terms with himself, his family and his purpose. And in Jane’s mind, it had to have a hidden meaning that the kidnapper was eager to convey in a veiled, intellectual manner. She slid it out from the plastic bag and thumbed through the pages, finding page 243 freshly dog-eared. “Did the book come like this?” she asked, showing the page to Weyler.
“10-4,” Bo affirmed. “See, that’s also where the card was stuck in the book.”
Jane factored that it’s one thing to just slide a card into a book and quite another to make sure that others notice the page by turning down the corner.
“What came after this?” Weyler asked.
“We got the next clue here at the office in the form of a
voicemail message.” Bo then hollered out toward his office door, “Vi! Can you come here? And bring in Copeland’s file, would ya?”
Jane turned and saw Vi opening up a file cabinet, finding a folder and tearing off the top page that was stapled to the outside of the folder. Odd , Jane thought. But what was even stranger was that Vi took the top page and slipped it into her top drawer before heading into Bo’s office.
She nodded toward Jane and Weyler with a short and to the point, “Hey!” Vi’s wavy salt-and-pepper hair was cut in a no-nonsense style and fell just below her ears. She didn’t wear any makeup but she didn’t need to as her skin was surprisingly vibrant and youthful for her sixty-five years. Her 5’ 5” frame was solid and grounded, fully in charge of whatever needed to get done at any given time. Jane could tell that she and Bo shared an understanding. His demeanor clearly became more relaxed when she was in the room and he was, strangely, more than happy to let her control the events.
“Vi,” Bo said succinctly, “Morgan Weyler and Jane Perry from Denver.”
“Nice to meet you,” Vi said, “What do you need, Bo?”
“I can’t remember how to use this damn thing,” he groused, pointing to the phone. “Wanna play them the voicemail.”
“Sure.” With insouciance, Vi maneuvered her way around the clutter and, after pressing a few buttons, entering the voicemail code and releasing the SPEAKER button, a computer-distorted voice could be heard loud and clear.
“Do you know what it’s like to feel as if you’re two seconds from your last breath? DO YOU ? It feels just like this…” There was a scratchy sound on the phone as if something was brushing against it, followed by the whimpering and pleading of what sounded like a very young male child from across the room. That lasted all of ten seconds and abruptly stopped before the scratchy sound against the phone reappeared and the distorted voice of the kidnapper spoke again. “He pounds on the window
and you do nothing.” Click.
Bo was visibly shaken by the recording. “You…wanna here it again?”
Vi replayed the sickening message. Jane timed it using the second hand on Bo’s wall clock. It was thirty seconds exactly, short and untraceable—not that Midas had the ability to trace a call when the kidnapper left the message. But for Jane, it was a new aspect of the man’s personality. He knew the drill and he knew that it took at least forty seconds to trace a call if a live system was up and running when the call came in.
“We checked the incoming number,” Bo said, resting his cigar in an ashtray. “It’s one of them throwaway cell phones.” Jane added another element of the kidnapper’s personality to her visual list. Methodical. “Well?” Bo asked Weyler. “What do you get from the message?”
“He had to remove the voice disguiser in order to get the sound of the boy screaming,” Weyler offered. “That’s the scratchy sound you hear right before the boy screams and then right after when the last sentence is distorted again.”
“But the boy sounds like he’s six or seven the way he’s whimpering, not fifteen ,” Jane argued. “And the screams just stop suddenly on cue before the guy re-fits the disguiser and
“10-4,” Bo affirmed. “See, that’s also where the card was stuck in the book.”
Jane factored that it’s one thing to just slide a card into a book and quite another to make sure that others notice the page by turning down the corner.
“What came after this?” Weyler asked.
“We got the next clue here at the office in the form of a
voicemail message.” Bo then hollered out toward his office door, “Vi! Can you come here? And bring in Copeland’s file, would ya?”
Jane turned and saw Vi opening up a file cabinet, finding a folder and tearing off the top page that was stapled to the outside of the folder. Odd , Jane thought. But what was even stranger was that Vi took the top page and slipped it into her top drawer before heading into Bo’s office.
She nodded toward Jane and Weyler with a short and to the point, “Hey!” Vi’s wavy salt-and-pepper hair was cut in a no-nonsense style and fell just below her ears. She didn’t wear any makeup but she didn’t need to as her skin was surprisingly vibrant and youthful for her sixty-five years. Her 5’ 5” frame was solid and grounded, fully in charge of whatever needed to get done at any given time. Jane could tell that she and Bo shared an understanding. His demeanor clearly became more relaxed when she was in the room and he was, strangely, more than happy to let her control the events.
“Vi,” Bo said succinctly, “Morgan Weyler and Jane Perry from Denver.”
“Nice to meet you,” Vi said, “What do you need, Bo?”
“I can’t remember how to use this damn thing,” he groused, pointing to the phone. “Wanna play them the voicemail.”
“Sure.” With insouciance, Vi maneuvered her way around the clutter and, after pressing a few buttons, entering the voicemail code and releasing the SPEAKER button, a computer-distorted voice could be heard loud and clear.
“Do you know what it’s like to feel as if you’re two seconds from your last breath? DO YOU ? It feels just like this…” There was a scratchy sound on the phone as if something was brushing against it, followed by the whimpering and pleading of what sounded like a very young male child from across the room. That lasted all of ten seconds and abruptly stopped before the scratchy sound against the phone reappeared and the distorted voice of the kidnapper spoke again. “He pounds on the window
and you do nothing.” Click.
Bo was visibly shaken by the recording. “You…wanna here it again?”
Vi replayed the sickening message. Jane timed it using the second hand on Bo’s wall clock. It was thirty seconds exactly, short and untraceable—not that Midas had the ability to trace a call when the kidnapper left the message. But for Jane, it was a new aspect of the man’s personality. He knew the drill and he knew that it took at least forty seconds to trace a call if a live system was up and running when the call came in.
“We checked the incoming number,” Bo said, resting his cigar in an ashtray. “It’s one of them throwaway cell phones.” Jane added another element of the kidnapper’s personality to her visual list. Methodical. “Well?” Bo asked Weyler. “What do you get from the message?”
“He had to remove the voice disguiser in order to get the sound of the boy screaming,” Weyler offered. “That’s the scratchy sound you hear right before the boy screams and then right after when the last sentence is distorted again.”
“But the boy sounds like he’s six or seven the way he’s whimpering, not fifteen ,” Jane argued. “And the screams just stop suddenly on cue before the guy re-fits the disguiser and
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