Strangers

by Mary Anna Evans

  Had the man been trying to take Faye, who had her attentive husband to thank for the fact that she wasn’t trapped wherever Glynis was right now? More to the point, had Daniel been trying to take her baby, so that Suzanne could be happy again?

  Joe’s eyes showed his naked need to get Faye out of Dunkirk Manor. For once, she was going to let him protect her.

  It only took a few words to map the best way to get Faye out of the house and to get Joe straight to Magda’s side. Quietly, they would move past the guests eating breakfast in the nearest dining room, through the atrium, and into the entry hall. From there, Joe could step on the elevator and ride sight unseen to the second floor, just a few steps from the owners’ suite. Faye would be out of the front door immediately and down the street, dialing 911 as soon as she got out of Dunkirk Manor’s signal-hampering bulk and into the open air. Once the call was made, she could wait for help with Victor in his hovel.

  It was the simplest of plans, and it just might work.

  ***

  Dunkirk Manor’s clocks were sounding as Faye and Joe crossed the dining room. She heard the clatter of plates and the chatter of guests around her, but the sound was dim. It was as if she were wrapped in a transparent bubble of clear air. She could see through it. She could hear echoes of the world outside. But she was almost as insulated from the world by her fear as she’d been by the thick walls that had kept her from hearing Magda being led away.

  The baby squirmed inside her as they entered the atrium, and Faye was grateful for the human contact. Joe, intuitive to the bone, slipped an arm around her and rested his hand on the place that used to be her waist. Even his warm body wasn’t enough to buffer her from the chill of the beautiful room. Her heart was breaking for Magda. In the atrium, she was shocked to find that she could still reach deep into the dark well of her emotions and hurt for Allyce, too.

  They were only in the atrium for a silent and timeless moment. Then Joe opened the door into the smaller, intimate entry hall, and the reality of their mission struck them. Joe was going to do what was necessary to save a woman and child they both loved. And Faye was going to do what was necessary to save their own child. And they would have to separate in order to do that.

  Luck was with them, in that the elevator was waiting on the first floor. Joe was aboard before the doors were fully open but, with his customary easy grace, he had leaned down to kiss Faye as he left her, without delaying him from his mission by even a millisecond.

  If Faye had reacted as effortlessly as Joe, if she hadn’t paused for a fraction of a second to watch the elevator doors close in front of him, if she’d moved swiftly instead of with the leaden stride of late pregnancy, then maybe things would have been different.

  Instead, she left herself unguarded, for the briefest period of time, in the home of people who so desperately wanted what she had. As she grabbed the handle of Dunkirk Manor’s heavy front door with both hands, she heard a shushing grind as it slid across the inlaid wood at the threshold…and she heard the same sound behind her, along with a slight metallic click.

  She had no chance to turn her head to look, because an arm encircled her beneath her big belly like a steel band. A hand clamped itself over her mouth.

  The hormones that were already swamping her mind surged, and her body failed her. The arms that had always been so strong, moving tons of earth in her years as an archaeologist, dangled at her side like ribbons. Her legs, the ones that had spent those years crouched in the dirt and had spent the past months hauling her ever-growing baby around, buckled under her, making it easy for her assailant to drag her…somewhere. Violently nauseated out of sheer terror, her empty stomach spasmed. She gagged and retched, but her attacker was undeterred.

  Even her mind was leaving her, and it had never failed her before.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Joe hesitated outside the door to Dunkirk Manor’s owners’ suite. His back was to the wall beside the door and he was flattened against it, because the suite’s front door opened onto the second-floor balcony encircling the atrium. The balcony was deep and the sturdy railing partially obscured the view from the atrium floor. He wasn’t achingly obvious to anyone walking across the atrium, but if someone stood in the right spot and looked up then, yes, he could be seen from below.

  He placed the back of his hand against the door, knowing that the bones of his knuckles would conduct any sound from inside the suite that was loud enough to vibrate the door, even slightly. If someone were just inside, sitting quietly on a couch, there would be no vibration and he’d never know anybody was there until he opened the door, but this was the best way he had of getting some notion of what was going on in there.

  He got nothing, which was disappointing. If Magda were in there fighting a kidnapper who wanted to put her and her baby in a windowless room and lock the door, then he should be feeling some mighty big vibrations at the moment.

  Well, he was going to have to go in blind. He twisted the doorknob slowly—and it turned. He didn’t know whether to consider the unlocked door a stroke of luck or not. It likely meant that Daniel or Suzanne or both were still in there, but he’d known all along that he’d probably have to confront somebody to get Magda back. He just hoped they didn’t have a gun.

  Joe was always armed. The leather bag he wore at his waist always carried weapons he’d made from stone, and right now he was holding one of them in his hand. It was a flint knife, chipped to an edge sharper than surgical steel. It would slice flesh and open up a windpipe, and if Magda were bound and gagged, it would set her free.

  It would not stop a bullet.

  For this reason, Joe was going to make his stand right here in this doorway. If a gun went off when the door was closed, it was possible that no one would hear, or that they would hear without being able to figure out where the shot came from. But if it went off when Joe was standing right where he was, in front of this door that he was even now opening, then help would come. It might even come soon enough to save Joe, depending on where the bullet caught him.

  More importantly, help would come for Magda and Rachel and, if she was still alive, Glynis. Someone would hear the shot and call the police, and surely they would realize that the shooting had some connection to the kidnappings. Even if Joe weren’t able to tell them about the hiding place, even if he were dead, surely his shooting would lead the police to search the suite long and hard enough to turn up the secret room.

  He turned the knob slowly and silently, and the door opened.

  ***

  Faye’s feet dragged helplessly over the slick wooden floor. She was bent double over the arm wrapped around her middle, and she could see that she was still wearing her house slippers. They were fur-lined moccasins that Joe had made for her last birthday, and her adrenaline-charged mind took note of every pore in the soft leather.

  Details. She was in survival mode and her brain was convinced that noticing details would save her life. She noted the direction she was being dragged, not toward the door into the atrium nor toward the elevator, but toward the wall where the grandfather clock stood. Why?

  Then she watched her feet as they were dragged over a shallow threshold and onto a concrete floor that she’d never seen before.

  She could hear the ragged breathing of the person restraining her. Who was it? Suzanne? She seemed too…birdlike…to haul Faye around like a sack of potatoes. But maybe…

  Daniel?

  She assessed the size of the person behind her by the feel of the body at her back and of the arm at her belly. Yes. It could be Daniel. It made sense that he and his wife could be working together to get the baby that Suzanne’s madness craved. She had seen the depth of their love for each other with her own eyes. How could such love be so perverted that it would lead two people to kidnap a woman and her child? How could love drive them to murder?

  Daniel—and now she saw that it was Daniel—set her down firmly but gently on the floor and backed out the doorway into the entry hall without
a word. She fell to her hands and knees, doing her best not to collapse utterly. Then the shushing grind sounded again and a heavy door closed in front of her blurry eyes. The outside world was gone, every ray of light and every breath of sound, but there was a surprising degree of life in this room. Her ears said so.

  Focus. She needed to focus her eyes so that she could assess her situation.

  There were sounds behind her. A little girl’s whimper and a mother’s soothing murmurs. Magda and Rachel!

  And there were long sighing breaths to her right, coming from someone who was sitting or lying on the floor. Still stunned, Faye lingered on all fours, trying to shake the dizziness and nausea. She cut her eyes in the direction of those quiet breaths and could only see a long slim foot and the hem of a pair of black checked pants. Glynis. She didn’t sound good, but she did sound alive.

  It took everything she had, but Faye raised her head and turned it, and she managed to do so without vomiting. She was sitting in a square room with smooth concrete walls and a smooth concrete floor. The room extended up and up, and light entered from windows far above her, maybe three stories in the air. She was in one of the turrets.

  One turret had been converted into an elevator shaft. How could she have failed to wonder what was in the other one, now that it was no longer being used to store water? It was the perfect prison, a modern castle tower where a princess could be hidden.

  Magda and Rachel grabbed hold of her. Rachel clung to her thigh, a little girl who was scared and confused but who knew a familiar and protective friend when she saw one. Magda, always practical, was checking Faye for broken bones and pressing her belly to see whether it was contracting.

  She wasn’t, not yet. Praise God. The thought of delivering her baby here chilled Faye’s blood.

  Clinging to the comforting touch of two much-loved people, Faye looked again at Glynis. She found her alone, eyes closed and curled on her side, with her body nestled into the corner of the turret wall. Her breathing was labored, and there was a black bruise on her cheek and a scabbed cut at the corner of her mouth. It looked like someone had wiped the blood from her face, so at least her captors hadn’t left her in a bloody pool.

  Glynis was still wearing the expensive and elegant black-and-white outfit that Overstreet had described. Her long pale hair was spread about her like a splash of light. It was stark against the gray concrete and Faye could see individual strands flung everywhere, loose on the floor. Glynis had shed so much hair that it was visibly thinner at her temples and along her hairline. In patches, Faye could see clear through to her scalp. Her skin was pallid and damp and, even in unconsciousness, her arms were wrapped tight around her vulnerable belly and her fists were clenched shut.

  This was no fantasy-kissed sleeping beauty. Faye knew now that the story of Rapunzel was a myth. This was what a princess held captive in a tower really looked like.

  ***

  Joe found the suite’s living room empty. He heard nothing. The room was so silent and still that he found it impossible to believe that first Glynis, and now Magda and Rachel, had been hauled kicking and screaming across its thickly carpeted floor. Surely that kind of terror would leave its mark on a place. But he felt nothing, no panicky tremble to the air.

  No matter. Faye said they were here, and he had never had cause to doubt her judgment. He was going to find them.

  ***

  “We’ve gotta get Glynis out of here,” Faye said.

  “No shit,” Magda answered. “I’ve only been here long enough to look this place over a little. The big door’s there.” She nodded toward the door Faye had just entered. “There are little windows way, way up there letting the sun in, which are gonna be zero help to us.” She pointed straight up. “There are two little wooden doors about three feet across up there—” she said, pointing to square holes in the walls above them. “They look like they might have been for maintenance access, one on the second floor and one on the third floor.”

  Faye nodded.

  “But since this place has twelve- or fifteen-foot ceilings, I can’t see any way to get up to them. If they’re even unlocked.”

  Faye couldn’t argue with her.

  “And then there are these things, which are interesting but useless.” Magda pointed to a series of small holes in the wall near the floor. They were about the size of her palm. Then she opened a nearby trap door to reveal a hole in the floor leading exactly nowhere.

  “If this tower was used as a cistern, then the water had to go out to the house somehow,” Faye said. “I guess maybe the pipes went through those holes in the wall. And the hole in the floor…hmmm. The weight of the water in a cistern this tall would have given great water pressure, but I guess you’d still want a pump for times when the water was low or if you wanted to drain the thing. Maybe the pump went in that hole.”

  “The important thing is that the hole doesn’t lead anywhere, and nobody but Rachel could possibly get in it. Especially not you and your big stomach.”

  “Thank you for your sensitivity.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  A rustle of silk caught their attention. Glynis reached a hand up to touch her battered face. The other arm remained wrapped around her, tight. She said, “Is somebody here?” and her voice was so faint that the walls nearly absorbed it all.

  Faye fell to her knees by the wounded woman’s side. “It’s me, Faye. And Magda, and her little girl Rachel. How are you, Glynis?”

  “Ankle…broken. Knee’s pretty bad. Ribs…probably broken. Some of them. Head hurts something terrible.”

  “Are you hungry?” Faye saw several full bottles of water near Glynis, alongside an untouched plate loaded with an omelet identical to the ones the bed-and-breakfast guests were happily eating in the dining room.

  “Don’t want food. But he makes me, sometimes. Shoves a spoon at my mouth until I open it and swallow. Says he’s got to feed his baby.” She gave a weak sigh. “He comes at night. Late, late at night. I can tell the time, sort of, by the light coming in those windows up there. It’s been dark a long time when he comes. I guess there’s not much risk of someone catching him then. They’re all asleep in their rooms…in their beds…soft clean beds…”

  Faye noticed a sodden rag beside Glynis’ head. She reached to pick it up and Glynis’ eyes opened. “He brings those every time. He soaks them in ice water and wipes my face and hands. Says he’s sorry it’s warm in here and he’s trying to figure out a way to run electricity in here for a fan. Because I’m going to be in here nine months and it’ll be even hotter soon than it is now. Nice of him to worry, I guess…” The eyes drooped shut.

  “Does Suzanne know you’re here?”

  “…don’t know…” The voice drifted into a wordless breath.

  Glynis was slipping back into unconsciousness and Faye didn’t want her to go. She needed all the information the poor girl could give, if they were to have a prayer of getting out of this cell alive.

  Faye touched Glynis on her silk-clad arm. “Can you tell us how you got here?”

  The eyes flew open and the imprisoned princess rallied. “We fought. Lex and me. I told him about the baby the night before and we argued all night. He didn’t want me to keep it. Worried…he was worried about getting his practice going first. I left as soon as it was light. Got some coffee, ’cause I didn’t know how on earth I was going to get through the day. I’ve been so tired lately. I can’t tell you how tired…”

  “I remember, sugar.” Magda reached down to smooth a hand over Glynis’ hair. “For the first three months, I was too tired to breathe most of the time. It gets better.”

  Faye remembered, too.

  “When I got to work, Lex was right behind me. Guess he wanted to yell at me some more. Tried to get out of the car but he yanked me out first…foot got stuck in the doorframe. When I fell, my leg got all twisted…heard some things break.” A little sigh escaped her. “Then he hit me, hard, in the face. Never did that before. Think it scared him
. He backed off for a second while I pulled myself up on the door. Got my top half back in the car, lying across the car seat. My face was bleeding all over it.”

  So that was the source of the small amount of Glynis’ blood in the car.

  Glynis shivered a little and kept talking. “Then he just leaned in my car door. Loomed over me…grabbed my shoulders…beat me…shook me till I could hardly see. ”

  Tears leaked onto the bruised cheek. “I had some stuff on the seat beside me. I couldn’t see, not with him up in my face. Just felt around until I found something big and heavy, made out of rock…hit him in the head with it as hard as I could. It knocked him out and he fell. I shoved him out of the car. Had to climb over him. Fell on the ground. Couldn’t do anything but crawl, but I crawled to the house, as hard as I could go, because I was so scared he’d wake up. And because I knew Suzanne and Daniel would help me. I trusted them…trusted…”

  Weeping, Glynis closed her eyes and wrapped both arms around herself again, drawing her good leg into a fetal position.

  Something was missing from Glynis’ story.

  “You hit him in the head. Not the throat.”

  “Forehead. Or nose, maybe. Made a big damn noise.”

  “Was he bleeding when you left him?”

  The eyes flickered open again. “Maybe a little bit oozing out. Not much. Why?”

  There was no way that Faye was going to tell this wounded creature that the father of her child had bled himself empty on the ground. If God was good, she wouldn’t have to tell Glynis that Lex was dead until after she was out of this desolate place.

  “I’m just trying to find out what happened that morning. So you left Lex and went to Daniel and Suzanne for help.”