Willing Hostage

by Marlys Millhiser

  “Well, we had trouble at the bank,” a strange voice answered. “But I think we’ve got most of it.”

  As the balcony guard listened at the open door next to her, Leah listened at her own to a detailed rundown of her life.

  Leah Harper listened to the Harper file and felt naked. Innocent transactions, pastimes, and family life sounded sinister, even criminal, when recited by the new voice. Her father’s death, the family removal to a poorer section of town, Leah’s employment record, men she had dated, even Jason, Suzie’s abortion. Everything was there.

  “And then she went to the Hagstard Publishing Company.”

  “Publishers?” Welker exploded in the next room. “Wyndham’s spent a week in the wilderness with a publisher’s representative? This is worse than I thought. Everybody’s after renegade agents’ memoirs these days. And with the property, too? Jesus God!”

  “She hasn’t worked for them for two years—”

  “What do you want to bet?” It sounded like he threw something against a wall. “How about college organizations, anything there?”

  “Nothing remotely subversive.” The strange voice went on to her mother’s suicide.

  “Who found her?”

  “The subject. No foul play indicated. Clear case—”

  “Maybe we can work on that. Guilt … her own mother. Have you completed the bank work?”

  “Yes. It’s all here. A Chicago and a New York bank.”

  “The mother’s death … go over it again.”

  Leah repeated the horror of her mother’s death with them.

  “That and the publisher. Work on them and get going.”

  “I just got here. I need sleep.”

  “Sleep on the plane. We’ll get you to Denver. Can you imagine Glade Wyndham’s memoirs published? And the Enveco papers?”

  Leah slid through the opening in the sliding-glass doors and hit the screen. Her hair stuck to it and pulled as her body slid to the floor, a buzzing in her ears, fresh salt-tainted blood shooting up her throat and through half-parted lips.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Leah was being carried. She could feel the jerky movement of someone else’s walk. A small low building … brick and lighted windows.

  A sign painted on window-glass … PLEASE REMOVE SKI BOOTS AT THE DOOR.

  Leah was in the building, in front of a desk under a round glaring light.

  “You should have taken her directly to the emergency room and called first,” someone said disapprovingly.

  Soon there were other glaring lights overhead.

  “Ulcer. Bleeding. I must ask you all to leave. This could be serious. No stress … no questions.”

  Leah awoke in a strange white room, in a strange white bed. A woman leaned over her.

  “There, I thought you were coming around,” she said cheerfully. “Are you hungry? You’ve slept so long. How about a nice poached-egg-on-milk-toast?”

  The woman fed it to her by slow patient spoonfuls. “There now, you can sleep some more. I can see you’re still tired. Rest is the best thing for you.”

  An oblong pill with the texture of plastic slipped onto Leah’s tongue followed by the edge of a paper cup with water. “Don’t worry now, my dear. You’re fine. The bleeding has stopped. Just rest. Ulcer shouldn’t worry, should it? Nothing too bad, you just overdid, didn’t you? You must be careful to take care of yourself with your problem.”

  “Look, I don’t care if you’re Lieutenant Columbo. She stays another day.” The young doctor’s wire-rims glared back at Welker’s horn-rims.

  Welker snapped the wallet closed on his intimidating badge and replaced it in an inside breast pocket. “Listen, there is …” he began patiently but was interrupted by Brian Kruger’s rush through the door.

  “We’ve got him! They just picked him up.”

  “Who?”

  “The State Patrol. They grabbed Wyndham out of a telephone booth in Craig. We’ll have to spring him.” Brian and Joseph Welker disappeared.

  The doctor turned to Leah. “I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in. But I’ve won you and your stomach another twenty-four hours.”

  Leah smiled at him through a drug-induced haze.

  “You’re not in serious condition, miraculously, and you’ve lived with that ulcer since you were a child. But sleep while you can and try to keep your life under better control from now on. If you let your nerves and people like the man who just left get ahead of you, you’ll end up right back in a hospital.”

  When she was alone, Leah gazed sleepily through metalpaned windows on the steeply slanted roofs of Steamboat Springs, Colorado … the giant green mountain behind them with ski trails slashed through its trees … an intense deep clear sky.…

  Leah drew a relaxed sigh, curled up in a fetal position, and slept.

  The next evening Leah had finally shaken off the hospital “drug cure.” It had left her with a headache and she knew an angry ulcer better than to risk aspirin. She sat once again in front of the roaring fire behind locked doors in the FBI-provided condominium. She’d eaten and relaxed in a hot oil bath, but still the drug hangover throbbed in her head.

  Rain pelted the roof and the balcony outside. She hoped old “cigarette-face” was getting soaked. He’d been stationed outside her door at the hospital, too. Wind lashed air through the pines so violently she could hear them moan over the crackling of the fire.

  She warmed milk and poured it into a mug, thinking of the phone call she’d made that morning from the hospital. And that memory made her seek one of the doctor’s tranquilizers. And taking the pill made her angry because she knew they were powerful and she’d have another hangover to get used to when it wore off.

  There had been a telephone sitting on the table next to her hospital bed. She was alone, relaxed to the point of euphoria, felt daring, mischievous, silly.… Leah was high. With every poached egg came a pill in that plate … they’d begun to add up in her bloodstream.

  Leah had picked up the receiver with a giggle and started with surprise when someone asked who she wished to call.

  She gave Annette’s number in Chicago and was almost jolted sober when the call went through and her sister answered.

  “Leah? I’ve been worried sick. You’ve been gone so long. You haven’t written or phoned.…” Annette scolded on in her fussy way and Leah wept silently at the normal family sound of it. “And then when those men came around asking questions, I could have died. We thought you were in horrible trouble. They were so secretive. You are all right, aren’t you?”

  “What men?”

  “Well, you remember when Greg Henshaw was getting a security clearance to work at the atomic plant? When we lived in the old house in the suburbs and those men came and asked Mother and Dad all about him? That kind of thing. Are you working in a secret job of some kind?” Annette sounded relieved at the thought.

  “Something like that. Don’t worry. I’m fine.” Leah suddenly yearned for another pill. She mustn’t involve her family, must keep them calm and unquestioning. “How’s Suzie?”

  “Oh, that’s another reason I’m glad you called. Suzie’s in the hospital. Leah, she lost the baby two days ago. But she’s okay, just depressed. She’ll be so relieved to know you’re all right. I’ve got the boys staying here and Ed’s coming over to dinner tonight.”

  “You’re sure she’s okay?”

  “Yes. Ralph talked to her doctor. It was just one of those births that wasn’t meant to be. The baby wouldn’t have been right. But she’s blue. I wish you were here, Leah. After Mother dying the way she did and now Suzie … I really miss your commonsense way of getting things back to normal. But we’ll cope. Promise you’ll call again or write soon? So we won’t worry about you, too.”

  “I promise.” Leah had choked back tears.

  And now she shook her head over the mug of warm milk and added a log to the fire. Who else had been questioned about Leah Harper?

  This was the first time Annette had
ever praised Leah for common sense. It was so unexpected she couldn’t help thinking of it. She’d always thought her family considered her nervous and flighty and too independent. Poor Suzie. Leah, the oldest sister, should be there coping now.

  “Oh, hell, she’s got a husband. He should be coping.” But would Ed be sympathetic enough to see his wife through this?

  “What would Annette think of my common sense if she knew of the situation I’m in now?”

  And Glade had been caught. His mission had been so important to him. Leah didn’t understand him or his mission but her disappointment over his failure was deep, surprising. She’d counted on his success because he’d wanted it. How many people had he killed?

  She jerked around as the lock clicked in the door. Julie stuck her head in. “Brought you a present. More eggs and that bottle of Maalox you wanted and”—she had a sack under one arm and something under the other that Leah couldn’t see until she’d kicked the door closed and turned; it was an angry round ball of Siamese—“and an old friend of yours.” Julie dropped Goodyear on the rug. He had a spot of cream on his nose.

  “We sprung him, too. You wouldn’t believe what-all that animal has just eaten.”

  Leah sat very still as the blimp surveyed the room, his eyes scanning over her as if she were a chair. He sniffed the carpet, peeked under the couch, upset the basket, and pounced on a wadded-up Kleenex that rolled to the floor. Patches of scorched hair on the underside of his tail had fallen out, leaving funny pink holes of skin in the lush cocoa-brown.

  Finally, Goodyear came to rub the side of his neck against Leah’s leg, his toenails kneading the carpet, his motor in overdrive.

  “Hello, fat cat. Long time no—” Her voice broke.

  He let her hand caress him from ears to the end of his tail twice and then, still purring, he jumped to the rock shelf in front of the fire, licked a paw, and rubbed the cream off his nose.

  “That cat needs a muffler.” Julie put the eggs in the refrigerator. “And probably a bicarbonate of soda.” She set a liquor bottle beside the Maalox on the counter. “And how are you feeling? You look awfully pale.”

  “Will I be allowed to see him?”

  She came over to place a hand on Leah’s forehead. “See Glade? Do you want to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then of course you can see him.” Julie knelt to look into her face with that sweet warm smile. “Hey, we’re not the Gestapo, you know. Those doors are locked for your own protection.” She patted Leah’s hand and watched Goodyear wash behind his ears. “He’s talking with Joe right now. But I’ll get him up here when they’re done. Shouldn’t be long.”

  When Julie left, Leah took a resisting Siamese onto her lap because she needed him … even if he didn’t need her.

  She was sitting this way with her face buried in fur that still smelled of campfires when the key sounded in the lock once more.

  Glade Wyndham stepped into the room.

  “Remove those clothes and bathe. I’ll wash them with the rest of your stuff—yuk! Maybe I’ll burn them.” Julie’s voice from the hall. The door closed. The key turned in the lock.

  Glade stood just inside the room staring at Leah, surprise and shock in widened eyes and tensed body. Leah watched as suspicion dawned on his face.

  “Didn’t they tell you I was here?” She couldn’t believe it.

  “No, they didn’t.” He looked like a bank robber. His beard had achieved wonders since she’d seen him last, and the man under it looked weighted with exhaustion.

  Goodyear jumped back onto the ledge and took his comforting warmth with him.

  “Glade.…”

  “Got a razor?” he cut her off and glanced into the bathroom beside him.

  Leah stood and tightened the belt on the robe that was all that covered her. She passed him to find her razor in the beauty case on the vanity beside the sink. “Careful, that razor’s only accustomed to legs.”

  Leah went back to the fire and tried to stop shaking. Why should he trust her? She’d left him. But it hurt.

  “Leah?” Julie’s voice in the hall. And she actually knocked on the door.

  Leah leaned against it. “What?”

  “Can you hand me his clothes? I’m washer lady tonight,” Julie whispered.

  Leah gathered up the pile of clothes on the bathroom floor and handed them out.

  “Look in the frig. He’s probably hungry.” Julie locked the door in Leah’s face.

  A thick T-bone sat beside the eggs in the refrigerator. She set the broiler under the oven to heat.

  When Glade emerged, clean-shaven and slightly scarred (there had been no shaving cream), he wore only a towel. “Nice setup.” His eyes steady, his tone oily with contempt. He picked up the bottle of scotch Julie had left on the counter, glanced about the apartment with its Mediterranean furniture, and looked even more suspicious.

  Leah put the steak under the broiler and plugged in the percolator. She broke eggs to scramble. “What the hell’s going on anyway?” she asked flippantly. He mustn’t know how glad she was to see him.

  He ran his fingers along the back of the framed picture above the fireplace, picked up the lamp, and looked under its base. “You tell me.”

  He peeked under the rim of the counter.

  Glade stood beside her to reach above them for a glass. He poured a scotch, found ice, and leaned against the refrigerator to watch her turn the steak.

  “Cozy. All the comforts of home.” He raised his glass, his eyes roaming her bathrobe with intended insolence.

  She let her eyes do the same with him and turned away with a giggle. “Tell me, where do you keep your gun now?”

  “What have you been drinking?”

  “Tranquilizers. I just got out of the hospital this afternoon. My ulcer erupted.” Her giggle died half born, like Suzie’s baby. Even the doctor’s drugs failed her now.

  Glade sat across from her in the tiny cubicle to have steak and eggs with his scotch. “I think you should know, if you don’t already,” he said, around a mouthful, “that this room is well, if amateurishly, bugged.”

  “I can’t think why.” Leah went to the refrigerator to get him some more ice and tried again. “The walls are so thin you could hear an elk fart at twenty paces.”

  His suspicion broke into a brief smile. “Why else do you think we’re in here together?”

  “Can’t imagine. There are more towels if you’re cold.” She tried to look away from the ugly scar that slashed diagonally across his abdomen, an old scar with a strange dip at its base, tried not to think of how he might have gotten it.

  Leah expected the listening troops to march in and haul one of them off to another apartment, now that they’d admitted aloud their knowledge of the bugs. But Glade cleaned up his plate in peace.

  “What’s that?” He reached across the table to touch her forehead.

  “Rope burn.” She turned her palms up on the table and stared at them. They were finally healing after very special help at the hospital. “Your … friend Charlie put me on a rope ladder under a helicopter and dunked me into a lake. And then your friend Welker rescued me. He protects me by locking the doors on the outside and grilling my family on my life history and examining photographs of my bank checks. You were right, you know.” Leah looked up from her hands through tears. “I shouldn’t have given myself up. I should have gone with you. And I don’t care who hears that.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and then placed a finger on her lips. When he’d refilled his scotch, he drew her in to the couch. The fire flared as he poked it and added another log. Glade sat beside her, cradled her in one arm. “I’m sorry about my friends, Leah.”

  “I wish I’d never met you.” But she nestled against him.

  “I wish you hadn’t, too.”

  They sat quietly, waiting for someone to separate them. They couldn’t really talk, so they watched Goodyear drag the greasy steak bone across the carpet to the rock shelf. He held it down with one p
aw and turned his head from side to side to gnaw at fat and gristle. Leah looked from the cat to the man. They were so similar, so cold, ruthless, independent. Is that what drew her? Their independence?

  Rain continued its onslaught of the balcony, hissed on the fire when stray drops found their way down the chimney.

  “Does this place come with a bed?” Glade said finally when the FBI still had not appeared.

  “You’re sitting on it. Pulls out to a king size. Why?” Leah turned into the cozy but hard cradle and touched the cleft in his chin.

  Glade Wyndham kissed her ear and then whispered in it, “Thought I’d show you where I keep my gun.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Glade sat on the end of the couch by the sliding-glass doors, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. Morning light gleamed on inky curls.

  Julie had done a yeoman job on his clothes. Leah could smell the bleach across the room. Once-dark denims and navy shirt were now faded to the light blue of current fad.

  “You can’t be the same man I let in here last night.” Julie settled beside him with her notebook.

  Glade stared her down with a macho look and continued to poke contentedly at his teeth with a toothpick. Leah hid a grin behind her mug of hot chocolate.

  When Joseph Welker sat on the rock shelf, the Siamese next to him was on his feet with his back arched in one leap. A hiss and a few dancing steps sideways brought Goodyear to the floor. He jumped to Glade’s lap and curled up to stare daggers at the FBI.

  “Cat doesn’t like you, Joe.” Glade turned to Julie and opened the notebook for her. “Better write that down.”

  Welker’s glance was patient and level. “Have you decided? You’ve had all night.”

  “Couldn’t think last night. Too tired.” He smiled at Leah.

  Julie bent closer to her notebook. She had her face straightened out again before she sat back.

  “Look, we both want the same thing. This matter should be investigated and the bureau is the legal vehicle to do that investigation. The newspapers and the publishers”—Welker paused to glance at Leah—“will get their story and a much more complete one when this matter is thoroughly investigated—”