Wild Orchids

by Karen Robards

  Lora frantically put her mind to work again. She was only twenty-seven, her whole life was still ahead of her. She hadn’t even begun to live—crazily, the words from that song by the Carpenters ran through her mind: “We’ve only just begun . . .” She banished the melody, but the words were essentially true. For so many years she had lived her life for others, had done what was best for her family instead of what she had wanted to do. Her older sister, Janice, had married right out of high school as girls frequently did in their small hometown, and Lora might well have followed in her footsteps if fate had not chosen to intervene.

  She had been seventeen, a senior in high school when her dearly loved father had been killed in the crash of the car he was driving. Her mother was severely injured in the same crash, and never fully recovered. Emily Harding spent the rest of her life as an invalid, first in a wheelchair and then in bed, growing increasingly bitter as her health deteriorated. As the only daughter left at home, Lora had become nurse, companion, and chief scapegoat rolled into one. Not that anyone had ever asked her to give up her plans for a life of her own to stay home and care for her mother. Everyone, including Janice and even herself, had simply assumed that she would do so. And she had; for ten long years, until this past March when Emily died at last from pnuemonia, which Dr. Ramsey had told her frequently claimed the bedridden.

  Lora had grieved when Emily died—she had loved her mother dearly despite the querulousness and vitriolic tongue which had gradually overwhelmed the warm smiles and kind words that had guided Lora’s younger days—but secretly, shamefully, she had been glad as well. It meant blessed freedom at last. Freedom for her mother, of course, but Lora was honest enough to admit that the tremendous sense of release she felt was just as much on her own behalf. For the first time in ten years, she was free to live life as she wanted, to do as she pleased without having to consider anyone but herself. It was such a relief to go to bed knowing that she would be able to sleep through the night without her mother calling her two or three times to get her a glass of water, or help her to the bathroom, or perform any of the innumerable mundane tasks that Emily was no longer able to do for herself. It was such a relief to get up in the morning and know that she had only herself to do for; she no longer had to bathe and dress and feed her mother as well; she no longer had to wait for the neighbor who stayed with her mother during the day, or miss work if that neighbor was sick or otherwise unable to come. At last she was free to stay late at the school if some student should need to talk with her without feeling a horrible sense of guilt because her mother was home waiting for her. At last she was able to go away for the weekend, to take a vacation. . . . Since the accident, she had never been able to leave her mother as long as overnight. Emily did not like to be cared for by other than “family,” and Janice was “too busy” with her own husband and two daughters to take care of their mother long enough to give Lora even a brief respite. After one abortive weekend which Lora had attempted to spend at a teacher’s meeting in Topeka—her mother had fallen out of bed, broken her hip, and been rushed to the hospital, all because, Emily quavered, of Lora’s selfishness—Lora had never again been gone for more than a few hours at a time. But now she was free—free.

  Three days after her mother’s funeral, feeling guilty but wonderfully lighthearted for all that, she walked into Augusta’s largest travel agency and gathered up all the brochures on all the exotic places she could find. Emily had left her small estate to be divided equally between her daughters, so Lora had some money. She had used part of the life insurance proceeds plus a dauntingly large bank loan to buy the half-interest in the house from her sister, but there was still nearly ten thousand dollars left. Most of it she would sensibly bank, but some of it—fifteen hundred of it as it turned out—she would spend on a fabulous vacation. Somewhere exotic, with a beach and sun and ocean, and sights to see and . . .

  That somewhere had turned out to be Cancun, Mexico. Even from the beginning, when she had stepped off the airplane to be enveloped by the smell of rotting vegetation and a swarming cloud of ravenous mosquitoes, she had suspected that her dream vacation might not turn out to be quite what she had expected. Between broken air conditioners that might, or might not, be repaired mañana (how she had grown to dread that ubiquitous tomorrow, which could just as easily mean next week, or next month, or next year!), inedible food, the mosquitoes that feasted on her fair skin every time she set foot outdoors after dark and the sun that broiled her alive during the day, a tour bus that had been broken for four days while its driver waited unconcernedly for a part that would surely arrive mañana, she had had to work hard to keep her wonderful vacation from turning into nothing but an expensive exercise in aggravation. Still, Lora had determinedly overlooked the myriad irritations, meaning to enjoy herself no matter what. She had even decided that she would no longer be a hostage to a broken tour bus. She wanted to see the Mayan ruins at Chichén Itzá—the small ruin off the beach near her hotel had merely whetted her appetite for more—and see the ruins she would, whether the rest of the tour group did or not. So she had rented a car and headed out—and here she was, abducted at gunpoint by a criminal. Some dream vacation.

  “What’s your name?”

  Lora started at the question, which was growled near her ear. She flicked a quick look sideways to find that the obsidian eyes were once again visible beneath the brim of the hat. They were regarding her without any sign of emotion at all. She thought, Those are the eyes of a cold-blooded killer, and had to take a deep breath to calm her pounding heart before she replied.

  “You got papers with you—driver’s license and so on?”

  Lora nodded.

  “If we get stopped by the police, you show them what they ask for and stay inside the car. Don’t try anything fancy or you’re dead. You got that?”

  Lora nodded again, swallowing as she gave him another quick, scared look.

  “You here on your own?”

  Lora’s eyes widened at that. He must be beginning to wonder how long it would he before she would be missed. If she admitted that she was traveling alone, that no one would miss her until the tour group got together to board the chartered plane for home the day after tomorrow, her chances for surviving this would be even less than they were already, she calculated.

  “No. I’m with my family. My husband and two children.” Her voice was perfectly even. She had never been a good liar, but looking death in the face fortunately seemed to bring out all her latent deceitful instincts.

  “You are, huh?” Listening to him speak, Lora grew more and more certain that he was an American. Not only the accent, which she thought sounded vaguely Texan with its slow drawl, but the slang he used, the way he put his words together, was typical of the careless English of the United States. The knowledge that he was a fellow citizen (if he had not been stripped of his citizenship for some nefarious deed) should have made her feel better. After another quick glance at that hard, mustachioed face, it did not.

  “Where’s your wedding ring?” he shot at her. Lora was taken by surprise by the question, and could not resist shooting a quick glance down at the bare ring finger of her left hand. Good point, she thought, and also registered that he did not entirely believe her story. Why not? Was there something about her that made it seem implausible that she could be married and the mother of two? Surely she did not look old-maidish at twenty-seven! She was reasonably slim and attractive, and her not-quite-blond hair and guileless blue eyes had always led people to assume she was younger than her years. But she certainly looked old enough to be a wife and mother. And probably would have been by now, if not for that car crash. . . .

  “I left it at home. I was told that I would be safer in Mexico without expensive jewelry. Because of the criminal element.” She could not quite prevent a sardonic inflection from creeping into those last words. He ignored it as his eyes rested briefly on the finger in question.

  “Your skin is very smooth. Not a mark on it—as there woul
d he if you wore a ring habitually.”

  “My ring is very loose.” That was the best she could come up with. Lora had to give him points for intelligence. He might be a thug, but he was not a stupid thug. Possibly a sociopath. She had read that they were usually highly intelligent. . . . She refused to remember the other things she had read about sociopaths. Panic could not help her.

  He grunted, then suddenly bent forward to fish for something beneath his feet. Her purse, she saw as he straightened to open it without so much as a by-your-leave. She thought about protesting, but instinct warned her against it. Compared to kidnapping, and possibly murder and God knew what other acts of mayhem, opening her purse without her permission was a mere bagatelle.

  “What are your kids’ names?” He had extracted her billfold from the purse and was opening the clasp as he spoke. Suddenly she realized that he was looking for some way of ascertaining whether or not she was telling the truth. Lora smiled with inward triumph. She had pictures of her two little nieces in that billfold.

  “Heather and Becky.” He had found the pictures of the two blonde girls and was staring at them. The pictures were over a year old, taken when Heather was six and Becky was four. The girls looked adorable—who could murder the mother of such sweet looking children?—and enough like herself to be convincing.

  “And this is your husband?” He was looking at the picture of the man she had been engaged to for the last four years. A math teacher at Augusta High, Brian was thirty-five, good looking in a scholarly way, but perhaps a little set in his ways. But he was kind and thoughtful, and would make a good husband and father some day. And she cared for him a lot. They could have a good life together. If their relationship sometimes seemed to lack a certain something, well, that was life. Certainly having tastes and attitudes in common were more important. And in most of the areas in which they disagreed, Brian turned out to be right; certainly it did make more sense to save all they could of their combined salaries in tax-sheltered investments for retirement rather than squandering a thousand or so on a diamond engagement ring. She didn’t need a ring. . . .

  “What’s his name?”

  “Brian.”

  “Brian Harding?”

  “Yes.” He was looking at her credit cards and driver’s license now. Lora thought quickly, but she couldn’t remember anything on any of them that might betray her.

  “So why weren’t he and the kiddies with you in the car?” She breathed a little easier. Apparently there was nothing.

  “I wanted to see the ruins at Chichén Itzá. Brian didn’t, and we both felt that, since the girls get carsick, it would be best if they stayed with him since I would only be gone for a few hours.” “ Lora was pardonably proud of the calm certainty of her tone. If she hadn’t known better, she would have believed what she was saying. Why then was her captor fixing her with those narrow, suspicious eyes?

  “What will he do when you don’t turn up? Hubby, I mean?”

  “I imagine he will call the local police. And possibly the American Embassy. He will be out of his mind with worry. I have very regular habits.”

  “I can believe that.” The words were dry. He sent a quick assessing glance over her that left her with the impression that he did not find her particularly attractive.

  Ridiculously, Lora felt a little stab of feminine pique. She was no raving beauty, she knew, but she was generally considered reasonably pretty. Her sky blue sundress and flat white sandals were inexpensive but immaculate. Perhaps she was a little too generously endowed with breasts and hips, but the men of her acquaintance had never seemed to mind, and anyway her waist and legs were slender. The chin-length pageboy style of her fair hair was possibly a little staid (Janice thought so), but it was neat and shining, even in this heat. Her face would never launch a thousand ships, but it was well enough: oval in shape, with a softly rounded chin and forehead, and cheeks to match—she had often despaired of finding her cheekbones, although she knew they had to be in there somewhere—and a small, pert nose and well-shaped lips that were neither too full nor too thin. Nothing objectionable there at all. Her eyes were her best feature, large and guilelessly blue, innocent eyes her friends often said. They were greatly helped by a generous coating of black mascara on both top and bottom lashes; like her hair, her lashes were fair, although they were reasonably long and thick. They just needed a little enhancement. But because of the blazing heat and dense humidity, she wasn’t wearing any mascara at the moment, or any other makeup, for that matter. She had found that it disappeared after a scant half hour in this climate. She had put on a pink lip gloss before she had left the hotel, but from the dry feel of her lips, that too had vanished. She had good skin—next to her eyes, she considered her smooth, almost poreless-looking ivory skin her best feature—and so she never worried about not wearing cosmetics.

  Now she realized that she must be looking distinctly washed out. Like a pale, uninteresting nonentity, in fact. Which maybe she was—and in any case she would certainly be glad if her abductor thought so! Perhaps she would not then have to fear rape . . . Or maybe he would attack her regardless of whether or not he found her physically attractive. Her self-defense instructor had said that rape was not a crime of passion at all, but aggression and hostility against women. And he certainly was hostile, she thought, feeling her palms start to sweat again as she cast that jutting chin and thin, black-mustachioed mouth—the rest of his face was once again hidden by the sombrero—an assessing look. He had no aversion to hurting women . . . Yes, she decided, shivering anew, he was definitely capable of rape. What on earth was she going to do?

  “What are you doing?” The protest sprang involuntarily from her lips as she watched him extract a sheaf of mingled pesos and dollars and her traveler’s checks—several hundred dollars’ worth—from the inner compartment of her billfold.

  “What does it look like?” He was stuffing the money into the front pocket of his jeans, clearly unconcerned that she had seen him do so. He was robbing her, she thought indignantly, but in almost the same instant realized that there was nothing she could do about it. He was likely to do far worse than rob her if she could not think of a way to prevent him.

  She said nothing more, just stared out at the road and continued to drive. Tepid air blew in spurts from the air conditioning vents. Her body was beginning to stick to the vinyl seat even through her dress. Rolling down a window would be worse than useless with the ennervating heat outside—if he would even permit her to do so. She risked another quick sideways look. He was sweating, too. . . .

  Once they were within the city limits, which would only be another few minutes, she would make her move, she decided. If necessary, she would run the car into the side of a building. But she would escape, or die in the attempt. Better to go down fighting than to wait for him to do his worst. . . .

  “Pull over.”

  The command was so unexpected that Lora gaped at him.

  “I said pull over.” The menace was definitely back in his voice. Lora looked around in alarm. They were still some distance outside Chichén Itzá, and had just come around a bend in the road. There was not a car, a person, or even so much as a dog in sight. The tropical rain forest, with its profusion of trees and other vegetation, grew close to the road. On the left there was a little layby which, she supposed, was designed to allow cars to turn around. The setup was altogether too desolate for Lora’s peace of mind. With inescapable dread she imagined his intent: he meant to kill her, and whatever else he intended to do with her, here, before she had a chance to reach another town and perhaps try to escape. Out here, all alone with him, she would be at his mercy. . . .

  If she was going to act, it had to be now.

  She slammed on the brakes as hard as she could, sending the car skidding sideways with a protesting squeal. Her captor was thrown violently forward—so was she, but she had expected the car’s motion and so avoided striking her head on the windshield as he did, with considerable force, too, from the soun
d of the crack and his resultant cursing. Her left hand found the door latch and released it. While the motion of the car sent the door careening open, her right hand pushed against the wheel and she was suddenly flying through space to land with considerable force on the roadway. Her knees and hands, which bore the brunt of the impact, hurt horribly. But there was no time to reflect on that. With a single scared glance over her shoulder at the car—which was now traveling fractionally more slowly toward the dense line of trees at the opposite side of the road—Lora scrambled to her feet and started to run as if her life depended on it. Which, she realized as she heard the crash as the car made contact with the trees, it probably did.

  II

  He was chasing her. Lora knew it before she saw him, before she heard the pounding of his feet on the pavement or the rough pant of his breathing. She could sense him coming behind her like something out of a nightmare. She ran as she had never run before in her life, ran until her heart felt as though it would burst and her lungs threatened to explode from lack of air, knowing all the while that it would be useless. He was going to catch her. . . .

  He did. She felt his hand close on her hair, yanking her painfully backward. She cried out, staggering as her head was wrenched almost off her neck, one hand clutching mindlessly at his where it made a tight fist in her hair. She was being dragged back against a hard, huge overheated body, enveloped by the smell of sweat and just plain man, crushed by a steel-muscled arm that locked around her neck . . . Her head was forced back against his massive shoulder. He was not wearing the sombrero; the brilliant sunlight blinded her as she looked up into this face, trying to read his intentions toward her in his expression. Her eyes readjusted to find his harsh features twisted with savagery. Those obsidian eyes seared down into hers, glittering with fury—and murder? Lora screamed. The sound sliced through the thick hot air, hung shrill and shivering—and then was abruptly silenced by his hand clamping down hard over her mouth.