A King's ransom

“The problem is, the more agencies I get involved, the more likely it is to get in the news.”

“Quality Insurance deserves all the bad publicity it gets.”

“Of course I’d love to see the media rip these people to shreds-Ochoa and Maggie and whoever else had a hand in it. But it’s not as simple as just calling a reporter. I’m seriously worried how my dad’s kidnappers might react if they hear all about the unraveling of this scandal on CNN. Maybe these same thugs thought they were going to have two, three, five more victims sent their way. They won’t be inclined to cut my father’s ransom in half if they think he’s the end of the gravy train.”

“I’m not saying you should alert the media. Just go to the state attorney, ask her to please keep her investigation confidential until your father is released.”

“Have you ever heard of that working?”

“I see your point.”

“So what should I do?”

“Jaime Ochoa handled thirty policies besides your dad’s. I’m not saying that thirty other people are going to end up kidnapped, or ten more, or one more. But do you want to leave that to chance?”

I looked at the moon and sighed. “I guess there’s no reason to give the FBI an exclusive on this. I’ll call the state attorney in the morning.”

She reached across the table and took my hand. “That’s the right decision.”

I squeezed her hand and said, “It feels right.”

“You should go with it, then. You should always go with what feels right.”

Our eyes met, and I wasn’t sure if she was trying to convey a double meaning, but her words, her touch, had definitely sparked me. For the first time since our breakup, something finally felt right to me. “Jenna, before I go to Bogota again, there’s something I’ve been wanting to say.”

“What?”

She didn’t pull her hand away, which warmed me inside. “You remember that day we went cycling in Kennedy Park, and you got mad about the way I reacted to the idea of us getting married?”

“Let’s not go back there, please.”

“I only wish you would believe that I’d already bought the ring. I didn’t propose marriage just to keep you from leaving me.”

“I know that.”

“You know?”

“I don’t know, but I believe you. The thing is, Nick, that wasn’t our whole problem. It really came down to what each of us was willing to do to make this relationship work. I completely changed the direction of my own career to move to Miami with you. As soon as we got here, you basically gave me up for yours.”

“That’s the old Nick. Or more like the temporarily insane Nick. I wasn’t that way in law school. We were great back then. Remember?”

“Yes, I do. That’s why I came to Miami with you.”

“I just got caught up in the whole Cool Cash mystique. For a while.”

“And now the kidnapping has you feeling otherwise.”

“It’s not just that. It’s the egos, the twisted values, the Gilbert Joneses of the world and ‘Let’s Make a Deal.’ ”

“Who?”

“All I’m trying to say is kidnapping or not, I was finally coming to my senses. The last thing on earth I wanted to be was the next Duncan Fitz.”

“I wish I’d heard you say that six months ago.”

“Better late than never, right?”

She smiled weakly, saying nothing. I wondered if her silence was a sign of a rekindling inside, or if she was simply too kind to tell me “Too little, too late.”

The swimming pool glistened in the moonlight. Shadows of a flickering candle flame danced slowly against her hair. At that peaceful moment I did know one thing. I would happily sit there by the pool and hold her hand just as long as she’d allow it.

64

Around nine I dropped Jenna off and went home to get ready for my trip. Alex and I had a noon flight that would get us into Bogota in plenty of time before our third Sunday-morning ascent of Monserrate. I hadn’t looked forward to any of the radio contacts with the kidnappers, but this one had me especially apprehensive.

I packed my bag in ten minutes, then sifted through the mail to make sure I hadn’t missed anything important. Next I scrolled through a flood of e-mail messages between Mom and a network of family friends that stretched across the country. The e-mail that caught my eye, however, wasn’t one of hers. It was from someone who used an eight-digit number as a screen name, which gave me pause. The last time I’d opened an e-mail like this one, it had turned out to be from Jaime Ochoa.

I clicked the mouse, and the message popped onto the screen.

“I know where Matthew Rey is,” it read.

I stared at the words. It was the same e-mail message that Jaime had sent to me at my office right after the kidnapping. This time he’d added a teaser. “Come see me, and I will show you.”

I printed the message and checked the time of delivery: 5:12 P.M. Just a couple of hours after the court hearing. My gut wrenched, wishing only that it had come two hours before it. I’d been so afraid to subpoena Jaime as a witness for the hearing that I’d decided to play the bluff. I’d been certain he would have come down with a convenient case of amnesia or, worse, told the judge that I’d shoved his hand into the disposal not in self-defense but simply to coerce a false confession. Things had gone badly between us at yesterday’s encounter, but perhaps things had just gotten out of hand. Perhaps I’d misread him.

Perhaps he was “A Friend.”

I got up quickly and grabbed the keys to my Jeep. I had to pay Jaime one last visit.

It took me twenty minutes to get to Jaime’s house, including a quick stop at my mother’s house on the way. I parked in the driveway but didn’t get out of my Jeep immediately.

The house was completely dark on the outside, no porch light or landscape lighting. Inside, a light from the kitchen appeared to be the only one burning. From a streetlamp at the corner, eerie shadows of power poles and phone lines stretched across the lawn and front porch.

I stepped down and stopped. I had reservations, of course. Driving up, I’d considered everything from the possibility of a cruel joke to a setup. I half expected Jaime and a half dozen of his friends to jump out from the bushes and beat my brains out with baseball bats. Perhaps I was being a little reckless. But the thing I feared more than anything was how the kidnappers might react on Sunday morning upon hearing that the ransom was being cut in half. If anyone could head off that crisis, I figured it was Jaime. I had to put my fears aside and take his offer at face value.

That didn’t mean I was an idiot. The stop at my mother’s house had been to pick up my father’s Smith amp; Wesson.

I walked slowly across the front lawn in the darkness. With each step, the coarse St. Augustine crabgrass crunched beneath my feet. A car passed at the intersection a half block away, howling-drunk teenagers hanging out the open windows as they ran the stop sign. The noise faded as quickly as it had come, leaving me in what seemed to be an even darker and lonelier silence. At the paved walk I turned and started toward the front door, my shadow from the streetlight reaching far ahead of me. My heels clicked, and then the soles scratched like sandpaper as I climbed the final cement steps. I raised my hand to knock, then stopped. The house seemed too quiet.

I shook it off and knocked three times.

I waited and listened. No lights switched on, I heard no footsteps inside. I knocked again, slightly harder. Again there was no response. Jaime’s car was in the driveway, but it was possible that a friend had taken him out