He Gave My Daughter's Ransom to His Brother's Widow

I was at work when my phone buzzed with an unknown number.

I have your daughter. Get three million dollars ready, or you'll be collecting her corpse.

The blood drained from my face. I scrambled to pull together every cent I could.

By some miracle, I managed to scrape the money together before the kidnappers' deadline. I was about to leave to save my daughter.

Then my sister-in-law found out.

Leah Fox threw herself onto the floor, wailing at the top of her lungs.

"You promised Max Ball would get five hundred thousand for his trip abroad! Now you're handing it all to some kidnapper? What about Max?"

"He has depression! If he can't go on this trip, it'll kill him!"

My husband stood there holding the bag of cash, hesitating. "Maybe we should give this money to Max first. Sabina can wait a little longer."

I nearly blacked out from rage.

"The kidnappers gave us three days, and that deadline is up. If we don't pay now, they'll kill her! Do you think this is a game? You're gambling with our daughter's life!"

"Just negotiate with them," Donald Ball said. "Give them two and a half million first, ask for a few more days, and we'll figure out the rest."

"Figure out the rest? You make it sound so easy! We've already borrowed from every friend and relative we have. I sold my parents' house just to barely scrape this together."

"Where am I supposed to find another five hundred thousand? Should I sell the house we're living in too?"

"Absolutely not!"

Leah, who'd been howling on the floor a second ago, shot to her feet the instant I mentioned selling the house.

"You sell this place and where does the whole family go? You want Mom and Dad out renting some apartment? Max and I are not living in some rental. This house is off the table."

"Then give me the money. I need to save Sabina!"

Leah started crying again, turning to Donald. "When your brother died, you swore you'd take care of us. You said you'd treat Max like your own son, that you'd never play favorites. Are you going back on your word?"

Fury boiled through me. I shoved Leah hard.

"Pick your moments! This money is my daughter's lifeline. Your son wants a vacation. Can't that wait?"

Leah screamed back at me. "Wait how long? You're drowning in debt! When are you ever going to pay it off?"

"Max can't wait! He has depression. If he doesn't get this trip, he'll die too!"

"I have never in my life heard of anyone dying of depression because they couldn't go on vacation! That's not depression. That's selfishness!"

The next thing I felt was Leah's palm cracking across my face. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Five.

Both hands swinging, she split my lip open. Blood welled in my mouth.

Donald didn't move. Didn't flinch. He just stood there, comforting her.

"Leah, Zoey Dickerson doesn't know what she's saying. I'll make the call and give you the five hundred thousand. Please stop crying."

He unzipped the money bag and started pulling out stacks of cash.

Leah reached in too. "Actually, five hundred thousand isn't enough. Max still needs to enroll in that private school. We'll need at least a million."

The bag was getting lighter by the second. Panic clawed at my chest. I lunged forward and grabbed it.

"Nobody touches my daughter's ransom money!"

In the struggle, Leah shoved me.

I stumbled backward. The corner of the coffee table caught the side of my head, and pain split through my skull. Blood poured down my face instantly.

It dripped through my fingers, and only then did Donald notice I was hurt.

He reached for me. "Oh no, honey, how'd you manage to hurt yourself like that?"

I shoved him away. "Are you blind? She pushed me!"

"If you give her a single dollar of that money, we're done. I want a divorce."

Leah dissolved into sobs again. "We're just a widow and her fatherless child. We don't deserve to live. We should've just died with your brother."

"Fine! I'll just take Max and go join his father in the grave! Clearly someone here doesn't want us alive anyway!"

Leah snatched up a paring knife from the counter and pressed the blade against her wrist.

Donald lunged for it. "Leah, calm down! I'm the one who calls the shots in this house, and I already promised you. You'll get every cent!"

He wrestled the knife away, then pushed the money across the table toward her.

"This million is yours. Even if it means shortchanging my own daughter, I will never shortchange you and Max."

I stormed into the kitchen and came back with a cleaver. "I'd like to see who dares touch my daughter's ransom money today!"

Leah rushed at me, sobbing. "Then just kill me! Without that money, Max and I are dead anyway. Go ahead, hack me to pieces!"

She even thrust her neck forward on purpose.

"Come on! Right here! Do it!"

I had already lost all reason. I swung the cleaver straight at her throat.

Leah hadn't expected me to actually do it. Her entire body went rigid, frozen in place.

If Donald hadn't yanked her backward in that split second, the blade would have buried itself in her neck. Instead, it grazed past her nose, shearing off a sliver of flesh from the tip.

Leah clapped both hands over her bleeding nose and shrieked. "She's insane! Zoey's lost her mind! She's trying to kill me!"

I leveled the cleaver at both of them. "Anyone who touches my daughter's ransom money today dies. That's a promise."

Donald held out his hands, palms up. "Honey, calm down. Put the knife down. Give it to me."

"I can't calm down. I need to save Sabina!"

"Okay, okay. We'll go save Sabina. All the money is yours. Nobody's touching it."

He stuffed the cash back into the bag, then slid it toward me, slow and careful.

"It's all yours. Every dollar. Just calm down."

"Put the knife down, and we'll go get Sabina right now."

My fingers closed around the bag, and for the first time, a sliver of steadiness returned to my chest.

I picked up the bag and turned for the door. That was when something slammed into the back of my skull.

Blinding pain exploded through my head. My legs buckled and I hit the floor.

"Leah, what are you doing?! You could kill her!"

"She'd deserve it! Who told her to run off with all that money just to save that little money pit!"

"That's everything this family has! If she hands it all to the kidnappers, how are we supposed to survive?"

"Mom and Dad need their medication. Max still needs his trip abroad and tuition at the private academy. This whole family can't go down in flames because of her worthless brat. Why should we?"

Rage burned through me. I tried to push myself up, tried to scream back at her, but my body wouldn't cooperate. I couldn't even form a complete sentence.

Donald made three thousand dollars a month. Barely enough for his own pocket money. Leah didn't work at all.

His parents were both on welfare. Two hundred dollars a month between them.

I was the one keeping this entire household alive.

The three million dollars in that bag came from selling my parents' house. It had nothing to do with any of them. Not one cent.

And now that shameless parasite wanted to claim it as her own, while my spineless husband stood there protecting her.

If anything happened to my daughter, I would haunt them from beyond the grave.

"Relax, she's not going to die." Leah's voice floated above me, casual and unbothered. "If I hadn't stopped her, she would've handed every last dollar to those kidnappers, and we'd never see a penny of it again."

A sudden, frantic pounding rattled the front door. Donald opened it. Standing on the doorstep was Leah's brother, Thomas Fox.

"Sis, you said the second I closed on the house, you'd wire the money right back to me. So where is it?"

"Oh, you know how it is. The money hit Zoey's account and she went and withdrew the whole thing in cash before I could do anything." Leah gestured at the bag on the floor. "It's right here. Let me get it to you now."

I couldn't move, but I could hear every word, clear as day.

What were they saying? My parents' house had been bought by Thomas?

They'd set me up?

Leah unzipped the money bag. "See? It's all right here."

Thomas's eyes lit up. "Perfect. Hand it over. I've still got predatory loans to pay off."

Seeing Thomas about to walk off with all the money, Donald finally spoke up.

"Leah, I know I promised to give Thomas the money from the house sale, but I can't be left with nothing. My daughter's still in the kidnappers' hands."

"I'm not ignoring your situation." Leah pulled out ten thousand dollars. "Here's what you do. Max has a whole stack of counterfeit bills. At first glance, they look just like real money."

"Put the counterfeits in the middle of the bag. Who's going to notice? The kidnappers will take the cash back to check it more carefully, and by then the police will have pinpointed their location and rescued Sabina."

"Fine."

Using counterfeit bills to fool kidnappers. Only Leah could come up with something like that. It was no different from signing my daughter's death warrant.

And Donald actually agreed to it.

I forced every ounce of strength I had into a single scream. "Donald, are you even human?!"

Only then did Thomas notice me lying on the floor. "Well, well. If it isn't Zoey. My personal benefactor."

"If you hadn't handed over your parents' house to me for free, I wouldn't have been able to marry my girl."

"Great location, gorgeous renovations, plenty of space. My sweetheart absolutely loves it."

"So thanks for that."

He burst out laughing at the shock and fury on my face.

"Oh, right. You still don't know this was a setup my sister and I planned for you."

"What, you thought your house just happened to sell in a single day?"

When I'd first gotten the call from the kidnappers, I was desperate, scrambling to figure out how to come up with the money. It was Donald who suggested selling my parents' newly purchased house.

He'd said, "Your folks' place will be easier to move. They've still got the old house they built out in the country, so it's not like they'll have nowhere to live."

"We list it below market value. I know a realtor who can find a buyer fast."

With Donald pushing me, I'd sold a house worth three million dollars for two.

I never imagined the buyer was Thomas, Leah's brother.

Back when my parents first bought that house, Leah had come to me about it.

"Zoey, your parents are getting up there in years. There's really no need for them to live in such a big, nice place. My brother's about to get married and doesn't have a house yet. Why not just transfer the deed to him so he can get married first?"

I'd shut her down flat. I'd chalked it up to grief making her delusional after losing her husband.

Never in a million years did I think they'd use my daughter's crisis to steal my parents' home. And that my own husband was in on it.

Donald walked over to me. "Honey, I'm sorry. My brother died young. The Ball family owes Leah a debt."

"I just wanted to make it up to her. I'll pay back what I owe you. Slowly."

"Don't worry. I'll bring Sabina home safe."

Then Donald left, carrying a bag full of counterfeit bills.

I struggled for what felt like forever before I managed to get off the floor. By the time I stumbled outside, they were gone.

I had no choice but to hail a cab to the drop-off point I'd arranged with the kidnappers.

When I got there, Donald was standing like a statue, clutching the money bag to his chest.

Leah was right beside him.

I ran over. "Donald, why do you still have the bag?!"

"Honey, I didn't expect the kidnappers to make me open it and check the money right there. Their guys were hiding nearby. They spotted the counterfeits immediately."

"The kidnappers are furious. They said..."

"Said what? Spit it out!"

Leah finished for him. "They said they're going to kill the hostage."

My mind went blank, like a bomb had detonated inside my skull. The world tilted and spun.

I felt Donald catch me, pinching the pressure point above my lip, shouting my name.

"Zoey! Zoey, are you okay? Don't scare me like this!"

"The police are doing everything they can to track down the kidnappers. Sabina Ball is going to be fine!"

It took me a long time to come back to myself.

Then Donald's phone rang.

He answered, and when he hung up, his voice was shaking with urgency. "Zoey, the police found Sabina! We need to get there now!"

I held on to consciousness by sheer willpower and made it to the location the police had sent. Yellow crime scene tape already cordoned off the area.

Through the tape, I saw a small body covered by a white sheet. A blood-soaked corner of fabric peeked out from beneath it. The jacket I'd just bought my daughter.

An officer approached me. "I'm sorry. The hostage was killed by the kidnappers. We need you to come forward and identify the body."

I clamped my hand over my mouth. My legs buckled.

Donald held me up and guided me to the white sheet.

He pulled it back.

Underneath was a body torn apart beyond recognition, scattered in pieces.

The kidnappers hadn't just killed my daughter. They'd dismembered her.

I thought I'd braced myself. I hadn't. Nothing could have prepared me for this.

"Sabina! My Sabina!"

My hand reached out, trembling violently. I just wanted to touch my daughter one last time.

But before I could, Leah rushed forward and bundled the remains into the white sheet.

She clutched the bundle to her chest and walked straight toward the river.

I stumbled after her. "What are you doing? Put my daughter down!"

Leah moved fast. I had no strength left to keep up.

She reached the riverbank and hurled the bundle into the water.

"The poor child died so horribly. She should be laid to rest quickly. Sabina always loved playing in the water. The river is the perfect place for her."

"Leah! I'll kill you!"

My heart was being ripped from my chest. I wanted nothing more than to drag her down with me.

"You got my daughter killed, and now you won't even let me keep her body? Then you're coming down there with her!"

I threw myself at Leah, clawing, hitting, but I was no match for her. She shoved me to the ground by the riverbank. My phone skidded across the dirt.

Leah stood over me, arms crossed, looking down. "Stop losing your mind, Zoey."

"That cheap phone of yours keeps ringing and ringing. Who's so desperate to reach you? Would it kill you to answer it?"

I glanced at the phone on the ground. The caller ID showed Sabina's kindergarten teacher.

She was probably worried about Sabina too.

"Hello, Ms. Lambert?"

"Sabina's mom, why haven't you or her dad come to pick her up? Sabina Dickerson finished winter camp today. All the other kids have already been picked up by their parents. She's the only one left, and we haven't been able to reach either of you."

Then, through the phone, came my daughter's sweet little voice.

"Mommy! Mommy, when are you coming to get me? You promised you'd take me for pizza when I got back!"

That was my daughter's voice. There was no mistaking it.

My daughter was alive.

But if she was alive, then whose dismembered body had I just seen?