5 Alive After Friday (2 page)

Dick said, “I believe she’s going to call the police
after she gives us the money.”

“What did I just say, dimwit? Of course she’s
going to do that. We can’t control what happens after.”

“We should get rid of her after we get the money.”

“Don’t even think about it. We get the money—we
disappear. End of story. We don’t ever show up again and give the authorities
another shot at us.”

“Can I get up off my knees now?”

The man said, “I like you on your knees.” Then he
added, “Hey, can we get out of here? These damn mosquitoes are killing me.”

Sandy could tell the woman was leaning down close
to her. Again, she felt the press of cold steel against the back of her neck. “You
see why all this was necessary, Sandra? If we’d just texted you and asked for four
hundred grand, you’d have laughed. Wouldn’t you?”

Dick added, “But you aren’t laughing now.”

D
ick
and Jane drove Sandy back to her car they had casually pushed to the shoulder
of the road and left parked with the top down. This time Sandy didn’t resist as
the man jostled her out of the SUV. He pushed her down onto the gravel behind
her car before he untied her hands. By the time she’d pulled the blindfold down
and was able to stand, all she could see were taillights receding into the
darkness.

Thirty-six hours until Friday. If they were to be
believed, Chip might not be alive after Friday unless she followed their demand
for four hundred thousand dollars. As unbelievable as their threat appeared
should she believe them? Should she take the chance and report the kidnapping
and extortion to the authorities before paying the money?

It seemed days since she had jumped from her car
but it was less than two hours. Fortunately, there were houses nearby and her
lonely car abandoned roadside appeared as just carelessly parked—extremely
careless, the keys were still in the ignition. She then realized her hand was
still tightly gripping the blindfold. She carefully placed it on the passenger
seat, and that’s when she noticed her cell phone on the floorboard. Her phone
was full of missed messages from Chip and Martin. She quickly texted them both:
“FELL ASLEEP MAYBE FLU BUG CU2MORO.”

She started her car, raised the top and switched the
air on cold blast, all while frantically rubbing the ubiquitous mosquito bites.
Her body seemed to be one huge swollen, itching mass of agony. She sat there
crazily rubbing everywhere she could reach. She resisted the urge to rip off
all of her skin with her fingernails. She had no doubt that one minute more exposed
in the Everglades, she’d have lost her mind.

She drove back to her apartment doing a jerking,
twisting dance behind the wheel all the way. Once inside, she immediately
hurried to the shower. When she stripped, she could see red welts even where
her body had been covered with clothing. Soap and hot water gave some temporary
relief and helped wash off some of the frightening episode. She didn’t
recognize her blotchy, swollen face in the mirror. Strangely, it looked as
though she was wearing a mask, as there was a smooth, clear area across her
face where the tight blindfold had protected a wide area from any bites. No
mosquito bites on her eyelids was something to be thankful for.

Frantically, she searched her tiny kitchen space
and bathroom for some magic elixir that would stop the itching. Nothing really
worked. She swallowed two unidentified pills left over from a visit to the
dentist and sat dabbing her body with antiseptic mouthwash until the bottle was
empty.

She put on her cotton pajamas and made a cup of
hot tea. There in the privacy of her small apartment she could crash. She’d
been holding it all in. She wrapped herself in the small patchwork quilt from
the foot of the bed and tried to hide from the world in the dark.

She shook herself awake and for a moment couldn’t
remember where she was. The woman chasing her was only a dream—she wasn’t up to
her armpits in Everglade muck; she was still wrapped in her warm quilt. Beside
her on the lamp table was a full cup of cold tea. She’d fallen asleep without
touching it. Fallen asleep with pieces of a hundred thoughts swarming around in
her head like angry mosquitoes. She couldn’t believe she’d slept with such a
hammering headache and an itching body. Must have been the pills.

She moved quickly to her one and only window at
the back of her tiny apartment next to her twin-sized bed. It was just before
dawn, but she could look down and see her car safely parked in its usual spot
behind the apartment house. She didn’t remember driving it home. In the mirror,
her face appeared less red and less swollen, but still blotchy.

She needed to think. She had a decision to make.

Chip not alive after Friday seemed
incomprehensible. If it were her life on the line, she’d call in the police—in
spite of any threats to kill her. Of course, things could go wrong; the cops
might screw it up and she’d be killed. Even so, she’d take the chance. You
can’t handle a kidnapping and ransom by yourself; there are too many pieces and
any of them can go fatally wrong. In this case, however, her life wasn’t on the
line but Chip’s was. Could she make such a decision for him? Should she report
the abduction and let him take his chances? If you asked any cop what to do,
you’d get a quick answer right out of the book—until the names of their actual
loved ones are mentioned. In that case, how many would say pay the money, get
your loved ones safe and worry about catching the crooks later?

If the situation were reversed and Chip were asked
to pay up, or
she
would be killed, would he call in the police or drop
off the money? Somehow, she believed he’d say to himself, it’s only money, give
it to them. Keep her safe—then go after the bad guys.

There were risks either way. She remembered the
terror of the cold steel gun barrel against her neck. Jane also seemed cold and
calculating. Dick seemed unstable with a short fuse waiting to be lighted.

Dick presented another problem that had nothing to
do with money. She might not have seen the last of him even after paying the
money. She knew he liked having control of her; he’d like to do it again and next
time without Jane around, he’d do things his way. He’d already copped a feel of
her breasts. She’d crossed paths with a couple of such men; men who are willing
to carry out their fantasies. Dick wouldn’t have to use much imagination; he’d
seen her bound and under his control on her knees. For him, the sight was
enough to launch a thousand fantasies. All would have to be satisfied one way
or another. He was the type to satisfy them in the worst possible way. Helplessly
tied with ropes was fine with him, but he wanted the blindfold left off, so he
could see the look in her eyes when she realized what was about to happen. See
Dick have fun. Fun, Dick, fun.

Unfortunately, she had no idea what he looked like
and didn’t care to keep looking over her shoulder. Was that him stalking her in
the supermarket, or just the high school English teacher caught admiring her
and failing to look away fast enough? In any case, she was dead certain their
paths would cross again.

Nevertheless, she kept thinking it’s only money,
it’s only money. Still filled with self-doubt, she decided she would pay up.
Afterwards, she’d tell Chip. The police and the feds could then move in.

If she simply reported the abduction and demands,
she could sit back and let the professionals take over. On the contrary, now that
she had made the big decision to give Dick and Jane the money, every detail of
getting them the money was up to her.

The important point was to let them have the money
with no problems, so they would get on their way and Chip would be safe. She
wanted no surprise spooking them into changing their plan. She didn’t want Dick
suddenly deciding he’d better start shooting. The money-drop must go smoothly.

Martin had received the settlement check for their
victorious lawsuit and placed it in the office safe overnight. They would
calculate how much for litigation expenses; then they’d go to the bank together
and deposit the money into their separate accounts. Now that scenario had
changed.

She tried to imagine walking into the bank alone with
a four hundred thousand dollar check, already endorsed by Martin and having them
say, “And who are you?” Or, “You have to talk with my supervisor.” Or, “Why do
you want cash?” Or, “You must wait four days for it to clear.” She needed the
cash the next day, Friday. Suppose she did get the cash on time without the
bank giving her a hard time, suspecting fraud and calling the FBI. Does four
hundred thousand fit in a handbag; does it take a suitcase, or perhaps a small
truck? That much money was difficult to visualize in the abstract, let alone in
stacks of real life paper bills. Then what, she skips out of the bank carrying
a small fortune and tosses it into her car? And what does she do with it
overnight—hide it under her bed?

She needed Martin involved. He knew about such things.
Sweet, trusting, Martin who would swim the deepest ocean for her without asking
why. And then ask if she wanted him to swim back. It was getting light outside.
She must talk to him. But he wouldn’t be in the office yet.

In the meantime, she needed to call Chip and make
some sort of excuse. She phoned and was at first surprised when he didn’t
answer. Then she remembered he was working a special FBI task force assignment
and wouldn’t be able to take calls that day.

Something else needed to be done. She needed to scrutinize
the roadside area where they had forced her to a stop. She’d go there immediately.
She dressed and headed for the location. When she first got back into her car,
she noticed the blindfold she had set on the passenger seat and forgotten about.
She carefully held it up between pinched fingers; it appeared to be torn from
an ordinary T-shirt. She set it back down on a tissue from her handbag hoping
she hadn’t destroyed any useful DNA.

She parked nearby and carefully approached where they’d
blocked her in. Quite necessary to check out the area as soon as possible as any
evidence would rapidly disappear. Emotionally, it was a big mistake. She needed
to shake off all the horrors of the previous night.

The effort was useless. No skid marks on the
pavement. The shoulder was grassy and held no tire tracks or footprints. A
dropped wallet would be nice, but she’d settle for a laundry receipt or some
such gift from the gods. Too much to hope for. Combing through the grass turned
up no discarded paper cup, no recent cigarette butt, no candy wrapper, nothing
but old trash. An expert crew might find trace evidence where she couldn’t, but
she had firmly decided not to alert the authorities until after the money-drop.

She stopped for a quick breakfast sandwich and
another coffee, thankful for the drive-through window, as she wasn’t ready to
show her dappled face in public yet. She paid the cashier at the window and asked
for an additional paper bag. The girl handed her a nearby bag. Sandy explained
she needed an absolutely clean bag. The girl screwed up her face, reached under
the counter and held out a small bundle of new bags bound with tape. Sandy
reached in the center of the package of bags and pulled out a crisp folded
white bag. She carefully dropped the blindfold into the bag, closed it and
drove away leaving the cashier shaking her head.

By that time, most of the itching had lessened; yet
several bites wouldn’t give up, must have been some exotic bug. She could smile
now thinking, forget about sophisticated torture techniques just give a terrorist
ten minutes in the Florida Everglades after dark and he’d give up his mother.

Now it was time for Martin. Did she have the
necessary nerve to face him?

When they first met, they both had an interest in
the Banks versus Olin wrongful death suit, which the court had now settled with
a payoff beyond her dreams. She had passed the bar just a year earlier. At
about the same time, Martin had stopped traveling around the world long enough
to take over the long idle law offices of his ailing father. He came from an “old
money” family and was comfortable in his affluence. He certainly didn’t need to
rely on the law practice for a livelihood.

They had decided back then to join forces in the lawsuit
against a depraved woman who, intended to shoot her criminal cohort, but had
mistakenly shot someone’s cheating husband prowling outside her house.
Although, the long-suffering wife of the cheating husband didn’t grieve over his
death, he had left her and the children penniless. Sandy and Martin
successfully pressed a million-dollar wrongful death suit on her behalf against
the pistol-packing woman.

During the trail process, Martin went beyond just
being nice and offered Sandy office facilities and desk space until she was
able to be on her own as a blossoming lawyer. He wasn’t being selfless—his
foolish heart demanded it. Since she started sharing the law office with him,
they’d become quite close. They would likely discuss anything happening in
their lives. A genuine case of a nonromantic friendship—not that Martin
preferred the nonromantic part. The pleasant office sharing arrangement had since
become permanent and his heart couldn’t help skipping a beat each morning when
she appeared.

Their very different personalities had somehow
meshed like loops and hooks of Velcro. When it came to crimes and criminals, she
didn’t mind skulking down a dark alley and rummaging through the blood-soaked pockets
of a dead body to look for clues. He was unlikely to go into a dark alley in
the first place, or a bright one for that matter, and preferred his dead bodies
in the morning newspaper where he could read about them over coffee. Sandy
could be abrupt with her take-it-or-leave-it behavior. Martin was a gentleman
in all respects. His tuxedo-clad personality would have fit nicely in a 1920’s
drawing room entertaining guests, except he had no taste for the high-life. All
poise and no pretense. He paid proper awareness to the niceties of propriety,
yet was far from prissy and kept himself and his life orderly. They made a
remarkable though an unlikely set of office mates.

Martin jumped up from his desk, when he heard her
come into the office. “I couldn’t reach you. Are you all right?” Then he saw
her face, “You
have
been ill. Oh, Sandy, sit down.”

She hadn’t tried to cover her mottled face with
makeup. “Mosquito bites.” Might as well start with the truth.

“Did you fall asleep in the grass, or something?
What are you putting on them? Have you seen a doctor?”

“I’m not allergic or anything. Just mosquito
bites, at least I hope they’re just mosquito bites. Most are going away. I
tried not to scratch them.”