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“Good to know,” I said.
At precisely ten o’clock my phone buzzed, and I answered.
“Do you have the coin?” he asked.
“I do. Where are you?”
“I’m around. It’s not important where I am. I want to see the coins.”
“I want to see Connie.”
“Reasonable request,” he said. “I’m changing to FaceTime.”
A video of Connie came into view on my phone. She was tied to a chair. She was gagged and had a sleep mask over her eyes. Her head was down. Her hair was a mess.
“Go ahead,” the kidnapper said to Connie. “Say something to your friend.”
He kicked the chair and Connie grunted.
I felt physically sick. I went light-headed and swallowed back nausea. I got a grip on myself, sucked in some air, and said, “That’s enough. Where do we go from here?”
Connie disappeared and the kidnapper came back on the phone. “I want to see the coins. I have to make sure you have the one I’m looking for. Put them all out on the table with the knight side up.”
I laid the coins on the table knight side up and looked around. “Where are you?” I asked. “How are you going to see the coins?”
“I have ways,” he said. “Be patient. Drink your coffee.”
I sat back and focused on the van across the street.
“Don’t stare,” Ranger said in my earbud. “He’s checking the coins out with a drone.”
I looked up and saw the drone. Heard the telltale buzzing.
“You don’t have the coin,” the kidnapper said.
“Of course I have the coin,” I told him. “I personally stole these from the man who bought it.”
Ranger laughed out loud into my earbud, and I did a mental eye-roll.
“My coin had a small notch on the edge. It’s visible from the knight side. None of these coins have a notch. This exchange is aborted,” the kidnapper said. “We’ll keep her alive and intact for another twenty-four hours. Beyond that I can’t make promises.”
The line went dead, and I scooped the coins back into the bag. “This is horrible,” I said to Ranger. “Connie looked terrible. Was anyone able to see where the drone landed?”
“We know the general direction,” Ranger said. “No one was able to track it fast enough to see it land. Meet me back at Rangeman.”
I finished my frappe and walked back to my car. I drove around a little, concentrating on the area where the drone might have originated. I didn’t see anything remarkable. No one dragging a bound and gagged woman down the street. And I had another twenty-four-hour deadline.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Iparked in the Rangeman garage, took the elevator to the fifth floor, and found Ranger in his office. I removed the listening device from my bra and handed it over to him.
“Keep the earbud and the gun,” Ranger said. “This isn’t over. We replayed the phone conversation. The kidnapper said ‘We’llkeep her alive.’?”
“That sounds like there’s more than one of them.”
“Has he indicated this to you before?”
“No. He implied that he wanted the coin for personal reasons. Could he really see a small detail like a notch on a coin from a drone?”
