Small Exchange (3)

He waited in the car.

Time and again, he glanced at his watch and peered down at the bag on the seat next to him—another risk he had taken.

The risk the mysterious voice had told him to take.

Being in this secluded place, knowing if anything went wrong, he was as good as dead, if not even dead, should have told him the demand held hidden motives. But how was he to care? It was just sums, a lot of them, taken from the bank at the last minute.

If the abductors were willing to trade the children's life for money, that was the least of his expectations, and although it smelled fishy and maybe even too good to be true, he would try his luck.

Still in the clothes he had worn the night before, a few buttons open to curb the heat he was feeling despite the raging cold in the car, he had waited at this spot for almost two hours.

It was thirty minutes past the intended schedule, and he had received no call yet.

"What if this is a lie," Noah said behind him in the passenger seat, "What if he doe