The kidnapper was an opportunist, a person ready to take advantage of the distracted.
The blonde girl’s father had walked across the road, yelling loudly on the phone. His conversation had become more animated, more intense, and he didn’t want the children to hear the words that he was going to use. The father was dressed in a polo shirt, chino shorts, and loafers; all brand new. His watch looked expensive, and his slicked back hair looked like it was conditioned only with the best that money could buy.
The kidnapper knew the children at the playground in Lincoln Park, Chicago, would be the offspring of the wealthy. These were the children that had the latest gadgets, the newest toys, and the finest clothes. These children were likely never to want for anything, except the attention of their parents. And money couldn’t buy that.
The kidnapper was there to teach the parents that lesson; to teach them that time with children is fleeting, it’s gone too quickly. Life is brief. And the best way to teach someone to appreciate what they have, is to take it away.
One of the mothers stepped past the kidnapper, pushing her child in a stroller, and, to her credit, she hesitated with a momentary look of suspicion. The kidnapper almost wished the mother would say something, would try to stop them, to do anything to prevent them from doing what they were about to do.
But she didn’t.
Her baby gurgled, and with obvious relief, she bent forward to fuss with its blanket and continued on.
Her fear of social reprisal, of making a scene and drawing unwanted attention was stronger than her fear of suspicion.
The kidnapper knew there was nothing to stop them from what they were going to do now.
It was the only way. The wheels had been set in motion and there was no turning back.
“I have chocolates in my van.” The kidnapper smiled and pointed to the white van parked close by. “I have boxes and boxes of chocolate.”
The blonde girl looked over to her father, still talking loudly on the phone, his actions exaggerated, his anger clear. She was scared of her father’s anger.
She took the kidnapper’s hand, skipping as he led her to the van. She was chattering nonsense the way small children do.
Closer now.
The kidnapper opened the back door. It creaked loudly but no one looked.
The kidnapper pointed to the boxes of chocolates, and then checked for any suspicious eyes watching them.
No one. No one had even looked twice. Shame on them.
The blonde girl stepped into the van, drawn to the chocolates.
And the kidnapper quietly closed the van door.
The plan had begun.
Chapter 2
I hate the news.
It’s always filled with so much despair, so much anger, and there’s so much focus on the worst that life has to offer. Murders, terror attacks, arson—crime is so commonplace that the facts blend into the background, barely raising an eyebrow. We become calloused by default, toughened and hardened to it all as a matter of self-preservation. If not, we would be nervous wrecks from all the negativity bombarding us on the screen. But there’s one type of story that always breaks through, that always registers no matter how calloused to the world people become—anything to do with innocent children. And so it was today in my favorite bar, a story that killed all conversation.
The screen above the bar was playing the headline news and it was running with the story that a third child had been kidnapped in the last three days in Florida. The sunny streets of Florida were a long way from the cold of Chicago, but I felt the parents’ pain. They were crying on the television, unable to hold back their fear, anguish, and despair. Every parent’s worst nightmare. They dropped the ransom, dropped the bag stuffed full of money in the park, just like they were instructed, but the kidnapper ran away with the child once the FBI showed up. They were making a public plea to the kidnappers when the bartender turned up the television. Please, oh please, return our child unharmed, they cried. I didn’t hold out much hope that that would happen, and by the sounds of the parents’ cries, they knew it too.
“The worst thing about these stories,” the man in a dark green flannel shirt next to me said. “Is the copycats it spawns. These people think they can get away with it now. All of a sudden kidnapping is a simple way to make a quick million dollars.” He pointed at the television. “If people see it working, it suddenly becomes a viable business plan.”
The bartender grunted his response, while I went back to my drink.
When I said this place was my favorite bar, I wasn’t talking about a trendy new-age hipster joint with fancy names for cocktails and craft beer that tasted like fruit juice. Nope. The Angry Friar was a place where the bathrooms were vandalized—and rarely fixed—the floor was sticky, and the beer tasted like wholesome dirty goodness. The type of place where blood stained the edge of the pool table and nobody bothered to clean it off, where the lighting was dim enough not to notice the food stains on the tables, and the door was shut no matter the weather to prevent any hint of daylight coming through.
In short, the type of place I felt comfortable.
“I could never harm a kid,” the guy two bar stools down added. His knuckles were scabbed, the tattoos ran up his neck, and he was missing a few front teeth. “You could never pay me enough to do that to some innocent little soul.”
I understood the parents’ pain on the television, I understood how much anguish they must’ve been experiencing. I knew
