by Ellis, Dee
A white SUV drew up next to Sandrine’s window. It sat a little lower than Jack’s car so she had an angled view inside. A man was driving. He looked to be in his mid-30s with blonde hair and soft features. The woman in the passenger seat next to him was around the same age and had her hair pulled back in the ponytail. She was talking animatedly on her cell phone and was laughing and happy.
Strapped into the back seats was a toddler, about three years of age, wearing a striped red-and-white t-shirt. He was staring directly at Sandrine.
They locked eyes. He appeared quite serious, even stern in the way that young boys more mature than their years can do; Sandrine’s mind was somewhere else, gazing straight through him. He waved a pudgy little hand. It faltered and eventually stopped after Sandrine failed to respond. His head tipped slightly to one side and a puzzled expression crossed his features. A small tremor twitched his lower lip.
With a start, Sandrine threw off her funk and, although she felt anything but cheery, she waved back. Wide-eyed, the child grinned hugely and began waving so enthusiastically his whole body shook. The car accelerated slowly ahead. Then, in a burst of speed, was soon out of sight.
She watched it go, aware that her spirits had been buoyed ever so slightly by this random encounter. There was something about the unabashed innocence of the little boy that touched her. Although fear gripped her heart in a vice-like hold, the sharp edges had melted off. A lightness akin to hope was fighting to the surface. She kept the child’s face in her memory like a totem of good luck. It may well be, she considered, that at some time in the future, if things got really dark, she could call upon the image to make her feel better. She eased back into her seat and watched Jack’s intense concentration and thanked the stars that he was there with her. Without him, she didn’t know what she would do.
After a couple of minutes, they took the next exit. Sandrine recognised the general direction in which they were heading but it was only when the South-West Mall, one of the biggest in the city, came into view that she had an inkling of their destination.
“Is this a good time to be shopping?” she asked.
“It’s a very good time to be shopping. Couldn’t be better, as a matter of fact.”
It was close to noon and weekend traffic was building on the approaches to the mall. Jack entered one of the underground parking garages, joining a long line of cars, went down two levels and found a parking spot close to a pedestrian walkway.
“When we get out, please don’t look at the other car,” he warned. “They’ve parked in the next row across, about six cars down. They have a direct view of us.”
Sandrine wasn’t aware of how tense she was until Jack came up beside her, hugged her in a bear-like grip and guided her towards the escalators.
“Relax, beautiful girl. Make it look like you’re having a great time.”
“Easy for you to say,” she replied earnestly.
As they rode up towards the ground floor entrance to the mall, Jack turned her towards him and kissed her lightly on the forehead. A large florid man who, despite the chill in the air, was wearing cargo shorts and an overly garish Hawaiian shirt, pushed past them.
“Get a room,” he growled.
“Not a bad idea,” Jack whispered in Sandrine’s ear. “But not quite yet. Two of them are following us. Must have left one in the car in case we double back.”
They emerged in the centre of the mall. It spanned several floors above them. A fountain was off to one side. Around it, escalators led to the upper floors. There was quite a crowd already, people of all ages and types with masses of shopping bags. Clots of teenagers wandered aimlessly, constantly checking their cell phones as much as they did their reflections in the shop windows.
Sandrine had shopped at this mall before and remembered it was anchored at either end by department stores. Smaller specialty shops, restaurants, cafes and a food court lay in between. At the centre, on the ground floor, was a massive ice skating arena that operated all year round.
A chill spread through her. This was getting serious. She was scared. She couldn’t see how they were going to get away from the Russians.
“Where to?”
Jack ostentatiously checked his watch.
“Must be time for a movie,” he said.
Sandrine stopped dead. You must be kidding.
Jack grabbed her elbow and propelled her towards another escalator, heading upwards.
“Not at all. It’s the best place to disappear for a few hours.”
“I don’t even know what’s on,” she said in all seriousness.
Jack gave her another kiss on the forehead and, throwing his head back, laughed out loud.
“You’re so cute when you’re perplexed,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Just follow my lead. And look entertained.”
They wandered the floors at a leisured pace, joining the flow of shoppers, occasionally dropping out to look in shop windows, ostensibly checking displays. The mall was filled with people dressed casually in jeans and light shirts in the artificially tropical temperature, carrying their winter coats, others in smart slacks or dresses. Some snacked as they walked or drank sodas from huge containers of soft drinks. There were few sombre faces. It was the weekend and the feeling of escape from the stresses of the working week was palpable. It was their time, no appointments, no meetings, nowhere to be but communing together in that one unifying 21st century leisure activity – shopping.
Jack snorted. It could almost have been a laugh.
“Dawn of the Dead,” he said cryptically. Sandrine looked at him as if he was deranged.
“The old zombie movie where the dead come back to life. They congregate in the one place they remember from when they were alive. The shopping mall.”
She looked around her. She’d never seen the movie, hadn’t even heard of it but there was something in the way Jack explained it that made her view the crowds around her from an entirely different perspective. It was creepy in an entirely ordinary way. If the end of the world was to occur tomorrow, she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be churches that would be full. It would be places like this.
Her mood, already highly reactive to the slightest nuance, began to turn in on itself. She clutched Jack’s arm tightly.
Sensing that she was edging close to panic, he put his arm around her and steered her towards the escalators.
“Come on. Time to move.”
On the top level, a multiplex held fourteen cinemas. Its entrance was amidst restaurants and cafes. They walked steadily, without any apparent hurry, letting the crowd wash around them like pebbles in a fast-flowing stream. Jack didn’t look back but appeared to be checking the reflections in windows as they passed.
“They’re following along well. This might work.”
In the foyer of the multiplex, they made an elaborate show of checking session times, pointing and appearing deep in discussion, then joined a long, snaking queue for tickets. There were a number of movies just about to start. The latest Tom Cruise blockbuster was the most popular. Jack requested two tickets, paid cash and steered Sandrine to the snack bar.
“Good news,” he said as they snuggled like contented teenagers, angled so that Jack could monitor the entrance in his peripheral vision. “They’ve taken a table at a restaurant right across the entrance. This would never have worked if they’d decided to follow us in.”
“Just as well they’re not Tom Cruise fans,” Sandrine said.
“Who is?” Jack replied quickly, a bright glint in his eyes.
Loaded up with huge tubs of popcorn, they ambled towards the cinemas.
“They think that’s the only way in and out,” Jack explained. “And, in a manner of speaking, they’re right.”
Inside the cinema, Jack placed the containers on an empty seat and guided Sandrine down the aisle towards the screen. Just ahead of the first row was a doorway with an Exit sign glowing above it. The heavy steel fire door eased closed
behind them. Wide concrete stairs wound down several floors before opening out to the street behind the mall.
“That will give us at least three hours before they begin to miss us,” Jack explained. A taxi was approaching. He stood out in the middle of the street until it stopped.
“No way. I’m on call,” the driver said as they hastily piled inside.
Jack handed across a fifty dollar bill. The driver looked at it for just a moment before it disappeared into his shirt pocket.
“You’re in luck. They cancelled. Where would you like to go?”
Chapter Sixteen
This time, Jack was more furtive. He directed the driver to the river, constantly checking out the rear window until he was satisfied they weren’t being followed. Near the ferry terminal, he paid the driver off and watched him disappear out of sight, then walked a short distance to a cab rank, waited for two to leave and then grabbed the next one.
They were at Jack’s warehouse within half an hour.
“Sorry about the picnic,” he said as he made sandwiches. “But there are a few things I should do here. Need to check out who these guys are and then work out our next move.”
They carried their plates plus two bottles of dark Mexican beer upstairs and down a long corridor. Jack’s office was just as she imagined it would be if she’d had the inclination to wonder what Jack’s office would look like. It was an immense space with bookcases lining the walls and reaching to the very top of the high ceiling. An old mahogany partner’s desk held a large-screen monitor and keyboard, telephone and a mountain of papers, books, magazines, news clipping and photographs. A couple of coffee cups were almost hidden by the avalanche. Sandrine wrinkled her nose when she looked inside one. Jack smiled with some hesitancy.
“I get a little distracted when I’m working in here. My housekeeping skills are abandoned at the door,” he admitted.
“Good to see you’re not anal retentive about everything.”
“Depends what you mean.” Jack reached for her and she folded easily into his arms. His kiss was hurried and intense, his tongue a statement of deliciously obvious carnal intent that had her juices flowing freely. “If you mean I don’t think about your beautiful shapely butt, you’d be wrong.”
The last few hours had been such a whirl that she’d had little time to dwell on her terror. The car ride, the walk through the mall, the crush of people around her, Jack always close, always attentive, dominating and forceful, taking such immaculate control of the situation. It had passed so quickly.
As she felt his enveloping warmth and strength, the emotions she’d held under such tight control came flooding through. She started to cry, softly at first and then with a deep shuddering release. Sandrine sobbed. Jack held her without saying a word, stroking her hair. She breathed him in, drawing strength from his deep masculinity until she attained some semblance of control.
“Don’t worry, baby. It’s OK. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
He lightly kissed away the tears that were coursing down her cheeks. For several long minutes, they were joined snugly together, their heartbeats merging. It felt good, better than that, it felt like Jack was the only answer to her problems that she could ever want or need. When he released her finally, she was calm though still a little shaky.
This is what safety feels like, she thought, her body singing with a tune she couldn’t quite identify. I want to feel like this forever. Whatever it takes.
“Have something to eat. It’ll make you feel better.” The warmth of his tone, the iron resolution of his concern for her lifted the darkness. She wiped away the smudged eyeliner with a proffered tissue.
“I thought it was chicken soup that did that,” she joked half-heartedly.
“Salami sandwiches come a close second. Eat up while I make a few enquiries.” Jack sat down at the desk, took a large bite out of a sandwich and started working the keyboard.
Sandrine took her plate and a bottle of beer to a nearby table. A number of art books, most dealing with the Renaissance, were spread across it. A legal-size pad was filled with a firm, barely legible scrawl. She didn’t want to be nosy about Jack’s work so she paid little attention except for wryly noting she had little chance of deciphering the handwriting. She devoted her time instead to checking the titles on the bookshelves, which were arranged in categories and subjects rather than author.
By far, the largest concentration of books were on art and antiques, dotted through with catalogues from major international auction houses going back a decade or more, and some very interesting and highly specialised monographs. It was a fascinating collection, no doubt built up over time. There was information there that wouldn’t be easily accessible on the internet, if at all.
Sandrine slowly ate her sandwich while engrossed in a book on art forgery. When she checked her watch, half an hour had passed. She placed her plate and empty beer bottle on the only side table that had room available then continued examining the bookshelves. It was amazing just how extensive Jack’s interests were. She looked across and he remained engrossed in his work.
“Do you mind if I have a look around?”
“Sure, go right ahead. I’ll be here for a while,” Jack replied distractedly.
Sandrine left the library and wandered down a wide hallway. Along both walls were framed movie posters. She stopped to examine each in turn. They were intriguing, with bright colours and wonderfully original graphics; she guessed they were stone lithographic posters. All were French but the movies themselves were largely American. The earliest seemed to date from the 1940s. One was for a Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall film. The French title roughly translated as “passengers in the naked light” but it took her a few minutes, despite being a big fan of old movies, to decide it was for Dark Passage.
It became a bit like attempting a cryptic crossword, which Sandrine had never been able to master, as she worked her way down the hallway, moving from poster to poster, trying to identify the movies from the posters and their mysterious translations. One of the challenges was that these posters had completely different artwork from the American originals.
Some were readily identifiable from the actors involved or some other key allusion. Others took some puzzling over. Thus, Audrey Hepburn’s Funny Face translated as “funny little face”, Le Magicien d’ Oz was clearly The Wizard of Oz, L’Etrange Creature du Lac Noir was The Creature From The Black Lagoon and so on. Sandrine found that the more fascinating posters, from a design point of view, were from the low-budget British film studio of Hammer and their 1960s and 70s horror movies.
She entered the next doorway she came to. It was a large, brightly-lit gym. As she’d never had much experience in this area, she guessed it was well-equipped. The floor was highly-polished hardwood overlaid, in certain parts, with soft rubber matting. One wall was mirrored, which had the effect of making the room seem even bigger than it already was.
In contrast to Jack’s library, the gym was pristine. Everything gleamed, from the chrome weights to the more elaborate machinery. She puzzled over a few machines but had no idea what they could be used for. Certainly, as she recalled Jack’s beautifully toned body, he made good use of this room.
She wandered to the far wall, her footsteps tapping noisily on the wooden floor, and to a door that she found unlocked. It was dark inside and she reached out, searching blindly until she found a switch.
The room erupted into a harsh, blinding light. As if slapped in the face, she stopped dead in her tracks, her breath sucked out of her as if the oxygen had suddenly disappeared.
The walls were panelled in black, slick and cold to the touch. The floor was white marble. There were benches and furniture of strange angles and contours. Steel cross-frames were fixed to the walls or hung from the ceiling. In one corner was a large bed, covered in black satin sheets and a multitude of pillows in various shapes and sizes. Large O-rings were set into the four corners of the bed, then she noticed them everywhere, in all parts of the
room, on the cross-frames, benches, set into the floor, even hanging from the ceiling.
At first, Sandrine couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. Her mind had seized, all thoughts evaporating under the harsh lighting. What is this? She shook her head. No, it couldn’t be. Not Jack, please, tell me it’s not true.
In a daze, she walked to a large cabinet panelled in black leather. This stood out somewhat with its elaborate diamond buttoning. She ran her hand across it. Despite herself, she found it a beautiful piece. The leather felt smooth and soft, if a little cool, under her touch and her mind instantly recalled Jack’s black leather jacket. The thought disturbed her because it also aroused her.
No, it can’t be, her logic pleaded pitifully, but her body began to betray her yet again. Her heart was beating fast and her breath was coming in short jagged bursts. It felt like a panic attack. She leaned her forehead against the leather cabinet, willing herself to calm down but also aware that there was a warmth blossoming inside her. Damn, no, not now, it’s not possible.
This room was a manifestation of things she didn’t want to think about, of dark desires she had no knowledge of and never, ever, wanted to. Jack had awakened her to many new experiences in the last few weeks. She’d crossed boundaries, many of her own making. Her body had responded to him in ways that had been impossible with other men.
Although she hadn’t seriously entertained the notion, she’d hoped it might be the beginning of love and not just raw physical attraction. Her need for him seemed as strong as his for her; if it was something deeper, she wished so much that he felt the same way.
Can there be such intense physical gratification if there is no emotional involvement? She didn’t think that possible. At least, it hadn’t in the past. Now she wasn’t quite certain. It had been such a series of totally foreign experiences that her equilibrium was totally messed up.
