Ransom

“Thanks,” she said pleasantly, and he noticed her wedding band. She was still wearing it, and he found it a loving gesture. He liked everything about her, and listened to her chatting with the man adding up her groceries, who seemed to know her well. She said the kids were doing okay, and Will was going to camp to play lacrosse. Peter had to remind himself of what his mission was, and wondered when the boy was going to camp. It might mean, if it was in July, that Waters and his buddies would only be able to get two of the kids. And as he thought of it, he felt sick. This woman was so obviously decent, so loyal to her husband, and so devoted to her kids, that what they were about to do to her seemed more than ever like a heinous thing to him. They were going to make her pay a hundred million dollars just to keep all that she had and cherished now.

The thought of it weighed on him, as he watched her go through two more red lights and a stop sign on California Street on the way home. Her driving stank. He wondered what she was thinking about when she cruised through the red lights. And he was puzzled by what he saw when he got back to the house. He expected a housekeeper, or even a fleet of them to come out and unload the car. Instead she opened the front door, left it standing open, and carried the groceries in herself, bag by bag. He wondered if it was the maid's day off. After that, he didn't see her again till noon. She came back out for something she had forgotten in the car, and dropped the roll of paper towels again, but this time he didn't pick them up as he had in the store. He didn't move. He couldn't let her see him. He just watched.

She looked slightly disheveled when she came out in a rush at three o'clock. She jumped in her station wagon and drove off toward school, driving too fast, and nearly hit a bus. Just watching her for a day, he already knew that the woman was a menace on the road. She drove too fast, she went through lights, she changed lanes without signaling, and nearly hit pedestrians in crosswalks twice. She was obviously distracted, and she came to a rapid stop outside the two younger kids' school. Ashley was on the street waiting for her, talking to friends and laughing, and Sam bounced out carrying an enormous papier-mâché airplane five minutes later with a huge grin and a hug for his mom. Just watching them made Peter want to cry. Not for what he and Waters were going to do to them, but for all that he himself had missed as a child. Suddenly, he realized what life could have been like, if he hadn't screwed up, and were still with Janet and their kids. They'd be hugging him. And he'd have a loving wife like this pretty blond. It made him feel lonely thinking of all he didn't have, and never had.

They stopped at the hardware store on the way home, where she bought lightbulbs and a new broom, and a lunch pail for Sam to use at day camp. She dropped him off at the house, said something to Will when he came to the door for his brother, and then drove Ashley to ballet. And that afternoon, after she picked Ashley up, she went to another one of Will's games. Her entire life seemed to revolve around them. By the end of the week, Peter had seen her do nothing except drive them to and from school, take Ashley to ballet, and go to Will's games. She did nothing else. And when he checked in with Addison, he mentioned that they had no domestic staff, which seemed odd to him for someone with their means.

“What difference does it make?” Addison said, sounding annoyed. “Maybe she's cheap.”

“Maybe she's broke,” Peter said, ever more curious about her. She looked like a serious person, and when she was alone, she looked sad. But when she was with the kids, she smiled and laughed and hugged them a lot. And he saw her crying in her bedroom window every night. It made him want to hold her in his arms, the way she did her kids. She needed that, and had no one to do it for her.

“No one can spend half a billion dollars in a year,” Phillip answered, sounding unconcerned.

“No, but you can sure as hell blow that and more on bad investments, especially with the bottom falling out of the market the way it has.” Phillip knew that only too well. But what he had lost, he assumed would have been a drop in the bucket to Allan Barnes.