mouth, even slower, draining his lungs fully.
Okay, he thought, what is your next step?
The first answer to float to the surface was the most basic: Give up. Cut your losses. Realize that you are very much out of your element. You never really worked for the feds. You only accompanied Win. You were way out of your league on this and it cost a sixteen-year-old boy his finger and maybe more. As Esperanza had said, 'Without Win, you're hopeless.' Learn your lesson and walk away.
And then what? Let the Coldrens face this crisis alone?
If he had, maybe Chad Coldren would still have ten fingers.
The thought made something inside of him crumble.
He opened his eyes. His heart started trip-hammering again. He couldn't call the Coldrens. He couldn't call the feds. If he pursued this on his own, he would be risking l Chad Coldren's life.
He started up the car, still trying to regain his balance.
lt was time to be analytical. It was time to be cold. He had to look at this latest development as a clue for a moment.
Forget the horror. Forget the fact that he might have screwed up. The finger was just a clue.
One: The placement of the envelope was curious
inside Linda Coldren's locked (yes, it had been lockedLinda had used the remote control to open it) car. How had it gotten there? Had the kidnapper simply broken into the vehicle? Good possibility, but would he have had time in Merion's parking lot? Wouldn't someone have reported it? Probably. Did Chad Coldren have a key that the kidnapper could have used? Hmm. Very good possibility, but one he couldn't confirm unless he spoke to Linda, which was out of the question.
Dead end. For now.
Two: More than one person was involved in this kidnapping.
This hardly took brilliant detective work. First off, you have the Crusty Nazi. The phone call at the mall proved that he had something to do with this not to mention his subsequent behavior. But there was no way a guy like Crusty could sneak into Merion and plant the envelopein Linda Coldren's car. Not without drawing suspicion. Not during the U. S. Open. And the note had warned the Coldrens not to 'cross' them again. Cross.
Did that sound like a Crusty word?
Okay, good. What else?
Three: The kidnappers were both vicious and dumb.
Vicious was again obvious the dumb part maybe less so.
But look at the facts. For example, making a large ransom demand over a weekend when you know that the banks won't be open until Monday+ was that bright? Not knowing how much to ask for the first two times they calleddidn't that say ding a-ling? And lastly, was it really prudent to cut off a kid's finger just because his parents happened to talk to a sports agent? Did that even make sense?
No.
Unless, of course, the kidnappers knew that Myron was more than a sports agent.
But how?
Myron pulled into Win's long driveway. Unfamiliar people were taking horses out of the stable. As he approached the guest house, Win appeared in the doorway.
Myron pulled into a spot and got out.
'How did your meeting with Tad Crispin go?' Win asked.
Myron hurried over to him. 'They chopped off his finger,' he managed, breathy to the point of almost hyperventilating. 'The kidnappers. They cut off Chad's finger.
Left it in Linda's car.'
Win's expression did not change. 'Did you discover this before or after your meeting with Tad Crispin?'
Myron was puzzled by the question. 'After.'
Win nodded slowly. 'Then my original question remains:
How did your meeting go with Tad Crispin'?'
Myron stepped back as though slapped. 'Jesus Christ,' he said in an almost reverent tone. 'You can't be serious.'
'What happens to that family does not concern me.
What happens to your business dealings with Tad Crispin does.'
Myron shook his head, stunned. 'Not even you could be that cold.'
'Oh please.'
'Please what?'
'There are far greater tragedies in this world than a sixteen-year-old boy losing his finger. People die, Myron.
Floods wipe out entire villages. Men do horrible things to children every day.' He paused. 'Did you, for example, read this aftemoon's paper?'
'What are you rambling about?' .
'I'm just trying to make you understand,' Win continued in too slow, too measured a voice. 'The Coldrens mean nothing to me no more than any other stranger and perhaps less. The newspaper is filled with tragedies that hit me on a more personal level. For example . . .'
Win stopped and looked at Myron very steadily.
'For example what?' Myron asked.
'There was a new development in the Kevin Morris case,' Win replied. 'Are you familiar with that one?'
Myron shook his head.
'Two seven-year-old boys Billy Waters and Tyrone Duffy have been missing for nearly three weeks. They disappeared while riding their bikes home from school.
The police questioned one Kevin Morris, a man with a long record of perversion, including molestation, who had been hanging around the school. But Mr. Morris had a very sharp attorney. There was no physical evidence and despite a fairly convincing circumstantial case they found the boys' bikes in a Dumpster not far from his home Mr. Morris was set free.'
Myron felt something cold press against his heart.
'So what was the new development, Win?'
'The police received a tip late last night.'
'How late?' .
Again Win looked at him steadily. 'Very late.'
Silence.
'It seems,' Win went on, 'that someone had witnessed Kevin Morris burying the bodies off a road in the woods near Lancaster. The police dug them up last night.
Do you know what they found?'
Myron shook his head again, afraid to even open his mouth.
'Billy Waters and Tyrone Duffy were both dead.
They'd been sexually molested and mutilated in ways that even the media couldn't report. The police also found enough evidence at the burial site to arrest Kevin Morris.
Fingerprints on a medical scalpel. Plastic bags that matched ones in his kitchen. Semen samples that offer a preliminary match in both boys.'
Myron flinched.
' 'Everyone seems quite confident that Mr. Morris will be convicted,' Win finished.
'What aboutthe person who called in the tip`? Will he be a witness'?'
'Funny thing,' Win said. 'The man called from a pay phone and never gave his name. No one, it seems, knows who he was.'
'But the police captured Kevin Morris?'
'Yes.'
The two men stared at each other.
'I'm surprised you didn't kill him,' Myron said.
'Then you really don't know me.'
