Only A Whisper

by Gayle Wilson

  “Stop it,” Diego growled.

  She found herself straining on tiptoe to relieve the torment in her shoulder.

  “The blindfold is necessary,” he said. “His orders.”

  “All right, damn it,” she gasped, hating herself for giving in so easily, but her eyes were brimming with tears. And she had thought she might hold out if they tortured her, she remembered in disgust. They were rapidly destroying all her preconceived notions about how she would react in a situation like this.

  The pressure eased, and she almost cried out again with relief. Submissive now, she allowed Diego to put the blindfold over her eyes, knowing she’d lost another round.

  He led her into the room. She hated the dependence the blindfold forced, awkwardly trying to follow Diego’s guidance, stumbling once over the edge of the thick carpeting. He took her to a chair, placing her hand against its upholstered arm. She eased down into the depths, the pain in her arm and shoulder finally beginning to subside. She cupped the elbow of the aching arm in the palm of the other hand.

  She could hear their voices, whispering from across the room, and she strained to understand what they were saying. Then there was only one voice, speaking very rapidly and, she thought, angrily, still pitched too low to distinguish words. It was Diego, telling his grievances to his partner, she assumed. At least he had been bothered enough by what she had done to react with anger. She had thought their fight was pretty much like a fly attacking a buzz saw.

  Knowing they were paying her no attention, she moved her hands to examine by feel as much of her surroundings as she could. She was sitting in a wing chair, she decided, her reaching fingers exploring. The voices had stopped, but it took her a moment to realize that.

  A hand touched her cheek. She flinched, but he caught her chin, turning her head back.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said aloud and jerked her chin from his hand. She knew it was not Diego, but the other, the one who had no name, only a voice. Of course, she didn’t know how many of them there were. There might be a dozen in the room now, for all she knew, but the subtle aura of that expensive cologne was very close.

  “You must realize the blindfold is there for your sake.”

  “For my sake?” Foolishly, she began to argue, hating the thought of having her eyes covered and doubting that it would make any difference now. They weren’t going to let her go. They hadn’t released the others. They were all dead, and she would be, too, so why the blindfold?

  “You have already seen Diego,” the voice responded calmly, “but no one else. That is, of course, to your advantage.”

  “Who are you?” she asked, cutting to the chase.

  “I hardly think that’s relevant.”

  “Relevant?” she echoed, suddenly losing her reasonableness. “You’re damned straight it’s relevant. It’s the most relevant thing in this entire situation. You have your goon beat me up and bring me here. What do you think gives you that right? Who the hell are you, you slimy Colombian bastard? What do you want from me? I told you I don’t know anything about the courier except he’s dead. He’s been dead a long time. Rotting in a grave somewhere. You can’t do anything else to him. It’s over. He won and you lost, and there’s nothing you can do about that now.”

  The fury that had flooded her at his calm patronizing was destroying her control. She wanted to cry, but she would never give him the satisfaction. This bastard would never see her cry.

  “Diego assures me he was only defending himself,” the voice said softly, but the amusement was there again under the polite surface. He was laughing at her.

  “You think it’s funny that your trained gorilla can manhandle me? You think it’s funny to hurt women? You make me sick.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny,” he replied, and the voice had been wiped clean of any inflection she could read. “I meant what I said as a compliment. Diego is enormous, but he found it difficult to control you. He felt he had no other option than to overpower you. You continue to challenge him. First you try to shoot him and then here, this morning, to attack him. You have my apologies for both of those incidents. It was never my intent that you should be hurt. Perhaps if you promise to stop attacking Diego…”

  The quiet suggestion trailed away, but underlying the politeness, she could again hear the undertone of amusement. Mocking her puny efforts. They were real concerned about her resistance. Real bothered by her ineffectual attempts to exercise some control in her situation.

  She didn’t realize how bitter her small laugh sounded. She shook her head at his mockery. “Yeah, right. Diego needs protection from me.”

  “Diego reacts. He doesn’t always think. Please, don’t attack him again. For your own protection.”

  There was nothing threatening in the tone. The words themselves were clear enough. If anything, there was only regret in the warning.

  “Go to hell,” she said, turning her face away from where she knew he was sitting. Close enough to reach out and touch her chin. Close enough then, perhaps, for her to…

  “Don’t even think it,” he said softly, his amusement again clearly revealed.

  “You need protection from me?” she mocked. “Afraid? Maybe Diego’s too big for me to tackle, but how about you, boss man? Or do you depend on the gorilla to fight your battles?” The thought was sudden, but she knew she was right. “He’s your bodyguard. Your personal goon squad,” she guessed.

  “Diego has been with me a long time,” he acknowledged. And then, “Diego?”

  She felt the huge hands fasten over her shoulders. He had wanted her to know that the giant was standing behind her, ready to do just what she had taunted him about. Ready to leap to the defense of the other, should she be foolish enough to think of attacking him.

  The one with the silken voice must have made some noiseless communication, for suddenly Diego’s hands were removed, and they sat in silence for a moment.

  “I’d like to ask you some more questions,” he said finally.

  Smiling, feigning an amusement she certainly didn’t feel, she shook her head. She hated the darkness of the blindfold, the inability to see what was going to happen, to be able to prepare for it. She remembered what he had said about drugs and dreaded most of all the prick of a needle, dreaded the loss of control. That had always been so important to her, and it was the key to what she must do now, of course—control what she could and let the other go.

  “Go to hell, you bastard,” she said again. Like a broken record, she knew, but she had no other defense, only her determination not to betray the others. Like Gates and Reynolds and Holcomb. Her team. She only hoped that in what was coming she could be as strong as they had been.

  Chapter Four

  “What do you know about the courier?” he asked.

  “That he’s dead.”

  “Did Hardesty tell you how he approached your agency?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything.”

  “Other than it was done through diplomatic channels?”

  She tried to think. He knew that. He had told her that. Was he fishing? Trying to trick her?

  “He didn’t tell me that. You did.”

  “Colombian, of course?” he said softly. Almost as an afterthought.

  “What?” she asked. Paul had only said diplomatic channels. She had assumed Colombian, but she realized now that she didn’t know that for certain. She hadn’t been told his nationality.

  “He approached Hardesty through a Colombian diplomat?” he patiently clarified.

  “I don’t know. Paul didn’t tell me anything about the courier. Whatever information you’re fishing for, I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps,” he suggested, “you aren’t aware that you know.”

  “You have all the answers. I don’t know why you’re wasting your time questioning me,” she said, immediately regretting the sarcasm. If he decided questioning her was a wasted effort, he would be free to dispose of her or to move on to less pleasant methods of interrogation tha
n sitting in this imposed darkness listening to his beautiful voice.

  “Did you never wonder where your source got the information he gave you?”

  He had asked her that before, so it must be importanthow the man in Virginia had gotten what he’d given them. They had wondered, had even discussed it, but she couldn’t make any sense of his repeated questions inviting her speculation. He must know where the information had come from.

  “No,” she lied.

  “You didn’t wonder how he was able to assemble such a wealth of data?”

  “I didn’t think about him. I took down what he said and then he died and that was it. In this profession you don’t think about the people who die. You can’t afford to.”

  “This profession?” he repeated.

  “I’m a cop,” she said. “People die, and the rest of us who are still alive move on.”

  “I don’t believe you are that cold-blooded, querida,“ he denied, amused.

  “Believe it. I’m a cop, and those are the rules.”

  “You are also a very beautiful woman. Too beautiful, I think, to be involved in all this. You should be dressed by one of the Paris fashion houses, draped in diamonds, laughing on a lover’s arm.” His deep voice was strangely caressing, like the hands of that mythical lover, touching her in the darkness. Again she had to consciously fight its appeal.

  “Yeah, well, I never meet any wealthy lovers. Just cops and crooks,” she answered mockingly, resisting the allure of his voice, but she had no trouble denying the image he’d suggested. It was certainly foreign to who she was.

  “Do you enjoy that life-style? Being a cop? Pinching pennies for luxuries? Saving to buy new clothes?” he questioned softly. His fingers touched the sleeveless top she wore, catching a fold of material between them. She knew what she was wearing was cheap, certainly by his standards. She could feel his fingers move against the thin cotton. She could even hear the sound the fabnc made in the quietness.

  His fingers brushed lightly down her arm, his thumb trailing over the softness inside her elbow, circling once against that sensitive skin and then moving slowly down her forearm, tracing the vein to stop at her inner wrist. She felt a small lurch in her stomach that she knew wasn’t fear. His touch, like his voice, was very pleasant and very practiced. Its seductive quality was something she knew she had to resist.

  “Get your hands off me and go to hell,” she said, turning her face away. She pulled her wrist from his hold and crossed her arms protectively over her body. Away from those warm, mesmerizing fingers. He caught her chin again and, holding it tightly enough to control, turned her head.

  “There is a great deal of money to be made in what you do,” he suggested quietly, his tone subtly altered. She knew immediately what he meant. She had known of cops on the take through the years, but she would never admit that to him. She lifted her chin from his fingers, and he let her go.

  “I’m sure you’d be very impressed with my paycheck. It might pay your manicurist for a couple of weeks. You’re right. Big bucks,” she agreed, forcing a laugh.

  “I’m not talking about your salary. I’m talking about payments for information. You’re in a sensitive position. You have access to information for which some people would pay a great deal of money. Have you never been tempted? Tell me, and make me believe, querida, that you’ve never profited from your position.”

  There was no condemnation in the gentle probing, but the idea was again so foreign to her values, it was itself an accusation, and she answered it.

  “I’m not filth like you,” she said, letting her contempt show.

  “Filth,” he repeated softly, but she couldn’t read the undercurrent. Anger, she would have understood, but that wasn’t the emotion that colored the richness of his voice.

  “I don’t sell out my friends, so if you’re offering me money—”

  “Someone made a great deal of money from betraying our friend in Virginia. Was it you?”

  “I would never do that. I couldn’t. Don’t you understand?” she said, and then realized the futility of trying to explain. “You don’t have a clue what people like me are all about. All you know—”

  “I know someone on your task force sold information about the courier that night,” he interrupted. “About the warehouse. Someone betrayed him.”

  “I had nothing to do with that setup. If it wasn’t the pickup team—” she began, and then cut off the urge to argue her own innocence. She was playing into his hands.

  “If it were not the pickup team?” he questioned softly, automatically correcting her grammar.

  With a small laugh, she shook her head again. He really was very skillful, which, of course, was why he was here.

  “Look, I’m not going to tell you anything. So…” she began, and then, at her foolishness, felt the cold fear again.

  “Why don’t you think about it some more,” he said reasonably. “Diego will take you back upstairs. This time, I suggest you go without trying to overpower him. Spend some time thinking about what you have to gain by remaining stubborn. And,” he added, “about what you have to lose.”

  She didn’t answer him. There really was nothing else to say. He was right.

  She felt Diego’s fingers on her wrist, urging her up, so different from those of her questioner. She stood, letting the giant guide her out of the room and up the stairs. When he left her alone in the bedroom, she removed the blindfold she’d resisted. Think about it, he’d suggested, and she knew her time and his patience were running out.

  THE BEDROOM offered little in the way of possibilities. She had heard the key turn in the lock as Diego left, but she checked the door anyway. Locked and very solid. The house was too well-built to have doors that offered someone her size a chance to batter them down. The furniture was all too massive to move. Apparently he’d brought a chair in from the hall last night for his vigil over her. She wished they weren’t so damn clever. She could at least have given them a little trouble by wedging the back of the chair under the doorknob. They’d have gotten in eventually, of course, but the thought of their annoyance was briefly satisfying, until she remembered that it would probably be safer not to have them annoyed with her. For self-preservation she knew she must cooperate to the limits permitted by her own code of ethics.

  She walked to the double windows and raised the heavy shade. She was looking down into a rose garden, with hundreds of hybrid teas and climbers rioting over scattered trellises. The massive blooms of the teas, heavy in the heat, drooped on their tall stalks. She knew if she could open the windows, she would be able to smell the fragrances released by the sun.

  Her fingers trembling suddenly, she touched the metal lock and, holding her breath, felt it turn easily under her fingers. There was no grill over the outside. Could they have assumed because the bedroom was on the second floor that she wouldn’t try to get out this way? They didn’t know her very well, despite the obvious quality of his information. Rachel only to your mother, he’d said so smugly.

  You leave my mother out of this, she thought. Don’t even say the word. You probably don’t have a mother. Snakes are hatched.

  She knew she was only delaying, savoring the small flame of hope that the turning lock had provided. Putting her hands on the top of the lower half of the mullioned window, she lifted. Nothing. It didn’t budge. She bent her knees, putting her thigh muscles into it. Still nothing. She stepped back slightly and examined the wood surrounding the panes.

  The window had been nailed closed. She could see the heads angling to bite securely into the casement. Primitive, but highly effective, given that she had nothing to work with. She doubled up her fist and hit the top of the lower casement. The pain was astringent. Nothing was going to be easy. She wasn’t dealing with idiots. She knew that. Why believe they would ignore the obvious escape route out the windows?

  Breaking the glass wouldn’t do any good. She couldn’t break the wooden mullions and shatter the panes without making a lot of noise. Th
ey’d be up here before she’d destroyed enough of the window to get out. She looked around the bedroom for something she could use to pry the nails out and then moved into the bathroom. For thoroughness’ sake, she looked in all the drawers and even through her suitcase, wondering briefly if she could take the case apart and use one of the metal ribs. Yeah, right. With my bare hands. Superwoman rips up Samsonite.

  She sat on the bed and tried to think. The dangers of the two-story drop never even crossed her mind. A chance was all she’d asked for, and if she could only get the windows open—

  The knock was unexpected. Apparently someone had suggested manners to the gorilla. Silken Voice, no doubt. The one with the charm and sophistication. A little accent. A little foreign intrigue. Cesar Romero. Or Ricardo Montalban, maybe.

  When the knock came again, she responded. Her mother had taught her manners, too.

  “Come in,” she called, never moving from the bed.

  She listened to Diego unlock the door and watched his caution in opening it. Only when he saw where she was did he turn to pick up the tray from the hall credenza.

  A knife, she thought, the hope again like a sudden flame. Or a fork. The handle of a spoon, even. As long as they weren’t plastic. She schooled her face and simply watched as he set the tray down on the mahogany dresser.

  “Gracias,“ she said.

  “De nada,” he responded automatically and then, seeing her lips quirk, he added, “You’re welcome. He said to wish you enjoyment.”

  Diego turned and disappeared, dutifully locking the door behind him.

  She was sprinting across the room before he’d completed the action. Fork, spoon and knife. A simple place knife, but maybe it would do. Hallelujah. How long before he’d return? she wondered. Maybe thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to work. And to eat. They’ll be suspicious if I don’t eat, she told herself.

  She lifted the cover over the plate and found eggs Benedict and there was coffee in the silver pot. The mingled aromas made her mouth water. She couldn’t resist a bite. The coffee she gulped to wash it down burned her mouth, and with tears in her eyes, she grabbed the knife and headed toward the windows.