Sufficient Ransom

by Sylvia Sarno

  Sufficient

  Ransom

  A Novel

  Sylvia Sarno

  Savvy Scribe Press

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Sylvia Sarno

  All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  ISBN-13: 978-1484884591

  ISBN-10: 1484884590

  First published in America in 2014 by Savvy Scribe Press

  Cover design by Alexander von Ness

  For Dana,

  The Man Who Knows

  My shame and guilt confounds me.

  Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow

  Be a sufficient ransom for offence,

  I tender ‘t here: I do as truly suffer

  As e’er I did commit

  Proteus

  Two Gentlemen of Verona

  Shakespeare

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1: Sunday, September 30

  CHAPTER 2: Monday, October 1

  CHAPTER 3: Tuesday, October 2

  CHAPTER 4: Wednesday, October 3

  CHAPTER 5: Thursday, October 4

  CHAPTER 6: Friday, October 5

  CHAPTER 7: Saturday, October 6

  CHAPTER 8: Sunday, October 7

  CHAPTER 9: Monday, October 8

  CHAPTER 10: Tuesday, October 9

  CHAPTER 11: Wednesday, October 10

  CHAPTER 12: Thursday, October 11

  CHAPTER 13: Friday, October 12

  CHAPTER 14: Sunday, October 14

  CHAPTER 15: Tuesday, October 16

  CHAPTER 16: Wednesday, October 17

  CHAPTER 17: Thursday, October 18

  CHAPTER 18: Friday, October 19

  CHAPTER 19: Monday, October 22

  CHAPTER 20: Tuesday, October 23

  CHAPTER 21: Wednesday, October 24

  CHAPTER 22: Thursday, October 25

  CHAPTER 23: Friday, October 26

  CHAPTER 24: Sunday, October 28

  CHAPTER 25: Monday, October 29

  CHAPTER 26: Tuesday, October 30

  CHAPTER 27: Wednesday, October 31

  CHAPTER 28: Thursday, November 1

  CHAPTER 29: Saturday, November 3

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  Sunday, September 30

  8:00 P.M.

  Ann Olson and her six-year-old son were alone in the house. It was already dark.

  “Mom, can you read the story again? Please. I have to make sure the bird finds his mother.”

  Ann scooped up the book and placed it on the shelf next to Travis’s bed. Tucking the blue striped quilt around her only child she said, “I’ve read it three times. It’s time to go to sleep, sweetie.” She kissed her son’s freckled nose and stood up. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Mom?”

  She knelt and caressed his soft brown hair. “What, honey?”

  He pulled the blanket to his neck. “I’m scared of the dark.”

  Ann bent over and kissed her son’s forehead, her voice extra soothing to mask her own anxiety. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s no one here to hurt you.”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “As you go to sleep, try to think of happy things like Legoland and the zoo. Think of the little animals we saw at the tide pools today. The crabs and those fuzzy sea creatures. What are they called?”

  Travis’s eyes lit up. “The enemies!”

  Laughing, she corrected him. “Anemones, you silly.”

  Travis’s face grew serious. “Mom, I’m still scared.”

  She stroked his head, smiling to herself. Her son’s bedtime stalling tactics were getting more sophisticated. “I’ll keep your light on,” she said, as she stood up. “And the hall light too. If you need me in the night, come get me, okay? For now, you need to go to sleep.”

  “When will Dad be home?”

  Her husband, Richard, was on yet another business trip—one of many every year—more than she cared to count. He had cancelled his last trip to Hong Kong in order to work out a plan with their lawyer to fight the charges Child Protective Services had filed against them. When Ann begged her husband to cancel this trip too, he said that if this new biotech start-up he had bet his career on was to survive, he had to go.

  Ann tucked her son’s beloved rabbit by his arm. “Your father will be home in six days, honey. It’s late, Travis. You need to go to sleep.”

  “I miss Dad.”

  The very real possibility that her child could be taken from her and put into foster care, all because a misguided CPS agent got it into her head that Ann was a danger to her son, made Ann sick with apprehension. “I miss Dad, too.”

  The truth was she was upset with her husband for leaving her and Travis to face CPS alone. In her saner moments Ann realized she was being unreasonable. Richard had major responsibilities. Defending his decision to go on this trip, he had echoed their lawyer’s assurance that CPS didn’t have a case. Well Ann knew that. Still, she couldn’t help feeling that her husband had let her down.

  The doorbell rang.

  Her body tensed. She wasn’t expecting anyone.

  Travis’s eyes froze. “Who is it, Mom?”

  “Probably some salesman.” She tried to sound unconcerned so he wouldn’t worry.

  The doorbell rang again.

  She tousled her son’s hair. “I’ll be right back.”

  Ann stepped onto the landing and looked over the wrought iron railing. The entrance hall below was dimly lit from the outdoor lights that had come on when the visitor stepped up to the door. The wind pushing the vertical blinds in the family room at the back of the house made a slight rustling sound.

  Her hand came to her mouth in anxious surprise. The shade by the window next to the front door was up. Usually when Richard was away she had the house battened down for the night, way before dark. Tonight she was so caught up with Travis that she hadn’t noticed it getting late.

  Ann hurried down the stairs hoping to get to the peephole unseen so she could decide whether she wanted to open the door or not.

  It was too late. Kika Garcia appeared in the window.

  Damn it!

  Her hand at her brow as if trying to see into the house more clearly, Kika called out, “I need to talk to you, Mrs. Olson. Please open up.”

  Crouching at the other side of the door, so that social worker couldn’t see her, Ann tried to keep the fear out of her voice. “What do you want now?”

  “I prefer to not have to shout it.”

  Ann didn’t want her neighbors to hear this either. They had already caused her enough trouble. She switched on the hall light, unlocked the door, and faced her overwrought adversary. A half a head shorter than Ann, Kika Garcia had long dark hair and thick bangs over piercing green eyes. She wore a gold Madonna-and-Child medallion at her neck and spoke with a slight Mexican accent.

  “I don’t understand why you keep coming here,” Ann said in a calm voice, though she felt anything but calm. “My attorney told you and your supervisor that all communication should be through his office.”

  Kika’s mouth turned down. “I’m not going to let some lawyer stop me from doing my job. It’s my job to protect your child.”

  “Don’t you read the papers?” Ann said. “Children are disappearing in San Diego. CPS should be worried about them, not Travis, wh
o is loved and well cared for.” Just yesterday, a Mexican nanny had kidnapped her charge, a young girl.

  Kika dismissed Ann’s words with an irritated wave. “That’s police business, not CPS’s. Please bring Travis to the door. I need to make sure he’s okay.”

  Ann threw her hands up in frustration. “You just can’t go to people’s houses at night and expect to see their children. You’re being unreasonable.” That Travis should be subjected to such treatment made her want to slam the door in Kika’s face, but she was afraid that that might be used against her too.

  “Neither you nor your lawyer have answered my calls or emails. You’re never home.” The social worker’s face scrunched into an impatient frown. “You know? Rich people shouldn’t be allowed to get away with hurting their children any more than poor people. I guess you’ll learn that the hard way.”

  Remembering how her temper had gotten her into trouble before, Ann reminded herself not to be drawn into a shouting match with the social worker. “Miss Garcia,” she said. “Try to see things from my point of view. You interviewed my son at his school without my husband or me. You should know children will sometimes make things up because they get confused. We explained everything to the best of our ability. But you’d already made up your mind that we had hurt our child. You’ve been after us ever since. We’re good parents. You need to drop the case.”

  “Sorry if I don’t take everything you say on faith, Mrs. Olson. The bruises and scratches all over your son’s body are a fact not so easily explained away. Not only that, the week before your son was hurt, the police were called here because you had lost it.” She folded her arms to her chest. “And just so you know, what I did was perfectly legal. As a CPS investigator I have the right to speak, in private, to any child I believe is in danger.”

  “My lawyer says it’s a matter of days before the abuse charges against us are dismissed. You have no case!”

  Kika’s lips curved into a sneer. “I’m not gonna let some overpaid puppet tell me what’s what.”

  The social worker was clearly irrational. “You need to keep away from Travis.”

  Kika leaned in and pointed her finger at Ann. “You’re about to lose your child.”

  Ann stepped back and shut the door, trying not to slam it, though she felt like it. She jerked the window shade down. What’s she planning now? It was the third time in the past ten days Kika had come to the house, but never before at night.

  Travis was staring up at her, his brown eyes wide with fear. “Who was at the door? Mommy, what’s wrong?”

  Her hand fluttered to her neck. “Nobody, honey. We need to—” There was no way she and Travis could stay in the house alone with that woman around. Trying not to show how upset she was, Ann knelt before her son and gently pushed his hair back from his face. “We’re going to a hotel now, sweetie, a place with a big pool.”

  Travis’s face scrunched into a frown, his eyes questioning. “A hotel?” He pulled at her tee shirt as she stood up. “I don’t want to go to a hotel. What’s wrong, Mommy?”

  Everything was wrong. A lunatic was threatening to take her child and she might gain the legal right to do it. Ann knelt before her son again, her voice steady. “Everything’s okay Travis. Come. Help Mommy lock up.”

  Travis didn’t move. He looked worried.

  She tried to think how to reassure her son. The idea came to her quickly. She would make a game of it. “You know the lady who talked to you at school those times, the one with the dark hair?”

  Travis smiled. His two front teeth were missing. “You mean Kika.”

  Ann felt a pang of jealous worry. Travis was too young to understand that Kika was not the kind person she pretended to be, but rather a scheming liar determined to take him from his parents and put him in foster care.

  She tried to sound light-hearted. “Kika keeps coming to our house. We’ll hide and hope she can’t find us. Like a game of hide-and-seek. Okay?”

  “What about Daddy? Are we hiding from him too?”

  “When Dad calls we’ll tell him where we are.” She kissed his cheek. “Feeling better?”

  The worry gone from his face, Travis nodded.

  “Good. Come help Mommy check all the windows and doors.” Ann bent her legs and lifted Travis. He was tall for his age and thinly built. “You’re such a big boy now, and you smell so good. Like that blueberry cake we had for dessert.” She held her son to her chest as she moved through the house, locking windows, doors, and shutting shades.

  In the kitchen, she hesitated. Dinner dishes were still stacked in the sink. Travis’s Lego pieces were scattered all over the floor. Ann liked neatness. The thought of leaving a mess behind made her even more anxious. Every night before bed she spent at least an hour scrubbing down the kitchen, putting the clean dishes away, and mopping the white tile. If anyone so much as washed their hands in the downstairs bathroom she felt compelled to scrub that room too.

  She fastened the window above the sink, flicked the blinds shut, and forced herself past the mess. Right now, getting away from Kika Garcia was more important than cleaning. On she went to the living room, the formal dining room, her home office, and the library. All secured.

  His hand caressing her blond hair, Travis said, “Can we stay at the Del? Oh please, Mom, let’s stay at the Hotel Del. We could eat at the big buffet. Remember when we went there for Easter? Dad drank a lot of Champagne. Remember?”

  Ann retraced her steps back to the kitchen, grabbed her handbag and car keys off the counter, and headed for the staircase. “We’ve been to the Hotel Del so many times,” she said, slowing her pace. “They know us there. We’ll go somewhere new—like I said, with a big pool.”

  At the foot of the staircase, she shifted her son to her hip and glanced at her wrist. It was 8:30. Richard should have landed in Hong Kong by now. She hated when her husband flew. She always imagined the worst. Every time he booked a trip, she just knew that this time his plane would crash. She pictured herself a heartbroken widow, at forty, raising headstrong Travis alone. When Richard returned home, she would hug and kiss him hard. Later in bed, she would confess her foolish visions and promise to be less apocalyptic the next time, but somehow her dark thoughts continued.

  Now, the real threat of CPS taking her son quelled all concerns for her husband. Ann had read horror stories about overzealous caseworkers snatching children from their homes—children put into the foster care system. Parents falsely accused of the most egregious crimes, and years of childhood lost. Kika Garcia seemed determined to victimize her family in just that way—all because she had this idea that Ann was an abusive mother. Besides, what did Kika know about raising a child? Ann had heard she was childless.

  She reached around Travis’s back and wiped her eyes. The crimes CPS accused her of were baseless. Yet, deep down Ann yearned to be forgiven. But for what exactly, and by whom? She didn’t know.

  She lowered Travis onto the first step. Continuing the imaginary game of hide-and-seek, her voice hinted at conspiracy. “I bet Kika won’t find us upstairs.”

  A mischievous grin lit up her son’s face.

  The lights in her bedroom on, Ann emptied her cash drawer into her purse. While Travis bounced on her bed, she stuffed several days’ worth of clothes into a duffel bag, grabbed her travel kit from the bathroom and shoved that in too. On to Travis’s room to do the same.

  Travis tagged behind her. “Mom, can I have a treat?”

  He was being so well behaved. “I’ll give you some chocolate in the car, sweetie.”

  It was dark when Ann rolled her Lexus out of the garage. “Kika won’t find us now,” she said in a playful voice as she watched her son in the rearview mirror. His eyes were shining with excitement.

  Ann stopped in the driveway and scanned the street behind her car. Kika’s red Corolla was nowhere to be seen. Next, she peered at the trees and the sides of the house for signs of anyone hiding. Before activating the alarm she had turned on the outdoor lamps to discourage
anyone from creeping up to the windows and spying.

  She drove through the quiet streets. When Travis insisted she turn the backseat light on so he could read his Star Wars book, she said, “When we get on the freeway, sweetie. First, we’ll park at the shopping center so I can call for a reservation.” She had considered calling from home, but the thought of spending one more minute than necessary in her house with the social worker about had changed her mind. Though it was the last day of September and the summer crowds had largely dissipated, some convention or other always seemed to be going on in San Diego. She didn’t want to drive from hotel to hotel only to be told they were full.

  Ann unlocked her phone and got to work. Minutes later she hung up, relieved. The Solana Regent, a short drive up the coast, had a vacancy. Next, she called Richard in Hong Kong. Voicemail answered. Whispering so Travis couldn’t hear, she urged her husband to call her. “After what happened tonight, hopefully Stewart can get that restraining order against Kika,” she added before hanging up.

  “Mom, can I have the chocolate now?”

  She snapped open the glove compartment and handed back a Twix, hoping Travis didn’t notice that her hand was shaking. She forced herself to speak casually. “Careful with the crumbs, sweetie.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. She had to get herself together before Travis sensed her panic. But what if Kika notified the police? What if she followed them to the hotel? Her frustration mounting, Ann wished her husband hadn’t left her and Travis alone and gone flying half way around the world. Richard would know how to handle that crazy stalker.

  “When will we be there, Mom?”

  “In about fifteen minutes, Travis.”

  Ann started the engine, unsure whether she was ready for the next leg of their unwanted adventure. After glancing around to make sure she wasn’t being followed, she headed for the freeway.

  Ann’s troubles had started the day of her screaming fit three weeks ago. She burned with shame at the memory. It was the morning of September 8 and Richard was away. Travis had a dentist appointment to get to. She had been up much of the night preparing a presentation for a new client, Douglas Stark. She was anxious and irritable, and Travis was procrastinating, as usual.