Ransom

by Lois Duncan

  “I want them never to know that,” Mrs. Donavan said quietly. “He’s their father, Rod. Children need to respect their parents. They need to feel loved by them.”

  “I’d like them to feel loved by me,” Rod said wearily. “Sometimes it seems so hopeless. The boys like me. There’s no problem there. It’s Marianne I can’t get through to. The thing that kills me is that she’s just the daughter I would have wanted if I’d gone out and picked her! When I look at her, it’s like seeing you, the part of you I missed by not knowing you at seventeen.”

  “Oh, she looks the way I did,” Mrs. Donavan told him, “but the resemblance ends there. I was never so lively, so vital. Marianne has a—a kind of spunkiness.”

  “That is the thing that’s going to pull her through this.” Her husband reached over and took her hand. “Marianne is stubborn, darling. Nobody is going to walk on her, no matter what. If she can hold out against me for as long as she has, she can hold strong against anything. She’s not going to go to pieces or do anything foolish. Wherever she is, whatever is happening, Marianne is all right. We’ve got to keep believing that, that she is all right.”

  “The thing I don’t understand,” muttered Steve Kirtland, “is why our boys should be the ones taken, our boys and the Paget girl. Granted, we are from a good area and might be expected to be able to pay a healthy ransom, but there must be plenty of other well-to-do families in Albuquerque. Why our youngsters and ours only?”

  “We don’t know that there aren’t others,” said Mrs. Kirtland. “If Rod hadn’t phoned us last night, we would never have realized that Marianne was missing. Perhaps the bus was filled with children, and all the parents have been warned, as we have, not to report to the police.”

  “I still think we should call them. We should have done it last night as soon as we got that phone call. We could ask them to keep it quiet, not to let the reporters get hold of it.”

  “But they might! Look at the story of the school bus and Mr. Godfrey’s being missing! It’s all over the front page of the Journal!. It’s not worth the risk, Steve! If they think the police are informed, they may be afraid to return the children!”

  “I know. I know. Don’t you think I haven’t hashed through every angle of it? Lord, what a hellish night, waiting until the bank opened this morning so I could get the money.”

  “You were able to get the whole amount? We didn’t have it in our account.”

  “I borrowed it against our securities. There wasn’t any problem. Now all we have to do is wait for a phone call telling us what to do with it.” Steve Kirtland frowned thoughtfully. “I wonder …”

  “What?”

  “That thing you said a minute ago, about there possibly being others. How many kids from Valley Gardens attend the public high school?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a good little group of them. I see them, sometimes, waiting at the bus stop.”

  “Our two and the Paget girl. Who else? Think hard now. Don’t the Lindleys have children?”

  “Yes, two girls, but they don’t ride the bus on Thursdays. Mrs. Lindley always drives in to pick them up after Pep Club.” Mrs. Kirtland paused. “There’s Joan Miller. She’s in Bruce’s class. You don’t think she could be missing?”

  Mr. Kirtland’s jaw was set. “It will take one phone call to find out.”

  He was already dialing when his wife stopped him.

  “Oh, Steve, maybe we shouldn’t! Not with their boy in the hospital. When the phone rings, they might think …”

  “We have to know.” Ignoring her protests, Mr. Kirtland spoke abruptly into the receiver. “Hello? Mrs. Miller? This is Steve Kirtland, up on the hill. I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this, but I’m calling about your daughter. Is she in school today?”

  There was a long pause while he listened to the voice on the other end of the wire. Then, slowly, he nodded.

  “Yes. Well, I’m glad. That’s—that’s wonderful. … I know how relieved you must be. … They don’t have anything to go on, huh? He didn’t even see the car that hit him? … Well, you can be grateful for that anyway. A close call. Criminal. I know how you must be feeling.” He struggled for an instant with his voice. “After all, our kids are … all we have. I mean, when you come right down to it, material things don’t have much meaning … yes, well, thank you, Mrs. Miller. No, I wasn’t calling for any special reason. I just thought—well, we wanted to know how things were going. Thank you. Good-bye.”

  He replaced the receiver on the hook.

  “Well?” Mrs. Kirtland leaned forward eagerly.

  “Their girl is in school today,” Mr. Kirtland said flatly. “She didn’t attend yesterday. In fact, this is the first day she has been in school since Monday. The whole family has been spending their time at the hospital.”

  “The boy is better?”

  “He’s past the crisis. They had thought they were going to lose him. Good grief, how quickly these things can happen! One moment there’s a happy kid on a motorscooter. The next moment he’s smashed all over the highway! Our own boys, laughing, joking around at breakfast … and hours later, God knows where.”

  “Glenn is so big and strong. He can take care of himself anywhere.” The hope in Mrs. Kirtland’s voice carried a note of desperation. “He’ll take care of Brucie.”

  “Sure. Sure, he will. Glenn can always handle things.”

  “Oh, Steve.” She closed her eyes, as though suddenly too tired to hold them open any longer. Her husband came to her and put his arms around her.

  When he spoke again, it was almost a whisper. “It’s not the kidnapping alone that you are afraid of. It’s not just the danger to the boys. It’s something else too, isn’t it?”

  Wordlessly, she nodded.

  “It’s Glenn, isn’t it? You’re afraid of Glenn?”

  “How do you know? We’ve never said it. How do you know?”

  “You’re afraid he will use that bigness and strength to save himself. That he will get away somehow. And leave Bruce.”

  “How do you know?” She opened her eyes to stare at him. “I’ve thought it was just my—”

  “He is my son, too, dear.”

  “I never thought you noticed. He is so handsome, so strong, so wonderful in so many ways. Yet sometimes, when I’m close to him, when I give him a hug or kiss him, I look into his eyes—and there’s nothing in them. I mean, he has beautiful eyes, but they’re empty.” She shuddered. “I’m being silly. Tell me I’m being silly, Steve, that I’m all upset and worked up.”

  “Of course, you are. We both are. We’re talking like a couple of idiots. We have the money. We’ll pay it and get our boys back again. And Glenn will take care of his brother.”

  For a long time they stood, with their arms around each other.

  Finally Mrs. Kirtland said, “I’ve thought of someone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone else who would have been on the school bus. It’s the girl from that new family, the one that is renting the Busbys’ house while they are in Hawaii. I don’t know their name, but I do have the Busbys’ number.”

  “Let’s phone them now,” her husband said.

  “No, Jesse did not go to school today,” Mrs. French said carefully. “You say your name is Kirtland? Why are you calling me, Mr. Kirtland, and why do you want to know about my daughter?”

  “I’m a neighbor of yours,” Steve Kirtland told her. “My wife tells me that your daughter attends high school with our sons, Glenn and Bruce.” He hesitated.

  “Did they go to school today?”

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “I see.” Mrs. French had been standing, but now her legs felt suddenly too weak to support her. She moved around to the far side of the telephone table and sank into a chair. “And so,” she said softly, “it is not just Jesse.”

  “It’s Jesse and our boys and Marianne Paget. There may even be more of them.”

  “Have you called the police, Mr. Kirtland?”
<
br />   “No,” Steve told her. “We have been afraid to. We are fortunate enough to have money available to pay the ransom. We decided to do that, rather than put the boys into any further danger. Have you called them?”

  “I haven’t done anything. I haven’t known what to do. My husband is away on special duty. In order to get hold of him, I would have to give a reason, and I haven’t known what to say.”

  “You mean, you’re alone there?” Steve Kirtland asked incredulously.

  “Completely alone. I’ve been going crazy. It’s my fault, all of it. I was the one who insisted we move to Valley Gardens. I thought it would be good for Jesse, that being part of a settled neighborhood like this would draw her out of her shell a little. But it hasn’t made any difference. And if we weren’t living here now, she would never have been taken.”

  “You can’t know that,” Steve Kirtland said. “You can’t blame yourself for something this crazy. If it could happen this way, out of the blue, it could happen anywhere. The only important thing is getting the kids home again.”

  “The other people you mentioned,” said Mrs. French, “the ones with the daughter, are they paying the ransom? Do they have the money?”

  “They are trying to get it. When I last talked to them, they were calling Jack Paget, Marianne’s father. He is living in California now and has lots of connections. He always seems to be able to borrow.” He paused. “Are you going to be able to pay it?”

  “I don’t see how—not that much, anyway. We do own some shares in a mutual fund that we were going to use for Jesse’s college. I can sell them, but it will take days to do it, and even then I may not have fifty thousand.”

  “Maybe we can help you,” Steve Kirtland said slowly. “We have a mortgage on the house. We can do some refinancing. Go ahead and get what you can for your mutual fund, and I’ll see if I can’t manage to make up the difference.”

  “You would do that—for me!” Mrs. French exclaimed in bewilderment. “But why? I mean, you’ve never even met me!”

  “I know what has happened. I know how you are feeling. Meeting you doesn’t have much to do with it. Actually,” he continued honestly, “the offer is a selfish one. I think this kidnapping is a package thing. They are not going to release one person and keep the others. They will let them all go at once—or not at all.” His voice cracked suddenly, as though it were Bruce’s. “We have to have the money! We all have to come through with the money! There can’t be any holdouts!”

  Mark Crete had his breakfast at eleven thirty. His head ached, and his eyes were bleary. He rinsed the dishes and stacked them in the sink. Then he went upstairs and packed his suitcase.

  He reconnected the house phone and punched in the number of Dexter’s cell. It went directly to voicemail, and he left a short message saying where he would be and when he’d be returning.

  The cab arrived at one twenty. He was just climbing into it when he heard the telephone ringing. It was a muffled buzz from the interior of the house, and Mark hesitated, wondering if he should go back to answer it.

  “Oh, to hell with it,” he murmured irritably. “I don’t have the time for it. It can’t be anything very important anyway.”

  He settled himself and pulled the car door shut behind him.

  “To the airport, please,” he told the driver.

  The cab swung out of Valley Gardens onto the highway.

  For a long time the telephone continued ringing.

  Chapter Eight

  “IT’S THE NOT KNOWING,” Marianne whispered. “That’s the hard part, the not knowing. I wish we were out there with them, where at least we’d know what was going on.”

  “I wish it were all over and we were away from here and gone.” Jesse’s face was a pale blur, its expression indistinguishable in the shadows of the bunk room. Through the half-open door they had a partial view of the living room, lit dimly by the fading glow of the dying fire.

  “What time is it now?” Jesse asked for what surely was the hundredth time, and Marianne, checking the tiny luminous dial of her wristwatch, said, “It’s a quarter past four. They’ve been out there twenty minutes now. If they were able to get the car started, wouldn’t you think they would have done it by now?”

  It had been a long night. To Marianne, it seemed a million years since the first step of the plan had been put into effect and she and Jesse had pilfered the key to the storeroom.

  Actually Jesse had done it. That in itself had been amazing; that it would be Jesse, moving softly on stockinged feet, who would slip into the second bedroom and search for the key, while in the living room Marianne tried to hold Rita in stilted conversation.

  But the past day had brought a change in Jesse. It had been apparent from the moment Friday morning when she had come out to join them by the fireplace and had sent Glenn in to Dexter.

  “They killed him,” she had told them quietly. “They didn’t just tie him up and leave him someplace; they killed him.” It was as though the act of speaking the words had released her suddenly from the panic that had bound her. Her chin had steadied; her voice had taken on a note of determination. “We’re going to find a way to escape.”

  “They killed him.” Bruce had repeated the statement blankly. “Whom did they kill? What are you talking about?”

  “Mr. Godfrey.” Marianne had not needed any explanation. “Mr. Godfrey, our driver.” For a moment she was too stunned to ask anything further.

  “I heard them talking,” Jesse continued, “last night. I hadn’t wanted to tell you. Until I talked to Dexter, the whole thing seemed so … hopeless.”

  “The poor guy!” There was a break in Bruce’s voice. “He was so nice. Why did they do it? They didn’t have to!”

  “It was probably easier than having to keep him locked up someplace,” Marianne said tersely. She tried to divorce her mind from her horror, to see the situation in its entirety, unclouded by emotion. “They committed murder, and it doesn’t even bother them.”

  “It bothers Rita,” said Jesse. “I don’t think she’s as hard as the other two. I heard her when Buck told her, and she was upset. She said she wouldn’t have got mixed up in it at all if she had thought this was going to happen.”

  “Who did it?” Bruce asked. “Juan?”

  “Yes, but Buck didn’t try to stop him. You can see now why we have to get away from here. We can’t wait for our parents to pay them.”

  “You’re right,” Marianne agreed softly. “There’s no reason now for their letting us go after they get the money. Why should they take the risk of our being able to identify them? They have already killed one person. There is nothing for them to lose by killing five more.”

  Bruce’s eyes were wide behind his glasses.

  “We’ll escape,” Jesse told him reassuringly. “We will, Bruce. We have to.”

  “If anybody can find a way, Glenn can.” The use of his brother’s name seemed to steady the boy. “Glenn will get us out of here.”

  “Of course, he will,” Marianne agreed.

  But to her surprise it had been not Glenn but Dexter who had organized the escape plan. It was he who had drawn the girls aside to ask about the key.

  “Do you think you can get your hands on it? Do you have any idea where Rita keeps it?”

  “She took it out of her purse when she unlocked the door for me to bring you coffee.” Marianne frowned thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, that’s the only time I’ve seen her with a purse since we’ve been here.”

  “She keeps it in the bedroom,” said Jesse, “the one she and Buck share. I saw her carry it in there after.” She paused and then added slowly, “I could get it if there were some way of keeping them diverted while I was in there.”

  “There’s no sense trying,” Marianne said, “until after they have locked the boys in for the night. Then, if I could draw their attention to another part of the house and you slipped in and out quickly, we just might be able to do it.”

  There had been no opportunity
on Friday. Buck and Rita had retired to their bedroom soon after eating, and the angry hum of their arguing voices had gone on and on far into the late hours of the night.

  On Saturday, however, the chance had been there. Incredibly it was easier than they had even dared anticipate, for immediately after locking the storeroom door, Buck had left the cabin and driven off in the van, leaving Rita encamped with her inevitable paperback on the sagging sofa in the living room.

  “Where has he gone?” Marianne asked her.

  “To the village.”

  “Why?”

  “To phone Juan.” Rita was not a pretty woman. Her heavy black brows hung low over her eyes, and there was a shadow of a mustache on her upper lip. She regarded the blond girl coldly. “He’s already told you that Juan’s the one keeping in touch with your folks.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Marianne asked her. “Is it just for the money?”

  “Sure, for money. Why else?”

  “There are other ways of getting money.” Marianne had been standing at the foot of the sofa, and now she moved closer, seating herself upon the overstuffed arm, swinging her feet so that they brushed back and forth in an irritating rhythm against the roughhewn boards of the floor. Beyond the arch of firelight she could see Jesse slip silently along the far wall and go into the bedroom.

  “I have worked for it.” There was bitterness in Rita’s voice. “All my life I’ve worked. You little rich girls don’t know what working is. When I was ten years old, I was scrubbing floors in other people’s houses. I was the oldest of seven children. Sometimes my earnings were all we had to eat on.”

  Marianne was shocked, despite herself. “What about your father? Didn’t he support you?”

  “He was too busy drinking to support anybody. My mother was sick as long as I can remember. She died when I was twelve. After that I had to take all the care of the young ones.”

  “How terrible!” Marianne kept her eyes glued to the woman’s face, willing this spark of communication to hold between them. “Weren’t you able to go to school?”