The Ransom

by Nancy Boyarsky

  Matt nodded. “Right.”

  They sat in tense silence, waiting for Ashley to arrive. None of the men seemed in a mood to talk. Instead, they eyed each other with what appeared to be suspicion and resentment, as if they’d had a falling out. Nicole wondered what this was about and whether she could use it to her advantage. She glanced at her watch. It was two o’clock in the morning. She figured a half hour must have passed since they left the house. Another half hour went by before there was a knock on the door.

  Kevin got up and pulled the front window curtain aside to peek out. When he opened the door, a woman walked in. Nicole had seen the photo of the disguised Ashley on Matt’s Facebook page. Now she’d taken on a completely different appearance. Instead of the wild, dark curls, Ashley’s hair, now dyed brown, was mannishly short and spikey. Devoid of makeup, she looked just like Jessica Reese in the mugshot taken six years ago. The tight-fitting designer clothes had been replaced by a tired-looking loose jacket, which she wore with baggy jeans, Birkenstocks, and thick gray socks. She looked as if she’d tried to appear as unchic as possible and had succeeded brilliantly. The biggest surprise came when Ashley took off the jacket. The woman was pregnant, perhaps six months along. Nicole wondered why no one had bothered to mention this.

  Ashley frowned at Nicole, as if she found her presence an affront. “What’s she doing here? Where’s Stephanie?”

  Once again Ryan explained their decision to bring Nicole instead of her sister. “This means we can go to the bank first thing tomorrow morning and have her wire the money.”

  “Take her to the bank?” Ashley said. “You’ve got to be kidding! Look at her. Her clothes are dirty, her hair’s a mess, and she’s got leaves in it. What did you do to her?”

  “Nothing,” Ryan seemed cowed by Ashley’s tone. “I mean, she was like that when we found her. She was hiding in a big washtub. We lifted her out and brought her here.”

  “She can’t go anywhere looking like that.” Ashley turned to Kevin. “Why can’t you go into the bank and do the wire transfer yourself? We’ll make her give us her account number and password. Just go into work at the usual time and take care of it.”

  “Wait!” Nicole said. “I don’t have my account number or password with me.”

  Ashley scowled at Nicole, as if incensed that she had the nerve to interrupt. Ashley then turned back to Kevin. “You can look up her account and do the transfer, right?”

  “Not really,” Kevin said, “I mean, I could look it up, but I don’t have her password or the authority to make a transfer that large if the account holder isn’t there to sign the forms. If I tried, it would be a red flag for the manager, who considers Nicole some kind of rock star, especially since all that money turned up in her account. He’d know something was going on.”

  There was a pause while Ashley fumbled under the back of her tunic, which was stretched across her belly. A moment later, she pulled off a fake, plastic baby bump and dropped it on the floor. Wordlessly, she pointed to Ryan’s chair. He got up, and she flopped down on it, as if exhausted. “Whoosh,” she said. “That thing is so uncomfortable! Remind me never to get pregnant.” She turned to Nicole, addressing her directly for the first time. “All right. Where is your banking information? At your place? I’ll send one of these useless dicks to get it.”

  Nicole paused, thinking carefully what to say. The truth was that she’d memorized the information, and it was in her head. “My password’s on a card in my wallet,” she said. “It’s in my purse, along with my checkbook, which has my account number. Ryan took my purse when we were at the house.”

  Ashley turned to Ryan. “Is that true? You’ve got her purse?”

  “Uh—no. Like she said. I thought she might have a cell phone in there, so I took it. I meant to bring it along, but—”

  “You total screw-up!” Ashley could hardly contain her anger. “Well—what did you do with it?”

  He shook his head. “I must have set it down somewhere.”

  “At the house on Kirkwood?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go back and get it. Now!” Ashley snapped. “And step on it! We’ve got to get out of here before the cops find us.”

  Twenty One

  Arnault’s car drove smoothly for the first block or so. After that, it began to wobble, the wheels making thumping sounds, as if he was driving over boulders. He stopped, got out, and used the flashlight to inspect the tires. With a sinking heart, he saw that that all of them, front and rear, were completely flat. That the car was his would have been obvious to the kidnappers. It was the only one in the no-parking zone on the narrow street. They must have noticed it and slashed the tires in case he escaped from the basement. It occurred to him that Nicole must have driven up here, but he didn’t see her car. Perhaps she’d parked on the street above the house. But he couldn’t waste time looking for it.

  He sighed. He’d told Stephanie he’d be back in a few minutes, but finding a phone signal was going to take longer—perhaps a lot longer. He was glad he had the tree branch to take his weight off his injured ankle. He’d have to keep going until he found a spot where his cell would connect. If he reached Laurel Canyon and still couldn’t call, he might be able to flag down a motorist who’d drive him down to Sunset, which was well populated with phone towers. Meanwhile, he had no way to let Stephanie know where he was.

  Arnault slowly made his way down the steep grade of Kirkwood Drive. Even with the walking stick, the pain in his ankle was hard to ignore. He figured it must be a sprain. Logic told him that if his ankle was broken, he wouldn’t have been able to walk at all. He began to hop along, using the walking stick to avoid putting his foot down. But this was exhausting. His pace was slow, and he stopped once in a while to check his phone. It was a good half hour before he finally reached Laurel Canyon Boulevard, and the phone still didn’t work. Nor were any cars in sight. The houses along the winding road were dark. He figured his only choice was to turn right and head down toward Sunset Boulevard.

  After a few blocks, he sensed a light behind him and turned to see a car coming down the hill. He stepped out into the approaching vehicle’s path and waved his arms. Without slowing, the car veered around him. The driver leaned on the horn and roared his engine as he passed, as if enraged that someone would have the nerve to try to delay him.

  Arnault started walking again. When he couldn’t go any farther, he hobbled to the side of the road and sat on the curb. He leaned back on his elbows and closed his eyes. He dozed for a bit. When he woke, he had no idea how much time had passed. He got up and began limping downhill again. A block passed, then another, and he kept going. At last he spotted headlights in the distance. This vehicle was heading up the hill from Sunset. As it drew closer, he stepped into the road and waved his arms. The car skidded to a stop a few feet away.

  The driver lowered his window a couple of inches and shouted, “What the hell, dude? You trying to commit suicide? I almost ran you down.”

  By now Arnault was holding his badge up. “Police,” he said. “I had to leave a seriously injured woman up the hill. I need you to drive me to where I can pick up a phone signal and call an ambulance.”

  The man put on his safety blinkers and hopped out of the car. Only when he came into the glare of the headlights did Arnault see this was one of the kidnappers, the same one who’d shoved him down the stairs. He was holding a gun that Arnault recognized as his own.

  Ryan grabbed Arnault’s walking stick and tossed it away. Then he forced Arnault around to the back of the vehicle, making him climb into the rear seat with his hands behind his back. Ryan tied his hands together. He gave Arnault a thump on the side of his head with the gun. “Lie on your stomach,” he commanded.

  Arnault did as he said. Before he realized what was happening, his ankles were tied tightly together, compounding the pain in the injured one. The back door of the SUV was slammed shut, and the vehicle started up again.

  They went a short distance before Ryan parked.
He untied Arnault and pulled him out of the car. Only now did Arnault see they’d returned to the house where he’d left Stephanie and were parked on the street above the back entrance. Arnault was forced into the house at gunpoint. When Ryan opened the door to the basement, Arnault tensed up, expecting to be shoved down the stairs again. Instead, Ryan used his flashlight to light the way, allowing Arnault to limp down slowly, leaning on the railing.

  Ryan descended just far enough to be sure Stephanie was still there. He climbed back up, closed the door and relocked it. He located a hammer and nails in a laundry room cupboard and nailed the the basement door shut again. Satisfied that this would keep the cop contained, he tossed the hammer aside. He picked up Nicole’s purse from the hall floor, where he’d dropped it earlier. Mission accomplished, he left, slamming the back door without bothering to lock it.

  Twenty-Two

  After Ryan left the courtyard apartment, Ashley also headed out. “I’m going to find an all-night drugstore,” she said. “I need a hairdryer and supplies to make Nicole look like someone with legitimate reason to walk into a bank.”

  Nicole sat quietly on her side of the love seat, trying not to call attention to herself. She was thinking about her next move. By some miracle, her gun had gone unnoticed and was still in her pocket. But she knew it would be unwise to take on both men at once. Divide and conquer, she thought. She didn’t have any real plan—just a tentative list of possibilities. She’d have to improvise as she went along.

  Matt was hunkered down on his end of the love seat with his legs stretched out in front of him. His eyes were closed, although he didn’t seem to be asleep. He kept shifting about and moaning as if his arm was causing a lot of pain. Kevin was standing near the window, fiddling with his phone. The two men had spoken briefly about getting pizza delivered, and Kevin seemed to be taking a long time completing the order.

  Nicole got to her feet. “I have to use the bathroom,” she said.

  Kevin looked up and turned to Matt. “Hey, dude,” he said. “Keep an eye on her. I’m busy here.”

  Matt moaned as he slowly pulled himself to his feet and followed Nicole to the bathroom. She was surprised when he allowed her to shut the door all the way. The single window over the tub was too small for her to climb out of, even if she could reach it. She quietly stepped into the tub and slid the window open. She got out and adjusted the shower curtain so it completely covered the tub. Finally, she took the key out of the lock, put it in her pocket, and pulled out her gun. She positioned herself against the wall so she’d be hidden when the door opened.

  She waited at least fifteen minutes before Matt said, “Hey! What’s taking so long in there?” He knocked on the door several times before entering. Once open, the door hid Nicole without bouncing back and closing as she’d feared. She could hear Matt moving around in the tiny bathroom, mumbling to himself. The shower curtain crinkled as he pulled it out of the way. A couple of hollow thuds followed, as he stepped into the tub, presumably to look out the window.

  By the time he turned around, Nicole was pointing the gun at him. He put his hands up in surrender, his face registering shock and fear.

  Nicole spoke in a low voice so Kevin couldn’t hear over the blare of the TV. “I’m going to lock you in here. If you yell or make a fuss, I’ll shoot through the door. Even if I miss you, people in the other units will hear and call the police.”

  “Don’t lock me in here!” Matt pleaded. “Ashley will kill us if we let you escape. She’s a sociopath. I’m telling you, she’s brutal.”

  “Don’t worry about Ashley,” Nicole said. “Before she gets back, Kevin will realize you’ve been gone too long and let you out.” She walked out of the bathroom, locked the door with the key she’d taken from inside, and put it back in her pocket. She was fairly confident that Matt wouldn’t be able to kick the door in. Old as these bungalows were, they were solidly built.

  The next step was to neutralize Kevin. It wasn’t hard. All she had to do was walk into the living room and point the gun at him. He offered no resistance. Instead, his face turned red and crumpled, as if he were about to cry.

  “Nicole!” His voice was shaky. “I’m your friend, remember? I‘ve been on your side from the start. I made sure nobody hurt you.”

  She did feel a little sorry for him. He’d been duped into this, like the others. Ashley had promised a big payoff to these inexperienced and unprincipled losers. They had no way of knowing how badly things would turn out. But, she thought, if you dance to the tune, you have to pay the piper. If she let Kevin go, he was sure to call Ryan and Ashley and warn them to stay away. And no matter what, Kevin wouldn’t walk away free. Ryan and Matt would point the finger at him the minute they were arrested.

  She noticed a set of keys on the coffee table. “Are those your car keys?”

  “I don’t have a car. They’re Matt’s. What did you do with him?”

  She ignored his question. “You’re going to pick up those keys and hand them to me, along with your cell phone. Then you’ll show me where Matt parked his car. We’ll walk out together just like we’d normally do, except I’ll have this gun pointed at you. Don’t try anything.”

  Silently, Kevin nodded as tears ran down his face.

  “And stop crying. I’ll tell the police you tried to protect me,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll cut you a break, especially if you offer to testify against the others. Just explain one thing to me. Why three kidnappings? Why didn’t Ashley simply arrange for you to kidnap her if her goal was to get money from her husband’s trust fund?”

  “We wondered about that,” Kevin said. “At first, she told us these other women were friends who’d gotten together to set up fake kidnappings to get money out of their husbands. We figured, ‘Okay; the women were in on it, and the husbands probably deserved it.’ But when we took the first victim, she acted really scared, like she wasn’t expecting it. We asked Ashley about it, and she said the woman was just pretending. Next time, Victoria Reina fought like a wildcat when we took her. We said we knew she and her friends had planned the whole thing. When we mentioned Ashley’s name, she said Ashley was no friend of hers, and she’d never made any such plan. Then Victoria ended up dead, which totally freaked us out. We told Ashley to tell us the truth or we wouldn’t go through with the kidnapping she’d planned for herself.”

  By now, Nicole and Kevin had reached Matt’s car, an ancient Volvo. They got in, Nicole in the driver’s seat, still pointing her gun at Kevin who’d settled on the passenger’s side. “Go on,” she prompted. “What did Ashley say?”

  “You have to understand about Ashley,” he said. “She’s usually pretty unpleasant, but when she wants to, she puts on charm. She can be pretty convincing. Sometimes, what she says doesn’t make sense when you think about it later. But at the time, she has you totally believing her. That’s why she’s so great at conning people.”

  “And—?”

  “She said nobody kidnaps adults for ransom in the U.S. any more—like, practically ever. It’s big in third world countries. And her father-in-law, who controlled her husband’s money, was already suspicious of her. That’s why her own kidnapping had to look like part of a crime wave. You know, kidnappers targeting rich people in L.A. She set the ransom low so the victims would be quick to pay and unlikely to call the police if we told them we’d do something drastic if they did. We’d be in and out in a couple of days. Then she planned to up the ante with her own kidnapping. Like the first two were just practice for the big score. It kind of makes sense.”

  “It would stop making sense when she asked for ten million dollars,” Nicole said. “That’s a lot different than fifty thousand dollars. Thanks for explaining, Kevin.” She waved the gun at him. “I can’t drive and hold a gun on you at the same time. Stay where you are until I come around to open your door.”

  He stared at her, looking hopeful. “Are you letting me go?”

  Instead of answering, she hopped out of the car and circled in fron
t with the gun still trained on him. She opened the door and told Kevin to get out. She marched him to the rear of the car and opened the trunk, using the flashlight to make sure the car was too old to have an interior trunk release. Satisfied he wouldn’t be able to escape, she ordered Kevin to climb in.

  This made him start crying in earnest. She shushed him. “Please let me go,” he said in a loud whisper. “I’ll disappear. No one will ever hear from me again.”

  She waved the gun at him. “I offered you a deal like that at the house. Remember? Too bad you didn’t take it. Get in.”

  Snuffling loudly, he climbed in. Nicole closed the trunk. She needed to call the police, but first she had to put some distance between herself and the courtyard bungalow. Ashley might be back any minute. Nicole got in the driver’s seat and headed east toward Melrose Avenue. After-hours clubs would still be open, and people would be out walking. On the way, she had to pull over because Kevin was crying loudly, begging for mercy. She got out and thumped on the trunk several times, warning him, “Shut up or I’ll shoot you.” He immediately grew silent.

  Once she was safely parked on Melrose, she called 911, asking for the Robbery-Homicide team working on the Rexton kidnapping. After a bit of explaining, she was connected. She told the officer who answered that Arnault was being held prisoner at the house on Kirkwood and might be injured. She gave him that address, as well as the one for the bungalow where Ryan had taken her. This accomplished, she made a U-turn and headed back to Laurel Canyon.

  By the time she arrived on Kirkwood, the house was surrounded by police cars, as well as paparazzi on motorbikes and several news vans. She had to park a couple of blocks away and walk up the hill. The front of the property was marked off with yellow crime-scene tape. She was about to duck under it when a burly cop walked over. “This is a crime scene.” He gestured toward the tape. “You can’t enter the property.” She explained that she was the one who’d called 911 and that her kidnapped sister was inside.