Forty Thousand Dollars Demanded to Bring Our Lost Daughter Home
I turned the key in the ignition and drove back toward the county line, bypassing the turn for our farm and heading toward the gravel pit road.
Vince’s cottage sat back from the highway behind a row of overgrown locust trees that cast long, thin shadows across his dirt yard. I did not pull into his driveway; instead, I parked on the wide gravel shoulder fifty yards down the road, where the trees blocked the view from his kitchen window.
His red pickup truck was parked near the side porch, the front bumper still bearing the faint yellow streak where he had brushed against our sunflowers.
I pulled the cheap burner phone from my pocket, the plastic keys rough under my thumb as I dialed the number from the blue-lined paper. The phone rang three times, the sound small and flat in the quiet cabin of the Buick.
“Yeah?” Vince’s voice was raspy, the casual tone he usually used with us gone, replaced by a tight, hurried edge.
“It is Andrew,” I said.
