Breathless by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

Author:Susan Kiernan-Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: murder, kidnapping, detectives, atlanta, lottery
Publisher: Susan Kiernan-Lewis

*****

Jack appreciated the fact Sandy had finally stopped crying. He watched her hands shake as she bundled the fifty thousand dollars in cash on top of bundles of old telephone directory pages they’d cut to match the size of a bill. But the resolute line of her mouth told him she was determined to get through the next few hours without falling apart.

Don’t record this call. You want to see her alive again, you don’t go to the cops. Tell me you understand. Five hundred Gs in a book bag. You can get your new boyfriend to deliver it. Bring it to where the old Coke sign used to be on Margaret Mitchell Square. Tonight at one a.m. Put it on the ground next to the trash can. There’ll be instructions under the can about where the girl is. Go to the cops and she dies.

Jack played it enough times that he now had it memorized—which wasn’t helpful for trying to hear something in the recording that he hadn’t heard before. His mind now automatically filled in the next words as he listened to the kidnapper’s words—or whomever the bastard had gotten to read his words.

The part where Twyla broke in with her frantic plea had obviously been taped earlier. The background noise for that recording was different from the ransom demand recording, but it was so dominated by Twyla’s hysteria and tears it was impossible to separate the two.

Now if he had access to a police lab or even a recording studio—hell, a good laptop with GarageBand on it would’ve worked. But he had no idea how to work the software, and Sandy was adamant that nobody else be brought into the inner circle of their own private horror show.

He looked at the open book bag with the money and the carefully cut pieces of paper stuffed into it. If the guy opened it at the drop site it was hard to believe even in the dark he was going to mistake the contents for a half a million dollars. A light sheen of sweat popped across Jack’s forehead.

I have a seriously bad feeling about this.

“What do you think, Jack?” Sandy sat across from him on the floor in her bedroom where they’d packed the bag. He still marveled that she kept the money in shoeboxes in the linen closet. Not even a safe. Her eyes were a little too bright, a little too wide, as if she was doing everything in her power to appear in control and strong. As if they both didn’t know she was inches from a total breakdown.

Likely in his arms.

“I think it looks good,” he lied. “What time is it?”

He knew what time it was. Every minute that clicked away in the direction of one o’clock in the morning was carved on his heart.

“A little before eleven,” she said, rubbing her hands against her jeans. He had already become very familiar with that gesture. It was her attempt to stop her hands from shaking.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.