The Welcoming

by Nora Roberts

  son?”

  “Yes, sir.” The young lineman’s hands were sweaty with nerves and excitement. “You can dial right through.” He passed the damp receiver to Roman.

  “I don’t know the number,” Roman murmured. “I don’t know the damn number.”

  “I know it.”

  Roman swung around to face Mae. In that one instant he saw everything he felt about himself mirrored in her eyes. There would be time for guilt later, he told himself. There would be a lifetime for it. “Royce, you were supposed to clear the area.”

  “Moving Maeflower’s like moving a tank.”

  “I don’t budge until I see Charity.” Mae firmed her quivering lips. “She’s going to need me when she comes out. Waste of time to argue,” she added, “You want the number?”

  “Yes.”

  She gave it to him. Tossing his cigarette aside, Roman dialed.

  Charity jolted in the chair when the phone rang. Across the table, Block simply stared at it. He had had her pile everything she could drag or carry to block the two doors. Extra chairs, twenty-pound canisters of flour and sugar, the rolling butcher block, iron skillets, all sat in a jumble, braced against both entrances.

  In the silent kitchen the phone sounded again and again, like a scream.

  “Stay right where you are.” Block moved across the room to answer it. “Yeah?”

  “It’s DeWinter. Thought you might be ready to talk about a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “That’s what we have to talk about. First I have to know you’ve still got Charity.”

  “Have you seen her come out?” Block spit into the phone. “You know damn well I’ve got her or you wouldn’t be talking to me.”

  “I have to make sure she’s still alive. Let me talk to her.”

  “You can go to hell.”

  Threats, abuse, curses, rose like bile in his throat. Still, when he spoke, his voice was dispassionate. “I verify that you still have a hostage, Block, or we don’t deal.”

  “You want to talk to her?” Block gestured with the gun. “Over here,” he ordered. “Make it fast. It’s your boyfriend,” he told Charity when she stood beside him. “He wants to know how you’re doing. You tell him you’re just fine.” He brushed the gun up her cheek to rest it at her temple. “Understand?”

  With a nod, she leaned into the phone. “Roman?”

  “Charity.” Too many emotions slammed into him for him to measure. He wanted to reassure her, to make promises, to beg her to be careful. But he knew he would have only seconds and that Block would be listening to every word spoken. “Has he hurt you?”

  “No.” She closed her eyes and fought back a sob. “No, I’m fine. He’s going to let me fix some food.”

  “Hear that, DeWinter? She’s fine.” Deliberately Block dragged her arm behind her back until she cried out. “That can change anytime.”

  Roman gripped the phone helplessly as he listened to the sound of Charity’s sobs. It took every ounce of control he had left to keep the terror out of his voice. “You don’t have to hurt her. I said we’d talk about terms.”

  “We’ll talk about terms, all right. My terms.” He released Charity’s arm and ignored her as she slid to the floor. “You get me a car. I want safe passage to the airport, DeWinter. Charity drives. I want a plane fueled up and waiting. She’ll be getting on it with me, so any tricks and we’re back to square one. When I get where I’m going, I turn her loose.”

  “How big a plane?”

  “Don’t try to stall me.”

  “Wait. I have to know. It’s a small airport, Block. You know that. If you’re going any distance—”

  “Just get me a plane.”

  “Okay.” Roman wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and forced his voice to level. He couldn’t hear her any longer, and the silence was as anguishing as her sobbing. “I’m going to have to go through channels on this. That’s how it works.”

  “The hell with your channels.”

  “Look, I don’t have the authority to get you what you want. I need to get approval. Then I’ll have to clear the airport, get a pilot. You’ll have to give me some time.”

  “Don’t yank my chain, DeWinter. You got an hour.”

  “I’ve got to get through to Washington. You know how bureaucrats are. It’ll take me three, maybe four.”

  “The hell with that. You got two. After two I’m going to start sending her out in pieces.”

  Charity closed her eyes, lowered her head to her folded arms and wept out her terror.

  Chapter 12

  “We’ve got a couple of hours,” Roman murmured, continuing to study the inn and the floor plan Royce had given him. “He’s not as smart as I thought, or maybe he’s too panicked to think it through.”

  “That could be to our advantage,” Royce said when Roman shook his head at his offer of coffee. “Or it could work against us.”

  Two hours. Roman stared at the quiet clapboard building. He couldn’t stand the idea of Charity being held at gunpoint for that long. “He wants a car, safe passage to the airport and a plane.” He turned to Conby. “I want you to make sure he thinks he’s going to get it.”

  “I’m aware of how to handle a hostage situation, DeWinter.”

  “Which one of your men is the best shot?” Roman asked Royce.

  “I am.” He kept his eyes steady on Roman’s. “Where do you want me?”

  “They’re in the kitchen.”

  “He tell you that?”

  “No, Charity. She told me he was going to let her fix some food. Since I doubt eating’s on her mind, she was letting me know their position.”

  Royce glanced over to where Mae was pacing up and down the pier. “She’s a tough girl. She’s keeping her head.”

  “So far.” But Roman remembered too well the sound of her muffled sobbing. “We need to shift two of the men around the back. I want them to keep their distance, stay out of sight. Let’s see how close we can get.” He turned to Conby again. “Give us five minutes, then call him again. Tell him who you are. You know how to make yourself sound important. Stall him, keep him on the phone as long as you can.”

  “You have two hours, DeWinter. We can call for a SWAT team from Seattle.”

  “We have two hours,” Roman said grimly. “Charity may not.”

  “I can’t take responsibility—”

  Roman cut him off. “You’ll damn well take it.”

  “Agent DeWinter, if this wasn’t a crisis situation I would cite you for insubordination.”

  “Great. Just put it on my tab.” He looked at the rifle Royce had picked up. It had a long-range telescopic sight. “Let’s move.”

  She’d cried long enough, Charity decided, taking a long, deep breath. It wasn’t doing her any good. Like her captor, she needed to think. Her world had whittled down to one room, with fear as her constant companion. This wouldn’t do, she told herself, straightening her spine. Her life was being threatened, and she wasn’t even sure why.

  She rose from where she had been huddled on the floor. Block was still sitting at the table, holding the gun in one hand while the other tapped monotonously on the scrubbed wood. The dangling cuffs jangled. He was terrified, she realized. Perhaps every bit as much as she. There must be some way to use that to her advantage.

  “Roger . . . would you like some coffee?”

  “Yeah. That’s good, that’s a good idea.” He took a firmer grip on the gun. “But don’t get cute. I’m watching every move.”

  “Are they going to give you a plane?” She turned the burner on low. The kitchen was full of weapons, she thought. Knives, cleavers, mallets. Closing her eyes, she wondered if she had the courage to use one.

  “They’re going to give me anything I want as long as I have you.”

  “Why do they want you?” Stay calm, she told herself. She wanted to stay calm and alert and alive. “I don’t understand.” She poured the hot coffee into two cups. She didn’t think she could
swallow, but she hoped that sharing it would put him slightly more at ease. “They said something about counterfeiting.”

  It didn’t matter what she knew. In any case, he had worked hard and was proud of it. “For over two years now I’ve been running a nice little game back and forth over the border. Twenties and tens in Canadian. I can stamp them out like bottle caps. But I’m careful, you know.” He gulped at the coffee. “A couple thousand here, couple thousand there, with Vision as the front. We run a good tour, keep the clients happy.”

  “You’ve been paying me with counterfeit money?”

  “You, and a couple other places. But you’re the longest and most consistent.” He smiled at her, as friendly as ever—if you didn’t count the gun in his hand. “You have a special place here, Charity, quiet, remote, privately owned. You deal with a small local bank. It ran like a charm.”

  “Yes.” She looked down at her cup, her stomach rolling. “I can see that.” And Roman had come not to see the whales but to work on a case. That was all she had been to him.

  “We were going to milk this route for a few more months,” he continued. “Just lately Bob started getting antsy.”

  “Bob?” Her hand fisted on her lap. “Bob knew?”

  “He was nothing but a nickel-and-dime con man before I took him on. Working scams and petty embezzlements. I set him up here and made him rich. Didn’t do badly by you, either,” he added with a grin. “You were on some shaky financial ground when I came along.”

  “All this time,” she whispered.

  “I’d decided to give it another six months, then move on, but Bob started getting real jumpy about your new handyman. The bastard set me up.” He slammed the cup down. “Worked a deal with the feds. I should have caught it, the way he started falling apart after the hit-and-run.”

  “The accident—you tried to kill me.”

  “No.” He patted her hand, and she cringed. “Truth is, I’ve always had a liking for you. But I wanted to get you out of the way for a while. Just testing the waters to see how DeWinter played it. He’s good,” Block mused. “Real good. Had me convinced he was only interested in you. The romance was a good touch. Threw me off.”

  “Yes.” Devastated, she stared at the grain in the wood of the tabletop. “That was clever.”

  “Sucked me in,” Block muttered. “I knew you weren’t stringing me along. You haven’t got it in you. But DeWinter . . . They’ve probably already taken Dupont.”

  “Who?”

  “We don’t just run the money. There are people, people who need to leave the country quietly, who pay a lot for our services. Looks like I’m going to have to take myself on as a client.” He laughed and drained his cup. “How about some food? One of the things I’ll miss most about this place is the food.”

  She rose silently and went to the refrigerator. It had all been a lie, she thought. Everything Roman had said, everything he’d done . . .

  The pain cut deep and had her fighting back another bout of weeping. He’d made a fool of her, as surely and as completely as Roger Block had. They had used her, both of them, used her and her inn. She would never forgive. She rubbed her hands over her eyes to clear them. And she would never forget.

  “How about that lemon meringue pie?” Relaxed, pleased with his own cleverness, Roger tapped the barrel of the gun on the table. “Mae outdid herself on that pie last night.”

  “Yes.” Slowly Charity pulled it out. “There’s a little left.”

  Block had ripped the frilly tiebacks from the sunny yellow curtains, but there was a space two inches wide at the center. Silently Roman eased toward it. He could see Charity reach into a cupboard, take out a plate.

  There were tears drying on her cheeks. It tore at him to see them. Her hands were steady. That was something, some small thing to hold on to. He couldn’t see Block, though he shifted as much as he dared.

  Then, suddenly, as if she had sensed him, their eyes met through the glass. She braced, and in that instant he saw a myriad of emotions run across her face. Then it was set again. She looked at him as she would have looked at a stranger and waited for instructions.

  He held up a hand, palm out, doing his best to signal her to hold on, to keep calm. Then the phone rang and he watched her jolt.

  “About time,” Block said. He was almost swaggering as he walked to the phone. “Yeah? Who the hell’s this?” After listening a moment, he gave a pleased laugh. “I like dealing with a title. Where’s my plane, Inspector Conby?”

  As quickly as she dared, Charity tugged the curtain open another inch.

  “Over here,” Block ordered.

  She dropped her hand, and the plate rattled to the counter. “What?”

  He gestured with the gun. “I said over here.”

  Roman swore as she moved between him and a clear shot.

  “I want them to know I’m keeping up my end.” Block took Charity by the arm, less roughly this time. “Tell the man I’m treating you fine.”

  “He hasn’t hurt me,” she said dully. She forced herself to keep her eyes away from the window. Roman was out there. He would do his best to get her out safely. That was his job.

  “The plane’ll be ready in a hour,” Block told her after he hung up. “Just enough time for that pie and another cup of coffee.”

  “All right.” She crossed to the counter again. Panic sprinted through her when she looked out the window and saw no one. He’d left. Because her fingers were unsteady, she fumbled with the pie. “Roger, are you going to let me go?”

  He hesitated only an instant, but that was enough to tell her that his words were just another lie. “Sure. As soon as I’m clear.”

  So it came down to that. Her heart, her inn, and now her life. She set the pie in front of him and studied his face. He was pleased with himself, she thought, and she hated him for it. But he was still sweating.

  “I’ll get your coffee.” She walked to the stove. One foot, then the other. There was a buzzing in her ears. It was more than fear now, she realized as she turned the burner up under the pot. It was rage and despair and a strong, irresistible need to survive. Mechanically she switched the stove off. Then, taking a cloth, she took the pot by the handle.

  He was still holding the gun, and he was shoveling pie into his mouth with his left hand. He thought she was a fool, Charity mused. Someone who could be used and duped and manipulated. She took a deep breath.

  “Roger?”

  He glanced up. Charity looked directly into his eyes.

  “You forgot your coffee,” she said calmly, then tossed the steaming contents into his face.

  He screamed. She didn’t think she’d ever heard a man scream like that before. He was half out of his chair, groping blindly for the gun. It happened quickly. No matter how often she played back the scene in her mind, she would never be completely sure what happened first.

  She grabbed for the gun herself. Block’s flailing hand caught her across the cheekbone. Even as she staggered backward there was the sound of glass breaking.

  Roman was through the window. Charity landed on the floor, stunned by the blow, as he burst through. There were men breaking through the barricaded doors and rushing into the room. Someone dragged her from the floor and pulled her out.

  Roman held the gun to Block’s temple. They were kneeling on the shattered glass—or rather Roman was kneeling and supporting the moaning Block. There were already welts rising up on his wide face. “Please,” Roman murmured. “Give me a reason.”

  “Roman.” Royce laid a hand on his shoulder. “It’s over.”

  But the rage clogged his throat. It made his finger slippery on the trigger of the gun. He remembered the way Charity had looked at him when she had seen him outside the window. Slowly he drew back and holstered his gun.

  “Yeah. It’s over. Get him the hell out of here.” He rose and went to find Charity.

  He found her in the lobby, wrapped in Mae’s arms.

  “I’m all right,” Charity murmured. �
��Really.” When she saw Roman, her eyes frosted over. “Everything’s going to be fine now. I need to speak with Roman for a minute.”

  “You say your piece.” Mae kissed both of her cheeks. “Then you’re going to get in a nice hot tub.”