Wildfire

by Susan Lewis

  Through a crack in the warped wooden shutters Rhiannon could see the remains of what had once been a fountain. It appeared to be at the centre of some kind of ancient courtyard, but the mosaics were so faded and cracked that there was little trace now of the intricate patterns they had once made. From the angle she was looking at she guessed she was on a second or third floor, but of what kind of building or where was impossible to tell. The silence was like an empty pocket where only trapped and weary insects buzzed listlessly in the heat, easy prey for the occasional bird that swooped from nowhere to feast.

  The sunlight was so dazzling that she could only look for a few seconds before having to turn her eyes away and wait for the blade of white light to subside. Her jaw still throbbed from the blows she’d received and her head was pounding so hard that any quick movement brought a pain that almost rent her in two. Her mouth was dry, her clothes were stained with blood and sweat and her throat was raw from the futile cries for help she had shouted through the night. The rest of her body ached and shook, but no amount of physical suffering could be as bad as what she was feeling inside.

  Returning to the untidy pile of straw in the corner, she sank down into it and hugged her knees to her chest. Sweat trickled unchecked over her face, while the heat sucked all the air from the room. She sat staring at nothing, the matted strands of her hair fluttering in the draft of her breath.

  Hour after hour ticked by until the bands of light seeping through the shutters turned to faint ribbons of colour. Her need for water was increasing, along with the growing fear that she had been left there to die.

  Her head rolled back and a single tear trickled down her face. Then her eyes closed as the pain expanded through her heart. Maybe the worst part of this was not understanding why he had never told her. Squeezing her eyes tightly closed she reminded herself that it didn’t matter why. All that mattered was that they got through this. They loved each other, they were married now and if Oliver ended up losing everything, then so be it. She would stand by him, they would rebuild his life together.

  A silent sob shuddered through her and biting her lips to stop herself crying she covered her face with her hands. Just please God he was still going to have a life to rebuild.

  As confusion and despair merged with the pain inside her she heard a car engine purr to a halt outside. Immediately her eyes drew focus. It was the first time in hours that a vehicle had come this close. Fear and hope began to thud in her chest as pulling herself painfully to her feet she went to press an eye to the slit in the shutters. She could see no more than she had before, a strip of deserted courtyard, bathed now in a rosy twilight glow.

  As she turned from the window her face was taut with dread. Would they let her go, or were they planning some other means of getting her out of Oliver’s life?

  The sound of footsteps scuffed on a distant staircase as she slid down the wall and stared at the door. Her heart was beating so fast she was finding it hard to breathe; the pain in her limbs throbbed and ached and weakened her strength. She had no way of knowing how to deal with this, for never in her life had she come across people who behaved like this.

  Every muscle in her body suddenly jarred as something crashed into the door. Unable to stop herself she started to shake. There was another crash, then another. Someone was levering off the cross beams they had hammered into place that morning. Rhiannon’s fingers dug into her palms, an icy sweat was coating her skin. Suddenly the door burst open and her heart felt as though it was being torn from her chest.

  There were four of them, three men and a woman. Rhiannon stiffened with shock as her eyes fixed on the woman. For one blinding instant pity soared through her, then suddenly it was as though she was dying inside. Oliver was standing on the threshold. His face was as chalk white as the walls, his eyes were glazed with pain and his face was even more bruised and battered than her own.

  Her heart was pounding, then she started as her suitcase hit the floor, clothes spilling from the sides, an airline ticket taped to the top. Everyone was talking, shouting, moving about the room, but all Rhiannon could do was look at Oliver, and wonder why his eyes were refusing to meet hers.

  ‘Oliver,’ she heard herself whisper.

  He seemed to flinch, but as the man, Oren, turned to look at him, his eyes remained as empty as the gulf starting to open in her heart.

  ‘Oliver!’ she cried.

  For a moment it seemed as though he might respond, but then Oren was standing between them.

  ‘OK,’ Oren said, nodding to the other men.

  Rhiannon turned and her eyes rounded in terror as one of the men pulled a commando knife from the belt of his jeans. Her mind was in sudden uproar. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. One of them grabbed her by the hair and yanked back her head, while the other drew the knife, in one clean slice, right across her throat. The wound was superficial but the terror sank right through to her soul. Then her eyes bulged and her chest began to heave as the knife moved to her waist.

  ‘Are you watching this, Maguire?’ Oren sneered. ‘Do you see what happens when you don’t stick to a bargain?’

  Oliver’s head remained drooped to one side until Oren walked over to him and yanked his face up.

  ‘You were supposed to marry her, you dumbfuck,’ he spat, jerking his thumb towards Marcia. ‘Remember? You signed. You took your share, now you got to deliver.’ He turned back to the scene on the floor and gave a brief nod of his head. ‘Open her up, Joe,’ he said. ‘Let him take one last look before he makes up his mind.’

  ‘No!’ Rhiannon screamed, as in three quick strikes the knife ripped open her clothes. ‘Oliver! For God’s sake, stop them!’ she cried, trying to fight them off. ‘Don’t let them do this. Oh God, no!’ she sobbed as they pinned her arms above her head and jerked her legs apart. ‘Please, no.’

  ‘You got to choose here, Oliver,’ Oren grinned. ‘You give everything back you took from my father and it could be that you get to keep the girl. Or maybe,’ he said, ‘she don’t mean that much.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Oren,’ Oliver hissed. ‘Let her go.’

  ‘You got to choose, Oliver,’ Oren said. ‘Remember? Your wife or your life.’

  Everyone was looking at Oliver, waiting for him to speak. Rhiannon’s horror at his continuing silence was so great that it eclipsed even her fear.

  ‘OK,’ Oren said, turning back to Rhiannon, ‘seems we got our answer from him. Now we need one from you. But first I got to tell you that nothing’s gonna happen to you just so long as you tell me that you want an annulment from this jerk. Have you got that?’

  Rhiannon looked at him.

  ‘Is that a yes?’ he said. ‘You want an annulment?’

  Rhiannon’s eyes moved to Oliver.

  ‘Oren, just let her go,’ Oliver whispered.

  ‘You shut the fuck up,’ Oren snapped. ‘It’s her I’m talking to. Now,’ he said, turning back to Rhiannon, ‘these guys here, they’re about ready to fuck you, but I can stop them doing that, if you just give me the word.’

  ‘No! Let them fuck her!’ Marcia suddenly shrieked.

  The room went quiet as everyone turned to her in amazement.

  Marcia stood against the wall, her hands clenched at her sides, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

  Oren shrugged and looked at Jordan. ‘You heard the woman,’ he said.

  ‘Oh God, no!’ Rhiannon gasped as Jordan began unzipping his fly. ‘Please no.’ She looked up at Marcia. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Don’t make them do this.’

  But Marcia wasn’t listening.

  Rhiannon tried to struggle, but she was no match for the men holding her. She could feel their hands clamping round her wrists and ankles, their breath on her face, their bodies closing in on her.

  ‘Oliver! Help me! Please!’ she cried. Her entire body was juddering with terror, tears streamed from her eyes and blood trickled from her neck. She was dragged away from the wall and laid spread-eagled across th
e floor. She could feel their hands on her breasts, brutal fingers clenching her nipples and again she tried to kick out. But it was no good. They were too strong for her, too quick in their responses. They were going to rape her and there was nothing she could do to stop them. And Oliver was just going to stand there and let it happen.

  Knowing that once it was over she would want only to die, she closed her eyes and willed her mind to leave her body. It was the only way she was going to be able to endure what was about to happen.

  It was a while before she realized that no one was moving, that a voice, a stranger’s voice, was barking out orders and that somewhere in the distance people were running. Barely aware of what was happening her head rolled to one side, as the pressure of weight left her body. Then someone was beside her, covering her with the tattered remains of her clothes. She felt a hand on her arm, a hand that was both gentle and firm as it carefully eased her to her feet.

  The room was full of people, but her eyes were barely able to focus. Dimly she was aware of being led past them, of Marcia shrieking and struggling to break free of the man holding her. The other men were perfectly still. Oliver’s head was bowed. She was taken from the room, then lifted into someone’s arms and carried along a shadowed passageway, down a broken staircase and put into a waiting car.

  It was a long time later, as they approached the lights of another town, that Rhiannon finally remembered where she had seen her rescuer before.

  ‘Beside the pool,’ she whispered. ‘You gave me your towel.’

  Smiling, he cast her a quick glance, then returned his eyes to the road.

  Rhiannon looked at him, her dry, aching eyes sweeping over his profile. ‘Who are you?’ she asked, her voice as raw and broken as her lips.

  Again he smiled and arching an eyebrow he said, ‘Let’s just say I’m a friend.’

  As the chief stewardess moved past him, leaving a perfumed trail of L’Eau d’Issey in her wake, Max Romanov got up from his seat and made his way to the bathroom. They were, by now, just over half-way to Seattle where the monthly group executive meeting was being held at the First Avenue offices. Production heads, financial and legal officers, marketing directors; in fact all the chief operating officers of the Romanov organization around the country were flying in for the meeting, as they did every month, though the location always varied. Ellis Zamoyski, Max’s personal CFO and close friend, was on the Romanov jet with him, his attention at that moment wholly engrossed in a set of new proposals for pension agreements that were displayed on the computer screen in front of him.

  As Max retook his seat he asked the stewardess for more coffee and was just unfolding the Wall Street Journal when his telephone rang. Taking it from his inside pocket, he leaned across Zamoyski to point out something on the screen, then turning the phone on he took a call from Maurice Remmick, his chief legal officer and godfather to his children.

  ‘I thought you’d want to know,’ Remmick said. ‘A call just came in from Ramon. He found the girl. She’s with him now.’

  ‘Is she OK?’ Max asked.

  ‘I think so.’

  Max nodded. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Still in Morocco. Ramon’s putting her on a plane back to London in a couple of days.’

  ‘OK. Do you have any details?’

  ‘Not many,’ Maurice answered. ‘Seems it was an eleventh-hour recovery and not surprisingly the girl wants to know who Ramon is. He’s asking what he should tell her.’

  ‘Whatever he likes,’ Max responded with an ironic raise of his eyebrows, ‘just so long as my name doesn’t get mentioned.’

  ‘I reckoned that’s what you’d say,’ Maurice chuckled. ‘So, did you get a chance to look over the distribution deal that came up from Atlanta?’

  ‘Did you look at your E-mail this morning?’ Max replied drily.

  ‘Not yet,’ Maurice confessed.

  ‘You got my answers there,’ Max told him. ‘Is Ula with you?’

  ‘No. She’s got some dental appointment downtown somewhere. She’ll be here in a couple of hours. Do you want me to have her call you?’

  ‘No. Just get her to fax Galina’s schedule over to Ron Phedra’s office. Tell her to use the private number, I’ll pick it up there. I can hear the kids in the background, put them on, will you?’

  ‘Daddy!’ Aleks cried a couple of seconds later, leaving Max in no doubt that his son was spraying cookie crumbs all over the desk.

  Laughing, he said, ‘What are you doing in my study? Didn’t we make you one of your own last week?’

  ‘Yes, but Uncle Maurice won’t use my telephone,’ Aleks grumbled.

  Since Aleks’s phone was the very latest in Fisher Price technology Max reckoned Maurice could be forgiven. ‘So, you’re helping Uncle Maurice run things, are you?’ he said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And I don’t suppose you’re getting in the way at all?’

  ‘No,’ Aleks responded earnestly.

  Max grinned. ‘Well, don’t let me interrupt any further,’ he said. ‘Put Marina on.’

  ‘I have to go to school now, Daddy,’ Marina said bossily when she came on the line. ‘Mrs Clay is waiting.’

  ‘OK, honey. Did you remember to invite your friends round for your birthday party next week?’

  ‘I don’t have any friends,’ she retorted.

  Even though he knew it wasn’t true, the words cut through Max’s heart. ‘Sure you have friends, honey,’ he said gently. ‘You got Kathy and Lydia and Savanna . . .’

  ‘I hate them,’ she said.

  ‘Then you don’t deserve to have friends.’

  ‘Well, I have got friends, so!’

  Smiling, Max said, ‘You’re an impossible little minx at times, Marina, but I love you.’

  ‘You’re impossible too,’ she retorted.

  ‘But you love me?’

  ‘Only sometimes.’

  ‘OK. I guess that’ll have to do.’

  ‘I love Mommy all the time,’ she said angrily.

  Max took a breath, let it go, then said, ‘I know, sweetheart. And she loves you all the time too.’

  There was quiet at the other end of the line and in his mind’s eye Max could see the bottom lip coming forward and starting to tremble. ‘I want you to come home. Daddy,’ she said tearfully.

  ‘I’ll be back tonight, honey,’ he told her.

  ‘But what if I’m sleeping? That’ll mean I won’t have seen you all day.’

  ‘If you’re sleeping I’ll come and carry you into my bed then I’ll be the first person you see tomorrow. How about that?’

  She sniffed.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘OK,’ she said grudgingly. Then, ‘Will Mommy be there too?’

  Max’s eyes closed as his daughter’s pain and confusion sealed themselves around his heart. ‘No, honey,’ he said softly. ‘You know she won’t be there.’

  ‘It’s my fault, isn’t it, Daddy?’ she suddenly blurted. ‘It’s my fault she’s dead.’

  Oh my God, he groaned inwardly. This was the first time anything like this had happened in months, so why did it have to happen now, on the god-damned phone? ‘No, honey,’ he said instilling as much firmness and gentleness into his voice as he could. ‘It’s nobody’s fault. It was an accident.’

  Marina was silent.

  ‘Are you still there, sweetheart?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go and find Mrs Clay and tell her I said you could stop by McDonald’s on the way home from school.’

  ‘Do you mean it?’ Marina said breathlessly. ‘You never let me have McDonald’s.’

  ‘That’s not true. I just don’t let you have as many as you’d like.’

  After clicking off the line, he pushed the telephone back into his pocket and sat staring thoughtfully past Ellis out of the window.

  ‘Marina?’ Ellis said.

  ‘Mmm,’ Max nodded. ‘I’m going to have to talk to her counsellor again. I think maybe she needs some extra help.’

/>   ‘Maybe she needs a new mommy.’

  Max’s eyebrows flickered. ‘You mean, Galina,’ he said.

  Ellis choked back a laugh. ‘Well, I can’t think of anyone else I would mean,’ he responded.

  Max laughed and turned back to his paper.

  ‘I heard you mention the Straussens,’ Ellis said. ‘Did Ramon find the girl?’

  ‘Yep. Seems he did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. She’s all in one piece. Ramon’s putting her on a plane back to London and I guess if she never sees Maguire again in her life it’ll still be too soon.’

  ‘So what do you care?’

  Max frowned. ‘Who said I did?’

  ‘Then why d’you get involved?’

  ‘For Galina’s sake.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, I was forgetting,’ Ellis replied and with a brief shake of his head he returned to his computer.

  Chapter 15

  THE SUMMER HAD passed much more quickly than Rhiannon would ever have expected. Gone already were the long, balmy evenings; the nights were drawing in and the heat was fading, along with her wounds. That night in Morocco was something that rarely, if ever, got mentioned now; she’d put it behind her, was moving on with her life.

  Right now, her small Kensington garden was alive with laughter as champagne flowed and something by Janet Jackson blared out of the CD. The pond’s goldfish shied under a lily-pad, next-door’s cat had vanished and, locked in its cage, Mrs Romney’s rabbit munched curiously on a dock leaf while watching the interminable ebb and flow of glittering, vibrating bodies as they writhed and twisted and threw themselves about to the music. Everyone who was anyone in the world of journalistic television was there. Not necessarily those at the top, but those with wit and style, originality and flair; the movers and shakers, writers and producers who made it all happen.