Paying for Peaches

"Few in the small town of Blessing, Idaho show concern when a troublesome twelve-year-old girl goes missing, but when the parents receive multiple and conflicting ransom notes, a painter working at the girl's home finds himself pressed into service as payoff negotiator, and a self-employed security guard is elected the head of a loosely organized and contradictory investigation.

He learns that the girl's grandmother has provided substantial and continuing aid to the kidnappers, her stepmother would prefer she were not returned, and that his former boss, the cash-strapped owner of a defunct reptile farm, is a prime suspect. But when the payoff is scheduled, a new player emerges in the form of a slow-witted bagboy from the Sack & Carry bent on making the ransom delivery himself, leaving everyone to wonder how he knew about Peaches Butterfield's abduction at all, much less the correct rendezvous point and time."