Two Little Girls in Blue Read Online Free PDF

kidnappers.

9

    A n increasingly nervous Lucas had stopped in at the caretaker cottage on both Saturday and Sunday evenings. The last thing he wanted was to spend any time around the twins, so he timed his arrival for nine o’clock, when he thought they would be asleep.
    On Saturday evening he tried to feel reassured by Clint’s boast that Angie was great with the kids. “They ate real good. She played games with them. She put them down for naps all afternoon. She really loves them. She always wanted to have kids. But I tell you, it’s almost spooky to watch them. It’s like they’re two parts of the same person.”
    â€œDid you get them on tape?” Lucas snapped.
    â€œOh, sure. We got them both to say, ‘Mommy, I love you. Daddy, I love you.’ They sound real good. Then one of them started yelling, ‘We want to go home,’ and Angie got sore at her. She raised her hand like she was going to hit her, and they both started crying. We got all of that on the tape, too.”
    That’s the first smart thing you’ve done, Lucas thought as he pocketed the tape. By pre-arrangement with the boss, he drove to Clancy’s Pub on Route 7, arriving there at ten thirty. As instructed, he left the limoin the crowded parking lot with the door unlocked, and the tape on the seat and then went in for a beer. When he returned to the limo, the tape was gone.
    That was Saturday night. On Sunday night it had been clear that Angie’s patience was wearing thin. “Damn dryer is broken, and of course we can’t call anyone to fix it. You don’t think ‘Harry’ knows how, do you?” As she spat out the words, she was taking two sets of identical long-sleeved T-shirts and overalls from the washing machine and draping them on wire hangers. “You said it would be a couple of days. How long am I supposed to keep this up? It’s been three days already.”
    â€œThe Pied Piper will tell us when and where to drop the kids off,” Lucas reminded her, biting back the desire to tell her to go to hell.
    â€œHow do we know he won’t just get scared and disappear, and leave us stuck with them?”
    Lucas had not intended to tell Angie and Clint about the Pied Piper’s plan, but he felt it was necessary to appease her. “We know because he’s going to make a ransom demand sometime between eight and nine o’clock tomorrow morning on the Today show.”
    That had shut her up. You got to hand it to the boss, Lucas thought the next morning, as he watched the show and witnessed the dramatic response to the Pied Piper’s phone call. The whole world will be wanting to send money to get those kids back.
    But we’re the ones taking all the risk, he thought hours later, after listening to the commentators on every station jabbering about the kidnapping. We grabbedthe kids. We’re hiding them. We’re the ones who will pick up the money when they raise it. I know who the boss is, but there’s nothing to tie him to me. If we get caught, he could say I was nuts if I say he’s behind it.
    Lucas had no jobs scheduled until the next morning, Tuesday, and at two o’clock decided there was no way he could sit in his apartment and stew. The Pied Piper had told him to be sure to watch the CBS evening news, that another contact would be made then.
    He decided he had time to go for a plane ride. He drove to Danbury Airport where he was a member of a flying club. There, he rented one of the single-engine prop planes and went for a spin. His favorite trip was to fly up the Connecticut coast to Rhode Island, then go out over the Atlantic for a while. Flying two thousand feet above the earth gave him a sense of complete control, something he badly needed to experience now.
    It was a cold day with only a slight breeze and some clouds to the west: fine flying weather. But as he tried to relax in the cockpit and enjoy the freedom of being