Holding On To You (18 page)

'She's hungry', Claudia says, passing her from one arm to the next. 'Can you make her bottle?'

'Already on my way', Javier says. 'Are you ok Miguel?' he asks him, running his hand through the boys hair.

'I'm okay daddy', he says. 'I'm tired, that's all. I didn't mean too.'

'Hey', he says, 'don't talk crazy. We know you can't help it.'

He kisses his wife, her tears already dried on her cheek but still salty enough for him to taste them, and lifts Conner out of his bed, the boy clinging to his father like a chimpanzee, ecstatic to be by his side.

'I'll get this one ready for school', he says, 'while the milk's heating up.'

'Ok', Claudia says. 'Remember, brush teeth after breakfast.'

'After breakfast, you got that you little monkey', Javier says to Connor and tickles him in the side below his ribs. Connor can't help but laugh, showing off an already missing front tooth. Elouise has settled down a little, clinging onto her mother as tightly as she can, while Claudia holds Miguel's hand and looks at him with a huge amount of concern. Whatever it is her husband has planned, she hopes for her son's sake that it works. She's seen him pass almost every day of his life with some kind of issue, and she's had enough of him suffering.

The ransom note, crudely crafted at the break of dawn that morning, from letters lifted from old magazines and newspapers, a copy of which still sits in the scanner bed in Javier and Claudia's office/laundry room, arrives to Maddy's father's email address. Having not received a response yet to the original email, Javier has taken it upon himself to up the threat. He has also included, to make his claim seem all that more legitimate, sensitive information that only Maddy would know, which he took from the computer in Madeleine's office the night before, when everyone else, including the cleaners and the security staff, had already gone home. Maddy is a woman who usually insists on keeping her office locked at night time, but due to circumstances beyond her control, was unable to do so yesterday. Javier took the opportunity, waiting until he was the last person left, with the excuse to colleagues that he wanted to 'leave something for Maddy to think about, if she ever returned.'

Getting into her office was the easy bit, but getting some piece of information only Maddy knew about was harder than he initially thought it would be. He went through her drawers, the ones she'd left open at least, but found nothing of use there amongst the squeeze stress balls and broken pencils. It took the best part of an hour, after he'd tried to guess her password a number of times without success, for the entry code hacker he had downloaded to break into the computer system and give him access to her personal files. He trawled through them for another hour, reading business emails, and opening high level account files, losing hope he'd find anything at all, until he finally stumbled on something so perfect, had he been able to invent it himself, he wouldn't have come anywhere close.

Officer Garland is sleeping when the call comes through. He has never got used to early mornings, although he's had his fair share, and this morning is no different. If Garland didn't have to get up, to get into work at a particular time every day, he'd stay in bed until noon, take a hearty brunch, sleep again for a couple of hours until four or five and only then when he felt rested enough and able to turn his mind to it, he'd head into work, stay there until dinner time, and then continue again afterwards until the early hours. He worked better after food and coffee, preferably lots of it, and best when the sun had finally gone down. If his wife didn't complain she never got to see him, and the police force didn't require a morning appearance, he'd have chosen that schedule for himself a long time ago.

'I've got to go to work', Garland says to his wife, who Garland knows is as awake as he is, even though she's trying her hardest to pretend to be asleep.

She turns around to him. 'Honey, it's barely gone seven', she says.

'I know', Garland says, a yawn swallowing most of the words and making them barely comprehensible. 'It's Maddy Parker. There's been a development.'

'A development', Garland's wife says. 'Is she dead?'

'No, she's not dead, honey', Garland says, stumbling to the en-suite bathroom. 'Thankfully they don't all die.'

'Well I guess her father won't be cracking out the champagne just yet then', his wife says.

'You have a cruel streak. Did I ever tell you that?' Garland says, washing his face and spreading toothpaste onto a brush. 'That was him on the phone actually.'

'Oh', Garland's wife says, getting excited. A big fan of conspiracy, crime and mystery books, Garland's wife Hetty, has been more excited by this case than her husband, having spent all day watching it break on TV, phoning Garland at every available opportunity, and insisting on regular updates. 'Another ransom note', she says, sitting up in bed and clutching her pillow to her chest. 'What does it say?'

'That's what I'm about to find out', Garland says, his mouth full of toothpaste.

Waiting for him in his police issue email account, is a copy of the email Javier sent to Maddy Parker's father, which contains a copy of the ransom note he mocked up that morning, the original of which sill sits in his scanner bed. When he arrives to work a little after 7:30am, not the first person in that morning, but definitely not the last, he puts his large coffee down on his desk - double shot of espresso mixed with a generous pour of hot water - and opens up his emails. The creatively crafted note that stares back at him from the screen reads as follows:

$1 million dollars. 5pm today.

505 - 768 - 2030

This is not a joke.

Maddy will die if you do not respond.

She says: 'Dad. Please help me.

Do you remember when you found me after I

tried to kill myself, and all I needed you

to tell me was that you loved me, but you couldn't?

Please don't let me die again daddy.

I'm scared and I need you.'

Officer Garland leans back in his seat, slowly sips his still steaming coffee and studies the ransom note closely. When he feels like he's looked at it enough, he clicks print, gets up and waits by the archaic photo copier for the hard copy to come out.

Chapter 14

When she wakes, there is a moment when she doesn't know where she is. All she knows is that she's in a bed somewhere, in a room somewhere, that she's comfortable, and safe, and nothing else matters. It could be the bedroom she grew up in, only the bed is a lot larger. It could be her own bed, only that there is someone else in it with her.

For a confusing moment, she wonders whether she is Madeleine Parker at all, or whether she's woken in the body of a complete stranger instead, and that both the bed that she's lying in, and the man she's lying in it with, are theirs not hers. Suddenly, as though she might be a computer booting up, the details of the last twenty four hours come rushing back to her. This is a motel room in a city she's never been in before, the bed is definitely not hers, but nor does it belong to the man who lies alongside her, and he, who is still sleeping deeply, has converted himself in the course of a day, from her captor into her lover. Her head feels fuzzy from the incomprehensible, craziness of the situation, and she is hungry too, which is perhaps what has woken her.

Maddy is careful not to wake River, as she slides out of bed and towards the bathroom. When she splashes water on her face to open her pours, and bring life back to her tired eyes, her plan is already beginning to form. There is enough natural light spilling in from outside, to allow her to dress without turning on the bare bulb above them, and she does so as quietly as a whisper, pulling on her new jeans, and another brand new top, this time with the print of a rocket on the back. River sleeps, unaware of what's happening around him. He's exhausted from yesterday's events, and the dream that woke him in the night.

Maddy finds his jeans at the bottom of the bed. The gun has been removed, relocated to the bottom drawer of the closet, but the handcuffs are still there, exactly where she was hoping to find them. She gets as close as she can to him without disturbing him, standing by the bedside and watching him for a while, to make sure he's not pretending.

When she's absolutely sure he's not going to wake up, she slips one side of the handcuffs around his wrist, and connects the other to the metal bed frame. River stirs momentarily, and Maddy freezes, her breath going cold. She watches him move his head from side to side, nuzzle it more deeply into the pillow and bring his other hand up alongside the cuffed one, so they both sit carefully now under his cheek, closed together as if in prayer. Finally he settles again, and Maddy breathes a huge sigh of relief.

She creeps carefully away from the bed, eager to escape while she can, before he wakes up for real. She takes the car keys, leaves the gun where it is, and makes her way out of the room to the parking lot. Just before she closes the door, she looks at her captor again, his measured breath lifting the thin duvet that doesn't quite cover his chest, an almost imperceptible amount. If she could, she would return to the room and kiss him, but it's far too risky.

It's cold outside, and she can feel it immediately on her skin. There are other cars in the lot that weren't there when they came back last night, and as she walks to their stolen Lexus, parked several spaces away from their motel room, as a measure of security insisted on by River, and one that makes her escape all the more easy, she sees a black cat that can't be more than a year old, scurry from a hiding place under one car, to a similar one under the next. Immediately Maddy thinks of her own cat, or at least the cat that comes to her house to be fed and stroked every morning, and then disappears again as soon as that pleasure has been fulfilled. She goes to the car, creeping carefully so as not to scare him, only for the cat to bolt away again at her approach, tail up, and eyes filled with fear. Maddy watches it run quickly to a perimeter fence, deftly find the easiest route through, and disappear again into a thick layer of bushes.

She continues to the Lexus, already an expert in disappointment, and well aware of the individual, unpredictable nature of cats. She opens the door, quietly slides into the drivers seat as if it were her own, adjusts the seat and mirrors, and starts the engine. As she pulls away, she momentarily sees the front door to her motel room reflected in the wing mirror. Inside, blissfully unaware of what's going on, River continues to sleep the morning away.

She has taken the bundle of money that River had in his pocket, which will be more than enough. She couldn't risk sliding a hand underneath the mattress to retrieve the rest, even if she needed it. She remembers the way into town from the route they took last night, following it now with a new set of emotions bubbling inside her. It's early, but the day has already started for some. There isn't much traffic, but it's clear that the traffic that surrounds her is comprised of people going to work, or those on their way back from it. It's unusual for Maddy not to be part of that group, to have instead of the routine she is used to, a completely different mission in mind. At a set of lights on the edge of town, a man in the car next to her, distracted while waiting for them to change, finds himself looking at her. Maddy in turn has done the same, and when he smiles at her, a natural reaction to catching a strangers gaze, her immediate impulse is to smile back at him. 

Frank stares at the ransom note. He turns it over, perhaps expecting to find some kind of legend on the back, places it back on the table when he discovers nothing of interest there, and slides it slightly away from himself as though the piece of paper were a menu, and he's already decided what to eat. He leans back in his chair and looks up at Garland, with eyes more bloodshot than normal.

'I guess you've already tried to trace the number?' Frank says.

'It isn't registered', Garland informs him.

'And the email account?'

Garland shakes his head.

'Well he's not that stupid then. So, what does her father say about this?' Frank says.

'He thinks it's real', Garland says.

'And the daddy doesn't love me bullshit here, what's all that about?'

'He reckons that Maddy wouldn't tell someone that story unless it was important. I guess unless her life depended on it. No one else knows about it, as far as he is concerned.'

'So it's true?'

'According to him it is, yes', Garland says.

'Well it makes sense I suppose. Maddy doesn't exactly seem like the life and soul of the party does she? No wonder she tried to top herself. Sit down Garland', Frank says, 'you're making the room look small standing up.'

'Sir', Garland says, and sits down.

'That's better', Frank says. 'It was hurting my eyes looking that far. Right, so if he thinks it's real, what's he doing about the money?'

'He isn't going to pay it', Garland says.

'He thinks his daughter is being held to ransom, and he's not going to pay the demand? Frank says, not overly surprised by his decision, considering his lack of involvement so far. 'What does he want then?'