Touch & Go

  “We’re not going to ask for something, we’re going to give you something.”

  “You have nothing to give. And you’re wrong about the rolls. Cooking as good as this…now I have even less incentive to let you go.” His gaze flickered to my husband and there was a look on his face I didn’t understand.

  “You’ve invested a lot of time in this operation,” I stated evenly. “Time, money, resources. I’m sure you and your team don’t want to walk away empty-handed.”

  “Not about money. Didn’t I already say that?” Z glanced at Justin, my husband’s battered face, swollen eye.

  “Mom.” Ashlyn nudged me, voice low. For the moment, I ignored her.

  Z pulled his attention away from Justin long enough to eye me skeptically. “Besides, hasn’t your husband told you everything yet? That business isn’t going so well? That he no longer takes a salary? That, in fact, you don’t have money to offer?”

  My face didn’t change expression. I had just learned these things, of course, but it surprised me that Z knew such details as well.

  “Did he tell you about all the pressure he’s under?” Z continued in a bored voice. “Use that as his excuse for all of his extracurriculars. Poor Justin, just trying to feel like a big man.”

  Justin flinched. I could feel his leg tensing up next to mine, preparing to stand. And do what? Pound the table? Take on the bigger guy with the cobra tattoo?

  “Mom.” Ashlyn again, voice still low. She’d pushed away her red tray, her shoulders hunched as if with trepidation.

  “Nine million dollars,” I said, ignoring both my family members.

  For the first time, I could tell that I’d caught Z off guard. His face froze, the green cobra tattoo staring at me with twin beady eyes. Radar was less circumspect. He did a short double take, jaw hanging open, before quickly composing himself.

  “We start today,” I continued calmly, “and it can be wired to the account of your choice by three P.M. tomorrow. We do the work. You get the money. But the demand has to be delivered today, and you have to let us go. Price of ransom. The victims must be recovered safe and sound.”

  Z frowned at me, which, in fact, made the cobra’s fanged mouth move in unsettling ways around his left eye.

  “Nine million dollars,” I repeated. “Guaranteed payday. You’ll leave this prison rich men. Not bad for a few days’ work.”

  Z didn’t immediately say no. Almost absently, he pulled apart his third roll, biting into one half, flaky pastry catching around the corner of his hard-set mouth.

  “How?” he asked.

  “Insurance policy. On Justin, but also Ashlyn and me.”

  “Company policy?”

  “Yes. Perk of being an owner. Justin might not currently draw a salary, but he still gets great benefits.”

  “They’ll pay?”

  “That’s why you carry insurance.”

  Another bite. Z chewed. Z swallowed. “Cash?” he asked abruptly.

  “Wired to the fund of your choice.”

  “I will not go on camera.”

  “We have it all worked out.”

  “One wrong word…”

  “It’s in our best interests to have this all go as planned.”

  “Nine million dollars,” he repeated, a concession of sorts.

  “Three apiece. Or, more likely, five for you, two for each of your men.”

  Radar didn’t look concerned by this split. Z actually smiled. And once again, the cobra tattoo seemed to twist and shudder around his perfectly shaved head.

  “The background report,” he declared dryly, “had not indicated that you would be a problem.”

  “Would you like another cinnamon bun?”

  Z smiled again. Then his gaze switched to my husband, and the sudden coldness in his eyes made me start. He despised my husband. I could see it clearly, in the directness of his gaze. Hatred at a level that was beyond professional, had to be personal.

  And for just one second, I hesitated. Maybe ransom was a bad idea. The exchange of money for hostages was inherently complicated. So many things could go wrong. A simple misstep could lead quickly and catastrophically to further violence, even death.

  Especially when dealing with a man who’d covered his head in a giant fanged viper.

  “Radar.” Ashlyn’s voice from beside me. My daughter no longer reaching toward me, but across the table toward the youngest commando.

  Radar? Why would my daughter ask for…

  I turned quickly, grabbing for Ashlyn’s arm but missing, as without another word, she slid off the back of her stool and dropped limply to the floor. Blood, so much blood, pooling on the lower half of her orange jumpsuit.

  “Ashlyn!” Justin, already on his feet, then immediately drawing up short. “What the…”

  Ashlyn’s staring up at me. Eyes, so much like my own, now filled with regret. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  And in that moment, I understood.

  The men were scurrying around. Radar pushing back his stool, Z announcing in an authoritative voice for Justin to come with him, for Radar to tend to us.

  I ignored them all. I focused on my daughter, who’d tried to warn me yesterday that we didn’t talk to her anymore. Not just moments in a marriage, I realized now, but moments in an entire family, when you stopped seeing one another. When you shared space, but no longer yourselves with one another.

  I did my best to see her now. To gaze into her eyes. To comfort her with my own presence. As I knelt on the floor and held my daughter’s hand while she miscarried.

  Chapter 27

  WYATT GOT THE CALL just as he and Tessa were leaving Chris Lopez’s neighborhood. Nicole, or should he say, Special Agent Adams, sounding crisp and cool as always, reporting that contact had been made. Justin Denbe himself, shortly after ten this morning, had appeared in a video presenting the ransom demands.

  Tessa knew how to drive. Her years as a state trooper? Or just a lifetime living in Boston? Wyatt couldn’t begin to hazard which, but half a dozen white-knuckle moments later, they were careening down the alley that ran behind the Denbes’ town house, where sure enough, the FBI’s huge mobile command center squatted like a fat linebacker in the middle of an old lady’s tea parlor.

  Inside, they found Nicole’s partner, Special Agent Hawkes, manning a laptop at a small table, flat-screen monitor mounted above. Nicole paced in the limited space behind him, obviously agitated. As Tessa and Wyatt walked in, she gestured to the oversize monitor with a jerk of her chin. Nicole had her arms crossed over her chest, one finger tapping her elbow restlessly.

  She wasn’t just agitated, Wyatt realized. The FBI agent was upset.

  He and Tessa exchanged a glance. He gestured for her to take the remaining seat across from Hawkes, while he stood next to Nicole. With all of them in viewing position, Hawkes hit the play button on his keyboard, and the rest of the story emerged.

  The ransom demand had been delivered via a video message. It featured a single close-up shot of Justin Denbe, his face a black-and-blue battered mess, staring into the video camera with one good eye as he slowly listed the kidnappers’ demands. Nine million dollars, to be wired directly into a single account by 3:00 P.M. EST on Monday, at which time the entire Denbe family would be safely released. Failure to meet the demands would result in further harm to the Denbe family. More details to follow.

  At the end of the twenty-second clip, Justin held up the front page of the morning paper. A brief close-up of the Sunday edition’s date, then the screen went blank.

  “Union Leader.” Wyatt identified the Manchester-based newspaper. “Means they’re still in New Hampshire.”

  “But no word on the rest of the family?” Tessa asked. She was leaning toward the computer screen, as if that might help.

  “Justin Denbe contacted his insurance company via telephone at ten twenty-three this morning,” Nicole provided, fingers still tapping. “He demanded to speak to a manager, saying that he and his family had been abducted. He was a
fraid for his life and evoking the special circumstances clause in the kidnapping policy: Essentially, in the event that the policyholder faces credible risk of imminent death, the company will pay out half of the value of the life insurance policy as additional ransom. Given that a dead Justin Denbe would cost the company ten million in life insurance, it’s in the company’s own best interest to pay up more now, in order to save later.”

  Wyatt turned that around in his head: “So, instead of paying out just the four million in ransom insurance, the company will pay that, plus an extra five from the life insurance policy?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Nine million in ransom versus ten million in death benefits,” Tessa murmured. “Once again, the captors seem to know a great deal about the Denbes’ personal affairs, including just how high they can go with their ransom demand before capping out.”

  “Our theory has always been that the kidnappers are professionals.” Hawkes spoke up, recuing the video. “Given that, it makes sense they’d do their homework before embarking on this enterprise.”

  Enterprise. It sounded so clinical, even businesslike, Wyatt thought. Until you looked at Justin’s battered face. The man had been worked over good. A ring of crusty blood still plastered to the hairline at his left temple. His lower lip cut and puffy, his right eye entirely swollen shut. Not to mention a massive bruise on his other cheek, plus half a dozen larger and smaller lacerations combining to form one grotesquely misshapen mess.

  Yet, the man had stared into the camera directly and spoken in a firm voice. Still holding up, then. Maybe because the kidnappers were picking on him, and not his wife and daughter? Meaning Justin’s own demeanor was a sort of proof of life for the rest of his family?

  “We think she’s pregnant.” He hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but it happened. Staring at Justin’s battered face, wondering if the guy even knew what all was going on within his own family.

  “What?” Nicole, clearly surprised.

  “The evidence log. Last page, contents from the garbage in the garage trash bin—”

  “When did you get a copy of the evidence log?”

  Wyatt shrugged, looked her in the eye. “When didn’t you read it?”

  Nicole scowled, clearly taking his point. In her defense, it was a thirty-page document, and given everything she had to review as the lead agent. But still…

  “One of those stick things from a home pregnancy test,” he continued now, aware of Tessa and Special Agent Hawkes watching him. “Marked positive.”

  “You think Libby’s pregnant? But if it came from the trash, it could have been anyone’s.”

  Wyatt arched a brow. “You mean like the sixty-year-old housekeeper’s?”

  The FBI agent kept her chin up. “Or the daughter’s. She’s fifteen. That’s old enough.”

  “True. Any talk of a boyfriend, or sleeping around?”

  “Not yet, but that’s not going to be the first piece of knowledge shared by her closest friends. Frankly, interviewing teenage girls is tougher than approaching Mafia henchmen. They’ll either close ranks, or feed you so much gossip you don’t know what to believe. It’s going to take us at least a couple more agents, not to mention several more days to sort all those stories out.”

  “In the meantime,” Wyatt stated evenly, “what was good for the gander may have proved good for the goose. Justin cheated on his wife. She cheated back.”

  “Ending up pregnant?” She still sounded dubious.

  “As well as addicted to Vicodin. Don’t pity those kidnappers.”

  Nicole sighed, abruptly rubbed her forehead. “Meaning we possibly have four hostages. God, what a mess. Well then, all the more reason to make this ransom exchange happen. Shall we?” And she gestured once more to the monitor.

  “JUSTIN’S INITIAL PHONE CALL WAS SHORT,” Nicole explained now. “Unfortunately, as we hadn’t anticipated a call directly to the insurance company, we didn’t have a phone tap in place. As a matter of protocol, however, the call was recorded. Our audio experts are working on it now, hoping to enhance the background noises in order to assist our efforts. Moving forward, of course, we’ll establish a designated line at the insurance company, as well as get one of our agents in place. Next time around, a professional negotiator should be able to drag out the conversation, allowing us the opportunity to trace it.”

  “Why did he call first?” Tessa asked. “Why call, then send a video?”

  “Proof of life,” Hawkes provided. “He needed to determine the insurance company’s requirement for ‘credible risk’ of imminent death. You know, what kind of evidence would he need to deliver to support a nine-million-dollar ransom demand?”

  Tessa shuddered slightly.

  Wyatt agreed: “How does a question like that not lead to chopped-off body parts?” he murmured to no one in particular.

  Nicole nodded shortly. “The customer service manager was obviously shaken by the call, but she held up well. She said they would need visual confirmation that Justin and his family were alive. Justin asked if e-mailing a video would suffice. She agreed, but said they’d need evidence the video was real-time, not something that had been previously recorded. They agreed that Denbe would hold up today’s newspaper, SOP for these kinds of situations. Also, the manager gave Justin a code word to use at the beginning and end of the video—Jazz, which apparently is the name of her cockatoo—that way she’d know the footage had been filmed after he’d spoken to her.

  “At the end of the call, you can hear Justin mutter that his face should take care of the rest. We presume that means he felt the image of his bruises, lacerations, et cetera, should suffice for evidence of credible risk.”

  “Where’s the call center?” Wyatt asked.

  “Chicago.”

  “And he e-mailed the video there?”

  “Directly to the manager’s corporate addy, which she provided.”

  “How long did it take,” Tessa asked, “between the initial phone call and arrival of the video?”

  “Approximately forty minutes,” Hawkes supplied. He tapped the keyboard, and an e-mail appeared on the monitor before them. He scrolled to the end, where a long string of technical fine print appeared. “See this? This is the kind of data that’s present on all e-mails, including time and date sent. More relevantly, it also includes the various servers used to route the e-mail from origin computer A to destination computer Z.”

  “You mean you can trace the e-mail?” Wyatt asked with fresh interest. He wasn’t a computer guy. Liked numbers fine, a good white-collar crime always being a fun puzzle to solve. But technology, computers…definitely more Kevin’s domain.

  Hawkes’s turn to grimace. “In this case, probably not. Look, this line here is the X-Originating-IP: in other words, the IP address of the computer that sent the e-mail. We’d love a name, of course, Evil Kidnappers’ Computer from Boston. What we got, however, is a string of numbers that will only become relevant later, should we recover a computer to match up. Now, if you move to the next line, the Received lines, you’ll see each server that the e-mail passed through on its journey from the kidnappers’ computer to the life insurance company’s desktop. Sometimes, these servers are identified by a name, indicating the e-mail passed through a major corporate server on its way around the world, say Hotmail, or Verizon. In this case, however, you’ll see the Receiving-IPs have domain names such as FakeItMake-It, HotEx, PrescriptMeds, interspersed with lines of complete gobbledygook.”

  Hawkes paused, looked up at them. “My best guess? The sender turned this e-mail into spam. Some of these funny-sounding domain names, that’s what they are; massive servers that sit around the globe and spit out e-mails for Viagra, Canadian drugs, et cetera. These servers survive by being hard to trace. Our sender took advantage of that. Meaning at least one of our UNSUBS has significant computer expertise. Maybe even runs spam as a side business, that sort of thing.

  “Now, we got people,” Hawkes provided with a shrug. “They’
ll analyze, dissect, attempt to unravel. But…” He shrugged again, and Wyatt got the message. Tracing the e-mail would be a long shot.

  “The video itself looks homemade,” Tessa observed, moving along. “Single focus, up close and personal.”

  “We’re thinking a cell phone,” Nicole stated. “Something with average resolution but not a quality video camera. As for the narrow focus, two considerations: One, Justin was counting on his injuries to motivate the insurance company to pay out an additional five million, meaning he needs the primary shot to center on that damage. Second, the narrow frame also obscures the background, limiting the amount of information we can glean on their current location.”

  “Professionals,” Wyatt sighed.

  “We do have one hint.” Hawkes tapped the arrow on the screen, and they watched the video play yet again, everyone staring intently at the battered face of Justin Denbe as he stared back at them.

  The shot was neck to forehead. No excess space below, above or around. Just a gray-toned wash of Denbe’s battered features that darkened slightly at the edges.

  “No flash,” Hawkes said. “In a focus this tight, flash would wash out the subject’s face, render most of his nose, cheeks stark white. However, no halos around his head, either, meaning the light didn’t come from behind him. Best guess, the room was sufficiently lit by overhead lights, allowing for even illumination of Denbe’s features.”

  “Rules out some of the northern campgrounds,” Wyatt mused, mental gears churning. “A lot of them cut the power for the winter, meaning if the kidnappers were staying there, they’d have to rely on flashlights, candlelight, whatever. Not to mention, those old cabins…not many windows for natural lighting.”

  “I’m thinking the place has modern lighting,” Hawkes said. “And if not a landline, would have to have reliable access to a cell signal given the length of the first call. Rules out some of your mountain parks as well.”

  “Good point.”

  “I want to see the wife and daughter,” Tessa murmured. “I don’t like that we’re not seeing Libby and Ashlyn.”