Page 100 of Billion-Dollar Ransom
WHEN BOO SCHRAEDER and Virgil Tighe arrived at the desert meeting spot, Jeff Penney was already there, leaning against his Porsche with his arms crossed.
Before Virgil even killed the Peterbilt’s rumbling engine, Boo was climbing out of the cab. She hurried across the airstrip, squealed excitedly, and wrapped Jeff in a tight hug, practically knocking him off his feet.
“Hey,” Jeff said, laughing. “Good to see you too.”
“It’s been way too long,” Boo said. “Do you know how many times I wanted to call you and just laugh my head off?”
“Tell me about it,” Jeff said. “You look great, by the way.”
Jeff had been tight with Boo back in the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment. He was a few years older than Boo and immediately took her under his wing to serve as her mentor—with benefits, he’d hoped, although Boo had declined Penney’s overtures.
“You know, I wasn’t sure I’d be seeing you,” Jeff said.
Boo playfully pushed him away. “Like I’d miss this part?”
“Couldn’t have been easy escaping your fancy Bel Air fortress,” Jeff said. “I heard that your husband went a little nuts with the cameras and armed patrols after… you know. Everything.”
“Wouldn’t you if your whole family had been kidnapped?”
“See, this is why I don’t have a family. Still, ol’ Randy must be watching you like a hawk.”
“Maybe I escaped because I’m just that good,” Boo said. “Or maybe he’s in Nebraska tonight.”
“Ahh. Nicely done.”
“And maybe it helped that all of these fancy security upgrades were overseen by a certain Mr. Virgil Tighe.”
Jeff Penney burst out laughing.
By this time, Virgil had climbed out of the Peterbilt and stretched his back. He ambled over to his coconspirators.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, his face breaking into a wide grin.
Boo had met Virgil thanks to her soon-to-be ex-husband.
Randolph and James Haller, Virgil’s boss, were practically joined at the hip, spending hours puffing on Cubans and downing tumblers of Pappy Van Winkle 23 while discussing plans for global domination (or whatever).
That left Virgil to entertain Mrs. Schraeder Number Five.
They became friendly. Very friendly. Most men, from ex-cops to billionaires, couldn’t help but fall for Boo. It was her superpower.
And the unlikely trio were now gathered at Sargent Field, where you could still see the grooves in the ground left by the Bell 407 a month ago. They stood in the desert dark, the sun not even a glimmer on the horizon, giddy with anticipation.
“Boo was just paying you a very nice compliment,” Jeff said. “She told me she was able to slip away from the old man thanks to you.”
“She’s the one who deserves the praise,” Virgil said. “I could do only so much with the cameras. But Boo slipped out of that rambling pile like a ballet dancer.”
Boo felt herself blush. “Before we get too busy giving each other high fives, we have one last bit of business to attend to, right?”
The three conspirators hadn’t spoken to one another since the events of last month.
This was part of the plan. The investigations of the kidnappings, the midflight money dump, and the savage murders of producer Tyler Schraeder and ex-cop Tim Dowd were the most intense in California history.
Nobody was above suspicion. Everybody and her grandmother had a theory. And as it turned out…
Absolutely none of those theories were correct.
Nobody suspected that Jeff Penney had played the role of One.
Nobody suspected that Virgil Tighe, who had just stepped down from his position as second in command at Capital for “family reasons,” had played the role of One when Penney was otherwise engaged.
And absolutely nobody had guessed that Boo Schraeder, the fifth and current wife of target Randolph Schraeder, had planned the whole thing.
Yeah, Randolph had thought he’d dump her on the sidewalk like garbage while scheduling auditions for Mrs. Schraeder Number Six. Boo hatched the plot the same day she received the call from Randolph’s fancy Century City lawyers offering her an absolute insult of alimony.
She didn’t have every last detail figured out on day one, but she knew the perfect coconspirators: Jeff and Virgil.
She’d come up with the broad strokes: The triple kidnapping.
The code numbers. The evolving ransom instructions.
Eliminating Tyler, Randolph’s oldest child, had been Virgil’s idea.
But the coup de grace—the final touch that had brought them here to the desert at four in the morning—that was all Jeff Penney.
“Boo’s right,” Jeff said. “The sun will be up before we know it and we’ve got a lot of miles to cover.”
“Shall we collect our reward?” Virgil asked.
Boo smiled at them. “Let’s see you boys work those muscles.”