Danielle Steel - Ransom

“It's too soon. They want to give you time to think about it and panic.” The negotiator had told her that too. He was upstairs, waiting in Ashley's room, with a special phone plugged into their main line.

“What are they doing in the kitchen?” she asked with no real interest. She never wanted to see the room again, and knew she'd never forget what she'd seen there. Ted knew it too. He was relieved to know she was selling the house. After this, they needed to get out.

“Cleaning it up.” She could hear a machine pulling out the granite. It sounded like they were knocking the building down, and she wished they would. “The buyers may want to put in a kitchen,” he said, trying to distract her, and she smiled in spite of herself.

“They put him in a bag,” she said, staring at Ted. The scene kept running through her mind over and over, even more than the one in the kitchen, which had been unforgettable too. “With tape over his mouth.”

“I know. He'll be okay,” Ted said again, praying it was true. “We should hear from them in a couple of days. They may let you talk to him when they call.” The negotiator had already told her to ask for that when they did, to prove that he was alive. There was no point paying ransom for a dead kid. Ted did not say that to her. He just sat there, looking at her, as she stared at him. She felt dead inside. And looked it outwardly. Her face was somewhere between gray and green, and she looked sick. Several neighbors had asked what had happened earlier. And someone said they'd heard her scream. But when the police canvased the neighborhood, no one had seen anything. The police had given out no details.

“Those poor men's families. This must be so awful for them. They must hate me.” She looked at Ted searchingly, feeling guilty. They had been there to protect her and her kids. Indirectly, it felt like her fault, as much as the kidnappers'.

“This is what we do. Things happen. We take the risk. Most of the time, things turn out okay. And when they don't, we all know that's what we signed on for, and so do our families.”

“How do they live with it?”

“They just do. A lot of marriages don't survive.” She nodded. Hers hadn't either, in a way. Allan had chosen to bail out rather than face his responsibilities, and left her with a mess, rather than trying to clean it up himself. Instead, he had left her to do it. That had been occurring to her more and more recently. It had occurred to Ted too. And now she had to face this. He felt sorry for her. All he could do to help her was do everything he could to get back her son. And he intended to. The captain had agreed to let him stay at the house for the duration. It was going to start getting dicey once they called.

“What am I going to do when they ask me for money?” She'd been thinking about it all day. She had none to give them, and wondered if Jack could drum some up. It was going to take a miracle, she knew, depending on how much they wanted. Probably a lot.

“With any luck at all, we'll be able to trace the call, and move in on them pretty quick.” If they were lucky. If. Ted knew they had to find them fast, and free the boy.

“What if we can't trace their call?” she said almost in a whisper.

“We will.” He sounded sure, to reassure her. But he knew it wasn't going to be as easy as he wanted to make it sound. They just had to wait and see what happened when they got the call. The negotiators were standing by.

She hadn't combed her hair all day, but looked pretty anyway. She always did to him.

“If I get you something to eat, will you try to eat it? You're going to need to keep your strength up, for when they call.” But he knew it was too soon. She was still in shock from everything that she'd seen and survived that day. She just shook her head.

“I'm not hungry.” She knew she couldn't eat. All she could think of was Sam. Where was he? What had they done to him? Was he hurt? Dead? Terrified? A thousand terrors were racing through her head.

Half an hour later, Ted brought her a cup of tea, and she sipped it, sitting on the floor in the living room, hugging her knees. He knew she wouldn't sleep either. It was going to be an interminable wait for her. For all of them. But hardest for her. And she hadn't told the other kids. The police had agreed that she should wait until she heard something. There was no point panicking them, and it would. The local police at both locations had been notified, and they were on standby for both Ashley and Will. But now that they had Sam, Ted felt the other two were safe, and his superiors agreed. They weren't going to try to grab the other two. They had all they needed now with Sam.

She lay on the rug in the living room, and didn't say anything. Ted sat near her, writing reports, and glancing at her occasionally. He went to check on his men, and after a while, she fell asleep. She was lying there asleep on the floor when he got back. He left her there. She needed the sleep. He thought of carrying her to her room, but he didn't want to disturb her. He lay down on the couch himself sometime around midnight, and dozed for a few hours. It was still dark when he woke up and heard her crying, lying on the floor, too grief-stricken to move. He didn't say a word to her, he just sat down on the floor next to her and held her, and she lay in his arms and cried for hours. The sun was coming up when she finally stopped, thanked him, and walked upstairs to her room. They had cleaned the blood off the hall carpet. Ted didn't see her again until almost noon. They had still heard nothing from the kidnappers. And Fernanda looked worse by the hour.

Jack Waterman called her that afternoon, the day after the kidnapping. The phone rang, and everyone jumped. They had already told her that she had to answer the phone herself, so the kidnappers didn't get scared off by the cops, although they would suspect they were there, since there had been cops in the house when they came for Sam. She answered and nearly burst into tears when it was Jack. She had been praying it would be them.

“How's your flu?” he asked, sounding casual and relaxed.

“Not so good.”

“You sound awful. I'm sorry to hear it. How's Sam?” She hesitated for an endless moment, and in spite of her best efforts not to, burst into tears. “Fernanda? Are you all right? What happened?” She didn't even know what to say. She just went on crying, while he got increasingly distraught. “Can I come over?” he asked her, and she shook her head, and then finally agreed. In the end, she'd need his help anyway. All hell was going to break loose once they asked her for money.

He was at her door ten minutes later, and he was stunned when he walked into the room. Half a dozen visibly armed plainclothesmen and FBI agents were walking around the house. One of the two negotiators had come downstairs for a change of scene. Ted was talking to a small group in the kitchen, which looked surprisingly clean. And Fernanda stood in the midst of it, looking grim. She burst into tears again when she saw Jack. She didn't know what to say, as Ted led the rest of the cops and agents into the kitchen and closed the door.

“What's going on here?” Jack asked, looking horrified. It was obvious that something terrible had happened. It took her another five minutes to get the words out, as they sat next to each other on the couch.

“They kidnapped Sam.”

“Who kidnapped Sam?”

“We don't know.” She told him the whole agonizing story from start to finish, including Sam's removal in the canvas bag, and the murder of the four policemen in her kitchen.

“Oh my God. Why didn't you call me? Why didn't you tell me the other day?” He realized now that it had been happening then, when she canceled their date in Napa. He had honestly believed they had the flu. What they had was infinitely worse. He could hardly believe the story she told him, it was too terrifying for words.