Danielle Steel - Ransom

He thought about her all the way, wondering what would happen if he backed out now. It was simple, Addison would have his daughters killed, and Peter himself shortly thereafter. And if he confessed to the police and did time for it, or was violated, Addison would have him killed in prison. It was all so simple. There was no turning back. They were on a roll now. And as he reached Truckee finally, Waters was following her to Marin, to one of Will's lacrosse games. He had seen all three kids by then, and she looked about the way he had expected her to. To him, she looked like a suburban housewife, which was of no interest to him. To him, she was a victim, and a lucrative one, and nothing more. To Peter, she looked like an angel. But in some ways, Waters didn't know what he was seeing. The kind of women that appealed to him were a lot jazzier-looking than Fernanda. He thought she looked pretty but plain, and noticed that she didn't wear makeup. At least not when she went out with her children. In fact, she hadn't worn any since Allan died. It no longer mattered to her. Nor did fancy clothes, high heels, or any of the jewelry he'd given her. She had already sold most of it, and the rest had been in the safe since January. She didn't need jewelry or fancy clothes for what she was doing, or what her life was now.

Peter drove to the first address on his list, and saw that it was bordered on three sides, and within two feet in each case, by other houses, which made it impossible for their purpose. He had the same problem with the next four. The sixth one was insanely expensive. The next four were equally unsuitable. And much to his relief, the last one was the right one. It was perfect. It had a long winding driveway that was full of potholes and weeds, the house itself looked ramshackle, and was so overgrown, you couldn't even see in the windows, which were shuttered, which was yet another bonus. The house had four bedrooms, a kitchen that had seen better days but was functional, and a large living room with a fireplace Peter could have stood up in. And behind it, there was a cliff of sheer rock face. The man who owned it showed it to him, and said he no longer used it. It had been used by his sons, and they had moved away years before, but he kept it as an investment. He was renting it since his daughter didn't want it either. Both his sons lived in Arizona, and he was spending the summer in Colorado with his daughter. Peter took it as a six-month rental, and asked the man if he minded if he cleaned it up a bit, and weeded the yard, since he was going to be using it to entertain clients, and the owner looked delighted. He couldn't believe his good fortune to have Peter as a tenant. Peter hadn't even quibbled about the price. He signed the lease, paid three months' rent and a security deposit in cash, and by four o'clock he was back on the road when he got a call on his cell phone from Carlton Waters.

“Something wrong?” Peter sounded worried and wondered if something had happened, or if Waters had been spotted. Or even scared her, or one of the children.

“No, she's fine. They're at the kid's ballgame. She doesn't do much, does she? And she's always got one of the kids with her.” It was going to complicate things for them eventually, not that it really mattered. She was too small to give them any trouble. “I just thought of something. Who's getting the weapons?”

Peter looked blank for a moment as he thought about it. “I guess you are. I can ask, but he probably doesn't want to supply us anything that can be traced back to him. Can you handle it?” Peter knew Addison had the connections to supply them. But he also knew Addison wanted no link whatsoever to this project.

“Maybe I can. I want automatic weapons.” Waters was clear about it.

“You mean like machine guns?” Peter sounded startled. “Why?” The kids weren't going to be armed. Nor was she. But the cops would be if there was ever a showdown. To Peter, machine guns sounded excessive.

“That keeps things nice and simple,” Waters said bluntly, and Peter nodded. These were the professionals Addison had wanted.

“You take care of it,” Peter said, sounding worried. He told him about the house then, and Waters agreed with him. It sounded perfect. They were all set now. All they needed to do was pick a date in July. And go for it. It all seemed so simple, but as soon as Peter hung up, he had the now familiar pain in his stomach. He was beginning to think it was his conscience. Following her around from ballet to baseball games was one thing. Taking her children away from her, using machine guns, and demanding a hundred million dollars ransom for them was another. And Peter knew the difference.

Chapter 11

In the first week of June, on the last day of school, Fernanda had her hands full. Ashley and Sam both had performances at school. She had to help them get all their art projects and books home afterward. Will had a playoff game for his baseball team, and later that night he had a lacrosse game, which she had to miss, in order to attend Ashley's ballet recital. She felt like a rat in a laboratory, running all day, to get from one child to the other. And as usual, there was no one to help her. Not that Allan would have, if he were still alive. But until January, she had had a nanny to help her cover the bases. Now there was no one. She had no family, had lost touch with even her closest friends for a variety of reasons, and realized now how totally dependent she had been on Allan. With him gone, all she had left now were her children. And their circumstances were too awkward for her to want to contact their old friends again. She might as well have been living on a desert island with her children. She felt completely isolated.

Peter had spoken to her twice by then, once in the supermarket on the first day, and another time in a bookshop, when she glanced up at him and smiled, and thought he looked vaguely familiar. She had dropped some of the books she was carrying, and with an easy smile, he handed them to her. After that, he had stood watching her from the distance. He sat in the bleachers at one of Will's games in the Presidio once, but he was behind her, and she never saw him. He never took his eyes off her.

He noticed that she had stopped crying at the bedroom window. He saw her standing there sometimes, looking out at the street vacantly, as though she were waiting for someone. It was like looking straight into her soul, when he saw her there at night. It was almost as though he knew what she was thinking. She was almost certainly dreaming of Allan. Peter thought he'd been a lucky guy to have a wife like her, and wondered if he knew it. Sometimes people didn't. But Peter appreciated every gesture she made, every time she picked up her kids, and every time she hugged them. She was exactly the kind of mother he would have wanted, instead of the one he'd had, who had been an alcoholic nightmare, and had eventually left him unloved, unwanted, and abandoned. Even the stepfather she'd left him with had ultimately left him stranded. But there was nothing abandoned or unloved about Fernanda's children.

Peter was almost jealous of them. And all he could think of when he saw her at night was how much he would have loved to put his arms around her, and console her, and he knew he could never do it. He was confined to watching her, and condemned to cause her more grief and pain, by a man who had threatened to kill Peter's children. The irony of it was exquisite. In order to save his own children, he had to risk hers, and torture a woman he had come to admire, and who aroused a flood of powerful emotions in him, some of which confused him, and all of which were bittersweet. He had a sense of longing every time he saw her.

He followed her to Ashley's recital that night, and stopped behind her at the florist where she had ordered a bouquet of long-stemmed pink roses. She had bought one for the ballet teacher as well, and emerged carrying both of them. Ashley was already at the ballet school. And Sam was at Will's game, with the mother of one of Will's friends, who also had a son Sam's age and had volunteered to take him. He had announced that afternoon that ballet was for sissies. And Peter realized, as he watched them leave, that if Waters and the others had been planning to hit that night, they could have gotten both boys, if not Ashley.