The voice message starts and instead of hearing Kathy’s voice, I hear a male computerized monotone voice say “Cathy is dead go back in the woods”.
“What the fuck!” I say as my phone drops out of my hand.
“What? What happened?” Katie says to me as she walks towards me.
Not wanting to stress out my wife, I respond “Oh nothing!”
“Tom, why are you acting strange?”
“I’m just frustrated that I haven’t found anything metal detecting!”
“Don’t worry, you’ll find something eventually.”
“I’m going to go back out into the woods,” I say in a nervous raspy voice.
“You look really stressed out Tom - Why don’t you just give it a break for today?” Katie says to me with a worried look on her face.
“I’m fine - don’t worry!” I make a mad dash out of the house and make a detour to my mother-in-law’s house with the hope that this has been all just a big prank.
I run as fast as I can and I make it to Kathy’s house in about 3 minutes.
I attempt to go through the front door but it’s locked so I bang on the door as loud as I can and yell out “Kathy …. Kathy … Sarah … Patricia … Alice” and I see and hear no movement coming from the house.
I run to the backyard and head for the back door.
I reach for the handle and turn the knob and am relieved that it opens.
I thrust the door open and run from room to room yelling out my kids names.
I see and hear nothing. I get overwhelmed with the thought that someone has kidnapped my kids and Kathy which makes me start to cry hysterically.
I feel helpless but I know I have to hold my self together for my family’s sake.
I look around for any potential weapons in Kathy’s house and I don’t see anything, so I go into the kitchen and grab a steak knife.
With the knife in my hand, I run back to the Forrest where I was metal detecting.
I huff and puff and make it there in less than 10 minutes.
I look around and see nothing besides trees, my metal detector, the shovel and maybe some new fresh footprints.
Not knowing what to do, so I make the decision to follow the footprints.
I decide not to use the metal detector and to just focus on the areas where the ground looks like it’s been disturbed.
I follow the footprints and figure whoever is playing this game wanted me to play this game by following their footprints.
I stop for a minute and look around and get an eerily felling that I’m being watched but I don’t anyone.
I finally find an area in the dirt which looks like something was recently buried.
I fall to my knees and use my fingers to dig through the dirt.
Once again it takes me just a few seconds to unearth another glass bottle. I quickly take the note out which reads “I hope your pinkies are more important than Kathy’s life. Your desire to keep your pinkies has killed her. You now have 10 minutes to cut off your left arm above your elbow or else all of your daughters are dead. Call the police and I’ll torture them before I kill them.”
“No, No, No … Listen to me - 3 million dollars is yours - just give me my kids back! I’ll even call up your old boss and tell them that I was lying about you sleeping on the job” I yell out as loud as I can in the woods.
I wait a few moments and see nor hear anyone.
I feel helpless and start to cry. I grab my left arm with my right hand and get overwhelmed with the thought of cutting it off, which makes me sob even harder.
How do I know for sure that Kathy is dead? I think to myself. I can’t cut my arm off without any proof. This might be one big scam - but if I’m wrong my daughters are dead and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if that happens.
I look at my watch and see that 4 minutes have passed.
I put both of my hands on my head and add pressure to my skull as kind of a stress relief.
Then I get a phone call.
I look at my phone and see that it’s Katie.
I answer the phone - being prepared to tell Katie right away of what’s going on.
The second I answer the phone Katie starts hysterically crying that her mother is dead in our backyard and it looked like someone shot her in her head and dumped her there. She is frantic because she doesn’t know where our daughters are located.
“Listen Katie for I only have a few minutes at most. Someone has kidnapped our kids and as you already know has killed your mother. Somebody has been following me and has left messages in bottles that I have dug up with the most recent one stating that I have to cut off my whole left arm or else their going to kill our girls!”
“Tom, I’m calling the police!”
“No, Katie you can’t do that! They’ll torture the girls if you call the police.”
“Your going to cut your arm off then?”
“Yes, I have to do it right now and I have no time to spare!”
“Tom, listen - I’m coming over right now and I’ll park my car as close as I can and take you to the hospital” she says while crying hysterically.
“I have to hang up!”
I put the phone in my pants pocket and take the knife with my right hand and pick a spot on my left arm - halfway between my shoulder and elbow and I start cutting away with the sharp blade of the steak knife