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me—”
    The phone rang again, and Greg snatched it up.
    “I don’t got to understand anything,” the man said. “Your girl is crying for her mama. Ma-ma. It’s up to you to get her back. Now, I’m a big reader of the real estate pages, the Globe, the Herald, the Phoenix. Guy like me learns things, like who’s getting ready to move, who’s gonna let me walk through on an open house and shop for my next hit, you know what I mean? So when I see Lincoln, I know your house costs somewhere over a million bucks, maybe three times that. So I’ve got to ask myself, Is this guy’s kid worth a house?”
    “The bank owns the place!” Greg cried. “We don’t have that—”
    “She’s safe until tonight,” the man interrupted. “And then she’s dead. You’ve already seen the last of your girl if you’re planning on fucking with me.”
    “Please take care of her.” Greg fought to keep his voice calm. “We’ll do anything to get her back. We don’t care about the money—it’s just a matter of raising it. Give me something to know she’s alive.”
    “Yeah, yeah. She likes bagels and bananas, she says. With peanut butter.”
    Greg’s laugh was just a short bark. “That’s true. She does. But how …” He licked his lips.
    “But how do you know I didn’t ask her that right before killing her? You don’t. But here’s what’s going to happen—I’m going to call you tonight around eight. That’s sixteen hours from now. You have the money, and I’ll have her on the phone. And if you’re sitting there with the cash, you can ask her what she wants for dinner and then I’ll tell you where to go pick her up. You’ll have her back in time to make the little doll whatever she wants.”
    The man’s voice continued. “But if you’ve got some lame story for me about how you couldn’t raise the cash, how you need me to give you a few days, then I’m gonna figure you’re jerking me around. I’m gonna figure you’re sitting there with the FBI. And then I’m gonna treat you to the sound of me blowing her away, right while you’re talking to her. You got that?”
    He hung up.
    Beth’s hands shook as she fished through the top kitchen drawer for a pack of cigarettes. Her voice was bright and high, on the verge of hysteria. “Here’s a deep dark secret, Greg. I still smoke.” She fumbled with the little propane lighter, lit the cigarette, and said, “How in God’s name are we going to raise that much in a day?”
    “Half a million dollars.” Greg’s expression was blank, stunned. “Doesn’t he understand no one has that kind of money lying around?”
    “No,” said Ross. “Guys who’re willing to go into stores with guns have a very simple view of the world.”
    “He’s right,” Allie said. “Don’t assume this guy is operating from anything you know. He’s from another planet.” She switched tacks. “We need to get somebody to buy the whole property, the whole cove. Someone with a business.”
    Greg nodded. “There was that developer. Geiler. He was pretty interested. Even sent somebody to talk to you inside, didn’t he?”
    Ross nodded, remembering the meeting through the glass with Geiler’s attorney, a man by the name of Bradford. The attorney had pushed hard.
    “You didn’t burn any bridges with them, did you?” Greg asked worriedly.
    “Nothing irreparable. I just told the guy we definitely weren’t selling the whole thing. Nothing worse than that.”
    “That’s what I said.” Greg turned his attention back to Allie. Just talking over the specifics of selling the Sands had focused him. “We’re going to need a letter of agreement, because we’d never be able to actually close in one day. We’ll start with Geiler, and let’s work out whoever else is a possibility. Let’s go for CableTech Systems, that wire-extruding company that’s right up against our property line. And any other company in the industrial park. Let’s do a list. Maybe one of them needs to expand.