Chapter 2
A few hours later, Trent's having the time of his young life. He hasn't played with anyone his age since his old friend, Mario, recently moved with his family to New Hampshire. He's was running around and playing tag football with two of the local kids.
When Trent was playing, Rhonda and Shane were helping with Mrs. Carter and her newborn babies Matthew and Jennifer, dressed in the same, but different colored rompers and matching booties. Rhonda was cuddling Matthew in her arms and Mrs. Carter was playing peek-a-boo with him while Shane had Jennifer and gained attention from the other girls and women in the park.
The kids that Trent was playing with waved him goodbye and ran over to Shane, Rhonda and Mrs. Carter.
"Thanks for asking me to come to the park with you guys."
Mrs. Carter messed up Trent's head playfully. "No problem, Trent." Mrs. Carter notices the ice cream truck pulled over.
"Trent, why don't you grab yourself some ice cream?" She gives him a dollar.
"Thank you." He runs to the ice cream truck and asked the man,
"One Italian ice, please."
The ice cream man smiles and gives him a small blue raspberry on a paper cup and a spoon as Trent gives him the dollar.
"Thank you."
After getting it, he sits down on the grass by the street and starts to spoon his Italian ice. As he's eating, he hears rattling coming from the bushes. He turns and saw nothing. He slowly goes back to eating his frozen dessert.
He starts to hear the ratting again and felt as if someone was watching him. After he was done with his ice cream, he throws in the nearby trashcan and slowly walks away from the bushes. But, before he could do that, sometimes jumps out from the bushes.
"Ah!"
Trent tries to run, but someone in black clothing and dark sunglasses, grabs him tightly. He tries yelling for help, but the kidnapper gags his mouth with his hands.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Carter gives Shane and Rhonda some time to relax. Shane sees someone being forcibly pulled into the parking lot. He nudged Rhonda's shoulder to get her attention. Rhonda squished her eyes and thought, why does the person look some familiar? They heard screaming and yelling, Rhonda took a closer look, and it was,
"Oh my god! Shane! That's Trent!" She runs to stop the kidnapper.
Shane noticed that it was Trent and runs to stop the kidnapper. Hopefully, their time on running for the track team will be worth something.
The kidnapper pushes Trent into the unidentified car by the kidnapper. Trent tries to escape, but the kidnapper knocks him unconscious. He notices Rhonda and Shane running down to stop him, so he quickly gets in and starts the engine. After he does that, he drops a piece of paper on the ground.
Rhonda and Shane were there, but the car drives off at full speed. They were slightly sweaty and out of breath.
"Oh, man! This is bad!" Rhonda said with her hands on her head.
"I know." Shane notices the paper the kidnapper left. He unfolds it and it reads in big bold letters,
Anton Mercer,
Do what I say
Or your son will GET IT!
Following the note was an e-mail address and phone number.
He folds it right back and said,
"Okay, you tell Mrs. Carter what happen and call the police. I'll run back to Dr. Mercer's house and tell him what just happened."
"Okay, Shane, but hurry!" Rhonda was worried to no end about it. "We might not have much time." They gave each other a hug.
Shane runs down as fast as he can to get to Anton Mercer's house, which was thirty minutes away. If he still had the energy for it.
Anton was still doing work that he had to do for his company. He walked down the stairs with a file of undone work in his hands. That all changed when Shane was pounding on the door like some kind of madman.
"Dr. Mercer! Dr. Mercer! Open up! Open up! Emergency! Emergency!"
He opens the door for Shane and lets him in. Shane was hyperventilating and out of breath from running and Anton tries to calm him down by offering him some water, which calmed him down.
"Shane, calm down! You're acting as if something terrible just happened."
"Something terrible did just happen! Trent got kidnapped!"
Anton's blue eyes popped out of his head. He placed his file on his coffee table. "What? What happened at the park?"
"While Rhonda and I were helping Mrs. Carter with the babies, Trent was getting ice cream from the ice cream truck and he gets kidnapped by some stranger."
Anton holds onto Shane's shoulders, trying his hardest not to faint from what he told him. "Oh my god."
Shane goes through his pocket.
"Oh! And the kidnapper dropped this." He gives him the note and reads it. Shane goes onto his laptop and types in the kidnapper's e-mail address, hopefully to gets some kind of note.
When he gets it, there's a link. They were slightly confused by it, but Shane nervously clicked on the link. The computer screen goes black, freaking about of him out and it's a person with fair skin, green eyes and brown hair.
"Hello, Anton. Remember me?"
Anton had a confused look on his face. Shane looked at him, gave him a confused face and just shrugged his shoulders as he didn't know who this guy was.
"Well, of course not. I'm Steven Scott, one of your old swim teammates from high school. Now before you do or even say something you might regret, you might want to see this." He gives him a sinister smile.
He shows a video of Trent, who was looking terrified for his life. He was sitting down on a wooden chair, his ankles were bounded with twine rope, his hands tied up behind his back with twine rope and blindfolded with a black cloth.
Anton and Shane were mortified by it. Shane had his mouth widely agape in terror while Anton was scared, yet enraged as he was clutched his fists by what he did to Trent.
"So if anything was to happen to me, it will happen to him. Here's the ransom: I want a hundred million dollars."
Shane paused the video for a second. "Hundred million dollars? Man, who does this guy think he kidnapped? Richie Rich?" Anton told his to shush and continued the video.
"Fifty million in hundreds, twenty million in fifties, twenty million in twenties and ten million in tens. You'll be given farther instructions and the location along the way and make the drop at eleven tonight. If it's successful, the boy will live." He smirks sinisterly. "Good day." The message ends.
Anton put his hands on his head in shock as he sat down on the living room couch on his face and felt like passing out so badly. Shane tried to calm him down by sitting next to him on the couch.
"Dr. Mercer, we'll get him back. I promise."
A worried sigh escapes him. "Oh my god. I'm calling the police and the bank."
"Wait a minute." Shane had a puzzled look on his face. "Do you even have that kind of money?"
"Of course I do." He dials on the telephone. "Hundred million is only 20% of it."
