The master bedroom looked out over the backyard and the garage, not the front.“What did you do?”I asked.
“Ran down the stairs.By the time I got there, whoever had been there was gone.But there was a note on the mat.”
It was sitting on the island in front of her.She nudged it toward me.I used the tips of my fingernails to unfold and hold it open, just in case Mendoza planned to have it tested for fingerprints.
If you want your husband back, it said, in spiky block letters,bring a hundred thousand dollars to the Arena at eleven tonight.
“And do what with it?”
“Excuse me?”Diana said.
I pointed to the letter.“Bring a hundred thousand dollars to the Arena, and… what?Leave it under your seat?Put it in one of the trash cans in the lobby?Throw it out on the ice?I’m sure whoever wrote the note doesn’t plan to come up to you and introduce herself, so you can be sure you give the money to the right person.What are you supposed to do with it?”
Diana shrugged.“Maybe there’ll be more instructions there.”
Maybe.“This smells weird,” I said.
Her nostrils vibrated.“I don’t smell anything.”
There was nothing to smell.Not even coffee, which—if I’d known about it—I would have stopped on the way to pick up.
I headed for the coffee machine on the counter to remedy the oversight.“Not physically.It feels weird.I mean, what are the chances that Steven takes up with this girl, and suddenly he’s kidnapped?And why a hundred thousand dollars?I mean, it’s a lot of money.You probably don’t have it sitting around.Unless you do?”
“I can come up with it by eleven tonight,” Diana said.“Or eleven this morning.But I don’t have it tucked away in my lingerie drawer, if that’s what you mean.It’ll necessitate a trip to the bank.”
So the same type of scenario as if someone had asked me for a hundred thousand dollars.It’s not something I keep around in cash, but I could get my hands on it without too much trouble if I had to.David had had money, and I had inherited a third of his estate, so as long as the banks were open, I could liquidate enough cash to fill a small duffel with a hundred thousand dollars pretty easily.
So could Diana, it seemed.And that was part of what smelled.“Why so little?I mean, you’re a lawyer.Steven’s a tenured professor.You live in an expensive house in a very nice area.”Even if perhaps they’d bought the house when it was worth less than it was now.“It stands to reason that you’d have money.A hundred thousand dollars doesn’t seem like enough.”
So did that tell us something about the kidnapper?He or she was someone to whom a hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money?
Or someone who hadn’t thought the consequences all the way through?
Given the penalties for kidnapping, I’d need to get a lot more than that to make it worthwhile, personally.Kidnapping is a felony that carries a sentence of several years on up to a lifetime in prison, depending.Not something I’d want to risk for a measly hundred grand.
“Given what we know,” I said delicately—or maybe not that delicately, “is Steven worth a hundred thousand dollars to you?”
“That’s a moot point,” Mendoza’s voice said from behind me.When I glanced over my shoulder, he was leaning against the door jamb.I had no idea how long he’d been standing there.“We don’t ever recommend meeting the kidnapper’s demands in cases like this.”
“What do you recommend?Filling a backpack with newsprint?”That’s what they do in the movies, isn’t it?
Mendoza ignored me, just removed himself from the jamb and came into the kitchen.“I’ll take the note with me, if you don’t mind.And see if I can get any prints from it.”
Diana nodded.“What do you want me to do?”
“Not go to the bank and take out a hundred thousand dollars in cash,” Mendoza said.
I cleared my throat, and they both turned to me.I smiled apologetically.“Not to butt in where I’m not wanted…”
Mendoza gave me a jaundiced look.
“But maybe that’s exactly what you ought to do.What if Steven is watching the account?He probably has online banking, right?What if he’s watching, to make sure you take out the money?And if he sees that you’re not, he, or she, or they, probably won’t show up at all tonight.And you’ll miss your chance to catch her.Or him.Or them.”
This last was directed at Mendoza, who gave a slow nod.“She has a point.”
Diana didn’t seem to like this idea.“Are you suggesting that Steven has something to do with this?That he’s in on it?”
“I have no idea what’s going on,” I said.“But he went to the house in Crieve Hall to see the blonde… to see Anastasia Sokolov willingly.Nobody held a gun to his head then.And there’s nothing to indicate that he didn’t leave the house willingly yesterday morning.Right?”
