Forty Thousand Dollars Demanded to Bring Our Lost Daughter Home
The side gate near the creek was barely visible through the thick stands of sumac and willow. The chain had been broken since the spring rains, leaving the rusted iron panels to hang open just enough for a man to squeeze through on foot.
Then I heard the crunch of loose stone near the creek path.
A figure came around the limestone pile, walking with a stiff, heavy-sided gait that I would have recognized from three fields away. He was wearing an oversized yellow rain slicker with the hood pulled low over his forehead, and his face was obscured by a pair of dark plastic safety glasses he must have taken from his shop.
In his right hand, he carried a red plastic toolbox with a cracked black handle, the very one I had seen sitting in the bed of his truck on Friday afternoon. He held it close to his thigh, his fingers wrapped tight around the plastic grip as if he were carrying something fragile.
