Stolen Power

anything that’s posted around 9:30am on Saturday.”
Casey spent a few moments scrolling through the photos before turning the tablet to me.
“Here, look at this. This mother posted a photo of her child on the swing at 9:33am and in the background you can see Chase on the phone.” She pointed at the tablet. “But no Millie.”
“He’s a long way from the playground.”
“Not great parenting,” Casey added. “And this post, it’s from another mother at 9:36am. That looks like Millie playing on the slide behind her son.”
“It is Millie.” I confirmed. “Anyone else in the picture?”
“Not that I can see. I can do a broader search for the area, but that’ll take some time to go through. According to the maps, there’s a green space next to the playground, a row of shops across the road, and a parking lot nearby. I can use all those locations to see what we can gather on social media.”
“Brilliant. In the morning, I’ll also get you to check for any video surveillance footage from those shops,” I added.
I tapped my hand on the door. I had to replace the door when someone ran into me during a previous job. The woman blindsided me, running a red light, but luckily no one was hurt. Not me, and apart from a few scratches, my beautiful Chevy made it through. I’d only had it a few months, an upgrade after destroying my last Chevy, a far older model, when I had to gain access to a private property by smashing through some wrought iron gates at high speed. Messy job.
“We can’t do much now, so let’s crash, get a few hours’ sleep, and get back into it in the morning.” Casey yawned. “We’ll see things clearer in the morning, but we’ve only got five days, so what’s the plan?”
“We’ve got two things to do—see if we can find Millie, and if we can’t, prepare for a safe drop. We’ve got to prepare for a safe drop now, while trying to find her. We don’t have much time, so it’s our backup. We have to be prepared to save the girl’s life with a ransom exchange.”
The safe drop was not the way I wanted things to go, but the preliminary plans for it had to be made and quickly, getting ahold of that much cash was neither simple nor routine. After all, a million dollars was one hell of a lot of money to withdraw, it could raise serious suspicions on behalf of the bank, but Chase had given us his word that he could get it. For now, that was up to him, the financial world was his forte not mine, and what’s more I didn’t have time to follow or guide him through the process, after all, more pressing matters were at hand. But if the drop had to occur, I wanted to be there, on site, hidden but watching and waiting with Casey, while Chase himself did the handover. That would be the tricky bit. The details of this were, as of yet, left unstated by the kidnapper, but hopefully they’d make a mistake, not a mistake that would harm Millie, but one that would let us nab them once Millie was safe and well.
Casey pulled a piece of paper from her handbag, amongst the files that were provided by Chase. He was co-operative, at least. Not likable, but then that’s not a part of my job. My job isn’t to make friends, it’s to investigate, to peel the onion, so to speak, to see the multiple layers underneath the surface and see into the heart of the matter.
With the news on the television about the kidnapping gone wrong in Florida, I understood Chase’s apprehension to have the police or FBI involved. It was too much of a risk. And I’d seen them blunder their way through plenty of investigations in the past. There were some good cops out there, but I’d met my fair share of incompetent ones too.
Casey’s phone pinged: It was a message from Chase, he had already begun making arrangements to have the money available.
“Well, that’s something,” I said. “I wonder what on earth he told the bank. If that’s where he went, it wouldn’t surprise me if man like that had a ditch kit.”
“Ditch kit?”
“Yeah, a safety deposit box with all the necessities in case he has to do a runner: gold, cash, passports, you know, that sort of thing.”
Casey nodded. “How about this list of ten people that invested in his latest bankrupt venture? It seems a bit coincidental that they’re asking for the same amount that was lost.”
She had a point, but having said that, a million dollars was a nice round figure too, both to ask for and to count, after all, a kidnapper wouldn’t ask for nine hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars.
Casey handed across a printout of the names.
“And look at this,” said Casey. “It’s the ex-wife’s new boyfriend on the list.”
“Interesting that his ex-wife’s new boyfriend is on there and that Chase didn’t mention it. The list is a good starting point, can you get me some background on all these names by the morning?” I glanced over the names of the poor souls who lost one hundred thousand each to that smug investment broker. And then my heart sunk. “Oh no.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I know one of the names on that list. A cop, a guy on the edge, and my late wife’s brother.” I put the Chevy into gear. “And he’s going to be my first call tomorrow morning.”

Chapter 5


Sunday mornings are regarded as sacred, a moment to disappear from the world, forgetting about all the heavyweight worries, all the stresses of work, and all the troubles of the week. Thoughts of finances, worries about family, and fears of ill health are