His eyes were steady and his face carefully straight, but a muscle twitched in his cheek as he tried not to laugh. Kelly turned her head, staring wide-eyed at nothing until, he had taken himself back to the rear of the boat.
Damn the man, Charles-whatever-his-name-was! Angrily, she dashed tears of weariness from her lashes. She would show him. She would.
The sound of the outboard motor changed. They shot forward a few yards, then stopped, the motor idling as he pulled back on the throttle.
“Kelly, your life vest,” he called.
She pushed herself erect, looking around her, realizing it must be behind her in the middle of the boat. Reluctantly, she swung, leaning hurriedly to pull it into her lap before she reached for the shorts and top beside it.
“Put it on,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to attract the attention of the lake patrol by being on the water without it, now would we?”
“In a minute, as soon as I get my clothes on,” she snapped in unbearable annoyance, and immediately wished she hadn’t as she heard his choke of laughter.
She sent him a murderous look and turned sharply around. Even if she had been nearly nude before him minutes ago, there was nothing funny about her urge to be completely dressed now, she told herself as she struggled into her clothes. He would pay, oh, how he would pay!
Back at the landing beside the catwalk, she snatched off her vest and threw it down on the seat, then clambered out of the boat. She did not look back as she ran along the walk and took the path to the house. Jerking open the screen, she crossed the veranda and entered the house, moving swiftly through the living room and down the hall. Inside her bedroom, she caught the door and slammed it shut with such violence it shuddered in its frame and the crash echoed through the house and across the water.
Kelly stood for long moments in the center of the room with her arms clasped around her and her eyes wide and unseeing. She took a deep breath, then with a shake of her head, moved toward the bathroom, intending to shower.
Abruptly she stopped as she heard the sound of the boat’s motor once more. Listening intently, she could hear no sound in the house. Apparently, Charles had not followed her. Was that him in the boat? Was he putting it away in the boathouse? If so, how long would it take him?
Moving swiftly to the window, she drew the green-and-white drapes aside. It was the guard in the bass boat, though Charles still stood at the landing talking to the man. She would have a little time. With any luck, it should be enough.
She swung around, hurrying from the room. The door of the room Charles used was open. On the bed lay the clothes he had taken off earlier when he had changed. She gave them the barest glance before she slipped into the bathroom.
It was designed much like that connected to her own room. She went immediately to the medicine cabinet above the lavatory. Pulling open the door, she stood frowning. What she sought was not there. The shelves were empty of everything except the barest necessities.
In trembling haste, Kelly pushed the door shut, then began to draw out the drawers of the vanity table, pressing them silently closed again one by one. In the bottom drawer she found what she wanted, a first-aid kit. Taking it out, she snapped the latches and raised the lid. It was a well-stocked case a little larger than average. Besides an assortment of medicines, it contained a hypodermic syringe and a set of scalpels. Ignoring these, she took up a small bottle containing pills she recognized from the days of her mother’s terminal illness as sleeping tablets. Tipping four of them into her hand, she replaced the lid of the bottle, put it back into the box, and set the box into the drawer.
As she pushed the drawer shut, she heard the creak of the screen door on the veranda opening. Her heart lurched. She dived for the door, skimming through the bedroom and out into the hall, moving faster and more silently than ever in her life. The hall seemed endless, and then she was inside her bedroom with the door closed and locked behind her. She did not stop there, knowing that Charles might well demand that she open the panel and leave it open. She spun into the bathroom, and leaning over the tub, turned both taps wide open. For long, strained moments she stood listening. No one came. Nothing disturbed the quiet of the bedroom beyond the bathroom door. Only then, as she became convinced that she had done it, did she allow herself to sag in relief, allow her lungs to inhale deeply enough to still her ragged gasps for breath.
The afternoon passed slowly. Kelly took a leisurely bath and rinsed her hair before changing into fresh clothing. Lunch time had come and gone, but she disregarded it. She was not hungry after her midmorning snack, and she had no wish to face Charles just now. That would come soon enough, but not until the feverish plans revolving and dissolving in her head were set in some kind of pattern. She heard the boat as the guard returned from wherever he had gone, heard Charles go out to meet him. She did not stir. Let them do as they pleased, so long as they did not bother her. She had to think.
In the end, she gave it up. She would have to watch her chance, go with the moment. So much depended on what Charles did or might do. Few would be the opportunities to use the pills. She would have to wait, control her impatience and anger, smile and be pleasant. It might even be that she would have to make her own opportunity.
She could not hide in her room forever, but still she put off leaving it, unwilling to go out and face Charles. Her temper had cooled, but she wasn’t certain she could keep to her resolve to be polite if he made any reference to this morning’s events. Despicable, arrogant, hateful man. He was everywhere she turned. It was so frustrating, she wanted to scream and throw things. Not that she ever had; she just needed some means of ridding herself of the pent-up tension of the last two days.
Two days. It seemed longer, much longer. She did not know if she could endure much more of Charles’s presence, his control of her movements, his omnipotent ability to forestall her every effort to get away from him. Not the least of her irritation was the knowledge slowly making itself felt that the situation could be much more unpleasant for her if he wanted it to be. At no time had he exerted his full strength against her. There had always been the sense that he could have put an end to her struggles with him much quicker and more decisively if he had been willing to hurt her. When she struck him or tried to use her nails, he did not retaliate, preferring instead to confine her movements. His usual tactic was to prevent too much damage to himself while allowing her to tire. Even this morning, as she fought him in the water, half the time he had been supporting them both. There had even been that one moment, as much as she hated to admit it, when he had allowed her to rest long enough, after he had stopped her breathing to keep her from sounding the alarm, to renew her attack. If his sole aim had been to subdue her in the shortest length of time, he would only have had to hold her head underwater. She had tested his strength enough to know that, regardless of the fight she put up, he could have done it.
The knowledge, instead of earning her gratitude, only increased her fire. It seemed to belittle the threat she posed to him, somewhat like a strong man willing to handicap himself to assure an interesting fight.
All right, she was no match for him in speed or strength, but she still had the traditional woman’s weapon. Men called it cunning, trickery, intuition, but a better word was intelligence. She could not be counted out yet. And if she had to stoop to methods that were not strictly fair and square, then so be it. There was nothing legal or just in his using his superior strength to keep her there against her will. He deserved what he got.
Several times during the afternoon she heard Charles moving about the house, going in and out. He sounded almost aimless, as if he were bored with his own company, or else disturbed about something. Once she got up and looked out the window, but he was only sitting in one of the lounges on the front veranda, staring out over the lake with his hands locked behind his head.
It was getting late, nearly dusk-dark, when she heard his footsteps in the hall. She expected them to stop at his room, but instead they continued,
pausing outside her door. A knock came.
“Kelly?”
“Go away.”
“Let me in.”
She did not answer. She should have known he would not be deterred. The bedroom-door locks in the house were symbolic more than anything else. Constructed with a center hole in the outside knob, it was child’s play to open them. Kelly heard his footsteps retreating, then coming back. A moment later, he stood in the open door. He slipped the carpenter’s nail he had used to force the spring lock into his pocket and moved to stand at the foot of the bed.
“Very clever.” She flicked him an annihilating look, but did not move from where she lay on her stomach with her chin propped on her folded hands.
“Thank you,” he answered with perfect solemnity. “I have come at no small trouble to myself, as you know, to see if you are hungry.”
“Not particularly.”
“Well, I am. I have this inconvenient habit of eating at regular intervals. Some people who live on a more exalted plane, such as in a blue snit, may not need nourishment that often. I understand this, but still the question has to be asked.”
“A what?” she inquired, diverted, but also resentful.
“A blue snit. It’s on the order of sulking with muttered profanity.”
Kelly tightened her lips to keep them from curving into a smile. For some ridiculous reason, she felt better now that he had come to her. Not that she intended to allow that to affect her. “I was not using profanity!”
“Ah, but you admit you were sulking?”
“No such thing.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he told her, his tone soothing. “I’ll take you out to the lodge across the lake to eat anyway.”
Surprise brought her up from the bed. “You’ll what?”
“Since we were cheated out of our fish dinner, I thought we might try the restaurant at the lodge. I’m told they do their specialty, catfish and seafood, well, but on no account should we order a steak.”
“Who told you?” It was difficult to see in the twilight dimness of the room. The tenor of his words was calm and slightly amused.
“It might be more precise to say George was told — that’s the fellow staying with the old gentleman in the guest cottage, in case you haven’t been introduced.”
“You know very well I haven’t.” His volunteering the information surprised her. She sat up straighter.
“No matter. About dinner —”
“Why?” she asked abruptly.
“Why the invitation? I told you, I’m hungry, and all this talk about fish has convinced me that’s exactly what I crave.”
If he was doing this for her sake, as some form of compensation, he had no intention of admitting it “Aren’t you afraid I might try to escape?”
“I’m fairly certain you will, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
“Because you are certain you can stop me,” she said flatly.
“I wouldn’t say certain —”
“Only out of modesty, I presume?” she inquired with vinegary sweetness.
“And a hard-won conviction that it would be tempting fate. Besides, you may refuse to cross the room with me, much less the lake. I can carry you bodily a great many places, but I have better sense than to try it in a public eating house.”
“Something you don’t dare? I am overwhelmed.”
“I’m sure. Do you want to go or not?”
The temptation to refuse was strong. Acceding to anything he asked was a bitter decision just now. She was not certain she could do it, and yet she knew capitulation would be the wisest course. Here might well be the opportunity she needed. Even if she were given no chance to get away, she might retrieve some of the ground she had lost this morning by her ill-advised attempt at freedom. She could practice being accommodating and, at the same time, prepare the ground for the moment when she would make a more determined and careful effort. None of these things could be accomplished as long as she remained cooped up in this room.
She took a deep breath. “I will be ready in half an hour.”
Seven
She was as good as her word. Exactly thirty minutes later, they left the house. Kelly, a slender figure in a white sundress, the only thing suitable for evening she had brought with her, stopped at the foot of the steps. She glanced up at Charles.
“We can go in my car, if you like,” she said.
He shook his head, an unfamiliar figure beside her in a gray business suit. “While you were dressing, I asked George to get out the speedboat. It will be quicker and, barring a storm or some other disaster, I believe I can get you to the lodge without mishap.”
She moved ahead of him along the walkway. When they left the concrete for the muddy path down to the lake he took her arm. The heels of her white sandals made a tapping sound along the wooden catwalk. At the landing, she paused, waiting for Charles to go ahead of her down the steps, then give her a hand into the boat. She moved to the front, dropping into the cushioned vinyl seat behind the boat’s windshield.
The cry of a loon came across the water, a haunting, mournful sound. For no good reason that she could think of, gooseflesh rose along Kelly’s arms. She let her gaze rove the gathering darkness of the evening that was already blotting out the shapes of the trees, then looked to the man beside her. In the dim glow of the instrument panel, he seemed unaffected by the peculiar atmosphere of the lake at night. His face was calm and a little stern. She glanced away, drawing her shawl of silky gray-blue mesh closer around her shoulders.
Charles started the motor, then let it idle to a rich, rumbling purr. His voice was flat as he spoke. “There is something we had better get straight.”
Kelly swung to face him. “Yes?”
“We will be going into a place where there will be other people. You may be tempted to involve them in what is going on here. I want you to understand, Kelly, that it would not be wise.”
“Are you threatening me?” she inquired, her gray eyes sparkling with defiance.
“I’m telling you to think carefully about the consequences before you act. I’m sure you don’t want to endanger innocent bystanders.”
“You seem very sure of yourself. Has it occurred to you that you may be the one in danger?”
“Knowing how slow the average citizen is to believe an appeal for help, or to act on it when he is convinced, I doubt it. Still, I would like your word that you won’t try anything.”
“You would like me to put myself on the honor system, is that it?”
“That’s the idea,” he agreed quietly.
“And if I refuse?”
He reached to switch off the motor, then turned back to face her. “Then we don’t go.”
The look in his black eyes was implacable as he sat waiting for her answer with one arm resting on the steering wheel and the other along the back of the seat.
“What makes you think I won’t give you my word, then break it?”
“If you were going to do that,” he said, his mouth curving in a grim smile, “you would not have warned me.”
Was he wearing a gun under his suit coat? She could see no bulge that would indicate such a thing, but a good tailor could make it impossible to tell. She clenched her teeth together in painful indecision. What would he do if she tried to enlist the aid of the other diners? Muzzle her? Hustle her out? What if someone tried to stop him? How far would he go to insure that she remained his prisoner? Her imagination balked at picturing him as a killer, but there was the evidence of the exchange between him and George to cloud her judgment. Could she, in all conscience, risk forcing an answer?
“Kelly?”
“I won’t try anything,” she said on a long drawn breath. That did not have to mean that she would do nothing. There was still the possibility that she could pass a message someway, somehow.
“Thank you.”
Kelly flung him a narrow look as he turned to flick the motor into life once more. It was odd, but the appreciation in his voice
had almost sounded sincere.
The windshield of the speedboat provided protection from the blown spray and the swift wind of their passage. In an amazingly short time, they were easing up to the dock that jutted out from the lodge. The windows of the restaurant attached to the fisherman’s hostelry glowed with light. Built out on piers over the water, it was not a large place, yet the number of boats bobbing around the dock and cars in the parking lot was an indication of the quality of the food.
It was cool inside and well lighted, as suited a place where fish bones, small, white, and hard to see, could be a problem. The walls were hung with nets ornamented with Japanese glass floats in purple, green, and amber. The tables were built of rough-cut, weathered wood. Ferns and trailing plants hung near the windows, and ceiling fans whirled overhead, stirring the rich smells of seafood gumbo and other dishes succulent with shrimp and oysters that perfumed the air.
They were shown to a table in front of a large picture window where they could look out over the gently lapping water. They studied their menus in silence. To Kelly, everything looked good. It may have been the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen, or the thought of how little she had eaten all day, but she was suddenly ravenous.
When they had placed their order and the waitress had taken their menus away, Charles leaned back. His dark gaze was warm as it rested upon the golden-brown waves of her hair brushed back from the oval of her face, and the soft apricot tint the sun had given her skin. The white of her sundress was a perfect foil for her coloring, while its square neckline gave her a demure look heightened by the shadows that lay in the depths of her gray eyes.
“Would it be a violation of my agreement to leave you alone, if I were to tell how lovely you look tonight?”
She did not want to antagonize him, not just now. With one finger, she traced patterns in the condensation forming on the outside of her water glass. “I suppose not. Thank you.”
Sweetly Contemporary Collection - Part 2 (Sweetly Contemporary Boxed Sets) Page 10
