Dinner at Wyatt's

by Victoria Gordon

  What game was Gloria up to? It had to be a game, she thought. Nobody would deliberately shut another person into a cool room — or at least not for long. The constant four-degree temperature (what was that in Fahrenheit? she wondered), while of course not as dangerous as the minus twenty in a deep freeze unit, would become dangerously uncomfortable all too soon.

  Of course Gloria would open the door very soon. It must be some sort of sick joke.

  But the door didn’t open, and Justine’s wonder quickly gave way to concern as she suddenly felt herself growing chilled in the just-above-freezing temperature.

  ‘Gloria?’ She started at the sound of her own voice echo rebounding from the insulated walls. ‘Gloria?’ Louder, this time, which made for louder echoes but was no more effective.

  Justine hovered for an instant on the brink of panic, then fought for self-control in the blind darkness and won. Of course! She wasn’t locked in. All she had to do was find the door and she could let herself out.

  ‘Find the door.’ She said it aloud and almost screamed at the sheer futility of it. But the words echoed over and over in her mind as she gingerly reached out to touch the wall, a wall so familiar in the light but now a strange, evil, clammy coldness.

  Inch by inch, a step by faltering step, Justine manoeuvred herself along the frigid walls of the cool room. She nearly screamed once when her shoulder brushed against something hanging there in the darkness. Her mind said it was only the chilled and cooling carcase of a lamb, but her imagination laughed in derision and gave the object more sinister connotations.

  She shivered, as much from the cold inside her as the cold outside. Shivered, and continued in her blind, fumbling route around the edge of the room.

  ‘I’m not afraid of the dark,’ she said aloud. ‘I’m not ... I’m not ... I’m not ... I’m not afraid ...’

  She had almost convinced herself when her fingers encountered the corner, moved a bit to her left and touched the edge of the door itself.

  Justine’s sigh of relief was premature. Totally disorientated as she was by the complete, unrelenting darkness, her searching, numbed fingers couldn’t find the latch.

  She reached higher, then lower, and finally stretched out both arms, feeling with growing desperation where she thought to find the long, protruding knob that would allow her to escape.

  And finally, she did. Her fingers gripped the plunger in a virtual death-grip as she strove to steady her breathing.

  At last! Holding firm to the plunger, she flexed her fingers, located the heel of her hand against the frigid metal, and pushed.

  It moved! Justine felt it move, felt the snick of the latch being forced, but the door didn’t open. Startled, she shoved again, harder this time. And again the latch snicked in vain, the plunger driven home to the extent of its length but to no effect.

  Now she was frightened. This wasn’t anything like her earlier experience in the cool room. That time the plunger had refused to work, there had been no significant, unmistakable snick as it freed the latch. And that time she hadn’t been in blinding darkness! Justine began to shiver even more. Fear began to build up like an icy stalactite inside her as she pushed at the plunger again and again and again.

  ‘Gloria!’ She screamed out the name, oblivious now to the ghostly, frigid echoes that shared her prison. ‘Gloria!’

  She thumped on the door with her clenched fists, kicked at it with her feet until she stubbed her toe and almost fell. Gloria must be out there. She had to be.

  But if she weren’t? Justine’s mind shrieked at the thought. It could easily be the next morning before anyone would have the remotest reason to open the cool room. The next morning? More like noon, when Possum just might decide on an early start to her apprentices’ dinner.

  ‘I’ll freeze to death by then,’ Justine said aloud.

  Her own voice set off the panic, and suddenly she was flailing at the door, bruising both hands and feet as she struggled and hit and kicked. Until she once again stubbed her toe, and this was one time too many.

  In the darkness, her balance was awry. She fell heavily and felt the thwack as her head struck the concrete of the floor. Then she felt nothing, not even the cold as it gradually left the concrete and flowed up to replace the heat in her flaccid body ...

  Awareness came abruptly; awareness and a startling sensation of being smothered, of being wrapped in a stifling, hot cocoon with something chafing at the edges of it.

  Justine’s eyes flew open, then closed again immediately at the frightening brightness of the light around her. Then memory flooded in and she opened her eyes again in slits as she tried vainly to move her arms.

  ‘Lie still!’ A voice, gruff and alive with tension. Wyatt’s voice! She tried again to move, flinging her shoulders around but unable to do anything more. Her head hurt terribly.

  ‘I said lie still.’ She could see him, now, crouched beside her. No, not crouched. He was sitting with her legs across his lap and his rippling shoulders ...

  ‘Stop that,’ she said as awareness told her he was rubbing roughly at her legs with something ... no, not something; a blanket. The same blanket, she thought, that was wrapped so tightly about her arms and shoulders.

  ‘Can you feel your feet?’ What a stupid question, she thought. Of course she could. Or could she?

  And suddenly she could. Not only feet, but her legs as well. They felt as if a thousand needles were being driven into them, a thousand cats raking her limbs with their claws.

  ‘Oh, please stop it!’ she cried. ‘It hurts!’

  ‘Good,’ he replied, and continued his vigorous chafing, driving the needles deeper, stirring the cats to a frenzy.

  Justine tried to kick free of him, but her legs were devoid of muscle power. Her brain commanded motion, but her numbed body denied it. She closed her eyes and sank back against the pillow, weakened by the simple effort of keeping her head up.

  ‘Damn! Possum? Where the hell is that doctor?’ Wyatt’s voice, ragged and hoarse and husky, boomed in her ears, and Justine winced.

  ‘... just coming now,’ was the faint, partial reply, and Justine wondered what doctor ... and why? Then she remembered, and surged upright once again, wild-eyed this time as panic forced aside reality.

  For one screaming instant she was once again in that black hell of a cool room, smothered by the darkness, chilled by it. She screamed, a soundless, terrifying scream of pure panic.

  Then Wyatt’s arms were round her shoulders, his voice soft as honey in her ears. ‘It’s all right, Justine. You’re safe now, my love ... safe ... safe ... safe ... safe…’

  That one word echoed as she slipped away into unconsciousness, but it was the word love that blazoned forth like a star when she woke eventually again. Had he really said that? She wanted so very much to believe it, but she couldn’t trust her memory.

  This time there was no blaze of light to offend her eyes. Only a soft, gentle glow of moonlight over her bed. Her bed ... her room. She was at home. More important, she was warm again, almost too warm.

  Drowsily, she shifted against the heavy covers, tried to move first her left arm, then her right. It wasn’t until she felt the clasp of fingers upon hers that she reared upright. Wyatt! Even in the darkness there was no mistaking his unique presence, the strangely calming melody of his voice.

  ‘Softly, love. You’ve had a nasty bang on the head,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘But it’s okay now. You’re safe and in one piece. Are you warm enough? Everywhere? Can you feel your feet now, your legs?’

  ‘I ... I think so,’ she replied in a whisper as soft as his own. ‘How ... did I get here?’

  ‘I carried you.’ There was a strange tremor to his voice, and Justine twisted so she could see his face. But in the misty light his eyes were only dark pools against the whiteness of his features.

  ‘You ... stuck me with needles ... cat claws,’ she said, memory erratically emerging from the hazy tunnel of sleep.

  He chuckled, a frien
dly soft sound that comforted her, for some reason. ‘I had to rub your legs pretty hard to try and get you warm again,’ he told her.

  ‘I am warm,’ she said. ‘But so weak. Why am I so weak?’ In her own ears it was a child’s voice, a plaintive, lost voice she could hardly recognise as her own.

  ‘Because you damned near froze to death,’ he said in a voice that was ragged but still gentle, soft against her ears. ‘And the doctor’s given you a sedative to help you sleep. I’ve another one for your head if you think you need it.’

  ‘My ... head?’ She tried to free her hand from his gentle grasp, then left it there and used the other to touch weakly at the back of her crown. There was a large and tender lump there, but not much pain. Justine winced, nonetheless, as she touched it.

  ‘Poor love,’ he said. ‘Does it hurt very much?’

  ‘Only ... a little,’ she replied. Her eyes were tired, her senses only half aware of their existence. But a part of her was very much alert. ‘Why do you call me that?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ he enquired, and she knew that he already understood the question.

  ‘Don’t ... tease me, please, Wyatt,’ she whispered.

  ‘Does it bother you that 1 call you ... love?’ he asked. And didn’t wait for a reply. ‘I certainly hope not, because I don’t intend to stop. Unless you want me to.’

  Justine said nothing. Something had gone from their relationship. There were no sparks between them, no fire of anger and hatred and revenge. All that had somehow been burned out of her in the icy fires of the cool room. All she had left now was love. But dared she tell him?

  ‘I ... I thought you hated me,’ she said. ‘You didn’t want to hire me, to have me here ... or ... anything.’

  Again he chuckled, a warm, friendly sound, gentle as his grip on her right hand. ‘I was afraid of you,’ he said. What a ridiculous thing; how could anyone be afraid of her? And she must have smiled, because his fingers tightened their grip just a bit before he spoke again.

  ‘Don’t laugh; it’s quite true. I knew as soon as I saw you that if you stayed I’d fall in love with you. In fact I suppose I fell in love with you right then ... I don’t know.’

  Justine’s heart raced. Could it possibly be true?

  Wyatt sighed. ‘But of course you don’t believe me, and I don’t blame you a bit. God, but I’ve treated you horribly! The whole thing started going wrong right from the start, and now ... now this. I’d have shot myself if you’d been badly hurt, because the whole damned thing has been my fault. It wouldn’t have happened at all if I weren’t so stupid.’

  ‘Wasn’t you,’ Justine replied muzzily. ‘It was Gloria. You weren’t even here.’

  ‘It was Gloria who locked you up in the cold room, but it was me that set you up for it,’ he replied, running his free hand angrily through his hair. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the soft light, Justine could see how tired he looked, how the deep lines had gathered beneath his eyes and beside his mouth.

  He reached out then to brush his fingers across her cheek, a touch like angel’s breath. ‘Are you sure you want to hear all this now?’ he asked. ‘You should be resting, really.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Justine whispered. ‘I’ll rest better when you’ve told me everything. And so will you, I hope. You look terrible, Wyatt, as if you haven’t slept for days.’

  He laughed softly. ‘Just less than one day, really. It’s almost dawn on Monday.’

  ‘Monday! That means I’ve slept ...’

  ‘Only the better part of twelve hours,’ he said. ‘And too much of that was on the bloody cold floor of the cool room. God! I’ve never been so afraid in my life as I was when I found you there.’

  ‘H-how did you find me?’

  ‘In a minute,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to start at the very beginning or I’ll miss something, and I want you to understand. All right?’

  At her nod, he continued. ‘I think 1 told you the chef you replaced had been playing silly little games of his own with the books. Well, I knew he had help, and right from the start I suspected Gloria, but I couldn’t prove it and didn’t want to try until I was sure I’d catch her out. I was ... using my rather questionable masculine charms to ... keep her attentions diverted.’

  Justine grinned at that, especially when he was forced to add, rather shame-faced, that perhaps he’d used them a bit too well.

  ‘And then you came along and really put everything at sixes and sevens, because I was fast falling in love with you, but I didn’t have the proof I needed about Gloria, and I was just vain enough to believe I could handle both of you,’ he said. ‘Lord, Justine, you’ve led me a merry chase. I thought I’d go mad. I was jealous of Armand; I would have strangled Peter last weekend if I’d got my hands on him. Even being off on that junket to America didn’t help. I kept wanting to phone, just to hear your voice. But at least that trip did accomplish something; it led Gloria into thinking she could carry on her little game with that crooked butcher — and she did. You saw the invoices.’

  ‘Yesterday.’ Was it only that long ago? she thought. It seemed like forever, now that her ordeal was over and she was safe.

  ‘Yesterday, yes. And when I confronted you with it, I knew damned well you had nothing to do with it. I was just so ... so frustrated and angry at your treatment of me, your refusal to let me apologise. I wanted to strike back.’

  He sighed, more heavily than before. ‘God, I doubt if you’ll ever forgive me,’ he muttered. ‘Anyway, as soon as you’d gone I dragged Gloria in here and confronted her, and of course she couldn’t get out of it. Maybe she didn’t try, I don’t know. Anyway, she admitted everything finally and I gave her two hours to get out and never come back. She was angry, fair enough, but I never thought she’d try anything like ... like what she did.’

  He stopped for a moment then, and looked at her very seriously. And guiltily. ‘The next bit’s not easy to talk about,’ he said. ‘I should be horribly ashamed, but I’m not, because partly it’s why I was able to find you so quickly.’

  Now it was Justine’s turn to squeeze his hand gently. ‘Just tell me,’ she coaxed. ‘I don’t feel very vengeful right now.’ And I love you, she thought, but for some inane reason she couldn’t put it in words. Not yet.

  ‘Well, I hung about until you got back yesterday. You didn’t sec my car because I hid it. I wanted you to think I’d gone. And then I did go, damn it! If I’d just stayed another fifteen minutes none of this would have happened. I got my other business done and was right on time to meet Peter and Sue. They’ll be along to see you this afternoon, by the way; I’ve already let them know you’re okay. But last night, when you didn’t take the cab I’d sent for you, and nobody could find you, I came straight back immediately.’

  ‘But why would you do that?’ Justine asked. ‘I mean, we agreed I was going to take my own car. Surely you must have ...’

  ‘Damned independent wench,’ he grinned. ‘I knew you thought you were going to take your own car; that’s why I hung about until you got back and how I knew something was wrong. Your car was still in the garage, just as I’d planned. Couldn’t go very far with two flat tyres.’

  Justine gasped. ‘You mean you ...?’

  ‘Guilty! I figured you wouldn’t notice until it was too late, and by then the cab I’d ordered would be there and you’d take it, forcing you, of course, to return with me.’

  ‘That’s ... that’s ...’ She was quite lost for words. In fact, she couldn’t even quite conceive of Wyatt Burns going to such devious extremes.

  ‘Dirty, rotten, underhanded, devious ... and desperate!’ he said with a grin that was nowhere near as guilty as it should have been. ‘Well, what was I supposed to do? You wouldn’t talk to me. You threw away any peace-offering I made. Oh, God, Justine! I honestly thought I’d completely destroyed any chance I might ever have had with that performance here in this bed. I ... I was so damned jealous, at the time ... and then to find that I’d been falsely accusing you, which of cours
e I should have known anyway. I was just out of my head.’

  ‘Forget that for now,’ she said. ‘What happened last night?’

  ‘Well, the cabbie phoned me, and I got worried right away, so I had him rouse Armand for me, and by the time I got here after the fastest drive ever from downtown Sydney, he’d already searched most of the place. But neither of us ever even thought of the cool room; we didn’t realise what had really happened, of course. We thought you’d been taken ill, or ... oh, God, I don’t know what we thought.

  ‘And then Armand mentioned the cool room, but he said the latch had been repaired, and of course it had. Still, I thought it best to check, and when I saw it was latched from the outside—’

  For the first time, he released Justine’s fingers, and buried his face in both hands as he breathed heavily to try and hold back the shudders of anger.

  It seemed to take forever, but finally he looked up and his eyes were bleak with suppressed anger. ‘I swear I’ll get Gloria for this,’ he growled. ‘If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’ll ...’

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ Justine replied in a voice that took on strength from somewhere inside her. She reached out to capture his hand, holding it tightly.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ she said. ‘Revenge is a wasted emotion, a destructive emotion. It doesn’t solve anything, it only makes things worse. It was revenge that made me lead you on about Peter, and ... oh ... everything. Forget Gloria; she just isn’t important any more.’

  Suddenly she was so very tired again. Wyatt was talking, but his words were only a comforting drone as she drifted away into a peaceful oblivion that took her from the darkness into the full light of day.

  Justine’s eyes had no great problem when she woke, however, because somebody — Wyatt? — had thoughtfully closed the curtains over the windows. It was brighter than when last she’d wakened, but only marginally.