by Sylvie Kurtz
“I know. Open the door.”
Swallowing hard, Melissa pulled on the door. Fear frazzled her thoughts. Think, Melissa, think. She couldn’t just meekly let Sable walk her to her death. “It’s stuck.”
“Try harder.”
“You won’t shoot. Not with people who can hear you just outside the castle walls and testify against you.”
“One shot is all I need. They’re making so much racket out there, they won’t hear one little backfire.”
“You’ll be the first suspect once they find me. The reverend and his people will remember you were the last person here before I disappeared.”
“My dear, they’ll think their prayers worked and they banished the evil witch. Open the door.”
The rotten wood finally gave way and the rusty hinges creaked as Melissa pulled the handle.
“In you go.”
After the harsh sunshine out in the courtyard, the darkness in the tower blinded her. Melissa wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “Trust in the Promise” rose on the breeze and echoed against the tower’s cool empty interior. “Keep going.”
Melissa carefully slid one foot behind the other, keeping Sable’s silhouette against the outside sun in front of her. “Keep going.”
Her heel bumped against the lip of the dry well in the center of the tower.
“Keep going.”
Melissa held her ground. “You don’t want to do this, Sable. Tia will come home. There’s no need to get yourself in trouble like this.”
Sable advanced, her silhouette growing larger with each step.
“Sable—”
Her stepmother swung the red handbag, and the swiftness and the savageness of the blow to Melissa’s chest stole her breath and made her stumble backward. She tripped over the lip and fell into the well.
“‘Rolling downward, through the midnight,’” sang the faithful.
Forehead, elbows, knees, hips and shoulder scraped against the rough stones, ripping cloth and skin like tissue paper. Instinctively Melissa protected her head. After what seemed an eternity, she landed hard on her left side on a pile of rubble. Pain exploded in a thousand sparks as she gasped for breath. The panic of her own labored gasps rang and repeated until it filled her.
Click. A beam from a flashlight shone down at her. Memories came pouring back. She was eight. It was dark. Pain was eating her alive. Mama! Mama! Then a beam of light. An angel. Hands reaching down for her, prying her out of the car. A gentle voice, cooing, Shh, hush now. Wind all around, feeding the gnawing pain. Cool grass under her. A woman with long brown hair. She stared at something. Melissa craned her neck. A twisted black lump against gray concrete. A moan inside. A small cry for help. Mama! Mama’s in the car. The panic in her voice wormed inside her, twisting, tightening, gorging on the pain. But the woman simply stared at the mangled shell. Shh, shh, hush. I’m sorry, baby, but I have to protect what’s mine.
Silence so deep, so hard, it deafened. A hiss. A crack. An explosion of color—white flashes, orange flames, black smoke. The heat. The smell of burning flesh. The smell of death.
The child of long ago screamed at the horror. The woman of now had to hold in the pain. Play dead, play dead. If she thinks you’re dead, she won’t shoot.
Sable. She’d been the woman who’d pulled her out of the car. She’d let her mother die. Sable could have saved her mother and she’d let her die.
“I didn’t have a choice then,” Sable sobbed. “I don’t have a choice now. I have to protect what’s mine.”
Anger, raw and blistering, had Melissa wanting to scramble up the wall to strangle her stepmother. But she lay absolutely still. Don’t breathe. Don’t move. Stay alive. You’ve done it before. You can do it again.
“Tia comes first. She has to.”
The beam of light winked out. Dust and stone fragments came tumbling down as Sable covered the opening with boards. Still Melissa didn’t budge.
“Savior be my light through the hours in darkness shrouded,” intoned the faithful.
Finally a door slammed shut. A lock clanked into place. A car engine started and faded away.
Melissa screamed for help, but over the congregation’s voices, no one could hear her call.
“THEY’RE GONE,” Tyler said after he’d searched the tower, kitchen and stables for Melissa. The reverend and his noisy flock were a powerful distraction, but Tyler focused on the task at hand. He rewound the tape in the recorder by the phone and listened to the kidnapper’s demands. Sable’s car was gone. The fact Melissa had gone with her chapped his hide.
Damn and blast the woman. Couldn’t she follow simple instructions? What would happen if the local police caught her during the exchange? Couldn’t she see she’d be thrown in jail for violating her house arrest? Worse, what if Drake saw her trailing Sable and panicked?
Glancing at his watch, he saw he still had time to make the rendezvous. He snatched a scrap of paper from the mess all over the floor and scribbled down Freddy’s phone number.
“I want you to call this number and play this tape to the man who answers. His name is Freddy Gold.”
Tia took the paper and examined the number. “Melissa’s uncle.”
He nodded. “Tell him to get a copy of the ransom note and of this tape to the police.”
“But Drake—”
“If he’s lucky the police will get to him before I do.”
Tia’s lower lip pursed in a pout. “He’s—”
“A rat who used your good nature. And now your mother and your sister are in danger. Do you understand?”
Closing her eyes, Tia nodded. “I’ll call.”
“Good girl.” Tyler gave her arms a squeeze, then bolted for the door. “Stay here. Don’t go anywhere until we get back.”
SHE WASN’T GOING to die now that she was finally starting to live. She wouldn’t give Sable the satisfaction of pulling the rug out from under her world twice in a lifetime.
Reaching for another hold along the wall of the well, Melissa lost her balance and fell back into the pit.
Nothing stirred the hot dank air. It clung to her like an unwanted second skin, causing rivulets of sweat to stream down her back and between her breasts. The smell of dust and age filled her nostrils and seemed to clog her airway.
She wiped her hands along the seams of her jeans and reached up once more. She made it almost halfway to the top before her fingers cramped and missed a hold. Her ankle twisted beneath her as she landed again on the rubble. She howled as much in anger as in pain.
“When I get you, you’re going to pay for this, Sable. You’re going to pay for Mama, too.” Spurred on by her thoughts of vengeance, she got up, dusted her hands on her jeans and went back to the task of freeing herself.
Glancing up, she could see nothing but black. It was as if the darkness were wrapping itself around her—just as it had on that night so long ago. “Don’t cry,” she told herself. “It’s not going to get you anywhere.”
Just as tears had gotten her nowhere when she was eight. They hadn’t brought her mother back. They hadn’t made her father love her. They hadn’t taken away the pain. Drawing, peopling her paintings with her monsters, had been the only way to cage the fears, the only way to even dare to think of tomorrow. Action, not tears. The strategy had worked then, and it would work now. Thoughts of payback pushed her on.
How long ago had Sable left? How long before Tyler arrived?
Changing tactics, Melissa chunked stones up against the boards covering the opening and hoped the clunking sound would attract someone’s attention now that the reverend and his followers seemed to have taken a breather.
“Help!” she yelled between throws. Tyler would return soon. He would hear her. He would get her out. All she had to do was let him know where to look. She hung on to that thought and launched another missile. “Tyler, help!”
Her throat soon became raw. Her voice was hoarse. Her arms could barely manage enough momentum to throw. “Help!”
A board moved. Melissa stilled, held her breath.
“Melissa?”
“Tia? What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Is Sable here? Tyler?”
“As far as I know Sable’s in Weatherford. Tyler went after her. How did you end up down there?”
“Long story. There’s rope in the tack room. Get me out of here.” Please. Now. Fast.
“Hang on. I’ll be right back.”
When she returned, Tia set the lantern from the tack room on the lip of the well, then lowered a rope. Melissa tied a butterfly hold around her waist, something she’d seen often on the adventure television shows she liked to watch, and prepared to climb. Melissa exchanged few words with Tia while she clambered up the wall. Once she spilled over the well’s lip, she fell into Tia’s arms.
“Let’s get out of here,” Melissa said between gasps as she sought to regain her breath.
They hurried out into the sunshine and, blinking madly, Melissa collapsed on a patch of grass. Selma wrapped herself around Melissa’s ankles and meowed.
Tia reached for the cat and stroked her. “She’s the reason I found you. She was scratching at the door and meowing like crazy. Then I heard you. Oh, Melissa…”
Selma settled on Melissa’s lap and purred. Hanging on to the cat with one arm and her sister with the other, Melissa asked, “What are you doing here? We’ve been so worried about you. The note. The kidnapping. The ransom—”
“I didn’t know.” Tia launched into an explanation of her stolen weekend with Drake and Tyler’s shattering of her illusion. “I can’t believe Drake would do something like that to me. I thought he loved me. I thought he wanted this romantic weekend away so he could ask me to marry him.”
Tia was crying now, her head against Melissa’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Tia. I know how hard you fell for him.”
Tia pushed away from Melissa’s hug and swiped at her cheeks. “Here I am crying like a baby over a stupid guy and you’re all cut and bruised. How did you end up in that hole?”
She couldn’t add to Tia’s misery by telling her sister that Sable had tried to kill her. Still cradling Selma, Melissa rose shakily to her feet. “Later. Let’s go in. I want to get changed.”
Tia nodded and wrapped an arm around Melissa’s waist as if her sister was an invalid. Tia was a sweet girl and deserved better than someone like Drake, Melissa thought. What kind of man bartered the love of a woman to pay for a gambling debt?
Something clicked in Melissa’s mind and she swayed with the horror of it. “I have to call Tyler.”
Chapter Fourteen
East of Courthouse Square, the Farmers’ Market teemed with people who milled from stall to stall in no apparent hurry. The scent of fresh produce tangled with that of dust and sweat. Laughter and a medley of voices rode the breeze in waves. Going against the flow, Tyler searched for the woman in the Indian-print shirt selling tomatoes. He spotted Sable first. Her red designer skirt, cream silk blouse and high heels stood out like a beacon in the jumble of shorts, T-shirts and sneakers. So did the snarl on her face in a sea of smiles and good humor.
He feigned interest in cantaloupes while he kept Sable in view as she put down the plastic shopping bag and paid for her basket of cherry tomatoes. Scanning the faces, he searched for Melissa, but didn’t see her. With her fear of being out in public, she’d probably stayed in the car. A curl of relief whistled out. At least she’d had that much good sense. He’d need all his alertness for Drake. He’d feel better if she was safe at home, but in a way, it was good to know that she could break her self-imposed confinement for the sister she loved. The sacrifice gave him hope.
Sable’s gaze flitted through the crowd. Frowning, she headed for the herb booth at the opposite end of the row, throwing the tomatoes in the first trash bin she saw.
Hiding behind sunglasses, Tyler kept watch on the shopping bag she clutched. Soon a young, affable-looking man struck up a conversation with the tomato seller. With his sports sandals, cargo shorts, T-shirt and sunglasses, he looked like just another city boy on an outing in the country, but Tyler recognized him from his pictures as Drake. As Drake left, he picked up both his small backpack and the bag Sable had left behind.
Tyler dropped the melon on the table and quickly fell into step with Drake. Clamping a hand on the young man’s shoulder, Tyler said, “Hey, Drake, long time no see. How about you and me mosey on down to the parking lot and catch up on old times?”
“Get lost, creep.” Drake tried to dislodge his hold, but Tyler held on.
“Now is that any way to talk to someone who has your health in mind? You wouldn’t want to attract the attention of that bicycle cop, now would you? It’d be kind of hard to explain what you’re doing with a million dollars in your bag.”
Drake jerked a look at Tyler and blanched. “It’s all in the details, Drake. And judging from your losing streak at the track, I’d say you’re not too good when it comes to details.”
“What do you want?”
“For starters, the shopping bag.” Tyler kept his expression genial and lowered his voice so only Drake could hear. “Then I’d really like to rearrange the features on your face. A man who uses a woman the way you did deserves a good pounding. But for now I’ll settle for some answers.” He sent Drake a closed-mouth grin. “Mind you, if I don’t like what I hear, we can always go back to the pounding.”
Drake swerved, trying to loosen Tyler’s hold, and got his head rapped against the camper top of the truck they were passing for his trouble. His sunglasses slipped from his face and dangled from a cord around his neck.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” Tyler said, leading Drake deeper into the rows of cars in the lot. “I’m having a hard time putting all the pieces together.”
Drake snorted. “Like that’s news.”
At his Jeep Tyler shoved Drake into the passenger seat and threw the shopping bag in the back. Drake tried to launch himself across the seat and exit on the driver’s side, but Tyler pinned him with a knee in the small of the back and an arm at the neck. “Start talking.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Okay, you want to do it this way. Do you play chess?”
“What?”
Tyler heard genuine puzzlement in his voice. “It’s a simple enough question, Drake. Do you play chess?”
“Nah. It’s a sissy game.”
“Yeah, you seem more like a tennis-and-croquet type of guy.”
Swearing, Drake tried to buck Tyler off.
“Why are you trying to scare Melissa?”
Before Drake could answer, a set of fingernails raked Tyler’s back. “Let him go, you idiot. You’re going to ruin everything.”
Sable clawed at him like a mad cat. “There was nothing in the paper.” She beat him with it for good measure. “If you hurt him, I’ll never get Tia back.”
While Tyler attempted to dislodge Sable from his back, Drake got loose and sprinted away. Tyler pushed Sable aside and set off after him. Sable’s voice followed them. “Let him go! I want my daughter back!”
“She’s safe, Sable,” Tyler shouted as he ran. “Go call the cops.”
“No! Tia!”
Drake was rounding the end of the parking lot, heading back toward Courthouse Square and its beehive of people. As he looked back, he tripped over a rise in the terrain, falling hard on his knee.
Tyler caught up to him. Drake held on to his bleeding and swelling knee, whimpering like a two-year-old.
“Deal,” a panting Drake said. “Let’s make a deal.”
Tyler crouched next to Drake. “Only deal I want is the truth. Why the chess game with Melissa if all you wanted was the money to pay off your gambling debt?”
“No choice.” Grimacing, Drake took a bandanna from his pocket and dabbed at his bleeding knee.
“There’s always a choice.”
Drake shook his head. “To get the money, I had to get Melissa off her land.
You just couldn’t keep your nose out of where it didn’t belong. Because of you, she wasn’t budging. The goons were on my back, so I had to move to plan B.”
“Kidnapping Tia.”
Drake nodded, frowning at his knee.
“She loved you, you know. How could you do that to her?”
“She wanted to settle down.”
“You didn’t.”
Drake swore as he hugged his knee to his chest. “Do I look like I’m old enough to settle down with a high-maintenance wife and a pack of rug rats?”
No, he was still stuck in the selfish stage. “Marrying her would have given you access to the Carnes fortune.”
“Only if Melissa chose to share. And the bitch keeps tight purse strings. I couldn’t wait that long on a horse I wasn’t sure would show.”
“Seems to me you have a habit of betting on horses with long odds. This one could have fed your habit for years. Your venture into kidnapping turned the goose with the golden egg against you.”
“What good is the goose if I’m wearing cement boots in the Trinity River?” Drake removed the blood-soaked bandanna from his knee. The blood had stopped flowing, but the puffy skin around his knee was already purpling.
Time to get some answers, then let the cops take care of him. “Who are you working for?”
Drake licked his lips, but didn’t answer.
“It’s your choice,” Tyler said, gripping Drake by the arm and pulling him up. “You can talk to me or to the cops. Either way it’s going to come out.”
“Deal?” Drake hissed in a breath. “I give you the name and you let me go.” He hesitated. “And I get the shopping bag back.”
Tyler silently sneered. The rat was cornered, and greed was still his number-one priority. “Spill.”
“Shake first.”
“Talk and you get the money.”
“Swear.”
“On my honor.”
Drake hobbled on one leg as Tyler dragged him farther from the crowd. “Randall promised to cover my debt if I helped him get Melissa off her land.”
“Why?”
