Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nolan stared at the burner phone in disbelief. Dana’s brother actually yelled at Pete and then hung up. What kind of person was notified that their sister had been kidnapped and refused to even listen, much less pay the ransom?
Contemptible.
“Call him back,” Hunter said, his voice firm.
Pete tapped on the table with his index finger. “Let me think.” All three of them were sitting at the motel table again, watching Dana on the monitor. The sound was down, so they couldn’t hear what she was watching on TV. Some old black-and-white movie. She seemed engrossed in whatever it was.
Hunter opened his penknife and stabbed it into the tabletop so it stood up on its own. In less than twenty-four hours, they’d both forgotten about the need to wear gloves. So much was wrong with their plan. “Enough thinking. Keep calling until he talks to you.”
“He hung up on me!” Pete said. “If I call again, he’ll probably do the same thing.”
“No.” Nolan shook his head. “You need a new strategy. We need proof that we have Dana. A photo.”
“That’s crap,” Hunter said. “He knows we have her. He needs to do his part.”
Nolan gave him a studied gaze. “Providing proof is fairly standard in kidnappings. Let me try something.” He grabbed the keys off the table, pulled on the ski mask, then got up and went to the door.
Hunter called out after him, “Whatever it is, hurry up. We want our money!”
Nolan ignored him and went outside, shutting the door securely behind him. At Dana’s room, he slid the card in the slot and then swung the door open, finding Dana inside, still watching TV. “Finally!” she said.
He closed the door behind him. “I need to take a picture of you.” Nolan held up the phone.
From the look on her face, she was on board. “A selfie to show your friends?” She adjusted her hair, then stood up, smoothing her skirt.
“No. Proof that you’ve been kidnapped. Your brother didn’t take the call seriously.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Dana said, a note of bitterness in her voice. “And even if he took you seriously, Ian is not known for his compassion. When my property manager, Ronald, and his wife, Martha, had COVID, he refused to pay for their sick days. Who does that? Luckily, Courtney brought it to my attention, and I was able to make it right.”
Dana was growing on him. When they first met, her personality had not matched up to what he’d expected. He thought she’d be more like Rebecca Cavanaugh, and that was only partially true. Rebecca Cavanaugh was all about helping others, while Dana Broderick was fairly egocentric. He’d found her demands off-putting and would have disliked her based on that alone, except that every now and then something she said rang true and soulful, particularly when she talked about those she cared about. And that’s when he found himself admiring her.
“So you’re fine with me taking your picture?”
“Of course! It’s one of my favorite things.” She put one hand on her hip and jutted her chin out in a pose.
Good. “I don’t have today’s newspaper, so hopefully they’ll believe it was taken today.”
“Wait!” She got up from the bed, went to one of the drawers in the desk, then pulled out a lined notebook and pen. In one swift pull, she ripped out a page, then leaned over to write a message. Holding it up, she said, “This should work.”
Nolan nodded in approval. “Smart.”
She tossed her hair, then held the paper in front of her chest, the way one would in a police mug shot. “Okay, I’m ready.”
He turned his attention to the phone and then realized he didn’t know how to take a picture with it. “Just a minute.”
“What’s wrong?
“This isn’t my phone. I’m not sure how it works.”
She came over and took a look, sizing it up quickly. “Burner phones don’t usually take photos.”
In the movies it all looked so easy, but in real life, trying to pull off a crime of this nature was frustratingly difficult. “I see.”
“Believe me, I know a fair amount about burner phones. Courtney put together a whole tutorial. Unlike me, that girl loves researching.” Dana rolled her eyes. “It comes up in a lot of the Rebecca Cavanaugh books. Do you have another phone?”
He patted his back pocket to make sure it was still there. “Well, yes, but—”
“You don’t want to use it because it might implicate you?”
She’d hit on the truth. No point in denying it. “That’s right.”
“Go ahead and use it. I promise you won’t get in any trouble.”
He wouldn’t get in any trouble sending a kidnapping victim’s ransom photo? Really? “I wish I could believe that.”
She shrugged. “It’s up to you, but haven’t I been straight with you so far? You offered to let me escape and I didn’t leave. I already know your name—why not go one step further?”
“I’m not as dumb as I look.”
Dana laughed. “You’re wearing a ski mask in June. Trust me, it would be impossible for you to be as dumb as you look.”
He reached through the mask opening to scratch his nose. “Probably true.”
“Tell you what: You take out your phone and record me saying that I wanted to go with you to this motel and that you’re a friend of mine. It’ll be your ace in the hole.”
He regarded her curiously. “You’d do that?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “And after that, send Courtney the photo of me holding the sign. She’s smarter than Ian and loves me more than he does. She’ll get the money.”
Part of him knew that trusting her was a fool’s game. A trick devised by someone who wrote clever mysteries and had dreamed up every possible scenario when it came to criminal activity. Gaining the trust of your captor had certainly played into more than one of her plots.
But another part of him was tired of being in a crappy motel in rural Wisconsin, afraid of getting caught by the police. The twins had the recording of him agreeing to participate in the kidnapping, and he was too far in to walk away now. A video of Dana playing it up like they were friends might confuse a jury in the event he was implicated in the crime. He was also curious as to what she’d say in the video. “Okay,” he said, fishing his own phone out of his back pocket. He opened it and set it up to record. “Go ahead.”
“Hello, everyone!” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’m here at a remote location with my friend Nolan.” She made a point to look around the room. “We’re at an abandoned motel in the boonies of Wisconsin, to be precise. I’ve just gone through the motions of a faux kidnapping, just to see how my character would get herself out of this kind of predicament. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through! I’ve endured a trip in a car trunk and a bag over my head. It’s been very exciting! Now we’re working out the ransom demands. Rebecca’s conundrum? What does she do when the author’s family refuses to pay the ransom? If you want to know, you can read about it in my next book.” She beckoned to him. “Nolan, why don’t you come and say hello to all my followers?”
He took in a sharp breath. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t be shy.” Dana spoke to the camera again. “Nolan is still wearing the ski mask from our reenactment. Very incognito.” She raised her eyebrows.
Reluctantly, he turned the phone around so they were both in the shot. “Hello.” Having said it, he flipped it back to Dana.
“Isn’t he adorable? Nolan and I are really close.” She leaned in and spoke conspiratorially. “He’s tall and has the most gorgeous eyes. Indigo. I’m so enamored of his eye color that I’m thinking of working it into the description of Rebecca’s next love interest,” she said. “Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for listening, and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter to hear about upcoming book releases and special events. Goodbye.” She gave a friendly wave.
Nolan tapped the button. “You were great.” She’d taken a different tactic than he’d envisioned. So clever. It might, he decided, actually work. He emailed the video to himself in case he and his phone became separated.
“I’ve always been good at improvising dialogue,” she said with a satisfied smile. “Kind of my thing.”
“Do you want to record the message for Courtney?”
She shook her head. “I think it will be more compelling as a still image.”
He took a few shots and showed her the results afterward. Dana flipped through the images and picked a full-length photo, which they then sent to Courtney.