Veiled Threats

by Deborah Donnelly

  “Which would make him innocent?” I tried to keep my voice level, and conceal just how urgently I wished that were true. “But the first search was well before the kidnapping. Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  I closed my eyes to concentrate. “What if Andreas is a private detective, and Douglas hired him to investigate the embezzlement? Then, after Nickie was taken, he came here again, with Holt this time, to try to link me to the kidnapping? How does that sound?”

  “Pretty flimsy. Why search your apartment for evidence of embezzlement, when all your records would be in your office? And why wait till last night if they thought you were the kidnapper? For that matter, why investigate you at all, if Douglas Parry just wants to pay the ransom and get his daughter back, no questions asked?”

  “Maybe Douglas doesn't know about the investigation,” I said. I was grasping at straws and I knew it. “Maybe Holt is trying to track down the kidnappers himself, and rescue Nickie before the ransom is paid?”

  Aaron snorted at this fairy tale. “And he just happens to suspect his own girlfriend?”

  “I wish you'd quit talking about boyfriends and girlfriends,” I said hotly. “We're not teenagers.”

  “So what's a better word?” he shot back. “Lovers?”

  “None of your business!” I was close to tears again. “Look, it's twelve-twenty. If I'm going to go through with this stupid charade, I have to get ready.”

  I stalked off to the bedroom and went to pull out my overnight case. Which, of course, was still in the van. Which was still, presumably, at Lily's place. I slammed the closet door in vexation, then took a few deep breaths before picking up the phone. This was no way to begin my debut as an actress.

  Lily wasn't home, and her answering machine wasn't answering. Wonderful. I took the world's fastest shower, just to get my hair into manageable shape, and laid on enough makeup to get me a job at a cosmetics counter. I still looked a little ragged, but nothing like the scarecrow I'd seen in the mirror last night. I was certainly better dressed, in white slacks and a dressy blouse under a navy jacket. I slipped my jade silk into a soft suitcase along with some lingerie, and strapped on a trendy watch with an oversized, easy-to-read face. My flats would work with both outfits, and their rubber soles were essential for looking elegant while running up and down stairs. How bizarre, to be thinking about clothes for my date with a kidnapper. I called Lily every two minutes. No answer.

  I carried the suitcase and my second-best purse into the living room. My first-best was on the bottom of the lake, along with my wallet and my credit cards. At least Lily had my van key, and I always kept an emergency stash of twentydollar bills tucked away in my jewelry box. Aaron was gazing out at the lake with his hands in his pockets.

  “I'm ready,” I announced, “but Lily still has the van, so I'll have to ask Holt to drive me to her place. I'll see you tomorrow.”

  “No, I'll come by tonight,” he said. “We'll compare notes and decide what to do next.”

  “I won't be here tonight. I thought I told you: It's a sunrise ceremony. I'm spending the night at the Glacier View.”

  Aaron frowned. “With him?”

  “No, with the Queen Mother. Of course, with him. We have separate rooms, though.”

  “Will he expect you to … I mean, are you—?”

  “Yes,” I said flatly. “Yes, we were lovers, yes, he'll expect me to. I'll put him off.” Then I added, quite maliciously, “If I can.”

  We glared at each other, the length of the room between us, with the tension rising in waves like a heat mirage on a desert highway.

  Aaron looked away. “This is crazy. Call him and cancel.”

  “It's too late for that. Besides, what about not tipping him off and keeping an eye on him and so forth?”

  “All right, I'll follow you down. Yo u stall him, and drive slowly, and then—”

  “You don't even own a car! And he's seen you before; he knows you're a reporter. Fat lot of good that'll do Nickie, if he sees you following him and he panics!” I was suddenly furious. “Anyway, how come it was all right for me to spend the day with a dangerous criminal but it's crazy for me to spend the night with him?”

  “So I was wrong!” he shouted. “So sue me! But I'm not going to let you—”

  “Let me? You're not letting me do anything, buster. Who do you think you are?”

  At that high point in our civilized discourse, the doorbell rang.

  “HE’S HERE!” I WHISPERED.

  “I'll rent a car,” Aaron whispered back.

  “No!” I rushed over to him, almost tripping on the suitcase. He smelled like an ashtray, but I leaned in close. “You stay here and snoop. I mean it! You talked me into this, but it's a good idea and I'm going to see it through. Don't endanger Nickie, and don't patronize me! All right?”

  Another stare-down, briefer this time. His eyes were a dark, polished brown.

  “All right. But call me tonight, deal?”

  “Deal.”

  He slipped into the bedroom, and I opened the front door with what I intended to be a carefree smile.

  “Hi!” It was Lily. She was all in green today, with dangly earrings shaped like parrots in flight. “What's wrong? You've got the strangest look on your face.”

  “What? Oh, nothing. Nothing's wrong. How's Ethan?”

  “Much better. We probably could have stayed over there, but you know how mothers are.” She glanced over my shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt your, um, conversation.”

  “What conversation? That was just the radio.”

  “Sure,” she replied. “I see your radio is a Red Sox fan.”

  I turned around. Aaron stood in the kitchen, displaying his version of the same smile.

  “Hello,” he said. “Aaron Gold. I was just leaving.”

  “Lily James. Me, too. Leaving, I mean.” She held out the key to the van and my tote bag, which I tucked into my suitcase. “And don't offer to drive me home, Carnegie. Vanna stalled twice on the way over. I'll take the bus.”

  “Jeez, I'm sorry about all this driving, Lily.”

  “No problem. I'm just sorry you had to cancel your meeting.”

  But I wasn't listening. A flash of red had caught my eye from the far end of the dock: a blood-and-silver sports car pulling into the parking lot. I heard the distant slam of a car door, and whirled toward Aaron.

  “He's here!”

  Aaron grabbed my free hand and pulled me back into the kitchen, suitcase and all. “This is perfect,” he muttered. “If anything happens, Lily is a witness that Walker left with you today. Nothing's going to happen, anyway, but let her know what route you're taking. Be careful, Sherlock.”

  Then he gave me a brief but unequivocal kiss, pushed me out the doorway again, and shut the door between us. Lily grinned.

  “Not that it's any of my business, Carnegie, but would you rather that the guy coming toward us didn't know about the guy inside?”

  “Lily …” I said. My mind went blank. Was it possible that I'd kissed him back? “No. I mean, yes, I'd rather he didn't. Hold these a minute, would you?”

  I handed her the purse and suitcase and turned around to secure the door, but as I touched the knob I heard a small, metallic click. Aaron, on the other side, had slid the bolt home. I tapped “shave and a haircut” on the weathered wood, and he rapped out “two bits.” I had kissed him back.

  “Carnegie! Am I late?”

  Holt Walker, big as life, in razor-creased chinos, shiny new loafers, and a creamy shirt open at his smooth, tanned throat. His wavy chestnut hair lifted in the breeze, and his sea-green eyes caught the sunlight. He looked like he was running for president. He greeted, I introduced, and Lily responded. And all the while I thought, Yo u bastard. Yo u lousy, lying bastard. Because there was no doubt in my mind, and never had been since I'd hung shivering from that slimy cable under the deck, that Holt Walker was as far from innocent as he could possibly be. That easy smile, those expansive gestures, the smooth
assurance of the large, handsome American man, the dominant male, they were all part of the lie. A lie that he was enjoying to the hilt.

  “What a great day for a drive,” he was saying, beaming down at Lily with his charm set at Medium High. “We're going to Rainier for a wedding in a meadow.”

  “A t the Glacier View Lodge, down the road from the visitors’ center at Paradise,” I chimed in. “We're taking the freeway south to Tacoma, then Highway Seven around the south side of the mountain. Yo u know, through Elbe and Longmire?”

  “Whatever,” Lily said. “Well, you guys take umbrellas. It's supposed to rain again tonight. Carnegie, I'll put this stuff in the van on my way to the bus stop. You've got your hands full already.”

  “What did she mean by that?” Holt asked as she walked off.

  “Who knows?” I said lamely.

  “And who cares?” He moved closer. “I just want my hands full of you.”

  And before I could dodge him, Holt pressed me up against the door and began to kiss me hungrily, his hands moving down my body as if he owned it. I could hear the wooden panel creak as I leaned away from him, and I swear I could hear Aaron Gold gritting his teeth six inches behind my backbone. It would have been funny if I hadn't wanted to scream. I got my hands up to Holt's shoulders and pushed him gently away.

  “Hey, save that for later,” I said archly, sounding like a soap opera vamp. “I've got to get to work, you know.”

  “We've got time,” he insisted, his voice husky. “Let's go inside for half an hour.”

  “No!” I linked my arm in his and walked away from the door, tugging at him and forcing a laugh. “No, then we'd never leave. And honestly, there isn't a minute to spare. I've thought of a million more details to check out at the Glacier View, and I'll barely have time as it is.”

  He fell into step with me down the gangplank from my deck to the walkway, leaving Aaron farther and farther behind. I chattered all the way to the parking lot, and continued while he transferred an expensive little leather suitcase from his sports car to the van and climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Lily and I had a nice time,” I said. “It was good to get away, but I drank too much beer and I'm kind of a wreck today. You've never seen me before a wedding, I get so keyed up about everything that could go wrong. Well, you did see me before Diane's wedding, but that was really at the wedding, wasn't it? It's beforehand that I get really nervous, like now, but—”

  “Carnegie, you don't have to pretend.”

  “What?” I froze with the key halfway to the ignition. “Pretend what?”

  “That you're not worried about Nickie. We all are. But there's good news.” The tenor voice that I'd found so intriguing rang hollow and sanctimonious now, like a bad actor's. But Holt Walker was an excellent actor, as he was about to demonstrate.

  “What's happened?” I demanded.

  “Douglas got a phone call late last night, and we heard Nickie's voice for the first time. It was on tape, and she seemed sedated, but she said she was wasn't hurt, and she read some headlines from yesterday's newspaper.”

  “Thank God!” Relief mingled with disgust at the man's hypocrisy. I almost rebuked him for withholding the news while he made a pass, but I was afraid that once I started I wouldn't stop, and the scolding would end in screaming accusations. Better to play it straight and follow his lead. “But what about the ransom? When are they going to let her go?”

  “Soon. They want Grace to deliver the money the day after tomorrow.”

  “Grace!” I exclaimed. Not Douglas himself, then, or their accomplice Theo. No, Theo would stick close to his distraught employer, to make sure he didn't break under the strain and call the police. “Why are they waiting so long? And what's to keep them from kidnapping Grace as well?”

  Holt sighed and grimaced, the very picture of a good man rendered helpless in the face of evil. “Nothing, but I don't think they'll get anywhere near her. Once they call, she's supposed to start driving, and then they'll give her directions on her car phone to leave the money somewhere and keep going. Douglas wanted to go himself, of course.”

  “Of course. Was it all right with Douglas, your being away tonight?”

  “He knows where to reach me, and he wanted me to have some time to myself. And I wanted to be with you.”

  He stroked my hair and then my cheek with one broad hand, and I tilted my head down to meet it, afraid my racing thoughts would show in my eyes. Surely the phone call really was good news. Nickie was alive, and once Holt's minions had the ransom in hand, there would be no reason to harm her, no reason at all. She'd be there in Grace's car, unconscious perhaps, drugged, but alive. Or would they lead Grace to some remote drop-off point, and leave Nickie in another spot far away? And how did the phone call relate to the search of my houseboat?

  I slid out from under Holt's hand and reached forward to start the van. That was the one comforting factor in this harebrained scheme: At least I was driving. If things got too strange I'd pull over and run for help, or hit my flashers to signal a highway patrol car. As long as I was behind the wheel, I'd have some control over the situation.

  I turned the key. Nothing.

  “Happens all the time,” I said lightly, and muttered dire threats at Vanna as I tried again. Still nothing. I checked that the gearshift was in Neutral, twisted the key a third time, and got absolutely no response.

  “Maybe it's a fuse,” I ventured. “Or maybe—”

  “Doesn't matter,” said Holt, all brisk masculine efficiency. “You've got no time to spare, as you said, so there's only one solution.”

  “Oh?”

  “We'll take the Alfa.”

  HOLT DIDN’T GO ANYWHERE NEAR HIGHWAY7. HE STAYED ON the freeway only until we were out of the city, then he cut off toward the suburbs of Renton with a quick, almost absent-minded swerve of the wheel. I pulled a Washington map from the glove compartment. A state highway did lead from Renton down to Mount Rainier, but it ran along the unpopulated eastern edge of the national park before looping west again toward our destination on the far side of the mountain. Instead of farmlands and small towns like Elbe and Longmire, the security of people and telephones and police stations, we'd be driving through forty miles or more of deep, lonely evergreen forest.

  Holt Walker was taking the long way around to Paradise.

  “Won't this route make us late?” I had to raise my voice against the wind created by the convertible's speed, and clamp a hand across my forehead to keep the tendrils of hair from whipping into my eyes. I felt just as captive as my suitcase, strapped onto the trunk lid behind me. If only I hadn't made a fuss about being in a hurry, if only the unsuspecting Aaron hadn't still been in the houseboat, I could have called a mechanic to resuscitate Vanna. As it was, I'd been swept into the Alfa and out of town before I could plausibly object.

  In answer to my question, Holt just smiled and hit the gas.

  The car sprang forward with a rising snarl. Strip malls and car lots flashed by us in the sunshine, and soon we were in open country, south of suburban Maple Valley on the way to the old coal-mining hamlet of Black Diamond. After that would come the town of Enumclaw, and then the forest. I tried to imagine, or maybe to will into existence, long lines of tourists’ cars stretching along the highway, bustling roadside restaurants, motels with bored, eagle-eyed desk clerks who would report the suspicious behavior of a panicky redhead in a sports car. But all I could picture was a dark wilderness of trees, and Holt's large, muscular hands, and the passion that had bordered on violence the first time we made love. If he enjoyed lying so much, and the mock-battle of lovers, what else would he enjoy?

  “Black Diamond!” I exclaimed. The volume required to make myself heard gave a stagy, artificial air to everything I said. “There's supposed to be a great bakery there! Why don't we stop for lunch?”

  Holt's hands tightened on the wheel. “What happened to ‘not a minute to spare’?”

  “Just a quick snack,” I amended, rummaging in my
purse for my sunglasses. “Or some sweet rolls to go.” Anything to get me in a room with other people so I could regain my equilibrium, and maybe sneak a call to Aaron. Anything to stop feeling like a helpless victim, so that I could start acting like Holt's blissed-out lover.

  “I always eat too much when I'm nervous,” I said, with a girlish, self-deprecating lift of one shoulder. “I keep thinking about Nickie—”

  “Forget about her!” He, too, was half-shouting, but he quickly softened his tone. “Just for now, darling. There's nothing we can do but wait. She'll be all right, you'll see. Think about us instead.”

  Ready or not, that was my cue. I leaned across the gear shift and nuzzled my head against his shoulder. Briefly. Thank God for bucket seats, or I would have had to stay there. “I've missed you so much, Holt.”

  He kissed my forehead, and when I straightened up he laid his arm across my shoulder and kneaded the back of my neck. His fingertips were icy. I pretended not to notice.

  “Mmm, that feels wonderful.” With my eyes hidden by sunglasses, it was easier to say.

  “That's just a free sample,” he assured me. “Tonight you get the full-service massage, front and back.”

  “I can't wait.” I should have kissed him on the wrist, but I couldn't, I just couldn't, and at last he moved his hand away to shift gears. I had a sudden sensation of falling, as if the bright, empty highway ahead was Alice's rabbit hole and we were plunging down it, not into Wonderland but into a nightmare, falling faster and faster—

  I bit my lip. Too much excitement, I told myself dispassionately, and too little sleep. Don't fantasize, just think. At least Holt had plans for tonight, which implied an uneventful trip to the Glacier View. That made perfect sense for a man who was just killing time while his confederates arranged the ransom delivery. There was no reason for him to harm me, as long as I didn't let my imagination stampede me into vertigo and melodrama. Just stay in character until tomorrow, when I could report back to Aaron. Maybe we should go to the police after all. Would they be discreet enough not to tip off Holt and Theo? No, Douglas was right. Wait quietly, pay the ransom, and get his daughter back. Then I could go to him and Grace and tell what I knew. For now, all I had to do was go along for the ride.