“Was he out there just now?” Ashley asked, and Ted nodded. He knew the car now, from Detective Jamison's description, and where it was. But he hadn't even appeared to notice it. Ted was driving his own car, and chatted and smiled with the young cop he'd brought with him, trying to propagate the myth that he was a friend bringing his son over to visit. They actually looked convincing. The young policeman looked the same age as her older children and in fact, wasn't too much older.
“Do you think he knows you're a cop?” Will asked him.
“I hope not. But you never know. He might. I'm hoping he just thinks I'm a friend of your mom's for now.” But there was no question, when they put four men on the detail, it was going to attract attention and would inevitably warn Morgan and his cohorts of something. It would be a double-edged sword once that happened. The police lost the advantage of anonymity, but it also warned the kidnappers to proceed with caution, or it could scare them off completely, although Ted considered that unlikely. They had no other choice. Fernanda and her family needed protection. And if it scared the man off for good, that was all right too. But above all, she needed a police presence there to protect her and her children. Some of the cops on the detail were probably going to be women, which might create a distraction at first, and make it less obvious that cops were on the scene. But sooner or later, four adults arriving twice a day, going everywhere with Fernanda and the children, and staying there twenty-four hours a day was going to attract considerable attention, and more than likely alarm them. Ted knew there was nothing else they could do for the moment. The captain had also discussed putting what he called a 10B out front, which was an unmarked police car with a plainclothes policeman in it. But Ted didn't think they needed one, and having Peter Morgan and a cop staring at each other in parked cars seemed foolish, even to him. The local station was going to be making passing calls to keep an eye on them, and that would be helpful too, and enough for the moment.
By the time they finished talking about it, the young officer Ted had brought with him was ready. He had put paper towels down, and set up his kits on them. His briefcase lay open, and two full fingerprinting kits were lying next to the sink. One had black ink, and the other red. Ted asked them all to step up to the sink. He asked Will to go first.
“Why do you have to fingerprint us?” Sam asked with interest. He was just tall enough to see what Will and the detective were doing. It was a fine art, as he rolled Will's fingers expertly side to side across the pad, and then rolled them again on a chart, which showed each finger of his hands. He rolled them to make sure they were clear, and Will was surprised to discover that the ink didn't leave his fingers dirty. They did red ones first, and then black. Will understood why they were being fingerprinted, as did Ashley and Fernanda, but no one wanted to explain it to Sam. It was in case one of them got kidnapped, or killed, with the fingerprints, their bodies could be identified. It was not a cheering prospect.
“The police just want to know who you are, Sam,” Ted said simply. “There are a lot of ways to do that. But this one works. Your fingerprints will stay the same for the rest of your life.” It was a piece of information he didn't need, but it helped. Ashley went next. Then her mother, and finally Sam was last. His fingerprints looked tiny on the cards.
“Why are we doing red and black?” Sam inquired as the detective took his prints for a second time.
“The black ones are for SFPD,” Ted explained, “the red ones are for the FBI. They like to be fancier than we are.” He smiled at him, as the others stood by and watched. They were huddled together as though they took strength in standing close to one another, and Fernanda was hovering over them like a mother hen.
“Why does the FBI like red?” Fernanda asked.
“Just to be different, I guess,” the detective doing them said. Other than that, there was no real reason. But fingerprints done in red always belonged to the FBI.
As soon as he finished doing the fingerprints, he took out a small pair of scissors, and he turned to Sam with a cautious smile. “Can I snip a little piece of your hair, son?” he asked politely, as Sam looked at him wide-eyed.
“Why?”
“We can tell a lot of things from people's hair. It's called a DNA match.” This was a lesson none of them needed, but like the rest of it, they had no choice.
“You mean like if I get kidnapped?” Sam looked frightened, and the man hesitated, as Fernanda stepped in.
“They just want us to do it, Sam. I'm going to do it too.” She took the scissors from the man, snipped a tiny wisp of Sam's hair, then her own, and then her other children's. She made as little fuss about it as she could, and thought it seemed less ominous if she did it for them, rather than a stranger. Shortly after that, talking quietly amongst themselves, the children went upstairs. Sam wanted to stay with her, but Will took him by the hand and said he wanted to talk to him. He thought his mother wanted to talk to Ted about what was happening, and he assumed correctly that Sam would get scared. There was a lot happening to them. A lot had already occurred in a very short time. And Fernanda knew that after midnight, with four armed policemen in the house night and day, their lives would dramatically change.
“We're going to need photographs of them,” Ted said quietly to Fernanda, after the others left the room. “And descriptions. Height, weight, distinguishing marks, everything you can give us. But the hair and fingerprints will help.”
“Will all this really make a difference if they get kidnapped?” She hated even asking him that, but she needed to know. All she could think of now was what it would be like if they took one of her children. It was so frightening, she couldn't even hold the thought in her mind for long.
“It could make a big difference, especially with someone as young as Sam.” He didn't want to tell her that sometimes children that age got snatched, and only turned up ten years later, living other lives with other people, having been kept prisoner in another country or state, and fingerprints and hair would help the authorities identify him, whether dead or alive. In the case of Will or Ashley, the circumstances that would lead them to need hair or fingerprints would be far more dire. And in this case, with a ransom involved, these kids weren't going to disappear into other lives. They were going to be taken, held, and hopefully returned when the ransom was paid. All Ted could hope, if it happened, was that no one would get harmed, and the kidnappers would keep the kids alive. He was going to do everything he could to see that it didn't happen. But they had to be prepared for all contingencies, and the hair and fingerprints they'd taken were important for them to have. He told Fernanda to get him the rest of the information as soon as possible. And a little while later, they left.
She sat alone in the kitchen with the empty pizza box after that, staring into space, wondering how all this had happened, and how soon it would be over. All she could hope now was that the men plotting against her, if they really were, would be caught. She still clung to her doubts, hoping that it was all someone's imagination, and not something that would really happen. The prospect of that was so terrifying that if she had let herself think about it, she would have gotten hysterical, and never let her children out of the house. She was doing everything she could to stay calm, and not frighten them excessively, given the circumstances. And she thought she was doing a good job of staying calm, until she put the empty pizza box in the fridge, poured orange juice in a cup of tea, and put the clean towels in the garbage.
“Okay, calm down,” she said to herself out loud, “everything's going to be fine.” But as she put the towels away in the right place, she saw that her hands were shaking. It was all too terrifying to imagine, and she couldn't help but think of Allan and wish he were there. She wondered what he would have done about it all. She had the feeling that he would have handled it far more competently and coolly than she had.