Ransom

“We're not going anywhere,” she promised him. She wasn't even sure she felt safe leaving the house yet. It was going to be very odd being on their own again, wondering if there were people out there somewhere, plotting against them. Hopefully, nothing like it would ever happen again. She had called Jack Waterman from Tahoe too. And they both agreed, some public announcement had to be made about the disappearance of Allan's fortune. Otherwise, she and the children would remain targets forever. She had learned that lesson.

“Get some rest,” Ted admonished her, and she nodded. It was silly of her, she knew, but she hated to see him go. She had gotten used to talking to him late at night, knowing she would find him there at any hour, and sleeping on the floor next to him, when she could sleep nowhere else. She always felt safe near him. She realized that now. “I'll call you,” he promised again, as she closed the door, wondering how she would ever thank him.

The house seemed empty when she walked upstairs. There were no sounds, no men, no guns, no cell phones ringing in every corner of the house, no negotiator listening on her lines. Thank God. Will was waiting for her in her room, and he looked as though he had grown up overnight.

“You okay, Mom?”

“Yeah,” she said cautiously. “I am.” She felt as though she had been dropped off a building, and was feeling her soul for bruises. There were many, but they would all heal now. Sam was back. “How about you?”

“I don't know. It was scary. It's hard not to think about it now.” She nodded at him. He was right. They would all think about it, and remember it, for a long, long time.

As Fernanda got into the shower, and Will went to bed, Ted drove home to his house in the Sunset. There was no one home when he got in. There never was anymore. Shirley was never home. She was either at work, or out with her friends, most of whom he didn't know. There was a deafening silence in the house, and for the first time in a long time, he felt agonizingly lonely. He missed seeing Ashley and Will, Fernanda coming to talk to him, the familiar ease of being surrounded by his men, on a stakeout. It had reminded him of his youth in the department. But he didn't just miss the men, he missed Fernanda.

He sat down on a chair and stared into space, thinking about calling her. He wanted to. He had heard everything Rick had said. But that was Rick, and this was him. And he just couldn't do it.

Chapter 21

Ted talked to Rick the next day, and asked him what he had done about Addison. The state was going to bring charges against him too, and serve him with a warrant for conspiracy to commit kidnap, as soon as he got back to the city. Ted assumed he would. The judge had assured Rick, over his federal charges, that Phillip Addison was not a flight risk. And Ted hoped he was right.

“He's winging his way home as we speak,” Rick told Ted over the phone, grinning.

“That was quick. I thought he was supposed to be gone all month.”

“He was. I called Interpol yesterday, and the FBI office in Paris. They sent his surveillance guys in to pick him up. We booked him on conspiracy to commit kidnap. And one of my favorite informants called me today. Apparently, our little friend is scientifically oriented, so to speak, and he's been running a hefty business in crystal meth for quite a while. We're going to have fun with this one, Ted.”

“He must have had a shit fit when they showed up.” Ted laughed at the thought of it, although there was nothing laughable about what he'd done. But he was so pretentious about being “social,” from all Ted had heard, that it served him right to be cut down to size.

“His wife damn near had a heart attack apparently. She slapped him and the agent.”

“That must have been fun.” Ted smiled. He was still tired.

“I doubt it.”

“You were right about the car bombing too, by the way. Jim Free told us Waters did it. They weren't in on it, but he admitted it to them in Tahoe one night when he got drunk. I thought you'd like to know.”

“At least the captain will know I'm not nuts.”

Ted told him then that they had recovered most of the money Addison had paid Stark, Free, and Waters in advance, in suitcases in lockers in the Modesto bus station. It was going to be damning evidence against him. Free had told them where it was.

And then Rick changed the subject radically, as he often did, and got right to the point. “So did you say anything to her when you dropped her off?” They both knew he meant Fernanda.

“About what?” Ted played dumb.

“Don't give me that, you moron. You know what I mean.”

Ted sighed. “No, I didn't. I thought about calling her last night, but there's no point, Rick. I can't do that to Shirley.”

“She would. And you're doing it to yourself. And to Fernanda. She needs you, Ted.”

“Maybe I need her too. But I already have one.”