She spoke over him, slowly and clearly. “The license is on a dirty black pickup truck. It’s fairly new. A Chevy. You’ve got that?”
“Yes, yes. Hold on. Don’t hang up, Mrs. Santera. You need us. Here’s Agent Anchor.”
“I don’t think so, Detective. Give them the information. They’ll drool, if they bother to believe it.”
“We would have gotten this information in a very short time. Now, I believe you, Mrs. Santera, but… well, you see, this is very irregular.” It was Agent Anchor, a man with a great deal of experience with kidnappings. He was also a dictator who believed everyone except himself had a brain the size of a pea. He’d ordered the Denver cops around as if they were his personal chattel.
“No buts, Agent Anchor. Catch the men who took my daughter.”
“You have no idea if any of these license plates has anything to do with the kidnappers, do you? Look, I don’t understand any of this. Tell me where you are. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Mrs. Santera? You may be in danger. Tell me where you found Emma. You can’t just call in and order us around and-”
“Agent Anchor, go catch the kidnappers. Ah, that pickup truck was last seen just west of Rappahoe on Highway 70.” Molly smiled as she pushed the Off button. “I hated to tell him that because he’s not stupid and he’ll know that’s where we are, too. But I had to, otherwise, how could they catch them? I hope they can locate that cabin quickly, maybe find something helpful.”
“No, you’re right. You had to tell them. By the time they get themselves together, we’ll be tucked safely away in Aspen. They really shouldn’t care all that much about us, and where we are, but who knows? At least our perps don’t know we got them tagged. They shouldn’t be hiding out. Were the Fed agents a big pain?”
“Yes. If I hadn’t been so terrified about Emma, I would have felt sorry for the local cops. The Feds treated them like gofers. Detective Mecklin isn’t really all that much of a jerk, but he’s also not what you’d call very flexible. He’s got this big handlebar mustache, dyed really black, you know? It droops around his mouth, makes him look something like a basset hound. He’s also very fat. I hope he doesn’t have a heart attack.” Then she just shook her head. “He didn’t want to believe that I had Emma. He even asked me if that was really Emma who’d spoken to him. As for Agent Anchor, he has a God complex.”
A lot of the Federal people did, but they were getting better, or at least some of them were, like Dillon Savich. He’d like to meet this Agent Anchor when this was over. He’d like to pin Agent Anchor’s ears back. “You did well, Molly. At least we had to do that much. Let’s go to Aspen. Let’s forget both of them for now. We’ll call Detective Mecklin back tomorrow and see what he’s got.”
“A ransom note arrived last night. The kidnappers wanted a half a million.”
“Their bluff,” he said. “It’s a good try.” He looked quickly at Emma, who looked to be nearly asleep, but he wasn’t fooled for an instant. “Just a bluff,” he said again. “But it gives the cops a real chance at them now. So there are at least four other guys besides the kidnapper. I wonder how many people are involved in this? And why? It isn’t just a kidnapping, Molly.”
“I don’t like it,” Emma said, snuggling close to her mother. “I don’t like it at all.”
Their eyes met. “Neither do we, Emma. Neither do we,” Molly said.
Ramsey pulled back onto the highway. There was no sign of the black pickup, thank the good Lord.
9
AFTER MOLLY SHOWED him a weighty wad of one-hundred-dollar bills and assured him she had lots more in her bra, Ramsey got them a junior suite at the Jerome, providing them a false name.and paying cash. They were shown to a huge single room filled with Victorian furniture, long red or gold fringe on the lamps, and wall-to-wall carpeting woven with big cabbage roses and copious vines. There was violent red wallpaper in the bathroom, which had been updated to a rich pink marble. The old with the new-it was a fascinating combination. There was a sitting area at one end of the big room, with the bed, dresser, and a couple of more chairs at the other. There were tall windows with rich velvet draperies. “I always wanted to stay here,” Ramsey said, standing back. “I saw the place way back when I was a kid here on a ski break. It’s something, isn’t it?”