Unwelcome Protector

by Alexa Wallace

  Tursunov! It had to be him. She felt herself sway as if she'd been struck in the chest.

  Marlowe stepped forward and took her elbow. His touch was warm and reassuring. Only moments ago she'd been ready to swear vengeance against him for doubting her truthfulness. Now she was almost ready to fall into his arms. She was becoming an emotional mess. Was it her imagination or was she seeing genuine concern in his brown eyes? If so, she was grateful for it, but she wasn't looking for emotional support right now. The task now was to find out what had happened to her grandfather. Even if she found he'd been taken as retaliation against her, as terrible as that realisation might be, it was better than knowing nothing. She straightened up, moving reluctantly away from his touch.

  'Did the car follow you when you came here?' she asked Tony.

  He shook his head. 'I looked in the rear view mirror several times and I didn't spot him. And Oxford Street was chock-a-block. If he was following he wouldn't have been able to keep up.'

  'Do you know the man in the car?' said Marlowe.

  She nodded. 'Tursunov, the man I told you about. He's an associate of Zina's.' She was aware that her voice was shaking slightly. 'I'll get the key to the house.'

  She hurried into her bedroom and got the key from her wallet. She also took the pendant containing the memory stick from under her pillow and slipped it around her neck beneath her T-shirt. If Tursunov had managed to follow Tony here, would he find his way in and ransack the place while they were gone? She couldn't take the risk. She was almost certain now that her grandfather had been taken as a hostage. Would Zina stoop to such a thing? Maybe. But someone who would never hesitate to do it was Striver Twist.

  This had now become a battle between herself and Twist. And maybe also Zina. But what they found at her grandfather's house would provide the final evidence. She hoped against hope that she was wrong and they would find him inside, sorting out the groceries from a trip to the supermarket, his phone mistakenly switched off. She toyed with the notion of returning the SIM card to her phone on the off chance that her grandfather might be trying to call her. But she knew she was deluding herself. The tight feeling in the pit of her stomach told her the truth. And it was all her fault. She'd brought it all down on him with her reckless behaviour. Why hadn't she just waited a few days and left on the weekend as she normally did? She would have had more time to prepare a defence against Zina. She fought hard to hold back the tears.

  She became aware that Marlowe was standing in the bedroom doorway, watching her. Again she detected sympathy in his gaze. Maybe he finally believed her. She hoped so. She had to work with him now to find the answers she wanted, and then to decide what action to take. At the moment he had the resources she needed to eliminate the danger she and her grandfather were in.

  'What are we waiting for?' she said.

  He nodded, then turned and led the way back through the lounge.

  Tony was ready, camera hoisted on his shoulder. He gave an encouraging smile. 'We'll find your grandfather,' he said. 'Were pretty good at finding people. It's our job.'

  Ada smiled weakly in return. She hoped he wasn't just trying to make her feel better.

  At the front door Marlowe used the remote to secure the alarm. 'If we have any unwelcome visitors I'll get a warning on this gadget,' he said.

  In the SUV he leaned across her to place the remote in the glove box and his hand lightly brushed her bare legs. This time his touch was like a burn on her skin. She clenched her fists with frustration and annoyance at her feelings. She had to push back at the emotions clouding her mind and concentrate on the problem at hand. She needed clarity and logic now. For the moment, she had to consider anything else irrelevant.

  Alex edged the vehicle out onto New South Road and headed for the city.

  'Keep your eyes open for the blond guy you mentioned earlier,' he said to Tony in the back seat.

  'I'm on it, boss.'

  Alex glanced at the woman beside him. Despite his initial feeling and his natural cynicism, he was prepared now to believe that she was genuine. No one could fake the concern and apprehension he'd seen on her face when confronted with the news of her grandfather. She cared greatly for him, that much was obvious. But how would she react to what they found at the house in Paddington? How far would she go to protect the old man? Would she cooperate only as long as it suited her and then follow her own course? Would she say one thing and then do another?

  What really bothered him was that he was beginning to feel protective toward her. He didn't want to see her harmed, and the wish wasn't self-motivated. He wanted her full story, sure, but not so badly that he would take risks with her safety. He hadn't found himself in this situation for a long time. He was proud of his professionalism. His father had bred it into him. Don't put the source in danger was the first rule. And definitely no personal involvement. He had every intention of following the first rule, but the second? No one could easily follow a rule like that. You couldn't just ignore feelings that suddenly appear for no apparent reason, no matter how hardened life has made you.

  Emotions, though he hated to admit it, we're pretty well uncontrollable, even for a man who prided himself on his self-discipline. He'd broken that rule once before. He'd allowed himself to trust too much, and it had led to disaster. Was it about to happen again? No! This time, if his feelings began to drive him in a certain direction, he would hold back until he was absolutely certain of his path. No more diving head first into the waves and not caring if he was caught in a rip and dragged down into the depths. That was the younger, more romantic Marlowe. That Marlowe was gone.

  'Where is your father?' she asked suddenly, out of the blue.

  'In Melbourne on business. He's due back today, maybe tomorrow. I'll ring him later.'

  'And your mother?'

  What was this? The interviewee playing the interviewer? Maybe she was just trying to stop thinking about her grandfather.

  'They're separated,' he said. 'She lives up in Queensland. Sunshine Coast.'

  'Do you visit her?'

  'Often.' He gave her his best friendly grin. 'She wants me to get out of the TV business. She doesn't want me to end up like my father. Work, work, work.'

  'Will you do what she wants?'

  She sounded as if she was speaking just to make conversation, as if she wasn't really interested. But he noticed she turned toward him as she spoke and he was aware of the blue eyes upon him. Well, she had a right to be curious, that was fine with him. She was putting her trust in him, after all. And he had nothing to hide.

  'Sons rarely do what their mothers want.'

  'My mother wanted me to be a detective,' said Tony.

  'He kept failing his exams,' Alex said drily, hoping to raise a smile from Ada. No such luck.

  'You love your work, don't you?' she said.

  Her tone was matter of fact, but he detected a hint of accusation beneath the surface.

  'It's important to me, yes,' he said cautiously. 'I like to find the truth in a story.'

  'At any cost?'

  'Of course not. I try to act responsibly.' What had brought this on? Had he said the wrong thing?

  'Why has Tony brought his camera?'

  What was the point of her question? 'He's a cameraman,' he said. 'It's his job.'

  'Are you going to film me at my grandfather's house?'

  Now he understood. 'I hadn't really thought about it,' he said honestly. 'But if I do, it would only be with your permission.'

  'I don't want to be the centre of some tabloid sob story about a crusading journalist rescuing a damsel in distress.' Her voice had become cool and controlled. The troubled young woman of only minutes earlier had disappeared.

  'You've got the wrong idea about what we do,' he said, trying to suppress his rising anger. 'We're a quality channel. We don't do junk journalism. If your grandfather's not there, we'll get a few shots of the house. Standard procedure. They probably won't even be shown in the final piece.'

  She
fell silent. Had he said the right thing? Looked like it. He needed shots of the house because this development, whatever it turned out to be, was an integral part of her story. If Zina had truly kidnapped Ada's grandfather to use as leverage against her, it was his job not only to tell it, but also to show it. That was the nature of a television story. She might hate him for taking advantage of her circumstances, but he would just have to live with that. It angered him that she failed to understand his job. But he had to remember she was upset. Was she using him as a punching bag to get rid of her frustration and stress?

  'I want to stop Zina as much as you do,' he said calmly. 'I promise not to take advantage of you or abuse your trust.'

  She remained silent. Was that it? Was she about to have another go at him or was she satisfied for the moment? His anger began to subside. She seemed to have two personalities: vulnerable and aggressive. Throw in ruthlessly perceptive for good measure. Three personalities. She could jump from one to the other without warning. Whatever the outcome of this investigation, when it was over he intended to get some advice from a psychologist acquaintance about how to handle people like Ada Byron.

  He glanced at her again. Now she was back to vulnerable, sitting there with her hands folded in her lap. And he was back to protective again. She looked like a child who didn't know what to do next. Was she playing with him? He eased back wearily in his seat. This whole relationship was draining him of energy.

  In Paddington he found his way up Glenmore Road and into the back streets, guided by an occasional quiet instruction from Ada. He passed a graceful old church and turned down a scenic side street lined by plane trees. At the end of the street was a row of narrow, modernised two-storey houses that had probably been workmen's cottages a century ago. Trendy and expensive. Whatever had happened in the patent rights squabble between old George Byron and Zina, George had obviously come out of it with money. A few vehicles were parked along the street, none black and none containing a blond man with glasses.

  Ada jumped from the SUV almost before it had stopped and ran to the house in the centre of the row. Alex got out with Tony and followed her.

  Inside, the ground floor was empty. Ada had already climbed the staircase and was searching the second floor. Alex could hear her calling her grandfather's name.

  'If he was here he would have come out by now,' Tony said.

  Alex nodded. 'Check the back yard.'

  Tony disappeared through a kitchen at the back of the house. He returned in a minute and shook his head.

  'Look around,' Alex said. 'Look for signs of a struggle, anything out of order.'

  He climbed the stairs to the second floor. It was obvious the old man was gone. How would Ada take the reality of it? Until now she must have been hoping for a simple explanation. Now she would realise something desperate had happened. And he'd learned enough of her personality in their short time together to guess that she would probably blame herself.

  He found her in a bedroom. If it was hers it had a spartan look about it, which didn't really surprise him. She wasn't the type for fluffy doodads, like other women he'd known. That was something about her he liked. She was standing in front of a window that looked out onto a back garden flanked by wattle and gum trees and enclosed by vine-covered walls. It had the look of a tidy garden tended by a tidy mind. Ada's body was shaking and he could see she was crying.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened for a moment, resisting, but then she allowed herself to lean back against him. Her softness shocked him, and her body seemed to shape itself naturally into his. Her attitude until then, her response to his assurances and offers of help, all had given an appearance of hardness. But in this moment, standing before the window in this sunlit room, that hard, defensive shield had fallen away.

  'We'll find him,' he said quietly. 'I promise.'

  How long had it been since he'd promised a woman anything? Since the last time, years ago when it had all gone wrong. Did he mean it as much this time? Yes, as much as he'd meant it the last time. Was the past happening again? He wanted to turn her around and look into her eyes and tell her that he meant what he said. Did she even hear what he'd said? She would probably regard it as nothing more than a comforting gesture and forget it. But he didn't want her to forget it. He wanted her to trust him, not just to tell her story truthfully, but to know that he was someone she could rely on for something more. How much more? He couldn't think. He was confused by the moment and he sensed that she felt the same. She stiffened again and pulled away from him. He let her go and walked back downstairs.

  CHAPTER 5

  Ada stood at the window and waited until her body had stopped trembling. The combination of finding her grandfather gone and the touch of Alex Marlowe's hands on her shoulders had rocked her usually reliable self-discipline. She needed time to recover. She couldn't believe that Zina was doing this to her, the woman who for a time had been her surrogate mother. Twist was behind it, she was sure, but Twist took his orders from Zina. And Marlowe? She believed him when he said he'd help her find her grandfather, but he had his orders too. His editors, his lawyers, perhaps even his father, all had a say in the story he was building around her. He was under pressure. Could she really put her complete trust in him?

  She turned and walked slowly down the stairs.

  Marlowe gave her a long look when she appeared. 'No sign of a struggle,' he said. 'There's a mess on the kitchen table but nothing else seems out of place. Look around carefully. Maybe I missed something.'

  Tony stopped filming and put down his camera. 'His mobile is in the kitchen,' he said. 'If he'd gone out somewhere he would have taken it with him, wouldn't he?'

  'Striver Twist has kidnapped him,' said Ada. 'I know it. We need to call the police.'

  Marlowe spoke up quickly. 'If that's what you want to do I can't stop you,' he said. 'But I'd advise against it. We need to know for certain that Zina is behind it. You need to ring her.'

  Ada went into the kitchen. She no longer felt the weakness and helplessness of ten minutes ago. Now she had the beginnings of a plan. She had to involve the police. She no longer had any choice. In his own world Marlowe was a capable man and had influential contacts, but against Zina that was not enough. What she needed was the full weight of the law behind her. Marlowe would be unhappy about losing control of the story but he had no choice either. He still had her as his principal source and she would honour their agreement. He would just have to put up with competition from other news organisations when the story got out to the public.

  She would use her grandfather's phone to ring Zina and convince her to rein in Striver Twist. She couldn't believe that Zina had given the order to abduct George. Though they'd become estranged over their court case of years ago, Ada knew Zina still had respect for him. This was Twist's doing, almost certainly with the connivance of the Russian, Tursunov.

  She found the phone on a bench and was about to pick it up when the kitchen table caught her eye. The ornamental seashell arrangement that normally hung above the table had collapsed and a jumble of shells, some broken, lay on the tabletop and on the floor. The scene looked contrived, as if the mess had not been caused by an accident. Someone must have deliberately reached up high and pulled the arrangement from its fixture. Had it happened in a struggle? Not likely. Her grandfather was too old to engage in the kind of wild flailing of arms that might result in such disarray. It had been done on purpose. By whom, and why?

  Something in the scene was significant, but she couldn't think what it was. A word, an image, lurked in the back of her mind but refused to come out. Many of the shells were from oysters, one of her grandfather's favourites. Oysters? The image in the shadows of her memory slowly worked its way out into the light. She recalled herself as a girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, sitting at this very table with her grandfather and talking about oysters and old religious saints from long ago. The memory was confusing for a moment because she knew her grandfather had little interest in hist
ory. What was the connection?

  In seconds it came to her and she caught her breath. The oyster shell had been the emblem for centuries for one particular saint, and in a flash she remembered his name. Her grandfather had torn down these shells and left them here as a sign for her. How had he disguised the intention behind his actions when confronted by Twist? Perhaps he'd snatched at the shells on the pretext of using them as a weapon. How Twist must have sneered at the desperate efforts of a weak old man. She would ask her grandfather when she saw him, and she knew that would be soon. She knew now what he'd been trying to tell her and she knew where he'd been taken. And no one knew that she knew. It would be her secret until the time came to reveal it to the police. Now she had less reason to fear Zina.

  The phone on the bench rang loudly and jolted Ada from her thoughts.

  Marlowe strode into the room and snatched it up. He listened for a few seconds, placed the phone back on the bench and switched it to speaker mode. Tony walked into the kitchen, pointed to the microphone on the camera and nodded, ready to record the conversation.

  'Zina,' Marlowe said loudly, 'we were about to contact the police. You could save us all a lot of trouble if you released George Byron. Then you might like to explain to us why you kidnapped him.'

  'What a coincidence, Mr Marlowe. I was about to call the police myself. A young woman I've cared for and trusted for many years has betrayed me and stolen company property. Transaction files on her laptop show a clear trail of what she did. And your actions in helping her have made you complicit in that theft. I think I have every right to enforce my rights under the law, don't you agree?'

  Ada opened her mouth to speak in protest, but Marlowe raised his hand in caution.

  'You had no reason to kidnap an old man,' he said. 'Release him and we won't mention the matter to the authorities.'

  'Please don't be melodramatic, Mr Marlowe. I've kidnapped no one. My old friend George agreed to join me to discuss the situation. He agrees with me that his granddaughter has behaved irresponsibly and has brought disgrace to her family name.'