by Penny Reid
—Wex Legal Dictionary
**Kat**
The ransom demand arrived early Saturday morning.
They said I had twenty-four hours to wire three million dollars into an offshore bank account or else—they said—I would never see Dan again.
Wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let me back up.
After our fight Friday night, I left Dan in my office. Stan was just beyond the outer door to the suite and he followed me, thankfully saying nothing as I made my way to the executive lounge.
I felt blank, like an empty piece of paper. This wasn’t the first time I’d felt this way, and whenever it happened I did one of three things:
1. Take a long hot bath or shower, or
2. Bury myself in blankets and watch Doctor Who until I could smell myself and myself smelled like cheese—but not in a good way, or
3. Watch cry-porn on the internet, where cry-porn is videos that are so sad—or happy/sad—they make you cry buckets. Think videos of military parents returning home and surprising their kids at school; or inspirational videos of a child with cancer who overcomes, beating all the odds; or the first ten minutes of the movie Up.
I wasn’t ready to watch cry-porn.
I didn’t have time for a smelly Doctor Who marathon.
Shower it is.
Stan stood guard, loitering in the main lounge area while I had my shower. When I finished, dried and dressed, I didn’t feel any better.
I felt sad and . . . vacant.
I decided I would ask Stan to drive me back to the hotel, hoping I wouldn’t see Dan, but also hoping I would. Usually, in the past, when I’d been furious with someone, I didn’t want to see them at all. I avoided them, their company, mentions of them. I avoided it all until I could gain distance and perspective.
Take my cousin, for example. If I never saw his weasel face again it would be too soon.
However, Eugene—with whom my irritation hadn’t fully abated—I was almost ready to interact with him again. Almost.
Dan was different. Not even an hour had passed since our fight and I pined for him. I ached to see him, to touch him, to speak with him even though I didn’t know what I would say.
He didn’t love me.
Okay.
Fine.
It hurt. Shards-of-glass-shredding-my-skin hurt, but there was nothing I could do about it. Like Dan’s mom had said, I couldn’t make him feel something he didn’t feel. I couldn’t force a connection.
The real question was: where do we go from here?
I couldn’t see a way forward. I didn’t want to waste years of my life hoping he’d change his mind. I deserved better, and so did he.
When I finished dressing, I still didn’t feel better, but I did feel grimly resolved to my fate.
So when I asked Stan to drive me home and he’d said, “Dan is on his way up,” I’d nodded, swallowing the flare of hope and tucking my grim resolve tightly around me. I made tea in the large kitchen, offered some to Stan. He accepted and we waited for Dan.
We talked about Stan’s landlady and her weekly pinochle game. We talked about Stan’s cousin and her ugly baby; I surmised that was the “ugly baby” he’d been referring to weeks ago. We talked about how he’d come to work for Dan and Quinn—he’d grown up with them in Boston—and how much he liked his job. We talked about how he and Fiona had been training at the same jujitsu studio in Chicago and how she kicked his ass on the regular.
But Dan did not show up.
Fifteen minutes became a half hour. Finally, Stan texted him, asking for a status update, and Dan immediately texted back,
Dan: Staying with friends in town.
Dan: I won’t be back tonight.
Shards of glass.
As Stan escorted me from Caravel, I decided that if I formed a band, I would call it Shards of Glass. And we’d only sing really, really angsty songs about my ex, Dan O’Malley. So many words rhymed with Dan. It was meant to be.
Man. Plan. Fan. Ban. Tan. LAN. Uzbekistan. The songs would basically write themselves.
During the ride to the hotel, I dodged Stan’s curious glances in the rearview mirror and expounded my list of rhyming words.
When we arrived at the penthouse, I saw a note from Eleanor. She wrote that she was working a night shift, and then would go home, to her house, afterward to sleep and prepare for the party on Sunday.
This meant I had the penthouse all to myself.
Burrowing under blankets, I pulled up Doctor Who in my room and ordered room service. Unsurprisingly, the order consisted mostly of cheese. But—good news—the appetizer platter helped me realize that mascarpone and provolone rhymed, which meant Shards of Glass would definitely be writing a song about cheese.
Distracted, depressed, and dazed, I succumbed to a dreamless sleep sometime between Doctor Who’s first adventure with Donna, and the episode afterward, where ghosts of departed loved ones return to earth only to end up being an army threatening world domination.
But when the sound of my phone woke me—several text messages sent back-to-back, a plate of cheese cuddled to my chest, and the last episode of Doctor Who season two just finishing on the television—events of the previous evening returned to me.
I winced as the boulder of pain landed and resettled on my chest and checked the clock. It was still early. My alarm wouldn’t be going off for another forty-five minutes.
Another chime announced another text message came through, and bleary eyed, I checked my phone. I stared at the messages. I looked up at the wall, wondering if I were still asleep, and then looked back to my phone screen and read the messages again.
Unknown #: We have your husband. You will wire $3mil within twenty-four hours of this message. If you involve the authorities, you will never see him again. If you don’t send the money, you will never see him again. Respond within 10 minutes for proof of life or this message will be sent again.
I scrolled through my texts, seeing that the message had been sent five times and each time the hour-window decreased by ten minutes. They’d texted me five times. Clarity didn’t arrive all at once.
At first, in my sleepy haze, I thought the messages were a joke. I wracked my brain, trying to figure out who we knew with this kind of sick sense of humor. I didn’t believe it. It’s not that kidnapping and ransom were out of the realm of possibility. Rather, it felt implausible.
I loved him, I told him. He didn’t love me. We’d fought. I’d thrown things. He’d gone into town to spend the night with friends.
And then, what? He’d been kidnapped? Who did we know that kidnapped people?
Seamus.
Seamus kidnaps people.
Ice entered my veins. Seamus tried to kidnap Janie two years ago, he’d tried to kidnap me just last week. So . . . not implausible.
I gasped.
Confusion gradually became worry, which gradually became panic. The sensation reminded me of videos I’d watched on YouTube of tsunamis, how the water level rises slowly at first, and then higher, higher, higher, faster, faster, faster.
“Oh God.” I covered my mouth, staring at the screen of my phone just as a repeat of the message appeared, ten minutes subtracted. I dropped it to the bed and stood, backing away, my mind racing.
What do I do?
“Wait,” I said to no one, closing my eyes, telling myself to get a grip. “Quinn.”
Rushing forward, I grabbed my phone, found Quinn’s number, and dialed it.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up.” Pacing the room, I pulled my hand through my hair, about to scream when Quinn finally answered on the third ring.
“We’re just boarding the flight.”
“Quinn. Dan has been kidnapped. He didn’t come home last night. I woke up and there were messages on my phone with a countdown every ten minutes and I—”
“Stop. Calm down. Take a deep breath.” His voice was granite hard. “Start at the beginning.”
“What’s the beginning?”
He didn’t answer right away, giving me the impression he was multitasking. “Fiona and Alex are listening. Tell us about the last time you saw him, that’s the beginning.”
“Okay. Okay.” I regulated my breathing, still pacing, and forced myself to focus while I filled them in on the last twelve hours.
Obviously, I left out the sexy times in my office and the fight that followed, but I told them all about Dr. Carlyle, how I’d left the office, how Dan had texted Stan about taking over my security for the evening, how he never showed up, how he’d texted Stan again to say he was going out with friends and wouldn’t be home, and how I’d awoken to the threatening messages on my phone.
“I think it’s Seamus. I think he took him.”
There was a pause, and then Quinn said, “It’s a possibility we won’t rule out.”
“What do I do? Do I call? Do I get proof of life?”
“No, not yet,” Fiona answered immediately. “The timetable worries me, twenty-four hours. Once they give you proof of life, whoever they are might not feel Dan is worth the trouble of keeping alive. Do you want to involve the FBI?”
“Is there time for that?” Quinn asked in return.
“I have the money,” I volunteered, biting my thumbnail. “Couldn’t I just pay the ransom?”
“That’s an option,” Fiona’s voice was steady, soothing. “We’ll need to talk to Stan Willis ASAP, so we’ll call him next. He was the last one to speak with Dan, correct?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Get the money ready.” This came from Quinn. “I’ve known Seamus a long time. If it is him, we know money is his driving force. I doubt he’d seriously hurt Dan, but you should have the money ready.”
“But what if it isn’t him?” I asked, sitting on the bed and wrapping my arm around my middle. “What if it’s my cousin?” I didn’t finish my thought, which was: Caleb is desperate and I believe capable of seriously hurting Dan. “He was furious when he left the lawyer’s office. But he’s been so quiet since. He could have been planning this for a week.”
“We have a team following him,” Quinn reminded us all. “I’ll check in after we talk to Stan.”
“Okay,” Oh God, oh God, oh God, please let Dan be okay. “Do I—do I tell Eleanor? Do I tell his mom? Do I call the police?”
“No. Don’t tell Eleanor. There’s no reason to worry her unnecessarily.” Quinn’s voice was firm. “Tell no one.”
“Kat, I’m going to hack your phone once we hang up,” Alex spoke for the first time, “see if I can figure anything out about the number that’s been texting you.”
“Don’t respond to the kidnapper’s text until we get there.” I heard Fiona take a deep breath. “We’ll be at the hotel in three hours and I’m confident we’ll know more by then.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
Three hours.
Three hours.
What the heck was I going to do for three hours?
“Last night, did you talk to Dan after he and I hung up? Did he tell you about what Janie found in Caravel’s financial reports?” Quinn asked.
“No. You must’ve spoken to him after we—after I saw him.”
“In just a minute, I’m going to hand the phone to Janie. She’ll fill you in on what she found while Alex, Fiona, and I call Stan.”
“There’s something else you should know.” This came from Alex. “I looked up that patent information Dan sent over last night involving Dr. Carlyle. It is held by Caravel, for now, but they’re selling it to a venture capital firm.”
“What? Why?”
“According to bank records, this venture capital firm is the same one who is funding Dr. Branson’s research in the Caribbean. I also found that Caleb is a major investor in the firm. But Caleb Tyson isn’t just the main investor in the firm,” Alex paused, and if I didn’t know him better I would’ve assumed the pause was for dramatic emphasis, because he said, “Caleb Tyson is the only investor in the firm. He’s selling the patent to himself.”
“That weasel bastard,” I said and thought at the same time. “Can he be arrested for that?”
“No. You can’t be arrested for self-dealing.” Greg, Fiona’s husband, cut in. He must’ve been listening to the conversation. “Sorry to butt in, but CEOs self-dealing is not illegal. It happens all the time.”
“But isn’t he defrauding shareholders?” Fiona asked her husband. “Isn’t he committing fraud?”
“Not technically,” Greg answered. “Actually, not unless you can prove that he falsified reports to the board.”
I rubbed my forehead. “We can talk about this later. Quinn, you need to call Stan. Text me when you know anything.”
“I will,” he promised.
“Let me get Janie,” I heard Alex say.
A swelling of frustration made my throat tight and uncomfortable. My gut told me Caleb was behind Dan’s kidnapping. My mind began playing through scenarios, bargaining with an imaginary Caleb.
Maybe if I willingly divorced Dan and signed over guardianship to my cousin, he’d let Dan go.
Or maybe if I could find evidence that Caleb falsified reports to the board, he’d let Dan go.
Or maybe if I find Caleb, tie him up, and threaten to tweeze all of his body hair—one hair at a time—he’d let Dan go.
“Kat.” Quinn’s voice cut through my sadistic reflections.
“Yes?”
He paused, as though considering his words. When he spoke, his voice was deep and his tone was stark, “Dan is family to me. He’s my brother. Nothing is going to happen to him.”
I closed my eyes, nodding, wanting desperately to believe him.
But if Caleb had Dan, there was nothing Quinn or I or anyone else could do to keep him safe.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act: Law passed by US Congress in 2003 which makes it illegal for the US government/Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
—Congress.gov
**Dan**
Turns out getting tased doesn’t make you shit your pants. At least, Mark didn’t shit his pants when I tased him.
Regardless, he was still pissed at me.
Long story short, as they marched me to their SUV in the parking garage of Caravel Pharmaceuticals, I tried to give them the slip. I failed, but Mark got tased, Conner earned himself three loose teeth, John was going to have a new scar above his right eye, but Ricky walked away without a scratch.
The big guy had been the one to finally subdue, cuff, duct tape, and carry me to the car. And so here we were, at some piece of shit warehouse turned man cave, twelve hours later. No sign of my brother, yet.
“He’s on his way. Should be here soon.” Ricky was trying to feed me pancakes. “And remember, when he gets here, you need to act like we’ve knocked you out, like you’re passed out.”
I didn’t want pancakes and I definitely didn’t want someone spoon-feeding me pancakes while my hands were cuffed behind my back, my arms were duct-taped to my sides, and my ankles were zip-tied to a metal chair, unless that someone was Kat, we were both naked, and it was her kink.
So I glared at nothing, keeping my mouth shut, and thought about Kat (and kink).
“Come on. Eat. They’re good. I know you like pancakes,” Ricky poked at my lips with the fork, so I murdered him with my eyes.
He sighed, like he was disappointed, and sat back in his chair. “You gotta eat.”
“You know who made good pancakes?” Conner asked this from his place on a ratty old orange couch. He hadn’t wanted pancakes either on account of his loose teeth.
“Who?” John looked up from his breakfast through his left eye, his right eye now swollen completely shut.
“Paul the Plum.”
“Why do they call him Paul the Plum?” Ricky asked, finally letting the fork drop away from my mouth.
I tried to zone them out, and it was easy whenever I remembered the sight of Kat on that d
esk, wearing those stockings, her underwear in my pocket, her legs spread, her fingers in my hair. . .
But then I’d get a hard-on, and I’d have to push the images from my mind lest Ricky think my stiffy had anything to do with his fork of pancakes.
Conner took a drag from his cigarette, squinting as the smoke drifted past his eyes. “The only way he could cum was from a Lucky Stranger.”
I’d had a lot of time to think about Kat—her smile, her laugh, her bossiness, her starched shirts—and I’d had a lot of time to think about what an idiot I’d been to believe I was in limbo, to believe I didn’t love her.
Such an idiot.
And this was my penance, sitting here with these fuckwits listening to their dumbfuck conversations about shit that didn’t matter.
“What? What’s that?” John’s left eye swiveled between me and Conner, like I would fucking know what a Lucky Stranger was.
I glowered at him. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”
“Yeah. You know.” Conner held up his hand. “When you purposefully put your hand to sleep and then jerk off, making it feel like someone else is doing it. Lucky Stranger.”
“Why would I know that?” I grumbled through clenched teeth. This was such a waste of time.
Conner ignored me. “Get it?”
John sneered. “I thought that was called the Scary Uncle.”
I gave John a dirty look. “Don’t call it that! What the fuck is a matter with you?”
“I knew a guy who could only cum with a Wilmington Deluxe,” Ricky put in, he and Conner sharing a glance.
“What’s that?” John gave Ricky the side-eye.
Ricky shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”
And that conversation, ladies and gentlemen, was my last twelve hours in a nutshell.