24 Hours

“This is a kidnapping-for-ransom,” she said, like a grammar-school girl reciting from memory. “Right now my partner is with your wife, at your house in Madison County. Someone else is holding Abby at a third location. This is what’s going to happen from this point on …”

Will listened like a man being given a clinical description of a disease that would shortly kill him. His disbelief quickly gave way to horror at the way his family’s lives had been studied and deconstructed, all in preparation for a plan designed to separate him from two hundred thousand dollars.

“Listen to me,” he interrupted. “We don’t have to wait twenty-four hours. I’ll get you the money right now—”

“The banks are closed.”

“I’ll find a way.” He tried to keep the panic out of his voice. “I can make it happen. The casino has money. I’ll call down—”

“No. It doesn’t work that way. It has to be tomorrow. Now, let me finish.”

He shut up and listened, his brain working frantically. Whoever was behind this plan knew his business. He—or she—had turned the normal mechanics of a kidnapping inside out, creating a situation in which any aggressive response was impossible. Cheryl’s gun was only there to control Will’s initial panic. The real coercion was Abby. He could pick up the telephone and call the police right now. But if they came and arrested Cheryl, and she didn’t call her partner on their thirty-minute schedule, Abby would die.

“If I do what you want,” he said, “what guarantee do I have that we’ll get Abby back?”

“No guarantee. You have to trust us.”

“That’s not good enough. How are we supposed to get her back? Tell me the details. Don’t think! Tell me right this second.”

Cheryl nodded. “Abby and your wife will be driven to a public place and set free within sight of each other.”

She sounded like she believed it. And she’d told him they’d carried out the same plan five times before. He thought back over the past few years’ headlines in Mississippi. He didn’t remember hearing about any kidnapped children who were found murdered. Not kidnappings-for-ransom, anyway. And that would definitely have made headlines across the state.

“What’s to keep me from going to the police after you let Abby go?”

“The fact that two hundred thousand dollars is nothing to you. And because if the police start looking for us, we’ll know. We’ll know, and my partner will come back and kill Abby. In the playhouse in your backyard, at her school, after church … anywhere. Believe me, he’ll do it. We’ve done this to five other doctors just like you, and none of them have reported it. Not one. You won’t, either.”

He turned away from her in frustration. Through the bedroom’s picture window, he saw the lights of a freighter out on the darkening gulf, playing its way westward. He had never felt so impotent in his life. One simple dictum had carried him through many life-or-death situations: There’s always a way. Another option. Drastic, maybe, but there. But this time there didn’t seem to be one. The trapped feeling made him crazy with rage. He whirled back to Cheryl.

“I’m supposed to just sit here all night while some stranger holds my little girl prisoner? Scared out of her mind? Lady, I will rip your head off before I let that happen.”

She jerked the gun back up. “Stay back!”

“What kind of woman are you? Don’t you have any maternal feelings?”

“Don’t you say anything about my feelings!” Cheryl’s face reddened. “You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know you’re making a child suffer pure terror.”

“That can’t be helped.”

He was about to respond when a thought burst into his mind like a starshell. “Oh Jesus. What about Abby’s insulin?”

Cheryl’s face was blank. “What?”

“Abby’s a juvenile diabetic. You didn’t know that? You didn’t plan for that?”

“Calm down.”

“You’ve got to call your partner. I’ve got to talk to him right now. Right now!”

The telephone beside the bed rang loudly.

They stared at it. Then Cheryl walked to the phone and laid her free hand on the receiver.

“You want to talk?” she said. “Here’s your chance. But be cool, Doctor. Very cool.”

FIVE (#ulink_9bffe08c-96c5-5c04-ba88-e598d159ac74)

Will took the phone from Cheryl and held it to his ear.

“This is Will Jennings.”

“Doctor Will Jennings?” said a male voice.

“That’s right.”

“You got some unexpected company down there, Doctor?”

Will looked over at Cheryl, who was watching intently. “Yes.”

“She looks hot in that black dress, doesn’t she?”

“Listen, I need to explain something to you.”

“You don’t explain anything, college boy. I’m in charge tonight. You got that?”

“I’ve got it, but—”

“But nothing. I’m going to ask you a question, Doc. Kind of like the Match Game. Remember that one? That freakin’ Richard Dawson; what a fruitcake.”

Will heard an eerie laughter.

“Anyway, we’re going to see if your answer matches your wife’s. This is really more like the Newlywed Game, I guess. Uhh … that would be the butt, Bob.” The man broke up again.

Will breathed deeply, his entire being concentrated on understanding with whom he was dealing.

“The question is … does your child have any serious medical condition?”

A trickle of hope flowed into his veins. “She has juvenile diabetes.”

“That’s a match! You just won the all-expense paid trip to beautiful Puerto Vallarta!”

The man sounded like Wink Martindale on speed. Will shook his head at the surreal horror of the situation. “Abby needs that insulin, sir. Immediately.”

“Sir?” The man laughed darkly. “Oh, I like that. This is probably the only time you’d ever call me ‘sir.’ Unless you had to tell me I was dying or something. Sir, I’m afraid you’ve got terminal pecker cancer. Stand two steps back please.”

“I’m an anesthesiologist. I don’t handle things like that.”