Chapter 19

Chapter 19
My wife has been locked up in our bedroom since the kidnapping and won’t come out. She won’t eat, drink, or leave that room for anything. We have all tried coaxing her out of the room, but she won’t budge. She won’t even come out for our son. I have been on the phone with Mr. Fontenot trying to understand how this person was able to find where we were staying and break into the house in broad daylight and kidnap my daughter. He has people working on it as well as trying to see if there are any fingerprints on the note that was left behind. I’m feeling so many emotions all at one time, but the strongest of them all is anger.

Once I recovered from my temporary shock, I noticed that my wife had started screaming, and then eventually she passed out. Our son was crying because he didn’t know what was going on and everyone else just had scared and worried looks on their faces. Once I got my wife to our room and calmed our son down, I explained what happened to everyone else.
“Well what are you going to do? I mean you can’t possibly be thinking of handing over your company and all your money.” My brother-in-law obviously doesn’t know me that well. When he has children he’ll understand. His wife just looks at him and I can tell by the look on her face that she wants to knock the hell out of him.
“And why shouldn’t she? This is her child that we’re talking about here. The note clearly said that is the only way we’ll ever see Alexa again. I say give it all away if that’s what it takes.” A big discussion seemed to break out over what I should do, yet I wasn’t even involved. While they were all talking, or rather I should say shouting, about what I should or shouldn’t do, I walked away and went outside to the patio area. It is quiet and the only place I seem to be able to think lately. I just shake my head as I look up at the sky and silently pray for some guidance in this matter.
“Please God let our daughter be safe.” I walk over to one of the chairs and sit down, feeling like I am carrying all the weight of the world on my shoulders, and then I start to cry. Once I’m done, I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I look up to see that my wife has emerged from our room finally. We wrap our arms around each other and just hold each other for a while before she takes a seat in the chair next to me.
“Are they still in there arguing about what we should do, or have they stopped?”
She gives me a weak smile before saying, “No, they are still arguing. I don’t even think they noticed me when I passed.” I smile back at her briefly before turning my head back towards the sky. I sigh and then turn back to look at her.
“Baby, what should we do? You know I’d give up everything to get our daughter back home safely.” My wife just stares back at me for a few minutes, or maybe it just felt like minutes to me, before finally saying what I never thought she would say in a million years.
“We aren’t giving this person a damn thing and whoever it is will give us our daughter back. You worked hard to amass the great empire that is our children’s legacy, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some crazy person take it away from them. Whoever this is has messed with the wrong mother. They can kidnap, beat, and rape me, but when they mess with my children they’ve written their own death sentence. I’m tired of running and hiding from this person. It is time for us to beat them at their own game. Baby, I think I know who is doing this to us, and I have a plan on how we can get this person back. Now listen closely. First we have to make a big spectacle of us fighting which will eventually lead to us filing for separation. I’m sure Mr. Fontenot can get some phony documents made up for us that look authentic. Then we are going to…..”
Once she finishes telling me her plan, I sit back smiling. I never knew she had it in her to be this vicious. Well I guess messing with our children brought out the vindictive side of her, and for some reason it is a turn on for me. Damn I love this woman.
That night, we let the others in on our plan and of course there was a huge discussion. Some worried about our daughter’s safety and ours if we were caught by the black mailer. My wife calmly explained to them that there is no need for anyone to be scared because the plan wouldn’t fail. They all looked at her like she was crazy and then tried to appeal to me to get through to her, saying that it was grief making her act this way.
“Actually, I agree with my wife and I stand by her decision, besides we will have back up at all times just in case something were to go wrong, which I doubt that it will.” My wife looks at me with a smile on her face and we continue telling them our plans.
“Now tomorrow we are all going to go out together that way no one is left alone in the house just in case this person comes back and tries anything. Plus it will be good to have everyone around for the spectacle. All of you will have to take her side because I’m going to have to look very alone in all of this and someone will be filming it and leak the footage to the press. Now we may not get a reaction right away because obviously whoever is doing this will be suspicious, but hopefully the performance is good enough that they’ll want to contact us or me and set up an arrangement to get our daughter back. When you all leave me standing there, go back to the house together. Now this is the hard part, I won’t be coming back to the house just in case we’re being watched. I will check into a hotel and stay there until we solve this problem. Is everyone clear on what to do?” They all look at me with somber faces but each one of them shakes their head in agreement, all except for my wife. The look she gave me was heartbreaking, and instantly I wished that I could make her feel better.
“I don’t see why you have to stay away that long. Our family needs to stay together during a time like this, not separate.” The hurt was very evident in her voice as well as her facial expressions.
“This is going to be hard for me too Renee’, but we have to otherwise a separation won’t be very convincing. The faster we do this, the faster we can all be together again and go back to our lives.” I could tell that what I was saying was starting to sink in, but she was still not happy about the living arrangements. We all went our separate ways for the night after dinner. After saying good night to everyone and tucking our son into bed, we retired to our bedroom for some alone time. We took a shower together in silence, got dressed for bed, and then put in a movie to watch. It felt like we laid there for hours just staring at the television, when in reality it was only about five minutes, not saying anything or making any kind of sounds. Suddenly my wife sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. I remained where I was but I kept my eyes on her just in case something was wrong. She started taking off her nightgown and underwear and all I could do was look at her stunned. When she finished, she threw the covers back and started stripping the clothes off of me which was just a muscle shirt and some black boxers, then she started kissing me passionately while running her hands up and down my body. I kissed her back in response and ran my hands up and down her back. We ended up making love five times before the sun came up the next morning and were very tired but satisfied to say the least. We just laid there in our bed basking the afterglow of what happened between us. The television was now on the news but neither of us is paying any attention to what was going on. There was a knock on the door at noon.
“I guess it is time for us to go and be social.” Renee’ then gets up and goes into the bathroom and I can hear when she turns on the shower. Not being ready to give up our alone time just yet, I go into the bathroom with her and climb into the shower behind her. We end up making love again before washing ourselves and getting dressed for the day.
After getting dressed, we head downstairs to get some lunch. Once we’ve both eaten a sandwich and some chips, we head into the living room where everyone else is gathered. Nobody looks happy, but I know that is because of what is going to happen today. Renee’ just looks at me but says nothing even though I know what she is thinking. We take a seat next to each other after saying “Good afternoon” to everyone. Honestly I cannot wait to get this day over with, but I also want to spend as much time as I possibly can with my wife and our family before having to leave them for however long this will take. Renee’s sister speaks up at that moment and everyone turns to look at her as she asks for the hundredth time if we are sure that we want to go through with this plan. That has been the question everyone has asked the most since we told them our plan and the answer is always the same. I guess she feels that she has to ask at least one more time, especially since in another hour we will be executing this plan and I will no longer be living under the same roof as them after today. Renee’ and I have tried to reassure them that they will be okay without me there, even though Renee’ herself has told me that she would feel so much safer if I didn’t leave. I know how she feels because I cannot stand the thought of being away from her after all that has happened to us in the past, but we have to convince the person that has our daughter that we are no longer together. If this is who we both now suspect it is, then we have to play this right otherwise we could lose our daughter forever.