Snatched

by Pamela Burford

  “Take my car,” Judith said. “It’s inconspicuous.”

  “That’ll give you enough time to park at JFK or LaGuardia,” Will said, “and grab a flight. It doesn’t matter where.” He didn’t bring up the sticky subject of passports or flight manifests. Even if Will were sincere in the offer of a ninety-minute head start—yeah, right—and even if Lynch made it onto a flight, the authorities would be waiting for him when he landed. He was betting on Lynch being too desperate and distracted to see that far ahead.

  “Let Judith come over here with us,” Fergus said. “Then we can work on gettin’ that thing off you.”

  “Nail polish remover,” Lucy said. “That’ll do the trick.”

  “It’s true,” the Murminator put in. “That’s the only thing that works.” No one asked him how he knew.

  “You better have some,” Lynch said.

  “Are you kidding? Of course I do.” Lucy nodded toward the rear of the house. “In that little half bath. I’ll go get it.”

  “No. She will.” Lynch indicated Judith. “You come here.” If there was one lesson he’d absorbed during the past few hours, it seemed to be: Never let Lucy near a bathroom.

  Lynch grabbed Lucy and gave Judith a shove toward the powder room. “Same deal. You have two minutes.”

  “All my nail stuff is together,” Lucy told her. Will hated seeing her with a pistol pressed to her head. The fact that she was forced into close proximity to Lynch’s dangling dick made it all the worse. She added, “It’s all in a hatbox on the—”

  “What the hell’s taking so long?” Frank demanded, stalking in from the foyer.

  Lynch started at the intrusion. Lucy elbowed him in the gut, stomped his foot, and wrenched out of his hold. Fergus, meanwhile, moved like lightning, extracting something from his right hippie stomper and bringing it to his mouth. Will recognized the handmade bamboo blowgun.

  Pffffffft! Lynch yelped as a steel dart punctured the meat of his thigh. Before he could react, Will and the others were on him as promised, disarming and subduing him in seconds.

  The fight went out of Lynch quickly. He lay sprawled on the plush carpet, his back bowed by the toilet seat, his privates rudely elevated, the dart bobbing in his thigh. The others stood around him in a circle, everyone but Frank, who flopped onto the sofa and grumped, “Guess no one’s going to tell me what’s going on.” He sifted through the stack of magazines on the lamp table and settled down with Allure.

  Lynch’s jaw was slack, his eyes at half mast—altogether a relaxed expression if not for the worried-looking brow twitches. His hands and feet jerked restlessly as he muttered a slurred, “. . . the hell . . . can’t . . .”

  He winced in pain when Fergus jerked the dart from his leg. “Anyone care to venture a guess?” Fergus asked, displaying the dart’s business end—tinged with blood and traces of a dark, tarry substance—before sliding a protective cap over it.

  Wesley raised his hand.

  Fergus pointed to him. “The gentleman in brown.”

  Lynch’s eyes were now closed, but Will doubted he was unconscious. His breathing was irregular, punctuated by diaphragm spasms and an odd snoring sound. Once in a while, a finger or toe twitched.

  “Rattlesnake venom?” Wesley guessed.

  “I am sorry, rattlesnake venom is not the correct answer, but I admire the workin’s of your mind. Anyone else? You’re disqualified, Will, you know me too well.”

  “Is it one of those, like, rhino tranquilizers?” the Murminator asked. “Like you see on Animal Planet?”

  “No. Sorry. Here’s a hint.”

  Lucy frowned down at Lynch, whose breathing seemed to be shutting down by the second. “Shouldn’t we call nine-one-one?”

  “I made it myself,” Fergus said.

  Wesley’s eyebrows rose. “The poison?” Everyone appeared duly impressed.

  “In the Amazon,” Fergus added, with encouraging gestures that invited more guesses. “Come on, people. Okay, final clue. The Ketchwa natives took me under their wing and showed me how to find the vine, how to crush the roots and stems—”

  “Curare!” Judith cried.

  “Right you are, darlin’.” Fergus gave his woman a proud wink.

  Lucy was still staring worriedly at Lynch. “Is he dead?”

  “Not yet. Technically, curare isn’t a poison, it’s a powerful muscle relaxant.” Fergus squatted by the prone man. “It works by paralyzin’ the entire body. Death results from respiratory arrest. Meanwhile the victim remains fully conscious. Hal can hear everything we’re sayin’.” He pinched the man’s arm, hard. “He can feel pain, but he can’t react. His mind is as sharp as ever, and he can see.” Fergus pried open one of Lynch’s eyes and addressed him directly. “You’ve probably noticed you stopped breathing.”

  “All right, I’m calling.” Lucy hurried away.

  “The medics won’t get here in time to save you,” Fergus told Lynch. “That’s the bad news. The good news is, it’s possible for you to hang on till then if one of us can be moved to do your breathin’ for you. To give the kiss of life, as it’s called.” He looked up at the others. “How about it? Anyone up for a little mouth-to-mouth action?”

  The small group shared conflicted glances. None of them wanted to watch a man die, even a man as repellant as Hal Lynch, but they’d all be happier if someone else played hero. Frank never looked up from “Eyeliner Do’s and Don’ts.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Judith grumbled. “Like I could really go home and tell my son I stood by and let his father suffocate. Hope you enjoy this, Hal.” She knelt by Lynch and tipped his head back. “It’s the last kiss you’re ever going to get from a woman.”

  Chapter 32

  LUCY PULLED GRANDMA Willie’s quilt more snugly around herself. She stood flanked by the open French doors of the library, staring out at her dark backyard. She had to stop thinking of this room as the library. It was the sunroom now, as it should have been all along. Tomorrow she’d arrange to have Frank’s prefab collection of great books shipped to Anne Marie. Let his wife decide what to do with them.

  It was late. Two a.m., three maybe; she didn’t know, didn’t care. She could just make out Will’s dim form out there, and Judith’s. They’d taken a stroll after the police had left, long after the departure of the ambulance carrying Hal Lynch, shackled, intubated, awake and aware though still completely paralyzed. He would recover during the next few hours, according to Fergus. Lucy wanted to believe Lynch would spend the rest of his life behind bars, but the judicial and penal systems were less than predictable. Who could say for sure?

  Will and his sister had been talking for a long time out there. Lucy couldn’t hear what they were saying, but neither had stalked off yet. She watched Will take Judith’s hands in his. A few moments later, their shadowy forms merged in an embrace. They stood that way for several minutes before ambling back toward the house, arms around each other.

  Fergus materialized from the gloom at the edge of the lawn, startling Lucy. He must have been watching, too. Judith kissed her brother’s cheek, and she and Fergus headed for her car. Will stood looking after them until they disappeared around the side of the house.

  Lucy stepped onto the patio then, the slate cool and satiny under her bare feet, the grass cooler still as she closed the distance between them. Will turned as she approached. Even in the faint silvering from a crescent moon, she could see how exhausted he was, mentally more than physically, she suspected. His welcoming smile went no further than his eyes.

  Clutching the quilt one-handed, she stroked his cheek, bristly with stubble. She brushed her thumb over his mouth. He caught her fingers in a grip so fierce, it was almost bruising.

  “I went a little nuts when I found out he had you.” His voice was hoarse. “It took everything I had to hold it together and . . .” He sighed from deep in his chest.

  “You did a lot more than hold it together, Will.” She smiled up into his tired eyes. “The men in my life seem intent on
mounting their own rescue operations, the authorities be damned.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.” At her perplexed frown he added, “The men in your life. I thought Frank was past tense. Is there anyone else?”

  “Frank is most certainly past tense, and you know damn well there’s no one else.” She gave him a pointed look. “Does that mean you consider yourself the man in my life?”

  Without hesitation he said, “Absolutely.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I would have done this anyway, but it only feels right doing it for the man in my life.” Lucy dropped the quilt to the grass and stood before him in her birthday suit.

  Will no longer looked tired. He simply looked. For a good long time before his gaze flicked to the house.

  “The cops are gone. Everyone went home,” she said. “We’re alone.”

  It took a few moments for her words to sink in. Then he wore a goofy little smile. “Really?”

  Her hands went to her hips. “Would I be standing here in the altogether if there was the slightest chance—”

  “Point made.” He slid his arms around her and pulled her close. His warm hands got busy. “You’re cold.”

  “Not anymore.” She pushed the hoodie off his shoulders, then tugged his T-shirt up.

  He leaned in close to her ear as he shucked off the rest of his clothes. His voice was a seductive rumble. “You ever do it outdoors?”

  That prompted a snort of derision. “Right. Frank wouldn’t even let me open the bedroom windows in case, I don’t know, we scared a squirrel or something.” Lucy’s nearest neighbor lived so far away, she could have howled in passion at the top of her lungs and never been heard by another living soul. Not that that supposition had ever been tested. Sex with Frank had been predictable in every sense. It was basically birthdays and national holidays, with the occasional exotic-vacation quickie thrown in.

  Will’s body pressed to hers felt like a furnace—a hard and sleek, virile, intoxicating, mind-blowingly sexy furnace. Lucy felt as if it were her first time. In a sense, it was her first time—the first time she’d had sex because she really, really wanted to. With Frank, she’d kept the goodies under lock and key until the wedding night, a strategic part of her cunning plan to wrangle herself an upstanding citizen and remake herself as Mrs. M.B.A. The good news? Her cunning plan had worked. Which also happened to be the bad news.

  Will’s talented hands and mouth abandoned her long enough to spread the patchwork quilt on the grass. She saw him lean in close to examine the oddly shaped patches by weak moonlight.

  “My grandma Willie made it,” Lucy said. “She’s an original. Let’s leave it at that.”

  He squinted closer. “Is that a little sock?”

  She sighed. “One of my baby socks. If you keep on looking, you’ll find Grandma’s white gloves, Grandpa’s sleeping cap, John’s teddy bear pelt, Mom’s first training bra, and Great-grandpa Max’s last hankie. Among other family ‘keepsakes.’”

  He looked up. “You mother’s bra?”

  “Her first and only. She never wore one after that. Still doesn’t.”

  “Sounds like quite a character.” He pulled Lucy down to sprawl on the quilt with him. “I’d like to meet her.”

  “Isn’t that a little serious for a free spirit like you?” She trailed her fingers through his springy chest hair. “Meeting a woman’s family?”

  “You weren’t paying attention. I am serious, Lucy. We’re serious.” He stroked her breast, brushing his thumb across the nipple. “Besides, I’ve already met your twin sister. And your . . . what do you call your husband’s other wife?”

  “I call her my husband’s other wife. Officially? She’s my ex-husband’s second wife. If you want to keep chatting—” Lucy arched against his hand “—you’re going to have to stop doing that.”

  “Tough choice.” His mouth followed his fingers, making Lucy truly thankful she had no neighbors within earshot.

  They explored each other with the zeal of new lovers, rolling from Ethel’s Christmas stocking to a scrap of Uncle Dave’s baby blanket to the monogrammed napkin Great-grandma Mamie filched from the Hotel Ritz during her 1913 Paris honeymoon. The keepsake quilt had never been put to better use.

  When finally they came together, Lucy couldn’t believe how good it felt, how just plain right. Her new lover was enthusiastic. He was uninhibited. He was—thank you, Jesus—athletic. Clearly, this man loved sex. He loved the feel of it, the sounds of it, even the mess of it. Who knew sex could be so much fun? Will treated Lucy to three brain-sapping orgasms before he let himself go, then he did it all over again.

  At last they collapsed in a boneless heap, Lucy’s head tucked against Will’s chest, his arm draped around her shoulder. She felt his heartbeat slow from a gallop to a sedate canter, felt his breathing turn deep and rhythmic. Soon he was snoring lightly. When their sweat dried, she reached around and dragged the edges of the quilt up, swaddling them in a tidy bundle: a double nookie burrito, heavy on the afterglow.

  For several minutes she was content simply to lie there, relishing the feel of him, the heat and scent of him, the welcome soreness that reminded her how long it had been since she’d had any kind of sex, much less the vigorous, joyous brand of lovemaking she’d just been treated to.

  The man in her life. She smiled. Then she remembered.

  “Oh! Oh! Will. Wake up.” She shook him.

  “What!” He bolted upright, glancing wildly around. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, I just forgot to tell you why I came to your house today. My news.”

  He grabbed his chest and collapsed onto the quilt. “Jesus Christ, Lucy, don’t do that to me. Not after the day I’ve had.”

  “You’ll never believe it.” She leaned on a palm, grinning down at him. “Johnny Sherlock’s going to be a movie!”

  His eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

  “A producer optioned the first book years ago and just kept renewing it. I figured nothing would ever come of it. That’s the way it usually goes.” She couldn’t help it, her grin was irrepressible. “But Johnny’s been getting more popular all the time. Kids’ book clubs have been picking it up. And anyway, today my agent called—well, yesterday, I guess it was—”

  “And?” Will sat up.

  “And they bought it! They’re starting production, the casting and all that. Johnny Sherlock’s going to be a movie!” she squealed.

  Will swept her into his arms. He told her how happy he was for her, and how proud. Her lips were still sensitive from their high-impact aerobic workout. By contrast, this kiss was tender, lingering, spiritual. It was the yoga of kisses.

  “I know one nine-year-old boy who’s going to freak when he hears the news.” He cocked his head. “How does it feel? Being the next J.K. Rowling.”

  “It feels damn good.” She giggled like a schoolgirl.

  He reached for his boxer briefs. “What I really want to know is, when can I order a Johnny Sherlock Happy Meal?”

  She made a face.

  “Are you kidding?” he said. “Every kid under twelve will be begging their parents for an authentic Johnny Sherlock action figure. Collect the whole set. Accessories sold separately. Hey!” She’d snatched his briefs as he started to step into them.

  “You won’t be needing these.” Lucy started for the house, leaving Will to gather their things and catch up.

  She’d never sashayed in her life. She hoped she was doing it right.

  Epilogue

  The New York Times VOWS

  Wesley McIntyre,

  Joseph Silver

  WESLEY CARSON MCINTYRE and Joseph Robert Silver were married yesterday in Southampton. The Rev. Lois Stryker and Rabbi Nathan Katz performed the interfaith ceremony at the South Fork Unitarian Universalist Church.

  Mr. McIntyre, 43, is a private investigator in Nassau County and a former officer in the NYPD. He attended Hofstra University
for two years before entering the Police Academy. He is a son of Richard and Doreen McIntyre of Brooklyn, who own and manage The Poseidon Seafood Grill in Oceanside, N.Y. His mother is a former Miss Rheingold.

  Mr. McIntyre’s first marriage ended in divorce.

  Mr. Silver, 36, is a guidance counselor at Baldwin Middle School and also teaches Hebrew at Union Reform Temple in Freeport, N.Y. He graduated from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and received a master’s degree in school counseling from Columbia. He is the son of Benjamin Silver of Manhattan, a professional poker player and host of the syndicated radio program “No Limit,” and the stepson of Jeanne Kowalczyk Silver, a professional matchmaker.

  The wedding and reception were attended by more than 300 guests. One notable guest was Wilbur Kitchen, better known to fans of 1980s sitcoms as Ricky Baines, the redheaded child star of the popular NBS program In No Time who was abducted and held for ransom during the show’s third season. Mr. McIntyre was the first police officer on the scene of the kidnapping. Ricky Baines was ultimately reunited with his family, but the crime remained unsolved until last April when Mr. McIntyre reopened the case in his capacity as a private investigator. He succeeded in identifying and helping to apprehend the kidnapper, Harold Stuart Lynch, who had been paroled weeks earlier on an unrelated murder conviction.

  During the kidnapping ordeal twenty-five years ago, NBS had offered a reward of $100,000 for information leading to a conviction in the case. In August a jury found Mr. Lynch guilty of the kidnapping, and Mr. McIntyre collected the award. Mr. Lynch is currently serving twenty-five years to life at Attica Correctional Facility.

  ###

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