by Webb, Peggy
“Not a clue. I’ve hired a team of investigators.”
Rick’s shoulders slumped as he gazed down at his cup.
“And?”
“So far they’ve found nothing. Not a trace.”
Hunter didn’t have to be told in order to understand the grave consequences. Each day that passed lessened the chances of finding her.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Can we fly in this rain?”
“I’ll fly through hell if I have to.”
Without another word, they began to break camp. Hunter held back his rage. He would save it for the man who had taken Kathleen.
o0o
Kathleen woke up to the sound of crying. She lay in the darkness listening. The sound was harsh and guttural. Made by a man, she guessed.
She lay perfectly still, trying to learn as much as she could. There were no traffic sounds, no animal sounds, only the sound of wind and the sound of weeping.
Somebody had covered her with a light blanket. The wool scratched against her chin. Her feet were not bound, nor her hands. With great stealth she moved them under the covers. The mattress was thin and lumpy. The wall beside her bed was cool and smooth.
Was it night or day? How long had it been since her kidnapping?
She remembered the hotel room, the scuffle, the feel of the lamp breaking against the intruder’s body. She thought she’d hit his head. She was proud of her aim.
The weeping stopped, and the man blew his nose. There was the sound of uneven footsteps, then glass breaking against metal.
Terror seized her as she waited. What would he do now that she was awake?
She closed her eyes quickly and tried to get her breathing back to normal. Being in a state of drugged sleep seemed safer than being awake.
The footsteps came closer, and the smell of liquor almost overwhelmed her.
“Shrill shleeping?” A finger poked her ribs. “Wake up, dammit.”
Was he the only one? She listened for other footsteps, other voices.
The man standing beside her bed lifted her arm and pressed his fingers into her wrists.
“Pulsh shrill going.”
He let her wrist drop, and Kathleen tried to let her arm fall naturally. The man was obviously very drunk. And alone, judging from what she could hear.
What would her chances be if she ran? Then what? A blind woman lost in the wilds of Africa... Unthinkable. She’d have to take her chances with her captor.
Her decision made, she took a deep breath, then threw back her covers and sat up.
“Who are you?” Her voice sounded stronger and more authoritative than she felt.
The man made a squawking sound, and there was a thump as he fell against the floor. She pressed her advantage.
“How dare you take me by force.” She wanted to ask where she was, but she didn’t want to give herself away. Perhaps he didn’t know she was blind. “Are you going to answer me, or are you going to sit there like a sniveling coward?”
The man sniffled, but there was no movement. He was probably in no condition to get off the floor.
“Wish I could give you back. Ish too late... too late.”
He sounded as mournful as the raven in Poe’s famous poem.
“Nonsense. It’s never too late.” Kathleen felt dizzy. She gripped the edges of the bed to keep from passing out. How long since she had eaten? She remembered a blow to the side of her head. Maybe she had a concussion.
“Get me a drink and some food and we’ll talk about how we can rectify this unfortunate situation. I won’t even demand restitution.”
“Ish not you that worries me.... Ish Hunter.”
Every nerve in her body went numb. Hysteria bubbled in her throat, and she fought it down.
“Hunter?” Her voice shook, but maybe he was too drunk to notice. “Who is Hunter?”
There was the sound of sniffling again, and then the slow rhythm of footsteps against a wooden floor. Something squeaked, a door or a drawer perhaps, being drawn open. Glassware rattled and liquid splashed against its sides.
She smelled the liquor before he pressed the cup into her hand.
“Who is Hunter?” he asked, mocking her. The walk across the floor seemed to have sobered him. That or the gravity of the question. “Hunter is my son.”
Anguish almost bent her double... anguish not for herself but for Hunter. How would he ever survive his father’s final betrayal?
“Please,” she said. “We have to go back. For your sake as well as for his.”
Hunter’s father didn’t move, didn’t speak. In the long dreadful silence, all she heard was the harsh sound of his breathing. Like a race car out of control, her mind careened in all different directions. Would he kill her? Why couldn’t she remember the opening segment of the Nutcracker Suite ballet? If only she could hear the music. Would she ever smell gardenias blooming against the fence in Jefferson Parish again? Was the sun shining? She didn’t want to die on a rainy day. There had been too much water on the day of Earl’s death.
She tried to bring her mind under control. What were the statistics on heredity versus environment? Surely there was something of Hunter’s noble nature in his father. She would appeal to that nature.
“Hunter searched for you for years. He desperately wanted a father.” There was nothing but darkness and silence. She took a deep breath and tried again. “He was hurting terribly the day he came to see you. He was once again the little boy whose father rejected him.”
Could she risk reaching out for him? If he had a soul, he was hurting as much as Hunter. If her aim was off, he would certainly know that she couldn’t see, and that would make her twice as vulnerable.
She had to take the risk. For Hunter’s sake.
Kathleen used all her powers of concentration to see the man standing beside her. Her senses told her he was tall. She’d have to reach high.
Were his hands hanging at his side? Was he holding a drink in one? Which one?
“Please,” she whispered, taking the chance, reaching out to him. Her hand encountered flesh, a sinewy forearm covered with thick, crisp hair. She slid her hand down and caught his.
“We can work everything out. Hunter is a wonderful man.”
Growling like an animal in the jungle, he shook off her hand.
“Can’t take you back... Hunter would kill me.”
His footsteps were heavy on the wooden floor. A door creaked open, and for a moment Kathleen felt a breeze and caught a whiff of exotic flowers. Then the door slammed, the lock clicked, and she was left alone with nothing to comfort her except a drink of whiskey.
Shivering, she pressed her hand over her mouth to hold back the rising hysteria. Her survival depended upon keeping her sanity.
She raised the glass to her lips and took a sip of whiskey. It helped stop the shivering. She took another cautious sip.
She’d survived an explosion and a cold, unrelenting ocean. She had no intention of buckling under to a desperate alcoholic.
Using the bed as her point of reference, she explored the room so she could learn about her prison.
o0o
Hunter sat in the police station listening to a report on the evidence gathered from the hotel room.
“Some of the blood belonged to Kathleen Shaw,” the man said. He was small, wiry, intense, and baffled. A two-week search had yielded very little.
“Some?” Hunter asked.
“Yes. The other was the same type as the man who calls himself Tokolosh.”
Tokolosh. Mongo. The Black Knight. Johnathan McFarland. His father. The man who could vanish for years and never be found.
“Mr. La Farge? Do you need something... a cup of coffee? A drink of water?”
Hunter left his chair to stand beside the window. It was dark outside. Kathleen was always in the dark. He rammed his hands into his pockets to keep from smashing them through the wall; then he turned back to the earnest young man sitting at the desk.
“I need a mi
racle.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kathleen devised her own Braille calendar. Each day she used her fork to make a notch on the headboard.
She was never given a knife. Probably because Hunter’s father remembered the way she’d attacked him with the lamp.
Hunter’s father. She still didn’t know his name. He brought her meals, if stringy unidentifiable meat and bland rice could be called a meal.
Her hope of keeping her blindness a secret was quickly dashed. When he had come back from his long absence that first day of her captivity, he had shoved food into her hands then asked her if she knew how to use a fork.
“I’m blind, not stupid.”
Hatred threatened to obscure her reason. She brought it quickly under control. How could she hate the man who had fathered Hunter?
Twice a day he tied her hands with a rope and led her outside for exercise. She struggled against feeling like an animal.
“Untie me,” she said the third day. “I won’t run away.”
“No.”
“Where would I possibly go? I’m blind.”
“Being blind didn’t stop you from knocking a knot on my head. I don’t trust you, lady.”
“That makes two of us. I don’t trust you.”
To her surprise he laughed, then she felt the rope being pulled from her hands. It was only a small victory, but she was too smart to discount it, no matter how small.
Smoke from a strong cigar competed with the smells of exotic flowers and fertile soil.
“You’ve got spunk,” he said.
“Thank you.”
The smoke curled around her head. She waited, letting him take the lead.
“You remind me of Janice.”
Hunter’s mother. It was a major breakthrough. Kathleen dared to hope.
“I grew up next door to Hunter and his mother,” she said.
The breath he drew was harsh. She felt the tension in him. Her own heart felt as if it would beat out of her chest.
“Would you like me to tell you about her?” she asked softly.
Her only answer was the mocking laughter of a distant hyena.
Don’t push, she told herself. Wait. Listen.
When Hunter’s father spoke, his voice was so soft, she had to strain to hear.
“Did she ever have another man?” he asked.
“Never.”
There was a sound like wind blowing through the trees, and she realized it was Hunter’s father, sighing. Kathleen touched her locket for luck and courage.
“She was totally devoted to Hunter,” she said. “There was never anyone else in her life from the day he was born until the day she died.”
“Enough!”
His yell was filled with pain. Instantly Kathleen understood her mistake. Hunter’s father had not known that Janice was dead.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Everything is going to be all right. We can make it be all right.”
“Just shut up. I don’t want your damned sympathy, and I sure as hell don’t want your advice....”
She waited, hoping for another break.
“Walk.” His voice cut through her like a whip. “Ten feet forward and ten feet back. Don’t bump into any damned trees and keep your mouth shut. I don’t want to hear any female palavering.”
Kathleen thrust her chin out and walked. Triumphant. She had won another small victory. Her hands were still untied, and she knew a little bit more about Hunter’s father.
She counted her steps. The sweet fragrance became stronger.
“Are there flowers here?”
“Yes. Dammit. I said don’t talk.”
Kneeling, she searched with both hands until she encountered a waxy blossom. She snapped the delicate stem.
“Damned stubborn female,” he said.
Kathleen smiled. She was stubborn. But more than that, she was strong, even in captivity. As she tucked the flower behind her ear she understood that she’d always been strong, that she’d never had to leave to Hunter. The courage she had thought she got from him had been inside her all along.
Kathleen felt a vaulting sense of freedom, even when Hunter’s father led her back inside and locked the door.
o0o
Though it was still summer and hot outside, Hunter built a fire to take the chill out of his bones. Still in his flight gear, he sank into a chair and stretched his hands out to the flame.
He had been searching for days.... Five? Six? He’d lost count.
The door opened quietly and Martha and Rick slipped inside. She had aged since the beginning of the ordeal, and Rick had lost weight.
“Any news?” Rick asked.
“Nothing,” Hunter said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.
“They can’t just drop off the face of the earth,” Martha said.
“Tokolosh is an expert at vanishing,” Rick told her, his eyes as bleak as winter. “But Hunter will soon find him.”
“Sure he will.” Martha’s cheerful voice rang false.
“Damned right,” Rick said.
They were talking to each other as if Hunter were not even there. He knew they meant well, but he couldn’t stand the hopelessness on their faces.
“I’d like to rest now,” he said. “It’s been a long week.”
They left quietly, closing the door behind them. The fire crackled in the grate, and in the flames he could see the vast expanses of Africa, beautiful and treacherous... and empty of Kathleen.
“Damn you, Johnathan McFarland. Damn you to hell.”
The fire hissed and slowly its warmth spread through his body. Weary, Hunter closed his eyes.
She came to him in a whisper of silk, her white dress molded against her legs and her gold necklace burning bright as a flame against her lily skin.
“The music’s playing,” she whispered. “Dance with me.”
Her hair was soft, her lips sweet. When he touched her, the white dress dissolved and she was naked in arms. Sleek. Silky. Hot. He fell into her, groaning.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said.
“Never.”
She twisted beneath him, burning, melting. He held fast.
“Stay,” he whispered. But he couldn’t keep her. She dissolved in his arms and he was left clutching nothing but air.
Hunter jerked awake. He felt like a traitor, sleeping while Kathleen was... He couldn’t bear to think what might be happening to her.
“Hunter.”
Her voice was as soft as the breezes that stirred the parasol trees outside the French doors. He pressed his hands against his tired eyes. The vision was haunting him now, even when he was awake.
“Hunter.” Her hand lay upon his shoulder, the blue veins stark against her white skin.
His heart slammed so hard against his chest, he could hardly breathe. He swiveled slowly and there she was, standing beside his chair as fragile as a gardenia, thin and pale but alive. God, she was alive!
“Kathleen... Kathleen.”
She knelt beside his chair, and he caught her face between his hands.
“If you’re a dream, I don’t want to wake up,” he said.
“I’m not a dream.” She turned her face against his palms and kissed them. “I’m real.”
While flames cast shadows against the wall they absorbed each other. His hands trembled on her cheeks, and the tears that fell against them melted and became a part of his soul.
There were so many things he had to ask her. Where she had been. How she had been treated. How she got home. But all that could wait. She was safe now, and he would keep her that way.
“Don’t ever leave me again,” he whispered.
“Never.” She kissed his palm, the inside of his wrist, then pressed his hand against the gold locket that rested between her breasts. “Never, my love.”
His hand closed around the locket, and with his thumb he pressed the catch. Inside was the picture of the two of them, forever young, laughing, and in love.
The
y were no longer young, but the laughter and the love would be theirs. Forever.
He snapped the locket shut, then leaned down and tenderly brushed his lips across the tops of her breasts.
“Hunter,” she whispered. “We’re not alone.”
He heard the sound at the door. A discreet cough. Heavy breathing.
His muscles tensed as he whirled around. Johnathan McFarland stood in the doorway, a slouch hat drawn low over his eyes and a gun slung over his shoulder.
“Don’t even think about trying anything,” he said. “I may be old, but this gun is loaded and I’m damned fast on the draw.”
Hunter stood up and stepped away from Kathleen.
“You’d better make the first shot count, because I’m going to kill you.”
“Like father, like son.”
“Like hell.”
“I killed for the woman I loved once. Killed to defend her honor.”
With his hands held over his head, Johnathan left the doorway and stepped onto the thick carpet.
“Stay right where you are,” Hunter said.
“I’m harmless. Ask Kathleen.”
“Hunter, Johnathan was good to me.”
“He took you by force. He’s kept you God only knows where for nearly a month. Don’t talk to me about how good he is.”
“He’s your father.”
“I don’t have a father.”
Primitive rage boiled through Hunter. The man in the doorway had deprived him of the woman who was his heart, his life, his soul. Hunter felt an animalistic urge to tear him apart with his bare hands.
“Hunter...” Kathleen’s quiet voice and her hand on his arm made him human again. “Listen to what he has to say. If not for your sake, then for mine. Please.”
Johnathan stood just inside the doorway with his hands still held in the air. Nothing he said could possibly make any difference to Hunter.
“I didn’t want to leave you and Janice,” he said. “I had to.”
At the mention of his mother’s name, Hunter remembered the way her face had softened when she spoke of his father, remembered the dress in her closet with the dead corsage pinned to it.
“Did you ever think about coming back?” Hunter asked. “About hiring a good lawyer and trying to get justice?”
“What kind of justice would a poor, out-of- work bum have gotten?”
