The Kidnappers Read Online Free PDF Page B

you would. Tell him it has to do with his son, Willie.”
    I slumped into a chair. “So we’re right back where we started.”
    â€œNot quite,” Father said. For him, he sounded reasonable. “I’ve left a message, and eventually he’ll return the call. If Willie is missing, Mr. Groves is undoubtedly very busy and very worried.”
    â€œShouldn’t we call the police, then?” Sophie asked, twisting her hands together.
    Father considered. It was one of the few times I could recall that he hadn’t made an instantaneous decision. “No. I think not. If there was a kidnapping and he’s not yet called in the police, for whatever reason, I don’t want to cause further complications. A kidnapper might have threatened to harm Willie unless a ransom is paid without notifying the authorities. That’s not a decision I would like to make, if it were one of my children.”
    â€œWouldn’t you call the police?” I demanded, surprised to be talking to him this way.
    â€œI think now that I would. But each case is different, and I can’t know the circumstances in this one. Perhaps not. Perhaps if your lives were at risk, or Mark’s, I would have to reconsider.”
    â€œSo we can’t do any more?” I asked in despair.
    â€œNot for the moment. If I haven’t heard from Bill Groves by tomorrow morning, I’ll try again to reach him. And this had darned well better be on the level, Joel. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself grounded for the rest of your life. Understand?”
    â€œI’m telling the truth,” I muttered.
    â€œNow let me finish this paperwork,” Father said. So we left his study.
    Sophie went back to practicing on the piano, and Mom was watching some soapy movie in the living room. I tried to watch TV in my room. I couldn’t get into a program, though. I flipped all around the channels and nothing caught my attention.
    Where was Willie? Who had taken him, and why? For money? How long would it be before a ransom could be paid, if it could be? What if it was a million dollars? Could Mr. Groves come up with that much? Was Willie hurt? Was he scared?
    He had to be scared. I could imagine myself in such a predicament, and I’d be terrified. I remembered a true story I heard about what had happened a long time ago, where kidnappers or terrorists had taken the grandson of a famous millionaire. To prove they had him, and to coerce the payment to them of a tremendous amount of money, they had cut off the boy’s ear and sent it to the grandfather through the mail.
    I imagined opening up the box and seeing that ear. For a few seconds I thought I was going to throw up.
    Usually I could entertain myself by making up stories. Some of them had me as the starring player, and I would have great adventures, perform incredible rescues, be the hero I’d probably never be in real life. I could lose myself in fantasy.
    Tonight it didn’t work.
    My imagination was still working, all right. But it wasn’t a distraction, it drove me crazy.
    I pictured Willie in a cellar, lying on gunnysacks in a coal bin, his hands tied behind him, a strip of duct tape across his mouth so he couldn’t scream.
    I saw Willie in the back of a car, on the floor with a blanket over him so nobody could tell he was a captive, choking on a gag they’d put in his mouth.
    I pictured him tied to a chair while somebody tortured him, trying to make him talk. I couldn’t think what Willie would know that anyone would try to force out of him, but the image wouldn’t go away.
    I’d made up stories about people before. I’d enjoyed thinking about my brother lying mangled in the middle of the street, after he’d tattled on me for having tried one of our grandpa’s cigars. Father grounded me for a week. Once I imagined staking Father out on a bed of fire ants for being so unfair when Mark started a fight and he blamed me.