard under it, and release it outdoors.

  She realized it would be easy to break the web apart with her flashlight, but she hesitated. From her study of spiders, she knew that the brown recluse, the country’s most venomous arachnid, was a Southern California native that hung out in dark basements. There was good reason to think that the creator of this giant web might well be a brown recluse. She wasn’t going to touch the web unless she could figure out a way protect herself from a spider bite.

  Stepping back, she used the flashlight to see what else was under there. The area held two old appliances. One was a refrigerator with its plug lying on the floor. Next to it was what looked like an old-fashioned deep freezer, like the one her parents kept in their garage. This, she decided, was the source of the hum. She wondered what was in it.

  Under the bottom steps, the flashlight’s beam picked up a glint of something shiny. She bent down to get a better look. It was a screwdriver with a yellow plastic handle, and it appeared to be new. Someone must have put it down while working on something down here. It had rolled under the steps and been forgotten.

  The screwdriver with its sharp, chiseled end could make a formidable weapon. She tried to picture herself sticking it in the eye of one of her captors. The idea made her shudder, and she knew she’d never be able to do such a thing. Even so, she decided to retrieve the tool and stash it somewhere handy in case she found a use for it. Although the screwdriver was nowhere near the huge web, it was well out of reach. She’d have to crawl part way under the steps to get it. She got down on her hands and knees, took a deep breath and—not allowing herself to think about it—pushed her head and shoulders under the steps.

  Almost immediately, a web she hadn’t seen caught in her hair. She felt, or imagined she felt, something crawling on her neck. She bumped her head backing out. Ignoring the pain, she used her slee
ve to wipe as much of the web out of her hair as possible. The tingling sensation on her neck had disappeared, and she chalked it up to imagination. She checked the screwdriver’s position again, then turned the flashlight off to conserve the battery and put it down. Inching along on her belly, she kept her head down so she wouldn’t bang it again. This time she was able to grab the screwdriver and wriggle back out. She went directly into the bathroom to look in the mirror and make sure she wasn’t covered with spider webs.

  When she saw her reflection, she let out a scream. Sitting on her sleeve was an inch-long brown spider with the identifying outline of a fiddle on its back. Not knowing what else to do, she used the flashlight to shove it off. The spider dropped to the floor and lay still. Only then did she realize it was dead and probably had been dead before it fell on her. She used toilet paper to pick it up and drop it in the toilet.

  Looking around for a place to hide the screwdriver, she ended up pushing it between the slats that covered the crawl space. She left the business end of the screwdriver sticking out so she could easily grab it. Then she checked from different angles to make sure it couldn’t be seen.

  Next, she turned her attention to the crawlspace. The slats covering the opening were brittle, and it was easy to break some off to get a better look. She slowly moved the flashlight around. Now she could see that the vent admitting light was closer than she’d thought—ten feet at most. It was too small for anything but insects and rodents to get through. She waved the light around once more, wondering how many of the spider’s relatives might be hiding there. Even though she didn’t see any webs on the route to the vent, she doubted it was worth crawling through the dirt to get a look outside. Perhaps the view would allow her to figure out where the house was situated. If there were neighbors nearby, she could call for help, or maybe she’d see something that would aid her escape. But these possibilities seemed unlikely.

  Just then, Stephanie heard a door slam above. Was he leaving? She dashed up the stairs and pounded on the door. “I’m hungry! Don’t leave me here without more food!”