“In this situation, darling, you might as well have. You're very little more than a bloody liability, and except for your financial status, which I hope is healthy in case we need that, you’re worth about as much as a politician’s promise. But at least you had the sense to call me, which is about the only thing in your favor. Now, can I have one more cuppa? And then I have to get on the move.”
“You want a cuppa, you make it!” he shouted. “So you have to get on the move, do you? And what the hell do you expect me to be doing?”
“You? Why you get to do the fun stuff, darling. You should be able to handle it, big macho type like you. It seems hard, I know, but it can’t be, really, since women have been doing it for years and years. You get to wait, Geoffrey darling. And stuff your cuppa up your jumper while you’re at it!”
~~~
Bess dumped out the water in the mug.
Even in her nauseous, head-splitting confusion, she could recognize a potential threat when she saw it. The sink taps might be safer, certainly worth the risk.
Getting to the sink was punctuated by a stop to use the convenient but filthy toilet nearby. Then, three mugs of wonderfully cold water later, her confusion gave way to sheer terror.
She had the vaguest of memories about the lame man in the tavern, the spilled drink, the replacement that had obviously been drugged. But afterwards... nothing. Nothing until she’d wakened, dizzy, foul-mouthed and shaky, beneath a car rug that surely didn’t belong here.
Wherever here was.
It made no sense. A kidnapping? Inside a pub in the middle of the day? In Launceston? Why? She had no tangible value she could possibly think of, unless someone planned to blackmail her father. Or Geoff.
Seated on the edge of the cot, nervously eyeing her sunburn and wishing she’d worn something a bit less revealing, she allowed her concern to grow. Hadn’t Ida mentioned at some point that Geoff was extremely wealthy? Just the thought of being a pawn in some sort of extortion scheme against him caused bitter bile to rise in her throat.
She cowered in a fresh outburst of terror when the lock clicked and the door was yanked open so a voice could demand, “Get over to the far wall and stay there. Face the wall. Shut your eyes and keep them shut, if you know what’s good for you.”
Bess did it. And did it more quickly than she could ever have thought possible. That rough, grating voice held a menace she'd never heard before in her whole life.
She had only just reached the wall and lifted her hands to cover her eyes when there was a mighty thump, followed by the slamming of the door and the amazingly quiet click of the lock. Bess didn’t move. Didn’t dare to move, until, eventually, she could do nothing else. The strange quality of the room's silence finally forced her to turn around.
At first her blurry eyes saw only a disjointed heap of rags on the floor inside the doorway, but when she blinked it became something worse. Bess stalked it, cautiously, throwing away her trepidation at the last possible moment when she saw, beneath the mask of blood, the battered face of Tom Rossiter. He had landed on his stomach, but his face was turned to one side so that he could breathe.
If he breathed at all.
She rushed forward to kneel beside his body, hands outstretched as she tried to find the courage to turn him over, to see what other damage had been done. Not that it mattered. He was surely dead.
“I’m... all... right.” The words were barely audible, but caused bubbles of fresh blood to burst from his smashed and swollen lips.
“Tom, what happened?”
“Keep it down.” His voice was coming clearer now, or she had lost enough panic to let her hear. “Not ‘s bad ‘sit looks. I think I fooled ‘em... maybe. Hope so...”
His voice faded again.
“Tom,” she whispered, afraid to speak in a normal tone lest she scream. “Just lie still. Don’t try to move. I’ll get some water, clean you up.”
“No, pleas-s-s-e.” The sigh burbled out with more blood as he tried to raise his head. “Have to... leave me like this. Have to... just get me... drink... thassall. No... clean. No... move me.”
Getting the drink into him was tougher than she could have ever imagined. He was essentially belly-down on the floor, and he was twice her weight. She managed it in the long run, but ended up with his blood all over her and her hands shaking so badly she dropped the small plastic mug.
“Good... don't... worry. They’d expect you to try and help. But thass enough. Now lean close an listen, ‘cause I have to tell you whass goin on before I pass out again... if I’m gonna.”
It took him time, and much backtracking through slurred words she couldn’t follow, but eventually Bess knew all he was trying to tell her. Knew how he, too, had been drugged.
“Muss’ve been same dose as for you,” he said through a groan. “Forgot I’m bigger. Don't matter, long’s they think I’m out of it. Had to fake it some, let 'em think hurt wors’n I am.”
Bess understood he had let himself be drawn into the kidnapping solely to protect her, and that he'd been beaten down and kicked half to death without the slightest chance to defend himself. They had waited until the drug took effect enough to weaken him. And while they might have given him the same dose they'd given her, they'd filtered it into more than one beer so Tom could hear them laughing while they beat him. Whereupon, he only half-pretended to pass out cold.
“Damn it, Tom,” she said. “You could have been killed. But thank you, so very, very much.”
“’S okay. Done some bad things for your old man, but not crap like this. He’s nuts, ‘lis'beth. Not sane no more. Have to figure way outa here... worry 'bout your father later.”
“Out? Tom, you can’t even stand. How can you even think about getting out? There are... what? Four of them? Look what they’ve already done to you. You need a doctor, not an escape plan.”
A rictus of a smile flickered redly, then died. “Firsh things firsh,” he said, gesturing for more water. With that inside him, his speech seemed to clear along with his thinking, although he made no move to try and get up.
“Look 'round,” he said, “an see what you can find for a weapon. Leg off the cot, maybe. That damn water mug's useless, but check inside cupboards, there, behind toilet... for plunger or somethin'. Hurry. We may not have much time.”
She didn’t need much time. The old laundry was too small to hide much of anything, and whatever might have been available had obviously been cleared out in preparation for her confinement. Prying a leg off the cot proved impossible, and there were no slats to be ripped out. But then, way at the back of the bottom shelf in the cupboard, she found what looked like a length of broom handle, doweling actually, about three feet long.
Rolling up on his good hip, Tom managed to tuck the piece of doweling alongside him, hidden by his bloodied clothing but right at his fingertips. “When they come,” he said, “you have to fight. Scream, kick, make all the fuss you can.” He grimaced. “Didn’t want them to touch you, Elizabeth, but if you can distract them it would be good. Know what I mean?”
Bess knew, just as she knew that even without Tom Rossiter there to help, assuming he could even get to his feet, she would have screamed and kicked and done anything else she could think of to protect herself.
And would have failed, in the end. Still might. If they’d only left her purse with her, she'd have had some sort of weapon…a nail file, a pair of manicure scissors, the purse itself. Bess couldn’t help it, acutely detested herself for it, but the tears came and she couldn’t stop them any more than she could stop the fear that threatened to make her soil herself.
“Elizabeth! Look at me!” Rossiter’s voice groaned through his smashed mouth. “I'll get you outa' this, I prom—”
An almost-silent snick of the door lock interrupted his words, and Bess retreated to the far corner of the room as the door was eased open.
The first voice Bess heard, coming from just outside the slightly-opened door, was one she didn’t recognize. It was young,
light, whiny, and didn’t sound like either of the two Sydney standover men she now knew she had already met; one while she and Geoff trained Lady; the other in the pub.
“Mr. Coolidge ain't gonna like this. You’ll be in big trouble if he finds out, and Mr. Coolidge ain't nobody to be stuffin' around with.”
There was the muted sound of a slap, still outside the door, and a new voice, this one harsh and grating. “Put a sock in it, boy, or we’ll drop your daks and make you into a Long Bay bitch. But if you’re good, and I mean really good, we might let you in for thirds.”
Bess couldn’t understand the Long Bay remark, although the threat and promise was obvious enough.
Tom Rossiter clearly understood the reference to Sydney’s notorious Long Bay Gaol. Through half-shut eyes, he saw Rambo pushed into the small room, ahead of the two much larger Sydney men. Rambo entered the room in a rush, almost tripped over Rossiter, then found himself being shoved to one side as Davo and Jack swaggered in, both of them fixing their gaze on a cringing Elizabeth, after a casual glance at where Rossiter lay unmoving.
“Looks as if all your Christmases have come at once,” Jack said. “You should be smiling, girl, not huddling there against that sink.”
Which drew a growl of assent from his companion and a wide-eyed, panic-stricken gasp from Bess. She tried to cringe further against the sink, deliberately not looking at Tom. She knew he needed all the attention focused on her, on her fear, and that required no acting at all.
“You... you’re surely n-not going to d-do this,” she stammered. “That little creep is right. Coolidge will have your heads on a platter if he so much as hears about this.”
It was false bravado, and it showed. Both men laughed and sauntered closer. Bess fought for mental balance, then physical balance, poising herself so that she had one foot almost weightless, ready for a kick if the opportunity presented itself. Both men were now past Tom’s still unmoving form, but in a room this size that brought them almost within touching distance of Bess.
“Come on, don’t be shy,” said the larger of the two men, and his eyes flared into those of the devil as he reached out with one large hand to seek her hand.
“Get away!” Her voice rose into a shriek as she tried to move back where there was no more room to move. The man merely grinned, and it was suddenly Paul there grinning, suddenly the epitome of her marital humiliation all over again. Bess sagged, then caught at the edge of the sink as she turned partly away from the men, defense forgotten in her sudden need to vomit.
“Aw, the bitch is gonna spew,” said the younger man.
As if she starred in some drama and that was her cue line, Bess turned to the sink and watched her system void all the water she had earlier consumed. But then, somehow, it seemed as if the worst of her terror had flowed out in the revolting tide. She turned back toward the men, fear forgotten, turquoise eyes flashing, ready now for battle.
And watched Tom shamble to his feet, rocking toward the two unsuspecting men, the length of doweling upraised in one huge paw. He lurched forward, swinging the slender piece of wood like a baseball bat, and the younger of the two men dropped as if pole axed when it struck his temple.
A yowl of surprise and terror erupted from the whiny, pimple-faced man, but it was drowned in the pure roar of animal rage as Tom reversed his swing and clipped the other, older man a lick across the brow that brought an instant rush of blood down over one eye. Another switch in direction, and the doweling smashed the man’s nose, although the effort almost brought Tom to his knees.
And then it was on for one and all. Bess could only watch helplessly as the frenzied thug leapt toward Tom, but was driven back by savage, rapier-like thrusts that took him in the throat, ripped the base of one ear, and drove into his stomach. Tom growled like a savage beast at each blow, but she could see the growls and grunts were due more to the pain he was inflicting on himself than anything else.
It was over in less time than the two men had used in threatening her. Tom turned as Pimple Face tried to flee out the door, and his huge hand dragged the weedy youth backwards and flung him past Bess, half into the sink. Clouting Pimple Face senseless, Tom folded to his knees, exhausted.
“Keys,” he managed to spit out, gesturing toward the unconscious Sydney thugs. “Try the bigger bloke since he did the driving. Hurry, Elizabeth, they won’t be out of it long.”
She had to steel herself to reach into the older man’s pockets, and did so in mortal terror that he would regain consciousness. Somehow, she yanked free the keys. Then she tried to help Tom through the doorway.
“Minute,” he said, his voice as ragged as his clothing and his bloodied face. Using the doweling as a foreshortened cane, he lurched close enough to deliver each of the Sydney men a truly vicious kick to the face, then another, before turning to Bess. “You go... get the car started. You’ll have to drive 'cause I can’t.”
“Aren't you coming with me? Let me help...”
She got no further. Tom glared at her, his pain-wracked expression imploring her to leave. She bolted through the doorway, into the yard, yet her ears became her eyes as she listened to the distinct, never-before-heard but unmistakable sound of a bone snapping like a rotten branch beneath Tom’s shoe. She thought she heard the sound again when she was halfway to the car, but couldn’t be certain.
Literally throwing herself into the driver’s seat, she turned to see Tom reeling toward her, barely able to keep his balance. He reached the hire car, got the passenger door open, then almost fell in, his voice preceding him.
“Can’t go yet. Your purse... inside the house. Get it. Quickly Elizabeth... I can’t last much longer.”
It took her only minutes, but even that had clearly sapped Tom’s strength. He slumped in the seat beside her, huddling over the pain of his broken ribs, fresh blood seeping from his facial wounds.
“Turn right, after driveway,” he groaned. “Go until Deloraine, then left to—”
“I’ve been to Deloraine and can find my way from there,” she interrupted. “But I don’t know where the hospital is.”
“No hospital. Just get us back to Barrett’s and stop worrying about me. I’ve been through worse than this and lived. Promise me, Elizabeth, Barrett's first.”
Bess started to argue, but noted the raw emotion in his battered eyes and shut her mouth. She had seen Tom Rossiter in action now, and she thought it best not to upset him any more than she had to. Not because she feared him, but because she feared his own savage nature might yet kill him, especially if he was opposed.
“Promise,” he insisted.
“Okay, yes, I promise.”
“Don’t speed,” he added in a voice that was almost a whisper. “I don’t want cops in this, not yet, maybe not ever.”
She didn’t bother to reply, just tooled the hire car out into the narrow road and headed south. She was quarter-circling the Deloraine roundabout in fifteen minutes, and Tom had been unconscious for thirteen of them. He never moved as she drove quickly but carefully, well within the speed limit, all the way to Launceston and Geoff’s house
And sanctuary.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Both Geoff’s Land Cruiser and Ida’s Pajero were there in the driveway when Bess plunged the hire car to a halt. From the backyard, Lady barked frenetically, then bayed gleefully, as if she were a coyote rather than a dog.
Ida and Geoff ran outside before Bess had barely placed one quavering foot on the ground. Geoff said nothing. He merely spread his arms, a cloak of protection into which Bess hurled herself without a second thought. It was left to Ida to open the passenger door and peer in at the gory, wounded mess that was Tom Rossiter.
“Bloody oath, Colorado, you don’t do things by halves, do you?” she said. “Come on, make my day and tell me you did this all by yourself.”
“That's my friend, Tom Rossiter. He rescued me. And he needs a doctor... a hospital,” Bess said, her voice muffled because her face was buried against Geoff’s chest, her ribs
aching from the strength with which he was holding her against him.
“No... no hospital...” Rossiter’s voice was barely audible, but the authority was there, even if the volume was not. “Looks... worse than it is,” he gasped. “Maybe need doctor... but not questions.”
“All right, darling, we’ll do it your way,” Ida said. “But should we be getting rid of this car while we’re at it?”
“Yup. Wipe it down good. Get rid of it. Airport parking lot best. As for me, just get me somewhere... few days to recover... worse than it looks.”
Ida fiddled in her handbag and came up with her cell phone. “I want two people at Barrett’s house twenty minutes ago,” she said. “And I want Doc at my place in fifteen minutes. No names, no pack drill.”
When she turned to Geoff and Bess again, her eyes were as hard as her reputation. “This is my business now. You two sort yourselves out and I’ll talk to you about everything tomorrow, unless sooner is needed. Colorado, you must be all right or you wouldn’t have made it this far, but leave the rest to me. Okay?”
Bess managed to nod from her refuge in Geoff’s arms, then allowed herself to be led toward the house, unable to stop her trembling, unable to totally come to terms with the last few hours. Tom was badly injured no matter what he might say. But with Ida in charge, Bess thought, at least he wouldn’t be worse off.
She and Geoff hadn’t reached the doorstep before one of Ida’s company vehicles slid round the corner and into the yard. Ida's gritty voice issued instructions.
Entering the house with Geoff’s arm around her, Bess halted in genuine shock at the apparition that stared back at her from the hall mirror. Even Geoff’s presence wasn’t enough to offset the horror of seeing this creature, auburn hair a mane of disarray, turquoise eyes wide with anxiety and torment. Her tee-shirt and shorts were bloodied, and the evidence of Tom’s injuries was smeared all over her arms and legs.
“I have to get cleaned up,” she said to Geoff’s image, which stared at her from beside the stricken figure that was her but not her. Stared with pale, ice-green eyes that seemed to swirl with emotions, eyes that flickered from pain to anger to outright rage, then back to compassion again. All within an instant.
Finding Bess Page 18
