by Jan Burke
“No, but he lied.”
“Listen, we have a long way to go yet, Irene. I haven’t even had a gander at Cook or Matthews. Let’s see what we can learn tonight.”
I sighed.
“You like him,” Cassidy said.
“Yes.”
“That’s going to make it a rough evening, I suppose. Maybe you should try to get a little sleep,” he said.
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving Bea with all the work. Besides, I haven’t really had a chance to talk to her. Don’t worry, I won’t—”
“I know you won’t. By the way — what you learned from Cecilia Parker this morning is a big help. Thanks. I know that couldn’t have been easy on you. You sure you want her over here tonight?”
“Oh, my God, I forgot to tell Bea that I’ve expanded the guest list. Are we done here, Cassidy?”
“For the moment, anyway.” He yawned. “I may try to catch a little sleep myself.”
I needn’t have worried about Bea as far as dinner arrangements went — Rachel and Pete were in the kitchen with her, having somehow managed to take over the preparations without excluding her. If Cassidy hadn’t said he was going to try to sleep, I would have awakened him for the lesson in negotiating.
Bea wasn’t the only one who was surprised to hear Cecilia was coming to dinner. Rachel sent Pete a quelling glance, or I’m sure we would have been treated to his analysis of the situation.
“You aren’t inviting her because of me, are you?” Bea said.
I wasn’t sure I understood all that was implied by that question, but I said, “No, I enjoyed the time I spent with her today.” I was very careful not to cross my arms or break eye contact.
“Oh, good,” she said.
I kept watching her as we set the table together. While she was brave faced when Pete and Rachel were near, when we were alone, there were moments when she failed to hide her fear — the moment when the dishes rattled because her hands were shaking as she took her good plates from the china cabinet; the moment when she simply stopped in the middle of setting a spoon next to a knife, stood frozen in distraction, her face despondent. She caught me watching her once, and her tears welled up before she could dash them away. I moved over to her and held her, and she made a sound that brought Pete and Rachel hurrying from the kitchen and then — seeing us — hurrying back again.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, but I shushed her and held on.
“You get your turn, too,” I said. “Cecilia and I have had ours today.”
She looked up at me. “Cecilia? Cecilia cried?”
“Not because I said anything mean to her,” I added quickly, wondering if that was strictly true.
“Oh, Irene,” she chided, “I didn’t think you were mean to her. It’s just that I’ve never seen her shed a tear over anything.”
She straightened then and went to wash her face. I finished setting the table, wondering if this dinner party scheme was going to demolish an opportunity to grow closer to her.
26
HE WAS WAKING UP AGAIN. A wonderful thing, waking up. He was starting to appreciate it more than he ever had before. Awareness. Blessed awareness.
Awareness meant that Bret was back. Bret would allow him to awaken.
He stretched, took the inventory that was now a part of every return to consciousness. He was facing the other direction, lying on his left side now. The scrubs were still on. His feet were not restrained. He could move his legs. The IV catheter was still in but capped off; the bottle and tubing were not within sight.
Facing this way, he could not see them. He waited for sounds, sounds that would tell him where they were, if both of them were here. Bret was here, though. Bret preferred him to be awake.
Samuel, on the other hand, preferred control, and the drugs gave him that.
These were the kinds of things he had learned about them over the last few hours — were they hours? he wondered. His watch was gone with everything else. They had left him his wedding ring, at least.
Samuel paid less attention to him than Bret did, was less interested in him. Samuel was worried about other things, things outside this tent.
This lack of attention could prove to be an advantage, of course. Frank knew that if he could clear his mind enough to grasp an opportunity to escape, he was better off being ignored.
Still, he was uneasy about Samuel. It was not just the capacity for violence in the young man that disturbed Frank, it was the sense that the future meant nothing to Samuel — meant nothing, not in the way of the young — of disbelief or lack of ability to imagine it — but in the way of the very old or dying, who have simply accepted that it is not to be theirs.
Bret was the stabilizer. Samuel listened to him. Although he might be angered to some degree by Bret’s suggestions regarding Frank, he generally gave Bret his way.
And Bret was curious about Frank. No, there was something more than curiosity at work here. He was not asking questions just out of idle curiosity.
Indebtedness? For the rescue from the basement all those years ago? Maybe, but that did not explain Bret’s… how to name it? Concern? No, more than that.
It seemed important to him to know this, to name it. But as he considered and rejected word after word, he heard a voice behind him.
“Would you like to sit up?”
Bret’s voice.
“Yes,” he answered.
A different voice said, “All right, but I’ve got a gun pointed at you, Detective Harriman, and I’m quite willing to use it.”
Samuel.
Bret came around to face him, smiled, and unlocked Frank’s left wrist. Frank knew Samuel probably did hold a gun, and that if he did, Samuel was willing — perhaps even hoping — to use it. He knew the drugs would slow his reactions too greatly, knew this was not the opportunity he sought. Still, he found it nearly impossible to resist the urge to try to free himself.
Bret paused, and Frank looked into his face. As clearly as if he had spoken words, Frank knew Bret was telling him not to struggle, not to resist.
He was puzzled, unsure how Bret had conveyed this to him, but Samuel was saying, “He doesn’t have our understanding, you know. You have to speak out loud to him. Go ahead and warn him.”
“I don’t need to warn him,” Bret said, motioning Frank to lie on his back. “You’re the only one who expects the worst of him.”
The simple act of moving to his back sent Frank’s head spinning. He closed his eyes as Bret reattached his wrist to the opposite bed rail, waited for the dizziness to pass. He berated himself silently. Useless. Useless. Useless.
“Are you nauseated?” Bret asked.
“No,” Frank said, opening his eyes, seeing that Sam was indeed holding a gun on him. “Not sick, just a little woozy.”
“He’s thirsty,” Samuel said. “Give him something to drink.”
“No,” Frank said quickly, hearing the rasp in his own voice. “No, I’m all right.”
Samuel laughed, but Bret said, “We’ll give you just plain water this time. But let me move you up first, so that you can sit.”
He heard the whirring of the motor on the bed, felt it angling him up. A little more dizziness, but not as bad as before. Bret brought the glass of water to him, but he turned his head away. Spinning, spinning.
Move more slowly, he told himself.
When he turned his head back, very gradually, he saw that Bret still waited with the water.
He felt a primal rage, a blinding fury building up within him, a fierce, sudden anger that made him want to pull free of the goddamn railings and attack them both. Let them shoot him! Let them! His rage would keep him in motion, like a matinee monster. Bullets couldn’t stop him.
“You see?” Samuel said. “His fists are clenched. I think our hero wants to kill us.”
“Of course he does,” Bret said softly. “Don’t you remember how it feels, Samuel?”
There was silence. Bret said, “Samuel—”
Bu
t Samuel was already walking away. “Do what you want. If I come back and find you dead, I’ll kill him, and then myself. I’ll open the valve, then — bang. Right through my own head. Bang. I won’t care about anything then. You hear me? Not anything.”
Frank heard the outer door slam shut.
Bret still stood with the glass of water, but he was not looking at Frank. His face was solemn.
“I’m sorry,” Frank said. “That was my fault.”
“No,” Bret said, coming out of his reverie. “No, none of this is your fault.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to—”
“Oh, no, Frank. Don’t make that mistake. He meant every word of it.” He offered the glass. “It really is just water.”
What the hell, Frank thought, and took a sip.
“You have a choice,” Bret said. “You can allow me to give you a chance to survive, or you can die with us.”
Better able to control his panic now, he was more cautious. “There’s no reason for you to die.”
Bret smiled. “Ever watch any airplane disaster movies? Some panicked person on the plane always screams, ‘We’re all going to die!’ Well, truer words were never spoken. Most of us don’t know when we will die, and many of us won’t believe there is any reason for our deaths. When and why. Samuel and I have a reasonable approximation of the former and a certainty of the latter. We have that.”
“But still—”
“No, Frank, Samuel and I won’t live through this set of events we’ve set in motion. We are rather good amateurs, but time and experience is on the side of people like Detective Cassidy.”
“Cassidy isn’t a killer,” Frank said. “He’ll do everything he can to end this peacefully.”
“It won’t be up to Cassidy, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t understand—”
“No, I’m sorry. You are still at a great disadvantage. I promised you a story. Now, would you like to get out of this bed and sit at a table and read it yourself?”
Confused, but seeing that — for the moment — Bret would discuss matters only on his own terms, Frank said, “Yes.”
“All right, then first let me explain a few things. Samuel and I went to a great deal of trouble to refit this building to our own needs. Right now, we are in a tent within a room within a room. One door to each, no windows. Soundproof. The tent is similar to tents used for fumigating buildings, made of the same material. There is a security system to which I must respond before anyone can gain entry. Without going into the sort of details that will give you a little too much information, I’ll tell you that opening the valve Samuel referred to starts the flow of a gas into this tent. The gas will asphyxiate anyone in the tent. In other words, if he wanted to, he could open that valve now, and we would be suffocated.”
Frank thought of the mood Samuel had been in when he left and closed his eyes.
“I see you begin to understand. I can free you if I become a prisoner within the room with you. Should I need to leave the room, you will have to return voluntarily to the bed and will be restrained as you are now. Samuel will not come in here unless you are restrained. If you refuse to be restrained, Samuel will receive a signal from me to start the flow of the gas.”
“You’d die with me.”
“If your only goal is to kill me, I’m giving you that opportunity. But if I die, Samuel starts the gas. If you injure me, prevent me from restraining you, or prevent me from giving the proper entry signal to Samuel, then we die together. I suppose I’m counting on the fact that you are probably less reconciled to death than I am.”
“I don’t understand this,” Frank said, knowing he should be calmer, should be trying a different approach, but unable to manage it. “I don’t know why you want to die.”
“I don’t. I’m willing to die. That’s different. I don’t want you to die with me, but I’m willing to allow that to happen, too. I’d prefer you live. I’d prefer we passed our very limited time together with the more pleasant pursuits of meals and conversation. Conversation with you, the opportunity to get to know you….” He smiled again. “It’s a sort of going-away present to myself.”
“We can talk and eat while I’m still in this bed. Why go to all this trouble to let me roam around the room?”
“You know the answer to that.”
After a long silence Frank said, “Because you’ve been chained.”
“Exactly.”
“The drugs—”
“Are a necessity, I’m afraid. I’ll do my best to keep them at a minimum. That’s largely up to you. If you’re uncooperative, you’ll probably spend most of your remaining time with us in a state of unconsciousness. If you prefer that, I can start the IV again now.”
“No—”
“I didn’t think that would be your choice. Shall I untie you now?”
“Yes.”
“I have your word — you’ll accept our conditions?”
Miserable. He felt goddamned miserable and angry with himself for it. He tried not to let any of this show as he said, “Yes.”
“Good,” Bret said, but he was frowning, watching Frank’s face. He lowered his head in concentration as he began to unfasten the restraint he had so recently attached to the rail.
There it was again, Frank thought. Bret, attuned to his moods, watching for little cues.
He would need to be more careful. Yet here was his hope, perhaps his only hope — Bret’s concern for him.
“Bret—”
Bret looked up at him.
“How does Samuel feel about this?”
Bret smiled, now working to take the restraint off the wrist itself. “He dislikes the idea intensely, but we humor one another. He knows this will make me happy, and so he gives in.”
“And what did you give to him in return?”
His hands stilled. “We don’t have a tally sheet.”
Frank made no other comment as Bret finished removing the left wrist restraint. His impatience to be freed was nearly unbearable now, and he immediately reached to remove the one on the right wrist, only to grow dizzy again. But Bret did not try to interfere; he waited, let Frank free himself, first from the rail, then from the restraint itself. He did not say anything when Frank threw the strap hard to the ground like a hated thing.
Frank blew out a breath, tried to control the rush of emotion he felt as the strap made a satisfying slap on the floor.
He rubbed his wrists as Bret lowered the rail, slightly embarrassed now at the display of temper. But that passed with the anticipation of another measure of freedom.
“Careful now,” Bret said, and helped him from the bed.
He was ridiculously wobbly and dizzy as all hell, but he was on his own two feet. He didn’t know how long he had been here or how long he would remain, but at least he wasn’t tied to the damned bed.
“Thank you,” Frank said, and saw that Bret had some idea of how deeply he meant it.
He walked like an old man to the table, leaning on Bret for the first few steps, then on his own. He eased into a chair, rolled and stretched the stiff muscles of his shoulders and back. He looked at the bed.
“Don’t think about being back there,” Bret said, following Frank’s anxious line of thought. “We have time now, and we should make the most of it. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” Frank said in the tone of one making a discovery. He felt awkward, unsure of how to proceed.
“Just sandwiches this time, I’m afraid,” Bret said, going to an ice chest.
“You said you have something for me to read?” Frank asked as Bret arrived with paper plates wrapped in plastic wrap, a sandwich and fresh fruit on each. He did not doubt that all of his food would be of a kind that could be eaten without utensils. No makeshift weaponry.
“You can read it after we eat,” Bret said. “Do you remember the Szals?”
“Bernard and Regina? Yes, of course.”
They talked of the Szals and telescopes and aikido. Bret politely steered the conver
sation away from any potentially touchy subjects, such as the years of silence. Still, Frank could not deny that it was a genuinely pleasant exchange. Bret had come alive, had been enthusiastic, was always eager for Frank’s thoughts and opinions.
After eating, Frank stood and walked slowly around the tent, which was roomy but sparsely furnished. Barefoot, he was fairly certain the floor beneath the tent was wooden. There were several locked trunks of various sizes along one side of the tent; he was curious about them but decided against asking about them now.
His head itched. He reached back to scratch it and felt the shaved and slightly tender skin around the stitches.
“God, it feels good to be able to scratch that damned itch,” he said.
Bret’s face fell. “I’m so sorry. I should have thought of that.”
You try hard to anticipate what others are feeling, Frank thought. Aloud he said, “It wasn’t so bad. I probably shouldn’t be touching it, anyway.”
“There shouldn’t be much of a scar,” Bret said.
“Your hair will cover it, I’m sure.”
“You put in the stitches?”
He couldn’t fail to notice Bret’s sudden pallor.
“No,” Bret said. “No, Samuel did.”
“I’ll have to thank him,” Frank said. “I seem to remember bleeding.” He touched the slightly puffy place on his upper lip. “My lip?”
Bret was looking away now. “Your lip, your nose. Your head. It was terrible.” He shuddered. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Sure.”
He made his way back to the table. He was still plagued by dizziness and weakness, but they seemed to be lessening: the drugs clearing from his system, no doubt. He tried to keep from touching the IV device.
“Here,” Bret said, handing him some papers as he was seated. “I think it’s time you read this.”
While the title — “Father’s Day” — came as no real surprise, almost everything that followed did.
27
I DIDN’T EAT MUCH, even though the food was terrific. The cooks didn’t take it personally. Pete, for one, was too busy glaring at Cecilia.
I had forgotten that Pete — for reasons he had never confided in me — disliked her intensely. He did little to disguise that fact at dinner. Rachel kept muttering things to him in Italian, while Cookie — as I was learning to refer to Nat Cook — was doing his best to distract Cecilia. He needn’t have bothered.
