A wealthy health care executive came home one night in September to find a terrifying note from his wife, Quinn Gray: The 37-year-old housewife and mother of two had been abducted from her posh Florida beach community.

"There are three men holding me right now and they want $50,000 cash," Gray wrote. "Do not do anything stupid. NO COPS!"

Authorities say the 25-year-old mechanic charged with trying to extort thousands from Gray's husband wasn't her captor _ but her accomplice and lover. Her husband, however, has stuck by his wife's side.

Gray said she went along with her captor's demands, eventually having audiotaped sex with him. Gray says she wasn't scheming, but went insane and started to believe the kidnapper's claims that her husband wanted her dead.

"I wish I knew how to write a screenplay, because if I did, I'd make some money off this story," said St. John's County Sheriff David Shoar.

The made-for-TV intrigue has everyone from TMZ.com to Oprah Winfrey's producers nosing around this exclusive community to seek salacious details of a pretty blonde's downfall.

Gray's Facebook page shows photos of her husband and two young daughters. Her interests were fairly typical: She liked the TV show "Lost," biking and rapper Flo Rida ("When I'm really silly," she wrote). She drove a Mercedes wagon and read books like Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now."

The ordeal began the night of Sept. 4, when Gray's husband, 38-year-old Reid Gray, discovered his wife's note at their $4 million seaside mansion.

Reid Gray called the St. John's County Sheriff's Office, touching off a multi-agency manhunt that included the FBI. The sheriff's office would eventually spend $90,000 on the investigation.

The next day, as sheriff's officials set up a command center for the investigation, Reid Gray received the first of at least six calls from his wife. According to a report, Quinn Gray demanded her husband drop the $50,000 at a Chik-Fil-A restaurant; when he drove to the area, Quinn called again and said he had "screwed up" because police were spotted nearby.

On Sept. 6, Quinn Gray's mother dropped $50,000 at a beach restaurant; a group of college kids picked up the money and called police, frantic that they were in the middle of a "dope deal."

On Sept. 7, the case took an odd turn: an agitated Quinn Gray walked up to deputies at a local mall. She was taken to the FBI office in Jacksonville, where she told agents that her kidnapper worked for a loan shark who wanted her husband to pay up.

Detective Kevin Kerr and others were skeptical, noting Gray seemed to be making up the story as she went along.

During another interview, Quinn Gray changed her story. She said she had been sexually assaulted and that "I was crazy then, I was just doing what I was told to do."

She did give police one telling detail: Her abductor's name was Jasmin, and he drove a white Volkswagen Jetta. She also directed investigators to the warehouse where she was held.

Detectives found Jasmin Osmanovic, driving out of the warehouse in his Jetta. He eventually wrote his version of events in an affidavit. Continued...