The barest shadow of a long-lost former innocence, an innocence Martin found sexy and appealing, colored her features as she moaned and groaned, giving the performance an almost comic quality as three young men, probably years younger, did things to her that most people reserved for the privacy of their bedrooms. All three men featured bored, half-attentive expressions.
The performance was largely wasted, though, because after a cursory glance at the screen, Martin lost himself in an Internet search, paying only the slightest attention to what was happening on his TV. Missing the video action didn’t matter; he could always watch later. First things first. And the first thing tonight was the fascinating information Martin was beginning to uncover about the busybody hero wannabe from earlier today; the guy who had stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and, in the process, ruined a perfectly good kidnapping.
It was unbelievable how much an intrepid explorer could discover on the information superhighway if that explorer was properly motivated and willing to put forth some effort to retrieve it. In Martin’s case, it didn’t even take a whole lot of effort. After all, the TV news bimbos had given Martin a leg-up on the search by flashing that beautiful, high-definition video sequence of the busybody leaving the scene of the failed kidnapping in his work van.
And just in case there had been any doubt in Martin’s mind as to who had ruined his plan with the blonde teenager—like, say, maybe the guy driving the van was just an employee of Ferguson Hardware and not the actual store owner—the coiffed and blow-dried news pimps had very generously provided Martin with a name as well. Bill Ferguson. Of the aforementioned Ferguson Hardware empire.
Armed with that knowledge, finding out all Martin Krall had ever wanted to know about the buttinsky was simply a matter of taking the time to read the information generated by properly worded search engine requests. For example, he discovered that Bill Ferguson was the owner of a pair of independent hardware stores in the local area, one in Winton Center, New York, and the other—the home office—located in West Stockton, Massachusetts.
Through various background check sites, Martin was also able to discover that Bill Ferguson was forty-three years old, two years divorced, with an ex-wife who had remarried not long after ending the relationship. He maintained an apartment in the local area close to—and here was the best part, the deliciously cosmically perfect part, the juicy cherry on top of the vengeance banana split—his daughter, Carli, a seventeen-year-old, slim, athletically inclined, blonde high school senior.
And that was perfect. Because depending on whether she was a dog or not, Bill Ferguson’s daughter could be the perfect replacement for the prize Martin had lost today.
He navigated to the Web page of Stockton High School. Stockton was a small town, so Martin figured there was a better than average chance she played at least one sport at the varsity or JV level. First, he checked out the softball team’s page. No luck. She was listed on the roster as a varsity infielder, but Martin didn’t care about that. He was looking for a picture. No luck under field hockey either. Then he clicked on the girls’ soccer link and smiled as his patience and hard work was rewarded. Filling the screen was a full-color action photograph of none other than Carli Ferguson herself!
She had just scored a goal and was captured at the apex of an exultant leap in the air, high-fiving two teammates on a sun-dappled late-fall afternoon. Her blonde hair, pulled into a ponytail, hung perpendicular to the ground at the top of her leap, her cream-colored, satin uniform jersey pulled taut against her smallish breasts. She featured the toned legs of an athlete, long, as though her physique had struggled to keep pace with her body’s growth.
In short, and just as Martin had already known, she was perfect. Young, blonde, beautiful—couldn’t be better. He sat admiring the photograph of his soon-to-be companion, lost in his fantasies, still paying no attention to the artificial ecstasy taking place on the television screen in front of him. He mused about how he had spent such a long time this afternoon picking out the girl he had hoped would be the one back at the rest stop, only to have her wrenched from his grasp by that loser with the gun who didn’t have a clue how to mind his own business. Then, by doing so, the same idiot presented him with an even better replacement!
He would have to do more digging—for example, what were the young Carli Ferguson’s living arrangements, and how much time did she spend with her father, the busybody himself?—but after just thirty minutes, Martin had decided exactly what he was going to do and how he was going to do it. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. This was perfect. It was as if the gods of karma were telling him the little chickie he had tried to snatch this afternoon was simply not good enough for him, that another girl would be a much better fit.
And now he knew who that girl was. Her name was Carli Ferguson, and, incredibly, if she lived anywhere near her father, she was just thirty or so minutes away from this very living room. Over the course of the last three years plus, Martin had been careful to spread his kidnappings over a very wide geographical area, covering more than five hundred miles of the east-west highway. He was certain that caution—among other important factors—had resulted in the authorities not having the slightest clue as to the location of his home base. They wanted him badly, of that he had no doubt, but they would never find him.