The Boy from the Woods(77)

“My team will try to trace down the ISP when we go live,” Wilde said, “but I’m told that even a simple VPN will prevent us from getting anything significant.”

They silently watched the clock go under the four-minute mark.

“So what’s on the tapes?” Hester asked.

“Outtakes from the show,” Dash said. “Behind-the-scenes stuff. The writers’ room where we hashed out ideas. Stuff like that.”

“Uh-huh,” Hester said. “In the ransom email, they asked you to upload the ‘truly damaging’ tape to a special folder.”

Hester waited. No one spoke.

“Are you going to do that?”

Delia said, “Yes.”

“What’s on it?”

“We don’t see how that’s relevant to you.”

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t want to share any of this. We are being forced to for the safety of our son.”

“So you’re willing to share it with an anonymous kidnapper, but not your attorney?”

“We see no reason to show it to anyone,” Dash said. “But as Mr. Wilde here pointed out, these people didn’t ask for a public release. So perhaps they’ll keep it to themselves, perhaps not. Either way, this is not a confidence we want to betray, even to you. We are betraying it, if you will, for the safety of our son.”

Hester looked at Wilde and shook her head. Then she turned back and glared at both of the Maynards. “I hope you two know what you’re doing.”

When the clock clicked down to zero, Dash Maynard refreshed the page. The page was simple. There were two yellow boxes. One was marked: VIDEOS-UPLOAD, the other: SPECIAL FOLDER-UPLOAD.

Under them, the instructions said:

Click both links. We will not communicate with you until the videos start uploading.



Whoever was behind this, Wilde said, was good. No negotiation, no back-and-forth.

Dash let loose a long breath. Delia placed a comforting, familiar hand on his shoulder.

“Here goes,” Dash said.

He clicked first the special folder button, then the videos one. The files began to upload. A minute passed. Then another. Finally, a new icon appeared. An envelope. Dash moved the cursor over it and clicked it.

We will need to review the files.

If you did as we requested, your son will be returned to you tomorrow at exactly noon. We will contact you with his location.



Delia’s eyes filled with tears. “At noon?”

Dash took his wife’s hand.

“Our son has to spend another night with these people?”

“He’ll be okay,” Dash said. “We’ve done all we can.”

“Have we?” Delia asked.

Silence.

Dash turned toward Wilde and Hester. “What do we do now?”

“If you still don’t want to go to the authorities—” Hester began.

“We don’t.”

Hester shrugged. “Then I guess we wait.”

*



When they were back outside, Hester said to Wilde, “We aren’t going to wait, are we?”

“I’m not sure what we can do.”

“Are you going to hang here?” Hester asked.

“If I’m not on the grounds, I’ll be close by.”

“Same,” Hester said. “I may go out and grab a bite to eat, if that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay.”

Hester started to wring her hands together, twisting the rings on her fingers. For the first time, Wilde noticed that she was no longer wearing her wedding band. Had she been six years ago? He couldn’t remember.

“With Oren Carmichael,” she added.

Hester Crimstein blushed. She actually blushed.

“Second date in two nights,” Wilde said.

“Yes.”

“Yippee.”

“Don’t be a wiseass.”

“If you don’t want to sleep at Laila’s, maybe you can sleep at Oren’s.”

“Stop that.” Her blush deepened. “I’m not a hussy, you know.”

Wilde smiled. It felt nice to be normal, even if only for a few seconds. “Go to dinner,” he said. “Enjoy.”

“He’s a nice man,” she said. “Oren, I mean.”

“And he’s a hunk with broad shoulders.”

“Is he? I barely noticed.”

“Go, Hester.”

“You’ll call if there are any changes?”

“I will.”

“Wilde?”

He turned.

“There’s been no one since Ira.”

“Then it’s about time,” Wilde said.

*



Tony’s Pizza and Sub looked exactly like its name.

There was a counter with two guys in white aprons flipping pizzas. There was a letter-board menu above their heads for walk-ins who didn’t want table service or, if you took a booth, a waitress, always a local high school girl, handed you a menu that was both laminated and sticky. The tablecloth, no surprise, was checkered red. Each table was cluttered with a napkin dispenser, an assortment of shakers for parmesan and oregano and the like, and a half-burned candle jammed into the top of an empty Chianti bottle. A television that hung from the ceiling played either sports or the news. Right now, it was playing Hester’s very own network.