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“Just the picture? No ransom note?”
“No, they sent it via text,” Dave said as he picked up his phone and pulled it up. He handed it to Margot.
It read:
You have 48 hours to deliver us 100,000 dollars or you never see her again. Text us at this number when you have the money. Don’t tell us you don’t have it. We’ve done our research.
“You must be a good salesman to have a hundred grand lying around.”
Chuck laughed.
“I am a good salesman, but I’m lucky to have a grand lying around at the end of the month.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but then why kidnap your wife? What do they mean by, ‘we’ve done our research?’”
“The only thing I can think of is the coin collection my dad left me. He thought it was very valuable.”
“Thought?”
“Turns out most of it was crap, or I should say, cool coins that weren’t really worth very much. Dad liked coins, but that didn’t mean he was a savvy collector. I got up early the next day after the text and sold all of it, but it wasn’t close to enough. I tried to offer what I had to them, hoping they’d rather have that than nothing. If you scroll down you can see how that went over.”
Margot scrolled down. “You offered them ten grand?”
“That’s what the collection was worth. Everyone was led to believe it was worth a lot more.”
Apparently, the kidnappers believed the same. They replied:
Not good enough. I’ll let your wife know you lowballed us.
Margot read the date on the text, it was two days ago.
“Your forty-eight hours are up.”
“Believe me, I know.”
“Who knew you had the coin collection?”
“Family mostly, though I suppose they could have told other people. It was in the will so our lawyer would have known and his secretary maybe. I started to make a list, but I can’t account for who my cousin might have told about it. It was a point of contention who got it. My brother wanted it, but Dad left it to me. As it turns out, he got the better deal.”
“He doesn’t know that though.”
“He does now. I told him what was going on. I asked to borrow money.”
“Does he have that kind of money laying around?”
Dan laughed. “No, he’s lucky not to be a grand in the hole at the end of the month. I just didn’t have anyone else to ask. I offered to sell this place to get the money, but obviously I’d need more than forty-eight hours. As you can see, they quit replying.”
Margot had already scrolled and knew the last response they had given was the lowball comment. She nodded and saw Dave was tearing up. While she had his phone in her hand and he was distracted, she went ahead and forwarded the whole thing to her phone.
“She’s probably dead,” Dave sighed as Chuck patted him on the shoulder.
“I need you to be honest with me on something,” Margot said. She felt bad asking this while he was crying over his possibly dead wife, but she had to do it sometime. “I was told you did this to her. Has there ever been an incident that would make that accusation credible?”
“Are you asking if I ever hit my wife?”
“Have you?”
“No, never. I would never give the woman I love a black eye.”
