Danielle Steel: Ransom

Ted was waiting for her outside the building. He looked just the same as the last time she'd seen him. Calm, and nicely dressed, well groomed, intelligent, and concerned about how Sam was feeling.

“How's it going, Deputy?” He smiled down at Sam, who was visibly unhappy.

“I feel like throwing up.”

“That's not so good. Let's talk about it for a minute. How come?”

“I'm scared they'll hurt me,” he said bluntly. It made sense. They had before.

“I'm not going to let that happen.” He unbuttoned his jacket, flashed it open for a second, and Sam saw his gun. “There's that, and besides they'll be in court in leg irons and shackles. They're all tied up.”

“They tied me up too,” Sam said miserably, and started to cry. At least he was talking about it. But Fernanda felt sick and looked at Ted, and he looked as unhappy as she did, and then he had an idea. He told them to go across the street for something to drink, and he'd be back as soon as he could.

It took him twenty minutes. He had met with the judge, the public defender, and the prosecutor, and all had agreed. Sam and his mother were going to be interrogated in the judge's chambers, with the jury present, but not the defendants. He never had to see either of the two men again. He could identify them from pictures. Ted had insisted that it was too traumatic for the boy to testify in the courtroom and see his kidnappers again. And when he told Sam, he beamed, and Fernanda heaved a sigh of relief.

“I think you're really going to like the judge. She's a woman, and she's really nice,” he said to Sam. The judge looked grandmotherly and warm when Sam walked in, and during a brief recess she offered him milk and cookies and showed him pictures of her grandkids. Her heart went out to him and his mother for all they'd been through.

His questioning by the prosecution took all morning, and when they were finished, Ted took them out to lunch. The defense was going to question Sam in the afternoon, and reserved the right to bring him back at any time. So far, he had handled it very well. Ted wasn't surprised.

They went to a small Italian restaurant some distance from the Hall of Justice. They didn't have time to go too far, but Ted could tell they both needed to get away, and Sam and his mother were quiet over their pasta. It had been a difficult morning, which brought back a lot of painful memories for Sam, and Fernanda worried about the impact on him. But he seemed to be all right, just quiet.

“I'm sorry you both have to go through this,” Ted said as he paid the check. She offered to pay half, and he smiled and declined. She had worn a red dress, and high-heeled shoes. And he saw that she was wearing makeup. He wondered if she was dating Jack. But he didn't want to ask. Maybe it was someone else. He could see that she was in much better shape emotionally than she had been in the previous June and July. The move and the new job had done her good. He was contemplating some changes himself. He told them he was leaving the department after thirty years.

“Wow, why?” She was stunned. He was a cop through and through, and she knew he loved his job.

“My old partner Rick Holmquist wants to start a private security business. Personal investigation, celebrity protection, it's a little fancy for me, but he runs a tight shop. So do I. And he's right. After thirty years, maybe it's time for a change.” She knew too that after thirty years, he could leave with a pension that would still give him full pay. It was a good deal. And Holmquist's idea sounded like a money-maker, even to her.

The defense counsel tried to make mincemeat of Sam's testimony that afternoon, but couldn't. Sam was unflappable, unshakable, and his memory appeared to be infallible. He stuck by the same story again and again. And identified both defendants from the photographs the prosecution had shown him. Fernanda couldn't identify the men who'd taken her son, while wearing ski masks, but her testimony about the actual kidnapping was deeply moving and her description of the four men murdered in her kitchen was horrifying. At the end of the day, the judge thanked them and sent them home.

“You were a star!” Ted said, beaming at Sam, as they left the Hall of Justice together. “How's your stomach?”

“Good,” Sam said, looking pleased. Even the judge had told him he had done a good job. He had just turned seven, and Ted told him it would have been just as hard even for an adult to testify.

“Let's go for ice cream,” Ted suggested. He followed Sam and Fernanda in his car, and proposed Ghirardelli Square for their outing, which was fun for Sam. And even for her. There was a festive feeling to it, as Sam ordered a hot fudge sundae, and Ted got root beer floats for both of the adults.

“I feel like a kid at a birthday party,” Fernanda giggled.

She was enormously relieved that Sam's part in the trial was over. Ted said that it was more than unlikely they'd want him back to testify again. Everything he had said had been brutally damning for the defense. There was no question in Ted's mind that the two men were going to be convicted, and he felt certain that however grandmotherly the judge looked, she was going to give them the death penalty at the sentencing. It was a sobering thought. Ted had told her that Phillip Addison was being tried separately in a federal court, for conspiracy to commit kidnap, and all his federal charges, including tax evasion, money laundering, and drug smuggling. He would be going away for a long time, and it was unlikely that Sam would have to testify again in his case. He was going to suggest to Rick that they use the transcript of Sam's testimony from the state's case, in order to spare the boy further grief. He wasn't sure that was possible, but he was going to do everything he could to get Sam off the hook on that one. And although Rick was leaving the FBI, Ted knew he would put the Addison case in the right hands, and would be testifying himself. Rick wanted Addison put away for good, or if possible put to death. It had been a serious matter, and as Ted did, he wanted to see justice served. Fernanda was relieved. It was good to have the whole ugly business behind them. With the trial no longer hanging over them, the nightmare was finally over.

The last of it happened at the sentencing a month later. It was almost exactly a year to the day since it all began, and Ted rang her doorbell over the car bombing up the street. Ted called her the same day she saw the article about the sentencing in the paper. Malcolm Stark and James Free had been given the death sentence as punishment for their crimes. She had no idea when they would be executed, or even if, given what they might do with appeals, but there was every reason to think they would be. Phillip Addison hadn't even gone to trial yet, but he was in custody, and his lawyers were doing all they could to stall his trial. But sooner or later, Fernanda knew, he would be convicted too. And in the case of the other two, justice had been served. And most important of all, Sam was fine.

“Did you see the sentencing results in the papers?” Ted asked when he called her. He sounded as though he was in a good mood, and he said he was busy. He had left the department, in a flurry of retirement parties for him, the week before.

“Yes, I did,” Fernanda confirmed. “I've never believed in the death penalty.” It had always seemed wrong to her, and she was sufficiently religious to believe that no one had the right to take someone else's life. But nine men had been killed, and a child had been kidnapped. And since it involved her son, for the first time in her life, she thought it was right. “But I do this time,” she admitted to Ted. “It's different, I guess, if it happens to you.” But she also knew that if they had killed her son, even putting the defendants to death wouldn't have brought him back or made it up to her for her loss. She and Sam had just been very, very lucky. And Ted knew that too. It could have been otherwise, and he was grateful it wasn't.