“Last time I looked,” Ted said gently, “it was ‘not.’”
“Yeah, I know. That's what my daughter says. She reminds me regularly that I should be going out. It's the last thing on my mind. I've been too busy, worrying about paying Allan's debts. That's going to take a long time. Unless I get a terrific price for the house. Our lawyer is going to declare bankruptcy to clean up his business debts. When I first realized what he'd done, I nearly died.”
“It's a shame he couldn't have hung on to some of it,” Ted said, and she nodded, but she seemed remarkably philosophical about it.
“I was never really comfortable with the money he made.” She smiled at what she said then. “It sounds crazy, but I always thought it was too much. It didn't seem right.” And then she shrugged. “It was fun for a while.” She told him about the two Impressionist paintings she had bought, and he was suitably impressed.
“It must be amazing to own something like that.”
“It was. For a couple of years. They were bought by a museum in Belgium. Maybe I'll visit them one day.” She didn't seem unhappy to have given them up, which seemed noble of her, to him. All she seemed to care about with real passion were her kids. More than anything, he was impressed by what a good mother she was. And she had probably been a good wife to Allan too, more than he deserved, as far as Ted was concerned. But he didn't say that to her. He didn't think it was appropriate for him to do so.
They rode in silence again for a while, and when they passed Ikeda's restaurant and grocery store, he asked her if she wanted to stop and get something to eat, but she said she didn't. She'd hardly eaten all week.
“Where are you going to move when you sell the house?” He wondered if, after something like this, she would leave town. He wouldn't have blamed her if she did.
“Maybe Marin. I'm not going far. The kids won't want to leave their friends.” He felt foolish, but hearing her say it, he was relieved.
“I'm glad,” he said, glancing at her, and she seemed surprised.
“You'll have to come and have dinner with me and the kids sometime.” She was grateful to him for all he'd done. But as far as he was concerned, he hadn't done it yet. And he knew that if things went badly in Tahoe, and Sam was killed, more than likely she'd never want to see him again. He would be part of the memory of a nightmarish time. And perhaps already was. But he knew that if he never saw her again, he'd be sad. He liked talking to her, and the gentle, easy way she handled things, the kindness she showed his men. Even in the midst of the kidnapping, she'd been thoughtful and considerate to all of them. Whatever money her husband had made had never gone to her head, even if it had to his. And Ted had the distinct feeling she was anxious to leave their house. It was time.
They passed Auburn a little while later, and for the rest of the ride, she didn't say much to him. All she could think of was Sam.
“It's going to be all right,” he said softly as they drove over the Donner Pass, and she turned to him looking worried.
“How can you be sure?” The truth was, he couldn't, and they both knew it.
“I can't. But I'm going to do my damnedest to see to it,” he promised her. But she knew that anyway. He had been committed to protecting them since it all began.
At the house in Tahoe, the men were getting restless. They had been arguing with each other all day. Stark wanted to call Fernanda back that afternoon and threaten her. Waters said they should wait till that night. And Peter cautiously suggested that they give her one last day to get the money together, and call tomorrow. Jim Free didn't seem to care, all he wanted to do was get his money and get the hell out. It was a hot day, and they all drank a lot of beer, except Peter, who was trying to keep a clear head, and slipped away regularly to check on Sam.
Peter had no way of checking without the others knowing, but he was wondering when Ted's men were going to make their move. He knew that when it happened it would be fast and furious, and all he could do was his best to save Sam.
The others were all drunk by late that afternoon. Even Waters. And by six o'clock they were all asleep in the living room. Peter sat watching them, and then went to the back of the house to Sam's room. He said nothing to the boy, lay on the bed next to him, and fell asleep with his arms around him, dreaming of his daughters.
Chapter 19
When Ted and Fernanda got to Tahoe, the local police had taken over a small motel for the entire task force. It was run-down and ramshackle, and had been empty for the most part, even during the summer season. The few guests staying there had been content to leave with a small stipend paid to get them out. And two of the cops were bringing food in from a nearby fast-food place by the vanload. Everything was set up. The FBI had sent eight commandos trained in hostage release and kidnappings, and a SWAT team that had come up from the city was similarly trained. The local cops were swarming, but had not yet been advised of exactly what was happening. There were more than fifty men waiting when Ted got out of the car and looked around. They were going to have to handpick who went in and how they did it. A local captain was handling equipment, road blocks, and local officers. And Rick was in charge of the entire operation, and had set up shop in a room next to the motel office, which he had left for the local captain. There was an entire fleet of communication trucks, and Ted saw Rick come out of one of them, as Fernanda followed him from the car. The organized chaos around them was both terrifying and reassuring at the same time.
“How's it going?” Ted asked Rick, and both men looked tired. Ted hadn't had more than two hours' sleep consecutively in days, and Rick had been up since the night before. Sam was becoming a sacred cause to those who knew about him, which was a comfort to his mother. And Ted had asked one of the officers to set up a room for her.
“We're almost there,” Rick said, glancing at her, and she nodded with a tired smile. She looked like she was holding up, but barely. This was beyond stressful for her, although talking to Ted about other things on the drive up had helped for a brief time.
Ted went to get her settled. There were a psychologist from the SWAT team and a female officer waiting in the room for her. And when he had left her with them, Ted came back to Rick in the room he was using as the command post. They had a mountain of sandwiches and boxed salads on a table along the wall, and a diagram of the house and a map of the area taped to the wall above it. The food provided was unusually wholesome, as neither the FBI commandos nor the SWAT team ate fatty foods, sugar, or caffeine, as it slowed them down after the initial high, and they were meticulous about what they ate. The local police captain was sitting in with them, and the head of the SWAT team had just walked out of the room to see his men. It looked like the invasion of Normandy to Ted as he grabbed a sandwich and sat down in a chair, while Rick stood next to him. It looked like they were planning a war. It was a major rescue mission, and the combined brain- and manpower was impressive. The house they were setting their sights on was less than two miles down the road. They were putting out nothing over the radios, in case the kidnappers had any kind of monitoring devices, and so the press wouldn't pick it up and blow it for them. They were taking every precaution they could to keep the operation sterile, but in spite of that, Rick looked worried as he glanced at the diagram with Ted. They had gone to the local surveyor's office to get the map of the house, and had blown it up to an enormous size.
“Your informant says the kid is at the back of the house,” Rick said, pointing to a room at the back, not far from the property line. “We can get him out, but there's a cliff right behind them, it's straight up from there. I can get four guys down the rock face, but I can't get them back up fast enough, and if they've got the kid with them, they'll be too exposed.” He pointed to the front of the house then. “And we've got a driveway the length of a football field on the way out. I can't get in with a chopper or they'll hear us. And if we blow up the house, we're liable to kill the boy.”