The Ransom

by Nancy Boyarsky

  Shortly after he left, there was a knock on her office door.

  It was Joanne. “Who was that?”

  “Just a computer tech. My machine’s been acting up.”

  “Wow,” Joanne said. “My computer’s misbehaving, too. I sure wouldn’t mind a visit from this guy. Unless you’re interested.”

  “No, no,” Nicole said. “Of course not.”

  “Great. I’ll call Computer Solutions and ask for him.”

  Nicole thought a minute, fearing her lie was catching up with her. She toyed with the idea of telling Joanne what had happened to Steph and that Arnault was a detective working on the case. He’d warned her not to tell anyone, but she knew she could trust Joanne with a secret. On the other hand, Nicole didn’t want to burden anyone else with her troubles.

  She decided to improvise. “Actually, he doesn’t work for Computer Solutions. They were booked for the day, so they had to farm out the job. I have no idea where he works.”

  “That’s okay,” Joanne said. “I’ll call Computer Solutions and find out.”

  “I’ll do it,” Nicole said. “They always send a follow-up message asking for an evaluation of the tech’s work. I’ll let you know.” She figured she’d wait and, if Joanne asked again, explain that Greg’s employer was a competitor of Computer Solutions, and the company wouldn’t tell her where he worked.

  After Joanne was gone, Nicole returned to her desk and sorted through the papers Arnault had displaced, arranging them back in proper order.

  This accomplished, she located her printout of Ashley’s birth certificate and searched the office database for an Alphonse Knowles. Sure enough, there was only one person listed by that name. His last known address was in Long Beach, about forty minutes south of L.A. According to the record, he was still with Alicia, the woman listed as Ashley’s mother. A phone number was given. Although these numbers were often out-of-date, it was worth a try.

  The phone rang five times. She was about to hang up when a man said, “Hello.” He sounded impatient, as if he was certain this was a nuisance call.

  “Hello. I’m calling about Ashley —”

  Before Nicole could say more, there was a click, and she was disconnected. She immediately redialed.

  The same man answered. This time his voice was an angry growl. “What do you want?”

  “I’m terribly sorry to bother you,” she said. “But is this Alphonse Knowles?”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  Despite his hostile tone, she went on, “Are you the father of Ashley Knowles?”

  “Who is this?” he fairly shouted.

  “My name is Nicole Graves. I’m a private detective. I have news about Ashley—”

  “Don’t ever call this number again,” the man said before slamming down the phone.

  Wow, Nicole thought. Something bad must have gone down between father and daughter. This man wasn’t going to tell her anything.

  Leafing through her notes again, she ran across mention of Ashley’s brief stint working for an orthopedic clinic in Albuquerque. Nicole looked up the clinic’s website to find the phone number. The place was run by a Dr. Charles Carson.

  A woman answered with, “Carson Orthopedic Clinic. How may I assist you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Dr. Carson,” Nicole said.

  “May I ask what this is in regard to?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “You’ll have to give me more than that. Dr. Carson is a very busy man.”

  “It’s in regard to Ashley Knowles.”

  Moments later, Dr. Carson was on the line. “I hope Ashley didn’t have the nerve to use me as a job reference,” he said. “If you’re considering hiring her, I’d advise you very strongly against it.”

  Playing along, Nicole said, “May I ask why?”

  “She isn’t trustworthy,” he said. “I’ll just leave it at that.”

  “Surely you can tell me more. She didn’t work for you long. Did she leave without giving notice?”

  This triggered a reaction from Carson. He drew in a breath and said, “Worse than that. She disappeared with money she embezzled from my practice.”

  “Did you report her to the police?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Instead of answering, Carson hung up, a response that spoke volumes. Her best guess was that Ashley had something on him. Perhaps she’d manipulated him into a compromising situation before she made off with his money. If Carson didn’t want whatever it was to come out, he wouldn’t report her to the police. This reinforced the idea that Ashley was a grifter. Still, it revealed nothing about where the woman had come from or what she was doing before she went to work for Carson.

  This had been Nicole’s last lead. She was more than disappointed. She remembered Rexton’s contention that Ashley had staged her own kidnapping. If that was true—and Nicole was becoming convinced it might be—Ashley must be out there somewhere, desperate for money to get away and assume a new identity. She wasn’t getting the big payout she’d hoped from her husband’s trust fund. If she resurfaced, pretending her kidnappers had let her go without a ransom, that would raise a lot of questions. Ashley couldn’t afford to have the police take a close look at her background.

  Nicole wondered if Ashley had been behind Steph’s kidnapping. She thought back to the night when those men tried to break into her own place. Maybe Ashley had seen the article about the inheritance and sent her accomplices to kidnap Nicole to make her hand over the money. When that failed, had they focused on taking Stephanie instead? The idea made Nicole feel sick.

  If she could find out more about Ashley, it might provide a clue to Stephanie’s whereabouts. Even though the police were on the case, Nicole told herself she couldn’t stop digging.

  Alphonse Knowles had refused to talk to her. But people were often willing to open up to her in person. It was one of the times when her appearance was an advantage. What people saw was a petite, harmless-looking woman with a dimpled smile.

  She decided to drive down to Long Beach and pay a call on Alphonse. Waiting for news about Steph was making her crazy. She had to be doing something—anything that might lead her to her sister, and finding Ashley might be the key. What if she was hiding out with her parents?

  Nicole glanced at her watch. It was two forty-five. She could be in Long Beach by three thirty or so, depending on traffic. If she went now, she’d be home by dinnertime. Maybe Knowles would slam the door in her face, but past experience told her he might very well invite her in.

  First, she printed out a photo of Ashley to bring with her, so Mr. and Mrs. Knowles could confirm that this was indeed their daughter. Nicole told Jerry where she was going, got directions to the Knowles’ house, and set off. Traffic was light, although the bumper-to-bumper tie-up on the opposite side of the freeway told her the trip home would be a long one.

  Alphonse and Alicia Knowles lived in a modest but well-kept house on a cul-de-sac in a small enclave of look-alike tract homes. They were all flat-roofed, 1960s modern. The street, devoid of parked cars, looked deserted. She parked in front of the Knowles’ house and rang the doorbell. A white-haired woman, who appeared to be in her sixties, opened the door and quietly pointed to a sign over the mail slot that said “No Soliciting, Fundraising, Politics, Salesmen, Religion.”

  Nicole smiled. “I’m not here for any of those,” she said. “I called, but couldn’t reach anyone, so I drove down from L.A. Are you Mrs. Knowles?

  The woman nodded. She appeared tentative, as if debating whether to shut the door or invite Nicole in.

  “I believe you’ll want to hear what I have to say. Can I come in? This won’t take long.”

  “Who is it?” a man yelled from the back of the house. Nicole recognized Alphonse Knowles’ voice. He sounded just as angry as he had on the phone.

  Mrs. Knowles stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. “He has a heart condition and a bad temper to boot. I don’t want
him all riled up. Just tell me what it is and be on your way.”

  “It’s about your daughter, Ashley. She was kidnapped about a week ago, and she hasn’t been found. The police are looking for her.”

  At the mention of Ashley, the woman looked down, and her face went slack, as if she were about to cry. She was silent a moment before she said, “We have no daughter. Years ago, we had a beautiful baby girl we named Ashley Rose. She was born with a heart defect and lived less than a week.” The woman gave a sniff and wiped her eyes before looking up again. “We were never able to have another child. This woman, whoever she is, must have gotten a copy of Ashley’s birth certificate and used it to steal her identity. We’ve gotten calls, people looking to find this ‘Ashley,’ whoever she is. All we can make of it is that she’s some kind of con artist. The disrespect these people show when they call—it really upsets Al.”

  Nicole pulled the photo out of her purse and handed it to Mrs. Knowles. She stared at it a long moment, narrowing her eyes, then looked up at Nicole. “I think I know who this is. She was the daughter of our next-door neighbors at one point. Her name was Jessica, and she was still in her teens. I remember because she was about the same age Ashley would have been. She gave her parents no end of grief. I think she ended up in juvenile hall.”

  “Do you remember the family’s last name?” Nicole said.

  Mrs. Knowles bit her lip, looking into the distance. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry but I’ve forgotten. We moved around a lot before Al retired from the service.”

  “Would you have mentioned the death of your daughter to neighbors?”

  “Probably. People are always asking how many children we have. It would be easier just to say we don’t have any, because it’s painful to talk about. But that would be like denying Ashley Rose ever existed. It feels wrong to me.”

  “I can understand that,” Nicole said. “I’m so sorry to have brought this reminder to your door.” She waited while Mrs. Knowles dabbed at her eyes again before going on. “You said this girl, Jessica, was a teenager at the time, the same age Ashley would have been. According to Ashley’s birth records, she would have been twenty-eight this year. That means these people would have been your neighbors sometime between eleven to fifteen years ago. Does that sound right?”

  Just then, the front door opened, and a man Nicole presumed was Alphonse Knowles was staring at her with open hostility, his face flushed.

  “Al,” Mrs. Knowles said. “This nice lady has figured out who stole our Ashley’s identity. She drove all the way down from L.A. to let us know. Show him the photo, Nicole.”

  Nicole handed it over to him. His anger faded as he studied the photo. “She does look familiar, but I can’t remember where I’ve seen her.”

  “Her parents were our next-door neighbors some years ago,” Mrs. Knowles said. “Her father was tall and thin. I believe he was a master sergeant, the same rank as you at the time. I’m pretty sure this girl’s name was Jessica. Can you remember the family’s last name?”

  Alphonse drew in a breath and, after staring at the photo a bit more, said, “Yeah, I remember that guy. His name was Gleason or maybe Meese. Something with an ‘ee’ sound to it.” He turned to Nicole. “Can you do something to make her quit using Ashley’s name?”

  “I doubt she’ll keep doing that,” Nicole said. “Not with the police looking for her.” She explained again that the woman calling herself Ashley Knowles had been kidnapped and was still missing. “I think you’ve given me enough information to find her real identity,” she went on. “Thanks so much for your help.”

  After they all shook hands, Nicole gave them her card and asked them to call if they remembered anything else. Soon she was back on the freeway. At home, she had the Knowles’s address for each of their moves. It would take time, but she was pretty sure property records would yield up the name of the neighbors with a daughter called Jessica.

  She listened to the news on the drive. After a bumper-to-bumper hour-and-a-quarter on the freeway, she made it back to her neighborhood at five thirty. She stopped at Whole Foods to put together a meal from the food bar. Normally, the first thing she did when she arrived home was to call Steph and see how her day had gone. Realizing there could be no such conversation brought tears to her eyes. Arnault seemed sure tonight’s stakeout would lead them to Steph. But what if it didn’t?

  Nicole was in the checkout line when her phone beeped with a new message. Getting out her phone, she saw there were in fact three messages, two of which had come in earlier. They were all from Sue’s young associate, Melanie, who appeared to have spent the day at the hospital with David. In the first message, Melanie said David had been sent for an MRI of his head. The second, which had arrived around noon, said David was being taken into surgery to relieve pressure caused by swelling of his brain. The last message said he was out of recovery but still hadn’t regained consciousness.

  Nicole left her groceries in the cart, got her car from the lot, and headed for the hospital. Arnault had advised her to forego visiting the hospital. But David was almost a member of the family, and she felt guilty for not checking on him earlier. In her anguish over Steph, she hadn’t given him a thought. He’d been able to drive to her place that morning, and the paramedic had been so reassuring. She’d never considered his injury might be serious.

  She trolled the neighborhood around the hospital, hoping to find street parking. When nothing materialized, she entered one of the crowded parking structures surrounding the huge medical complex. She had to drive round and round until she reached the roof level before she found a space to leave her car.

  The chilly, disinfectant-laden air of the hospital made Nicole even more anxious. She had to locate David and make sure he was all right. She blamed herself that he was here. If it hadn’t been for her inheritance, this never would have happened. Robert Blair’s generosity—if you could call it that—was the reason Stephanie was taken and David was injured. If only she could go back in time and not befriend a man who neither wanted nor needed friends.

  She approached the information desk and was directed to another wing of the building. Following a maze of corridors, she had to ask for directions several times. It seemed as if she’d parked at the farthest possible point from David’s room. The size of the place and its long, twisting passageways were disorienting.

  At last she found the right floor in the right wing of the building. She checked at one of the nurses’ stations for directions to his room. A pert-looking nurse, whose name tag said Mindy Schwartz, checked something on her computer and said, “I’m afraid we’re only admitting immediate family and—” She paused to look at her computer. “His lawyer.”

  “I’m David’s sister-in-law,” Nicole said, stretching the truth a bit. “My sister, his wife, was kidnapped.” These words, spoken for the first time to a stranger, brought tears to Nicole’s eyes. “So, I guess I’m the most immediate family member you’re going to get.

  Mindy reached out and put a hand on Nicole’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry! You’ll find him in room 708, bed A. We’re still waiting for him to regain consciousness following the surgery.”

  Nicole thanked Mindy and hurried to David’s room. Once she found him, she scooted a chair over to the bed and picked up his hand, which was lying limp on the blanket. His nose was still swollen. His injured eye was now deep purple. Even so, he looked a little better than the last time she’d seen him. He’d been cleaned up, and some color had returned to his face. She started talking to him, saying anything that came into her head. She assured him that Steph would be home soon, safe and sound, and that he was going to be fine. “In a day or two,” she said, “this nightmare will have passed.”

  David opened his good eye and looked at Nicole. Then he looked around the room and back at her. “What am I doing here?” he said.

  “You passed out after you talked to the police. We had an ambulance bring you here.”

  He looked around again, confused. “Where’s S
teph?”

  Just then a doctor stepped into the room holding a small electronic notebook. “Ah,” he said to David. “I see you finally woke up. You had us a little worried there. Can you tell me your name?”

  David hesitated, as if trying to remember. “David Stevenson,” he finally said.

  “Very good. Can you tell us where you are?”

  “In the hospital.”

  “Good. And the date?”

  David was silent for a good twenty seconds before he said. “I have no idea, Doc. And I’ve got one hell of a headache. My thoughts are all—” Again he stopped, groping for the word. “mixed up, like—” he paused. “Jumbled.”

  “This is to be expected. You’ve had brain surgery after a head injury. Do you remember how you got hurt?”

  David looked confused. “Last thing I remember is when I went to sleep last night. Where’s Steph?”

  Nicole stood up and introduced herself to the doctor, who had yet to acknowledge her presence. “I’m David’s fiancé’s sister,” she said. “Can we have a word?” She gestured toward the hallway, and the doctor followed her out.

  “When I saw him this morning, a few hours after he was injured, he remembered every detail of my sister’s abduction. Now he’s even forgotten she’s missing. Is that normal?”

  “It’s not unusual,” the doctor said. “These memories may come back. Or maybe not. He took a significant blow to the head. In the next few days, weeks or maybe months, the aphasia will probably pass—”

  “Aphasia?”

  “Inability to recall words. You must have noticed how he was reaching for them. But he did summon them up, so I’d say it’s probably a mild case. As for the confusion you mentioned, I think that will improve also. But I can’t promise. There’s still a lot we don’t know about the brain. Some people go back to normal, while others—” he left the sentence unfinished, although his meaning was clear.

  “Should I tell him what happened to my sister? It’s sure to upset him.”

  “By all means, tell him. It may help jog loose some of those memories. But don’t press him on what he remembers. These things take time, and it doesn’t help to make him more anxious.”