Money Cannot Buy Happiness
Marco and Richard were both looking for money and believed that money will give them ultimate happiness. However, Marco realized that money made him greedy and a criminal who was part of a kidnap of his daughter. He realized then that working hard for his business, even if it makes him not earn a lot, will give him pleasure and happiness of working hard to achieve something. Richard, on the other hand, wanted so much money that he planned to manipulate his son-in-law, kidnap his granddaughter, and steal his wife's money. He thought this was going to make him happy and he will finally leave his wife and go to Cynthia. Ultimately, his plans were discovered and he was taken by the police. This shows that money is not everything in life, and wanting more money can lead people to do absurd things and become extremely greedy to a dangerous point.
Honesty
Throughout the story, different couples were not honest to each other, which eventually caused many troubles. The most obvious example is Marco and Anne, where both had secrets kept away from the other person, and the most striking secrets were Marco's fallback of his business and Anne's mental condition of losing reality in very stressful situations. If Marco had been honest, none of this would have happened. If he had told Anne everything, she would have helped him go through it smoothly and would have been patient. Another example is Cynthia, who has lied to Graham in almost everything. In fact, it seems that she has married him to cover up her affairs and not due to love. Also, Richard and Alice's relationship is damaged because of dishonesty. Richard cares about money only and doesn't tell Alice about anything about him, and he has an affair, which proves that he married Alice for her money only. All these examples show that honesty is one of the most important thing couples should have because a single lie or secret can cause disastrous troubles.
Deception
There were different scenes of deception in the story: major and minor ones. The major one was the one that the story revolved around, which was Richard's deception. Richard deceived almost everyone around him: his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and even his associate who was supposed to be on his side. He made everyone think that Marco is the only kidnapper and that Richard is the kind person who is trying to save the day. Richard also killed his associate, Derek, who was supposed to be a partner-in-crime, to take the money all to himself. Another deception that was not clarified in the story is whether Derek tried to trick Marco and Richard and take the money to himself or not. Marco's deception on Anna was obvious by the middle of the story when the readers start to know that Marco is, in fact, the kidnapper. All these build up throughout the story and intensify the mysterious and hostile moods present among the characters.
