Escapade (9781301744510) (42 page)

Rory's chin was raised in a valiant effort to
conceal her fear, but the pleading look in her eyes seared Zeke.
Was there a chance that Mrs. Van Hallsburg would let her go once
Rory had served her purpose, helped her to escape? As the lines
were being cast off, Mrs. Van Hallsburg shifted her gaze to meet
Zeke's, her impassive features flushed with a taunting triumph.
Zeke knew that whatever Rory did, she was going to die.

As the balloon lifted off, he charged
forward. Shoving past the astonished Angelo, he grabbed onto a
dangling rope and tried to hold the balloon earthbound. But he
hadn't counted on the sheer power of the hissing behemoth above
him.

The balloon yanked him up as though he
weighed no more than a rag doll, his feet kicking nothing but air.
He heard the startled shouts from below and made the mistake of
looking down at the wooden dock spinning rapidly away from him. For
a second, he felt a rush of dizziness, the familiar nausea, but he
forced himself to look up. The rope abraded his palms as he
strained to climb upward and pull himself into the basket.

Dragged down by Zeke's added weight, the
balloon rose a few feet above the warehouse and no higher.
Horrified, Rory peered over the side of the basket. She forgot her
own danger in the face of Zeke's struggle for his life, fearing
that any moment she would see his hands slip, his body hurtle back
to smash against the docks.

She made a frantic attempt to tug on the
rope, help pull Zeke up to safety. A futile gesture. Idiot, she
rebuked herself. The valve line, she needed to pull on the valve
line, release enough air to lower gently, allow Zeke a chance to
drop safely back to the ground.

But as she spun about, she was chilled by a
burst of laughter from Mrs. Van Hallsburg. She saw the woman
striving to release some of the ballast so the balloon would surge
even higher.

Rory leaped to stop her, but Mrs. Van
Hallsburg brought her gun back to bear. Rory slapped the weapon
aside, deflecting it just as it went off, the shot whizzing
harmlessly past, singeing one of the ropes. The gun flew from Mrs.
Van Hallsburg's fingers, vanishing over the side of the gondola.
With a shriek of fury, Mrs. Van Hallsburg lunged for Rory's
throat.

Rory fought with all her might to hold her
off, but despite her brittle elegance, the woman seemed possessed
of a demonic strength. Rory felt herself driven relentlessly
backward. The basket pitched and Rory lost her balance. Mrs. Van
Hallsburg shoved hard and Rory cried out as she fell, tumbling into
nothingness.

She grasped wildly, her fingers managing to
close over the side of the basket. For a terrifying moment, she
thought she couldn't hold on. She heard Zeke roar her name,
glimpsed him swaying on the rope just beneath her.

But she dared not look down. Mrs. Van
Hallsburg's pale face hovered above her, the woman's length of
white-gold hair blowing free in a witchlike tumble. She grasped
Rory's fingers, her nails biting into Rory's flesh. Slowly,
remorselessly, she began to pry Rory's hands away.

Rory’s legs flailed against the tangle of her
skirts. Her hands throbbed with pain as she felt her
sweat-slickened fingers start to slip.

"Zeke!" she cried. Below her, she sensed his
struggles to scale the rope and reach her in time. She felt her
foot strike against his shoulder just as she lost her grip.

Her cry seemed borne away by the wind as she
plummeted, knocking against Zeke. He grabbed for her, his fingers
clamping ruthlessly about her wrist, arresting her plunge with a
suddenness that nearly wrenched her arm from her socket. His other
hand barely clutched the end of the rope, his incredible strength
the only thing between them and certain death. His face was beaded
with sweat, the cords of his neck muscles taut with the strain, and
Rory knew he couldn't maintain this for long.

Above them she had a glimpse of Mrs. Van
Hallsburg, the woman's features contorted beyond recognition as she
worked frantically to release the ballast, her smile insane.

Zeke gave a roar of rage and despair. He
suddenly stared downward as if mesmerized, and to Rory's horror, he
let go the rope.

As Rory fell, she had no time to even cry
out. She struck ground much sooner than she anticipated, slamming
down, the breath driven from her lungs. She felt Zeke landing hard
beside her.

For a moment she was too dazed to comprehend
anything more than that by some miracle, they had dropped to the
roof of the warehouse.

After gulping in a few painful breaths, she
struggled to sit up and reach out to Zeke, see if he was hurt. But
he was already drawing himself up to his knees, gazing anxiously at
her.

"Rory. Are you all right?"

She nodded and he swooped her into his arms,
cradling her against him as though he would never let her go. Every
muscle in her body ached, but she reveled in the feel of his
strength, the reassuring thud of his heart thundering in rhythm
with her own. The danger was past. They were safe, but to her
astonishment, she burst into tears.

"Hush, darling. Don't cry. It's all over
now," Zeke said, brushing the hair back from her brow in a familiar
gesture, the rough texture of his fingers gentle.

"It was like a night¬mare. She- she- ."

"She's gone, Rory. She'll never have a chance
to hurt you again, damn her." He twisted his head, glancing
skyward. Rory followed his gaze toward the vanishing speck that was
the balloon. She knew it would have surged upward when she and Zeke
dropped off, but not at such a rate as that. Mrs. Van Hallsburg had
to be releasing the ballast like a madwoman, out of ignorance or
design, propelling herself upward to those cold regions of sky
where the air was too thin. Suddenly Rory recalled her dream of the
night before and she understood its significance.

"I suppose she will manage to escape," Zeke
said bitterly. "Get away with everything she's done."

"No," Rory whispered, a chill working through
her. "There's no escaping the banshee."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Some distance beyond the farthest reaches of
Fifth Avenue, pavement and mansions gave way to farmland, rolling
green fields that stretched out in rural tranquility, fighting to
ignore the encroachments of the ever-advancing city. Late that
afternoon, the balloon that touched down seemed just one more of
these. Tom Grey, the farmer who owned the land, was less shocked by
the strange object entangled in the branches of his apple tree than
he was by the fair-haired woman sprawled on her back near the
tree's base, her sightless eyes turned toward the sky from which
she had fallen.

"Strangest darn thing," Farmer Grey told the
police who had been summoned to remove the body back to the city
morgue. "One of the warmest spring days we've had this year, and
yonder she lies all stiff and cold, the blood fair frozen to her
face. When I first came upon her, I was near sick. A horrible
sight. I'll never forget it as long as I live.

Hours later, Zeke Morrison feared that he
might not either. He stood outside the door leading into the
morgue, uncertain he could cross that threshold and imprint upon
his memory whatever grim scene lay beyond.

Duffy plucked at his sleeve. "Hey, Morrison,
you going to be all right? You sure you want to go through with
this? There are plenty of other people who could identify her. It's
not exactly as though she was any relation of—" Duffy broke off,
unable to meet Zeke's gaze. He reddened with embarrassment.

"I'm going in," Zeke said. It wasn't a
question of wanting to. He had to. He had permitted enough of his
past to haunt him without allowing Cynthia Van Hallsburg to become
the most formidable ghost of all.

Shoving open the door, he stepped inside with
Duffy following. A young policeman twitched back the sheet from the
still, draped form resting upon the wooden table.

Zeke braced himself, but whatever horrors he
had been expecting were not forthcoming. Any blood had been cleaned
away, and those mocking cold blue eyes were closed forever, the
rigid contours of her face retaining only a hint of the beauty she
once had been. Gazing down upon her, it was almost impossible to
believe any spark of life had ever animated those impassive
features.

His mother.

No matter what Mrs. Van Hallsburg had
claimed, the word had no meaning when attached to her. Zeke tried
to dredge up some emotion at her passing, pity, anger, relief. But
he felt nothing.

He made the identification and then left the
room as the police officer drew the sheet back over her face.
Outside, in the hall, Duffy appeared the more shaken, although he
was doggedly making notes.

"Thank God, that's over," he said. "Now I
suppose you'll be hurrying back to your Miss Kavanaugh."

Zeke nodded, Rory had wanted to accompany him
to the police station, but he felt she had been through enough for
one day. There had been so much he had wanted to say to her, but in
the uproar that surrounded the aftermath of their narrow escape,
the right moment had not presented itself.

Perhaps he was simply stalling, uncertain of
her response, still fearing her rejection. It had been one thing to
dash into reckless action and, risk his neck to try to save her. A
far different kind of courage was required to settle the
differences between them, admit to her how wrong he had been and to
ask her pardon.

Duffy seemed to sense some of his
trepidation, for he clapped Zeke on the shoulder and wished him
luck. "I have to be rushing off myself," he said. "They're holding
the presses for me. I've got a helluva tale to tell. I only hope I
got all the details straight." Duffy cleared his throat, appearing
uncomfortable. "Uh, Morrison, I couldn't help wondering. That
wasn't true, was it, all that nonsense Mrs. Van Hallsburg spouted
about your being her-"

"Her bastard son?" Zeke filled in when Duffy
hesitated. "Yes, it was. You've always said you'd get your story
about me. Well, now I guess you have it."

Duffy folded his notebook and tucked it back
into his pocket. "I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone
knows Cynthia Van Hallsburg died childless. As far as I'm
concerned, there won't be anything worthwhile to print about you
until the notice of your wedding."

Zeke stared at him, astonished, more moved
than he could say by this evidence of Duffy's friendship. He
extended his hand in a gesture of gratitude, but Duffy, never able
to stay still for long, was already gone.

Twilight settled over McCreedy Street, the
rows of tall brick houses basking in the last rays of the setting
sun. The peaceful silence was only broken by the rattle of the
occasional coach wheel or some straggling urchin being called into
supper.

Rory sat on the front stoop of her apartment
building, watching the moon rise. As a warm breeze tickled her
cheek, she breathed deeply, appreciating as she never had before
the sights and sounds of her street, not even minding the
occasional yapping of Finn McCool.

After the madness she had lived through
earlier, it was all so blessedly sane, so wonderfully normal. Rory
wished she could lean back and fully enjoy the evening like any
other girl on a Friday night, waiting for her beau to call.

But if Zeke did fulfill his promise to
return, she knew he would be pulled down, wearied from his visit to
the morgue. Despite the way they had clung to each other upon the
warehouse roof, the tensions from their previous quarrel yet
remained.

That realization still did not prevent her
from glancing eagerly down the street at every new clopping of
horses' hooves. A wry smile touched Rory's lips as she couldn't
help remembering Zeke's last grand entrance onto McCreedy Street.
When he did come, he would likely bring Miss Flanagan rushing to
her window again.

After an hour of waiting, the minutes began
to drag by. Rory's pleasure in the evening began to fade before a
feeling of mounting disappointment. Another vehicle turned the
corner, but it was only a battered old wagon with two men perched
upon the box. Rory regarded it with scant interest until it drew
closer and she was better able to remark the outline of the second
man, settled next to the driver. The narrow wagon seat was barely
constructed to accommodate Zeke's broad shoulders and athletic
build.

Her mouth flying open in astonishment, Rory
shot to her feet as the wagon pulled over to the curb. Even more
startling than Zeke's manner of arrival were the contents of the
wagon. She stared in disbelief at the familiar shape of the
gondola, the ropes and trappings of the Katie Moira.

When Zeke clambered down from his perch, her
stunned gaze flicked from him to the balloon and back again. She
had rehearsed many ways of greeting him upon his return, but now
all of them flew out of her head as she practically babbled.

"Zeke. What the . . . I never expected- I
don't understand. What is this?"

"It's your balloon, Aurora Rose," he said
with a flash of his old humor. "As long as I was down at the police
station, I supposed I might as well see if there was anything left
of the blasted thing. I lack your expert eye, but I think the gas
bag can be mended. If you would give me the keys to the warehouse,
I'll have it sent on there."

Rory was too dumbfounded by his gesture to
respond. With great patience, he repeated his request until she
finally groped in her pocket and handed the keys over. Zeke
retrieved something from the front seat of the wagon before sending
it on its way. When Rory followed the vehicle's progress up the
street, still tempted to rub her eyes, Zeke asked, "Is something
wrong? I assumed you would want the balloon retrieved."

"Yes, I would and I am very glad you did. But
after your experience today, I would scarce have blamed you if you
had wanted to set fire to it."