“Is this proof enough for you?” the kidnapper pressed again. “Or do you need me to mail you his fingers?”
“It’s enough,” Jake said. “Now tell us, what’s your price?”
“Simon needs to pay to get his father back,” the man answered. “Money is the price. One million dollars. That’s what we want.”
That kind of money would have been far out of reach for her, but that must have been nothing to Simon.
“Fine. You’ll have it,” Simon growled. “It’s... I’ll get it, fine.”
“Good. We’ll be in touch later and we’ll give you a time and location for the exchange,” the man said. “We want the million in cash.”
“It takes time to get that much money in cash,” Simon said.
“You have three days. If you try to stiff us, your father starts to lose body parts,” the voice warned. “We’ll get in touch with you closer to the time, so that you’ll know where to leave the cash.”
“And you’ll hand over my father?”
“Cross our hearts.” Cold, maniacal laughter filled the apartment and then the screen turned black.
“Dad?” Simon stared at the phone screen, anguish and rage darkening his blue eyes.
“I know this is hard, but we need to come up with a plan,” Jake said, motioning for them to sit down.
She took the phone from Simon’s hand, afraid that he might do something rash in his moment of anger. Making sure to link her arm with his, she walked over to the sofa and sat down beside him.
Jake sat down on the arm of one of the chairs, his expression grave. “I assume you can get that kind of money in three days?”
Simon nodded. “I can. It isn’t a lot of money.”
“A million dollars is no small thing,” Jake
said. “It might not be much to you, but to the average person it’s a lot.”
“Average person...” She chewed her lip, lost in thought as something nagged at her. “But the money isn’t for one person, is it? The kidnapper kept saying things like ‘we’ and ‘us’.”
“You’re right,” Jake said, sounding impressed. “This is a group of people. There’s at least two people involved with the kidnapping.”
“A million dollars split between two or more people isn’t a lot of money.” Simon frowned and turned to her, brow furrowed in concentration. “I know that to an average person it’s a lot of money, but these guys have gone through a hell of a lot of trouble for a measly half-million apiece at most.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Why do all this if they won’t be paid much? Unless...” She squeezed her eyes shut. Just entertaining the idea terrified her. What if they planned on reneging on their promise by keeping Simon’s father to just force more money out of Simon in the future? What if they were lying about releasing Simon’s father, and planned on killing him after he no longer served a purpose? The image of the knife pressed against his skin flashed in her mind and she shuddered. They could be hurting Onslow right now and there was nothing they could do to stop it.
“Unless what?” Simon pressed.
“Unless they plan on trying to extort more money out of you later on,” she finally said.
Jake crossed his arms. “You think they might keep Simon’s father for much longer, so that they can keep getting money out of him.”
“It’s probably absurd,” she said. “I don’t have experience with this kind of thing.”
“True, but you’ve had to deal with some pretty shady characters in your time at Dover,” Jake pointed out. “That experience could be valuable right now.”
“If they keep my father even after I’ve paid them, what’s the point of paying them?” Simon asked. “Paying these people even one dime is enabling their crimes.”
“In situations like this, it’s better to pay the kidnappers,” Jake said.
“Pay, and then what? Let them get away with hurting my father?” Fury, stark and terrifying, hardened the expression on his handsome face until he was completely unrecognizable to her. “I want to find these people.”
Jake held up his hands. “I know you want to find them—”