Danielle Steel: Ransom

Their oldest son had graduated from college the year before, and had moved to New York. The other two boys were still in college, in the University of California system, one in San Diego, and the other at UCLA. None of their three boys wanted to go into the police force, and Ted didn't blame them. It had been the right choice for him, but he wanted something more for them, although the department had been good to him. When he retired, he would have a full pension. He couldn't imagine retiring, although he would have thirty years in the coming year, and lots of his friends had retired long before that. He had no idea what he'd do when he retired. At forty-seven, he didn't want a second career. He still liked his first one. He loved what he did, and the people he did it with. Ted had seen men come and go over the years, some retire, some quit, some killed, some injured. He'd had the same partner for the last ten years, and before that for a few years, they had paired him off with a woman. She had lasted four years, and then moved to Chicago with her husband and joined the force there. He got Christmas cards from her every year, and in spite of his initial reservations, he had liked working with her.

The partner he'd had before that, Rick Holmquist, had left the force and joined the FBI. They still had lunch once a week, and Rick teased him about his cases. Rick always made it clear to Ted that what he did at the FBI was more important, or at least he thought so. Ted wasn't so sure. From what he could see, the SFPD solved more cases and put more criminals behind bars. A lot of what the FBI did was gathering information, and surveillance, and then other agencies stepped in and took it out of their hands. The Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms guys interfered with Rick a lot of the time, the CIA, the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney, and U.S. Marshals. Most of the time, no one interfered with Ted's cases at the SFPD, unless the suspect crossed state lines, or committed a federal offense, and then of course, the FBI stepped in.

Once in a while, he and Rick still got to work on a case together, and Ted always liked that. They had remained close friends in the fourteen years since Rick had left the SFPD, and they still had a lot of respect for each other. Rick Holmquist had gotten divorced five years before, but Ted's marriage to Shirley had never been in question. Whatever they had become, or their relationship had evolved into over the years, it worked for them. Rick was currently in love with a young FBI agent, and talking about getting remarried. Ted loved to tease him about it. Rick loved to pretend he was tough, but Ted knew what a sweet guy he was.

What Ted loved best about working swing shift, and always had, was the island of peace he found when he got home. The house was quiet, Shirley was asleep. She worked days, and left for work before he got up in the morning. In the old days, when the boys were young, it had worked for them. She dropped them off at school on her way to work, while Ted was still asleep. And he picked them up, and coached them in sports on his days off, whenever he could, or at least attended their games. When he was working, Shirley got home right after he left for work, so the boys were always covered. And when he got home everyone was asleep. It meant he didn't see a lot of the kids, or her, while they were growing up, but it brought in the bacon, and they had almost never needed to pay for a sitter, and never had to worry about day care. Between them, they had covered all their bases. It had taken a toll on them, in the time they hadn't spent together. There had been a time, ten and fifteen years before, when she had bitterly resented the fact that she never saw him. They had argued a lot about it, and eventually made their peace with his hours. They had both tried working days for a while, but they seemed to argue more, and he'd worked nights for a while, and then went back to swing shifts. It suited him.

When Ted came home that night, Shirley was sound asleep, and the house was quiet. The boys' rooms were empty now. He had bought a small house in the Sunset District years before, and on his days off, he loved to walk on the beach and watch the fog roll in. It always made him feel human again, and peaceful, after a tough case, or a bad week, or something that had upset him. There were a lot of politics in the department, which sometimes stressed him, but generally, he was an easygoing, good-natured person. Which was probably why he still got along with Shirley. She was the hothead in the family, the one who got angry and raged at him, the one who had thought their marriage and relationship should have been more than it turned out to be. Ted was strong, quiet, and steady, and somewhere along the way, she had decided that was enough, and stopped trying to get more out of him. But he also knew that when she stopped arguing with him, and complaining to him, some of the life had gone out of their marriage. They had given up something, passion for familiarity and acceptance. But as Ted knew, everything in life was a trade-off, and he had no complaints. She was a good woman, they had great kids, their house was comfortable, he loved his job, and the men he worked with were good people. You couldn't ask for more than that, or at least he didn't, which was what had always annoyed her. He was content to settle for what life offered him, without demanding more.

Shirley wanted a lot more than what Ted demanded of life. In fact, he demanded nothing. He was content with life as it was, and always had been. All his energies had gone into his work, and their boys. Twenty-eight years. It was a long time for passion to survive, and it hadn't for them. There was no question in his mind, he loved her. And he assumed Shirley loved him. She was not demonstrative, and rarely said so. But he accepted her the way she was, the way he accepted all things, the good with the bad, the disappointing with the comforting. He liked the security of coming home to her every night, even if she was sound asleep. They hadn't had a conversation in months, maybe even years, but he knew that if something bad happened, she'd be there for him, as he would be for her. That was good enough for him. The kind of fire and excitement Rick Holmquist was experiencing with his new girlfriend was not for him. Ted didn't need excitement in his life. He wanted just what he had. A job he loved, a woman he knew well, three kids he was crazy about, and peace.

He sat at the kitchen table, and had a cup of tea, enjoying the silence in the peaceful house. He read the paper, looked at his mail, watched a little TV. At two-thirty he slipped into bed next to her, and lay in the dark, thinking. She didn't stir, didn't know he was lying next to her. In fact, she rolled away from him and muttered something in her sleep, as he turned his back to her, and drifted off while thinking about his caseload. He had a suspect he was almost sure was bringing heroin in from Mexico, and he was going to call Rick Holmquist about it in the morning. As he reminded himself to call Rick when he woke up, he sighed softly, and fell asleep.

Chapter 3

Fernanda Barnes was staring at a stack of bills, as she sat at her kitchen table. She felt as though she had been looking at the same stack of bills for the four months since her husband died, two weeks after Christmas. But she knew only too well that even though the stack seemed the same, it grew bigger every day. Each time the mail came in, there were new additions. It had been a never-ending stream of bad news and frightening information since Allan's death. The latest being that the insurance company was refusing to pay on his life insurance policy. She and the attorney had been expecting that. He had died in questionable circumstances while on a fishing trip in Mexico. He had gone out on the boat late at night, while his traveling companions slept at the hotel. The crew members had been off the boat, at a local bar, when he took the boat out and had apparently fallen overboard. It had taken five days to recover his body. Given his financial circumstances at the time of his death, and a disastrous letter he'd left for her, filled with despair, the insurance company suspected it was a suicide. Fernanda suspected that as well. The letter had been given to the insurance company by the police.