Disclaimer in chapter 1.
Cheyenne sat on the living room couch, no longer pretending that she was working, she had wrapped herself up in a handmade quilt and flipped through a photo album that contained the twin's second birthday pictures. There was a picture, three generations of Sloans lined up all with the same identical smiles, and mysterious eyes. Another picture of Amanda and Evelyn as they both stuffed their faces with chocolate cream cake. A picture of Steve with a clown nose, and a twin under each arm. Another picture of Cheyenne sitting on a park bench while Evelyn kissed her on her left cheek and Ewen on her right. Tears rolled down Cheyenne's face and fell onto the photo album as if drowning the memories.
"Damn that man." Cheyenne cursed under her breath. "Damn him for disrupting our lives, for taking the joy out of my life!" She slammed the album shut. Hot tears ran out of her eyes. Cheyenne wrapped the quilt around her frame tighter, she was adrift in her thoughts when the phone ring ripped her out of her day dream, she snatched up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Mommy?"
"Ewen?"
"Mommy a bad man's got us and he says if Daddy doesn't do what he says he's going to throw us into the ocean…" The phone must have been taken from the little boy's grip, as a new voice appeared on the phone.
"Mrs. Sloan?" Cheyenne almost choked on her own voice.
"Who is this?" She hissed.
"You know who it is, and your little boy is right, tell your husband he's got one hour or Steve will be bringing home the twins in body bags." The phone clicked dead. Cheyenne got nauseas at that moment she made a mad dash for the bathroom, not leaving anything left in her stomach, the thought of her twins being murdered made her so sick. Then it hit her, what was she doing hugging the toilet when precious time was passing? She had to call Steve she had to know that he knew. Cheyenne couldn't get the number right as she had to redial Steve's number five times, when it finally went through the line was busy.
"Dang it!" She screamed snatching her purse and car keys she ran out the door.
Steve was still on hold when Cheyenne came bursting into the department and ran right up to his desk.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" She demanded.
"I'm on hold."
"WITH WHO?"
"The LA county prison." Just by looking at her face Steve knew that was not the answer she wanted to hear.
"OUR CHILDREN HAVE LESS THAN ONE HOUR TO LIVE AND YOU'RE SITTING AT YOUR DESK ON HOLD!"
"What?!" The phone fell to the floor Steve jumped, why was he not aware of this. Cheyenne raced through her conversation with Ewen and Patrick LaSalle.
"Do you know what he wants?"
"Yes I do."
"Well…."
"How much time do we have?" Cheyenne glanced at her watch, a huge lump formed in her throat.
"Thirty-seven minutes."
"God I hope it's enough time." With that Steve ran out, and Cheyenne remained rooted where she was drowning in her tears.
