Fourteen hours after she first talked to her husband’s kidnapper, Nancy Small’s phone begins to ring.
Everyone in the house—the Kankakee police, the FBI, her lawyer—all go quiet. One of the FBI agents gives Nancy a nod.
She looks at the recording device next to her phone, trying to remember how they told her to operate it. She presses the record button and slowly lifts the receiver.
“Hello,” she says, attempting to sound as calm as possible.
“I told you not to call the cops,” the voice on the other end growls. “Do you want your husband to die?”
Nancy inhales sharply. Tears spring to her eyes. She tells herself to remain calm.
“I have the money,” she says coolly.
This statement seems to relax the man a bit.
“How much?” he says.
“All of it—one million,” she says. “It’s in hundreds and fifties, no sequential serial numbers. Just as you asked.”
“I’ll call you back with instructions,” the man says.
One of the FBI agents gestures to Nancy with his hands: Keep him on the phone.
“I want to talk to my husband,” Nancy says, her voice beginning to lose its composure for the first time.
“You called the police,” the man snaps. “You messed everything up. It’s more complicated now. I’ll call you back.”
“I want to talk to Stephen,” she pleads, her voice breaking.
There’s no answer. The line is dead.
Nancy Small lowers the phone to its cradle. Her hand is shaking. Her whole body is numb.
The head FBI agent in charge puts a gentle, reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“You did good,” he says. “We traced the call.”
Relief floods through Nancy’s body.
The agents start frantically discussing what to do. The call came from a pay phone at a Phillips 66 gas station in Aroma Park, about thirty miles outside of Kankakee.
“I want four stakeout teams,” the agent in charge says. “One for that gas station and three more for the closest pay phones. The next time the kidnapper makes a call, we’re going to pounce on that son of a bitch.”