Page 39 of King’s Ransom

Glass sprayed, raining down on the sidewalk and street far below.

In the bedroom, the concussion wave of the blast threw Special Agent Hooper against the windows, but luckily for him, they held.

It was the same for Xiao.

He was thrown across the kitchen counter, but he was okay.

They would find Juno Everhart’s body several hours later in the branches of a tree down in Central Park—the force of the blast having hurled her fully over 59th Street, the road that separated the building from the park.

Special Agent Hooper picked himself up and swore.

Not because he cared about Juno Everhart.

But because he’d been wrong.

As I came to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park—with the two adult children of Aristo King attached to their exteriors—the building around me shuddered with the force of a blast.

‘Was that an explosion?’ Audrey said.

‘It felt like it came from below us,’ Merritt Garrett said.

‘Like on the 61st floor,’ I said. ‘He said if we went to the wrong apartment, we could die.’

My phone rang.

Unknown number again.

‘I’m here,’ I said, putting the call on speaker so Audrey and Garrett could hear.

‘I know. I can see you.’

‘What’s the price this time?’

‘Let’s add another twenty million. Sixty million dollars. You have five minutes to pay or I drop them.’

Click.

‘Five minutes,’ I said.

Audrey said, ‘I’ll call the others upstairs. See if they’ll pay this time.’

‘By the time Mr Asshole Insurance Guy and Ms Kimura get their shit together, it might be too late,’ Garrett said. ‘I say we try to free them.’

I banged on the glass behind the larger of the two individuals stuck to the outside.

‘Ajax!’ I yelled. ‘Can you hear me!’

‘Yeah!’ his muffled voice called back. His hands and feet, I could see, were flex-cuffed.

‘We’re here to help you!’ I shouted.

‘Then hurry the fuck up, asshole!’

(I let this comment slide. He was in a highly stressful situation.)

I examined the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Each was fourteen feet square.