Forty Thousand Dollars Demanded to Bring Our Lost Daughter Home
“You got the money?” he asked immediately, and I could hear the sound of a television playing in the background on his end. “The whole forty?”
“We have it,” I said, keeping my voice steady as I watched the front door of his cottage. “George went to the bank this morning.”
“Where is it?” Vince asked, his breathing shallow through the receiver. “You bring it to the old church road by the creek.”
“No,” I said. “The church road is too close to the state highway. I am not stopping on the shoulder with forty thousand dollars in a paper bag.”
“You do what I tell you if you want to see her,” he said, trying to force the low, threatening tone he had used on the first call.
“We meet at the gravel quarry,” I said. “The lower level behind the old machinery shed.”
There was a long silence, and I could hear his boots scraping against the linoleum floor of his kitchen as he moved.
