The girl was found safe Thursday night. She had been riding inside a blue Ford Explorer as the driver led police on a high-speed chase that ended in Monroe, about 25 miles to the north.

The 32-year-old man, a native of Guam who lives in Renton, was held Friday at King County Jail for investigation of kidnapping and attempted kidnapping.

"Right now it appears to be random. We don't have any information linking the family to the perpetrator," Mercer Island police Sgt. Lance Davenport told reporters. "We don't know what he was targeting or if he was targeting."

The girl's father, who got the phone call demanding ransom, works "in the computer business" in Kirkland, Davenport said. He described the ransom as a significant amount of money but would not give the figure.

It was not immediately clear how the man reached the father by telephone at work if he did not know the family.

Police found a gun in the vehicle, Davenport said, but he said he did not know if the man had threatened the girl. Police believe the man acted alone, but they are still investigating.

This was the first kidnapping in years on this suburban Lake Washington island, a wooded enclave of mostly upscale homes between Seattle and Bellevue.

Since his arrest, the man has told detectives he tried to abduct a 63-year-old Mercer Island woman on March 18, Davenport said.

In that incident, the assailant pointed a handgun at the woman, who was walking her dog on West Mercer Way, and demanded she get into his vehicle. She screamed for help and he drove away.

The Ford Explorer used to abduct the young girl was stolen from a rental car agency, Davenport said. He said the man had rented the SUV and did not return it. The vehicle matches the description of the vehicle used in the earlier abduction, but he was not certain they were the same.

Davenport credited cooperation among the FBI and numerous local police agencies for the successful result.

"Quite frankly it does not turn out this positive that often," he said.

The girl was grabbed about 3:55 p.m. Thursday shortly after she got off a school bus, police said. The kidnapper phoned her father with a ransom demand about an hour and a half later. The father called police.

A ransom drop was arranged at the Factoria shopping mall in Bellevue, where law enforcement agents were waiting. The man drove around the mall area for 90 minutes, police said, then picked up the money and left without delivering the child.

FBI agents tailed him through south Bellevue for almost 20 minutes, Bellevue police said. He returned to the Factoria Mall, then drove to Seattle, where he discovered he was being followed and sped off.

Police, FBI agents and a King County sheriff's helicopter chased him at speeds reaching more than 100 mph through Seattle streets, east on Interstate 90 across Lake Washington to Bellevue, then north on Interstate 405 and east on Washington 522 through Maltby and Echo Lake.

The 30-minute chase ended in Monroe after the vehicle hit spike strips laid across the roadway by state troopers.

The man was arrested without incident and police found the girl safe inside the vehicle.

FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs said the ransom money was recovered.