Chapter 22: Decisions
A week had passed since Lea’s kidnapping and practically any lead the police found in the investigation was later on struck down. What really perturbed me and a number of other people about everything was that if it truly had been for economic gain, then there should’ve been some form of message to indicate their list of demands in return for the girl. After a grueling two day strip and search of every inch of my condominium, they found nothing. No note, writing, or video tape to show they wanted something in return. I knew things were getting grave with each second passing us and nothing came to raise our hopes of finding the culprits.
Today was Lea’s birthday, and we found a break in the case at long last. It was late in the afternoon and most of the officers on the scene began to take to their leave when my cell phone began to vibrate. Officer Kit was right by me when I answered the mysterious call.
“Hello?”
“My, my; am I talking to the one and only Marshall Soel?” A smooth, cool voice answered back with a hint of mockery beneath his tone.
“W-who is this?” I nervously shouted. George seemed to have already known what was going on as he silently signaled a group of his men to listen in on the conversation.
“You don’t need to worry about that my friend. Let’s just say we have an… interesting connection to one another.” The voice continued.
“Did you… take Lea?” I replied, in the verge of tears.
“Oh kudos; you already realized what it was that connected the two of us!” The other line chirped.
“What… do you want?!” I snarled.
“A bit grouchy, are we? Don’t be Mr. Soel! You see, I am no amateur in my profession.” He cheerfully explained.
“You see, usually what we do is find someone who holds some form of well-respected and or well-paid position and examine their behaviors for a little while. Then, if we later on discover that person has something or someone whom he or she holds dear, then we take said item from them and… declare a certain amount of money they have to pay in order to have their dear item returned to them in one piece.” He explained.
A paused ensued, but just as I was about speak up, I heard the man quietly laughing.
“…I apologize… but this wasn’t at all how we found you!” He continued his uproar of laughter.
“That idiot assistant of yours Frank gave us everything we possibly needed and more! Some bullshit agency one of my partners put together brought him to us. It literally took only like two days to find out about your wittle girl Mr. Soel! She is very cute I have to say…”
My anger arose once more.
“Where is she?!” I shouted angrily.
“Oh my, I hope that didn’t touch a nerve. Like I said before, you needn’t worry sir; I am no amateur in what I do! She is carelessly playing with some female agents of mine in another location. There’s no way I could handle changing those diapers!” He replied in a joking manner.
I felt a small relief sweep over me.
“What is it that you want?” I asked, regaining my composure.
“Now that’s better! Well, thanks to that Frank fellow once again, we also heard of the recent jackpot of money that your former film company paid you to leave a project…” His soft chuckle caused me to flinch slightly.
“Forty-two million.” The voice started up again. It seemed I underestimated his knowledge on my business affairs… that or Frank’s overall stupidity towards my privacy. Nevertheless, he knew the exact amount that I managed to obtain from my final film, and he wanted every dollar from it.
“You have exactly two days to bring me the money, or else… I’m afraid your little girl is in for some trouble…”
He added with a wicked chuckle.
“This is to those foolish cop friends of yours who are listening in on this conversation; I’m sure none of you were smart enough to actually check on the last floorboard inside the child’s closet to the right… That will explain the rest of the necessary information.” He chuckled once more just before the line went dead.
“Alright, do we have a position on that call?” George called out to his team.
“It’s saying he’s in Arizona for some reason…” Someone called from the group.
“Mine puts him in California…” A female employee added.
“I have Washington…” Another answered.
Officer Kit slammed his headphones to the ground in frustration.
“Damn, he must be using some device to cloak his real locations from us.”
He slowly walked over to the men diligently working on their computer screens and whispered something.
“This is good.” Officer Kit announced to Amber and I as he made his way back to his original spot.
I raised my eyebrow suspiciously at what his definition of “good” was.
“You think this is good? What are we supposed to do now?” I snapped back.
His hands made their way to his back pockets.
“Nothing right now; we at least have some connection with the culprit and his demands. A couple of my men are going to go see just what that guy was talking about under the floor boards.”
Six officers cautiously made their way into Lea’s room. A cracking sound came a minute later, and then the men all carefully filed out and returned to face Officer Kit and me.
He first examined the tan piece of paper handed to him before giving it to me. Amber held her body close as we both looked at what it read.
“7:30 PM to Marina Avenue. You’ll be instructed the rest from there.” The note ended with a violet smiley face drawn on towards its edge.
“We have a drop off point; let’s make sure we have eyes all around that area from now until the day of the switch!” He announced to his team.
Amber put her arms around me.
“We’re going to find them…” She whispered to me.
“I know…” Something felt off from how smoothly things were going. There wasn’t going to be any way this “switch” would turn out as intended whatsoever. My thoughts only grew in suspicion as I distinctly heard Officer Kit mentioning about snipers and SWAT on the scene. A knot grew in my stomach.
“What are you saying George?” I told him with blatant disapproval.
“What, what do you mean?” He muttered as his eyes continued locked on a computer screen.
“A-about SWAT a-and teams of snipers coming in and getting your people armed… I don’t want this to break out into a full blown war! My daughter’s going to be there somewhere… I will not allow her to get hurt.” I firmly explained.
He turned away from his computer and looked coldly at my eyes.
“It’s just a precaution Marshall, don’t worry about anything. It’s just… in case something does break out; which is unlikely but… better safe than sorry, right?” He replied with a chuckle.
I knew my attempts at resisting the officer’s words were futile, so I simply dropped it and returned to where Amber nervously stood.
“Is everything alright?” She asked softly.
“Yeah, yeah… I just hope this works…” I muttered.
She put her hand to my face so I could look directly at her.
“It will work! Don’t lose your faith now… I-I need it too, Marshall…” Amber’s voice seemed to be breaking.
I returned her words with a tight hug. With a doubt, losing Lea hit her harder than anyone else who heard the news; even I.
“You’re right, I’m sorry.” I whispered back.
A timid smile grew on Amber’s face.
Officer Kit announced a short break to his team as they had been working practically seven days straight. He himself left my apartment with an unlit cigarette in his hand.
“You wanna go outside for some air?” I softly asked Amber.
She nodded just before allowing my hand to cup to hers. We quietly made our way down the elevator and past the lobby doors. A number of police cars were still parked all around the outside of the building, to keep guard of any future break-ins I supposed.
The two of us saw George silently enjoying his smoke when I approached him. He took notice of Amber and me and raised his eyebrow in recognition. My hand lightly swayed over my head to reply his stare. Just as I came within range of the officer, my phone began to wildly vibrate once more.
“Hello?”
“Do you like fireworks Marshall?” The familiar voice of Lea’s kidnapper spoke.
“W-what; why are you calling me?!” I shouted back at him. Amber stared at me fearfully from the side.
His laughter commenced through the line.
“Just to prove a point; I call the shots buddy, no one else. Now let me show you just how much control I truly have in our situation Mr. Soel…” The faint chuckling persisted in my ears.
George stared at me gravely just before pulling his own phone out and quickly dialing a sequence of numbers.
“I love fireworks, Mr. Soel…” The voice whispered.
Not even a second after, a tremendous explosion blasted through my ears. Amber’s screams were practically droned out from the deafening noises all around me. I looked up to witness a horrifying sight; the 45th floor, my apartment’s floor, was entirely engulfed in flames. Burning debris along with shards of broken glass rained from above. The three of us sprinted back into the lobby as countless other people rushed out. I was unsure whether the explosion actually blew out my eardrum or not, but things felt slower than usual and everything sounded muffled. Blood was spilling from my face and onto my hand as Amber quickly took her sweatshirt off to place it onto my cut in an attempt to stop the bleeding. I turned to look at George who was more stunned than anyone else. His hand covered his mouth while the other held the cell phone to his ear.
The few grueling seconds of being unable to hear or understand anything that was going on finally ended; Amber was still screaming.
Her hands were violently shaking me. Her eyes were drenched in tears and fear.
“W-what are we going to do Marshall?! The apartment… j-just exploded!” She exclaimed with heavy tears.
I continued listening to her pleas for my comforting words.
“…They could’ve killed us whenever they wanted…” She muttered in shock. “If the police can’t even keep themselves safe… what are we going to…?”
Her words pierced into my mind. What should we do at a time like this? Would moving to another location deem appropriate? What about rescuing Lea? There must’ve been more than twenty officers from a number of different fields working inside my apartment when Amber and I decided to leave, and now… they were all dead. What should we do?
…What could we do?