To cover Anson’s stunned silence, Mitch said, “He just bought a new specimen. He says it’s a ceratosaurus dropping. From Colorado, the Upper Jurassic.”
He presented another sheet of paper on which he had printed THEY’RE SERIOUS. I SAW THEM KILL A MAN.
While Anson read, Mitch withdrew his cell phone from an inside coat pocket and placed it on the table. “Given our family history, it’ll be so appropriate—inheriting a collection of polished shit.”
As Anson pulled out a chair and sat at the table, his boyish expression of expectation clouded with worry. He assisted in the pretense of an ordinary conversation: “How many does he have now?”
“He told me. I don’t remember. You could say the den’s become a sewer.”
“Some of the spheres are pretty things.”
“Very pretty,” Mitch agreed as he printed THEY’LL CALL AT 7:30.
Mystified, Anson mouthed the questions Who? What?
Mitch shook his head. He indicated the wall clock—7:27.
They conducted a self-conscious and inane conversation until the phone rang promptly on the half-hour. The ring came not from Mitch’s cell but from the kitchen phone.
Anson looked to him for guidance.
In the event, which seemed likely, that the timing of this call was coincidental and that the expected contact would come on the cell phone, Mitch indicated that his brother should answer it.
Anson caught it on the third ring and brightened when he heard the caller’s voice. “Holly!”
Mitch closed his eyes, bent his head, covered his face with his hands, and from Anson’s reaction, knew when Holly screamed.
20
Mitch expected to be brought into the call, but the kidnapper spoke only to Anson, and for longer than three minutes.
The substance of the first part of the conversation was obvious, and could be deduced from hearing his brother’s half of it. The last couple of minutes proved not easy to follow, in part because Anson’s responses grew shorter even as his tone of voice became more grim.
When Anson hung up, Mitch said, “What do they want us to do?”
Instead of answering, Anson came to the table and picked up the bottle of Chianti. He topped off his glass.
Mitch was surprised to see that his own glass was empty. He could recall having taken only a sip or two. He declined a refill.
Pouring in spite of Mitch’s protest, Anson said, “If your heart’s in the same gear as mine, you’ll burn off two glasses of this stuff even as you’re swallowing it.”
Mitch’s hands were trembling, though not from the effect of Chianti, and in fact the wine might steady them.
“And Mickey?” Anson said.
Mickey had been an affectionate nickname that Anson had called his younger brother during a particularly difficult period of their childhood.
When Mitch looked up from his unsteady hands, Anson said, “Nothing will happen to her. I promise you, Mickey. I swear nothing will happen to Holly. Nothing.”
Through the formative years of Mitch’s life, his brother had been a trustworthy pilot, bringing them through storms, or a wingman flying defense as it was needed. He seemed overreaching now, however, when he promised a safe landing, for surely Holly’s kidnappers controlled this flight.
“What do they want us to do?” he asked again. “Is it even possible, is it something that can be done, or is it as crazy as it seemed to me the moment I first heard him demand two million?”
Instead of replying, Anson sat down. Leaning forwar