That knocked both Dash and Delia back for a moment.
“You don’t understand,” Dash said. “We trust Gavin implicitly.”
“You don’t understand,” Hester countered. “I don’t. And I’m not so sure your wife does either.” She started for the door. “Come on, let’s get some fresh air. It’s nice outside, it’ll do us all some good.”
Dash once again looked at Delia. She nodded and took his hand. They headed down a spiral staircase, passing a confused Gavin Chambers, and headed outside. Their twins were practicing with a coach on the soccer pitch.
“The girls don’t know what’s going on,” Dash said. “We’d like to keep it that way.”
They walked toward the middle of the yard, nearly taking the same path their son had on that CCTV recording last night. The day was gorgeous, almost mockingly so. Wilde saw Hester spot the view of Manhattan, her home now, and she watched the skyscrapers as though they were old friends.
When they were far enough from the house, Hester said, “So why am I here?”
Dash launched straight into it. “This morning, when we woke up, our son Crash was gone. The early signs pointed to him visiting a friend late at night or, at worst, running off. Mr. Wilde here knows the situation.”
Hester said, “Okay.”
Delia cupped a hand over her eyes to block the sun. She looked up at Wilde. “Why did you corner our son at the school yesterday?”
“Whoa.” It was Hester. “Don’t answer that. Let’s get me up to speed before we start down any of those roads, okay?”
“The road is a simple one,” Delia said. “Because of our current situation—”
“What situation?”
“Last night, Saul Strauss was a guest on your show,” Delia said.
“Right, so?”
“He made accusations involving us.”
“I assume you’re talking about you guys possessing incriminating tapes?”
Delia nodded. “Purportedly on Rusty Eggers, yes.”
“I thought he was full of it,” Hester said. “They exist?”
“No,” Delia said, “they do not.”
No hesitation, Wilde noted. Didn’t mean she was telling the truth, of course. But there was zero pause, zero wrong body language — just a straight-up denial.
“Go on,” Hester said.
“When we discovered Crash was missing,” Dash said, “Colonel Chambers and his team immediately started a search. All early signs pointed to the fact that our son ran away on his own. There is CCTV of him leaving the manor alone, seemingly voluntarily.” Dash turned his glare onto Wilde. “Still — and I think this is a natural response — Colonel Chambers made sure that the man who yesterday held our son against his will at his school wasn’t involved. You know this, of course, Ms. Crimstein — you saw it on FaceTime. We want to know the reason why Mr. Wilde here felt the need to confront our son in his own school. I think our concern is understandable.”
Hester nodded. “So that’s why you had Chambers bring Wilde here.”
“Yes.”
“And you figured by hiring me, you’d get him to talk.”
Delia spoke up now. “No. We hired you because things have changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t think Crash ran away on his own anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Delia said, “we just received a ransom note.”
The ransom note had come in via anonymous email.
Dash handed his phone to Hester, who hunched over so her body would block the sun glare on the screen. Wilde read it over her shoulder:
We have your son. If you do not do exactly what we say, he will be executed. We don’t want that, but we believe in freedom and freedom always comes at a price. If you contact the FBI or law enforcement, we will know about it and we will immediately execute Crash. If you think you can contact the authorities without us knowing, you are wrong. We were able to kidnap your son despite all your expensive security. We will know, and your son will suffer greatly.
Our request is simple. We believe that the truth will set you free. For that reason, we want you to turn over the tapes you have on Rusty Eggers to us. All of them, especially the oldest. There will be no negotiating on this. The stakes are too high.
Please follow these Instructions exactly.
On the bottom of this email is a link to an anonymous drop box which works through what is commonly known as the Dark Web via several VPNs. The link is not active yet.
At exactly 4PM, click the link and upload all videos that you have on Rusty Eggers per the prompts.
You will see a special folder set aside for the truly damaging tape. We know the tape exists, so please do not pretend otherwise. The link will be useless again at exactly 5PM.
If we don’t get what we want, your son will face the consequences.
That was it. On the bottom was indeed a hyperlink with lots of jumbled numbers, letters, and symbols of all sorts.
Hester read the message several more times. Wilde watched her and waited. Eventually Hester handed the phone back to Dash. Both of their hands were shaking.
“You want my advice?” Hester asked.
“Of course.”
“Contact the FBI.”
“No,” Delia said.
“You read the message,” Dash added. “No law enforcement.”
“I get that, but in my view, contacting the professionals gives you your best chance. Only the four of us have seen this email, am I correct?”
They both nodded.
“So Wilde leaves now. We know people at the FBI. Good people who will keep it quiet. Wilde tells one of those people what’s what—”
“No,” Dash said. “No way.”
“Delia?” Hester said.
“I agree with my husband. For now, we do this on our own.”
They were not going to change their minds, not yet anyway, so Wilde shifted gears. “According to the time stamp, the email was sent a little more than an hour ago. What time did you first see it?”
Dash made a face. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Delia replied, “Pretty much right away.”
“That’s when you called me?” Hester asked.
“Yes.”
Hester saw where Wilde was going with this. “And may we make an observation?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“You didn’t tell your chief of security about it.”
Dash let loose a sigh. “I wanted to.”
“Yes, but your wife didn’t.” Hester faced Delia. “Because you see what I see.”
“And what do both of you ladies see that I can’t?” Dash asked with a hint of irritation.
“Gavin Chambers works for Rusty Eggers. His loyalty is to him, not you. I didn’t send him out of the room just because he could be legally compelled to talk. I wanted him out because you aren’t his first priority. Protecting Rusty Eggers is. Do you understand?”
“I do,” Dash said, “but even if I agree with that, our interests here are the same.”
Hester tilted her head. “Are you sure about that? I mean, let’s say hypothetically that the choice is your son dies or all your tapes are released to the public. Which side do you think Rusty Eggers is going to take?”
Silence.
“And I want you to consider something else,” Hester went on. “If this really is a kidnapping, who would be your most likely suspect?”
“Radicals,” Dash said.
“Well, that’s pretty vague, but let’s go with that. Let’s say it was radicals. So these radicals figured a way to get your son to go out on his own into the woods and then, what, they nabbed him on your own property and dragged him off at, I don’t know, gunpoint or whatever?” Hester rubbed her chin. “Does that seem likely?”