Liberty or Death (37 page)

"Been doing it all week." I said it bravely, but my heart was racing and I'd gone cold all over.

"And your nosebleed came from what? Running into a door?"

I shrugged. "Extreme provocation."

He shook his head. "Headstrong. That's what Jack said. I think." He frowned. "You've got to do better than that. Whatever the provocation. And we'll try our damnedest to get to you in time."

As reassurance went, it wasn't much but I had no right to expect more. "Someone has to get to Jed Harding," I said. "Make him realize how much harm his silence is causing. They've not only taken Andre, but his boy, and nearly killed his mother. He's been keeping his end of the deal; they haven't. He's got to be made to see that his loyalty is misplaced, if it was loyalty, and if his silence was to protect his family, it hasn't done much good, has it?"

He nodded, but I saw in his eyes what I thought myself. That it was a long shot. That Harding had more, not less, reason to keep silent now that they had his son. That he'd had the power to prevent this all along and hadn't used it. Why should he change now? Because he was fundamentally a good man? This town was full of people who, in theory, were good. When push came to shove, though, they scattered like frightened ducks, bobbing their heads and quacking and pretending to be real interested in bugs in the grass. This sort of thing couldn't happen, couldn't get out of hand like this, unless people kept their heads down, ignoring it and letting it have its way.

"Hell of a long shot," I agreed, "only what have we got but long shots?" He nodded grimly.

I realized that there was no way he could leave, and I really did need to use this facility. "Can you turn your back for a moment? I've got to... uh..."

"I thought unisex bathrooms were the coming thing?" His smile was warm and brief. "I'll just go back where I came from and cover my ears." He disappeared back into the shower, drew the curtain, and left me to attend to business.

When I came out, Roy Belcher was waiting with an expression on his face so like a peevish husband that under other circumstances, I would have been amused. Right now, my face hurt too much to smile. My knees were knocking. I was nearly catatonic with fear. "Took you long enough," he said.

I lowered my eyes toward the floor, wiped a tendril of blood off my face, and placed my palm across my abdomen. "Sorry. I had to... uh... you know. And then wash the blood off my face and... Sorry. Is Mrs. Harding all right, do you think? Have they come yet?"

"Come along. You're keeping people waiting." He gestured with his hand and I realized, with a tremor of shock, that he was holding a gun.

Well, Kozak, I told myself. It's like Theresa said. No one asked you to come. You wanted this, and by damn, you've got it. Or it's got you.
As he shepherded me into the kitchen, my head stayed bent. Not only because I wanted to appear submissive, but because the weight of fear and anticipation of pain was bowing me down. As we entered, two men were gently lifting Mrs. Harding onto a stretcher. One arm slipped off and stayed off, waving a grotesque farewell as they began to wheel her out the door.

"Wait!" I called.

"Careful." Roy's voice growled in my ear as I felt the gun press against my side.

"You should know," I called. "She stopped breathing a few minutes ago. I had to give her CPR."

The men nodded and wheeled her out. As I watched the door close behind them, I felt as if my own fate was being sealed. In the opposite direction from hers. As Mary Harding rolled one way toward life and safety and care, I was going to roll another way toward danger, neglect, and, quite possibly, toward death.

 

 

 

Chapter 26

 

When Hannon pulled out a chair and ordered me into it, I was glad to sit. I'd started the day debilitated and now fear had finished the job. The term "weak-kneed" fit me perfectly. My legs, on the brief journey across the room to the chair, seemed to have become boneless and rubbery. I wavered, stumbled, and finally had to grab Roy Belcher's arm for support, which pleased him immensely. These guys would have been so dysfunctional in pioneer times. Nothing satisfied them more than weak women. I sank onto the seat and closed my eyes, wishing fervently that someone would beam me up, or that the cavalry would arrive, as I sorted through the ragbag of my character, looking for some strength or courage to see me through this.

I didn't want them to know how scared I was. I hate being vulnerable and weak. I'm used to being pretty tough—but that's in my own world—a world that may be challenging, demanding, and deceptive, but one that generally plays by society's rules. This was another world. How do you argue that you're not someone's enemy when they've devised a particular code that says you are? How do you declare to ruthless people who are bent on kidnapping you that kidnapping is against the law, when they think they've opted out of all the laws? I suppose, looked at that way, these guys weren't so different from a lot of bad guys, were they? Most of the bad guys I'd encountered had argued themselves into a pretty good rationale for why their crimes weren't really crimes when committed by them.

There was no sense in looking around for help, either. Theresa had placed the almighty buck ahead of personal or civic responsibility. Cathy didn't seem to have formed any convictions. Clyde and Natty were both part of the movement. Kalyn was gone, and while I pinned some hope on her, it was like trying to put the tail on the donkey with a blindfold on. I didn't know where those hopes would end up. That left me with no one except Jim. He'd do his best, but by the time his backup got here, I'd be long gone, physically and perhaps temporally as well.

There was the thud of something being set on the table, and then Hannon's voice. "Okay, honey. I want you to drink this."

I opened my eyes on a room that suddenly seemed too bright. Light glinting off the cutlery, off the stacks of plates and glasses, off the gleaming teeth of my predatory audience. A glass of something that looked like milk hovered at eye level. I blinked and closed my eyes again. "What is it?"

"Something to make your journey more comfortable," he said. His words were so innocent. His tone was ironic and condescending but there was a hard edge of menace behind it. He stared down at me with cold eyes and his mouth was a thin, fixed line. I wanted to refuse but it was likely that if I didn't drink it on my own, I would be drinking it with their help, and besides, Jim's words echoed in my ear. Cooperate. Don't provoke. My stomach knotted. What if it was poison?

I reached out with unsteady hands and took the glass. Raised it to my lips. And froze for a second, unable to go on. "Drink it!" he snapped. I drank. It tasted like slightly gritty milk. I had no idea what was in it. And then, with a sense of time suspended, I waited. Did this cloud have a silver lining?

That come what would, I might see Andre again? And was that enough?

"Hold out your hands. Wrists together." I did as I was told. There are people who dream of being the center of attention, even negative attention. Any and all were welcome to change places with me now. They bound my hands together with some kind of super-strong packing tape. Roughly. Tightly. With an economy that suggested they'd done this before. Did the same thing with my ankles. As he pulled off a strip to put over my mouth, Hannon said, in a pompous, formal voice, "It is my duty to inform you that you are accused of spying against the Katahdin Constitutional Militia. If you are found guilty, the penalty is death." I had the proverbial snowball's chance of being found innocent.

He moved forward to stick the tape over my mouth. "Wait," I said. "I'm no spy. I'm not in the employ of any federal, state, or local government. I'm just a woman trying to find the man she's going to marry."

"You'll have an opportunity to present your side of things," he sneered, "when the time comes." The question bubbled to my lips, "Did you do this to Harding's wife before you chopped her up?" but he slapped the strip of tape over my mouth before it got out. So much for Jim's advice. Given the chance, I would have been incorrigible. I would have pissed him off even more than he already was. He tore off another strip and wrapped it around my head. All tied up and ready for the UPS to come and take me away.

My ears were ringing and my face felt hot and flushed. Lights and sounds and faces assumed a distorted reality. Something certainly was coming to take me away. My own consciousness. I struggled to stay present and focused but some will other than my own was turning the knobs. The room turned into a bright loud blurry cacophony of sounds and senses and then faded toward fuzzy gray. Fuzzy gray men picked me up with fuzzy gray hands and carried me out into darkness. I could feel their hands on my body but the body felt disconnected from me. They dumped me in the trunk of a car, slammed it shut, and the gray became black. Since there wasn't anything else I could do, I decided it was a good time for a nap.

I woke because something was tickling my nose. Woke into dense blackness and profound silence. There were none of the electronic hums, whirs, or ticks of household appliances. No meters or pumps or clocks. Nothing mechanical spoke to itself here. I tried to bring my hand up to my face to scratch and got two. Two cold, numb things at the ends of my arms that rose up together and clubbed me in the nose, reminding me, as unpleasant sensations reverberated through my face, of the time immediately preceding my departure for this place. Wherever this place was. Whatever it was.

I let my senses inform me. I was lying on a floor that had a damp, smooth slickness to it and a deep, earthy smell. Dirt, I figured. There was a current of air moving through the room that stirred tendrils of hair and blew them across my face. There was no light, though, not even a glimmer. The room was the same with my eyes open or closed. I rolled over onto my back and listened. I wasn't entirely alone and it wasn't completely quiet after all. Somewhere in the room, I heard the faint sound of someone breathing. Supposedly, people deprived of one sense develop the others more highly. I didn't need to be blind to recognize this breathing, though. Sleep beside someone long enough and the cadence of their breathing becomes part of the background of your life, something that perhaps your mind doesn't know you know, but your body does. I knew who else was in the room.

Suddenly, the desperateness of my plight didn't matter so much, even if I was the helpless prisoner of a savage band of self-styled patriots, even if I knew what their savagery could lead them to. It was irrelevant that I was bound and battered and deeply chilled and lying on a slimy dirt floor. What mattered was that I was back in the same room with Andre. And he was breathing!

I rolled across the floor until I bumped up against something hard and then paused to listen. He was very close now. Sitting up, I explored the space in front of me with my hands. A hard wooden ledge with something padded on it. Padded and nylon. Probably a sleeping bag. Reaching further, I touched a back, then a shoulder. Rising awkwardly to my feet, I sat on the edge of the boards, then swung my feet up and lay down beside him. He slept on, soundless and still, as I stretched out beside him and fitted my body to the contours of his. Drugged, probably, or totally exhausted. Andre Lemieux had never been indifferent or unresponsive.

I nuzzled my chin into his neck and sniffed him, like a dog reunited with its master after a long absence. The stubble of his beard grated across my forehead and caught at my hair. He was dirty—the dirt of days without washing and the scent of sweat from struggle and fear. I loved him soap-scented and fresh from the shower but I loved this more. It was the scent of alive, of real. Beneath it all, the laundry scents of hot irons and starch lingered in his once crisp shirt. I snuggled closer and thought I felt a slight relaxing toward me. I wanted to whisper a million things to him but I couldn't. My mouth was sealed.

Until now, I had never admitted to myself how much I feared this moment would never come, how likely it was that Andre was already dead. I had kept those dark thoughts exiled to the edge of my consciousness. They had lurked there, peeking and flirting and begging to be let in, darting in whenever they had a chance, sneaking in when I tried to sleep. It had taken a lot of energy to keep them out. Now, curled up beside him, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing with my own chest, I experienced a powerful explosion of relief and release. I rested my head on his shoulder and let my tears fall.

I suppose I fell asleep, lulled by the rhythm of his breath, the warmth of his body, relief at finally letting down, the remnants of the drug. What woke me was a dazed muttering, faint at first, and then growing louder and more frantic as he emerged from sleep, simultaneously trying to orient himself and girding to do battle. Even in a debilitated state, Andre always woke like a cop. Kind of like a clock radio. One minute asleep; the next fully awake. His body suddenly flipped away from me as he turned, rigid, and barked, "Who?" then "What the...???" and then, softly, wonderingly, "Thea?" And all I could do was make noises. His hands came up, with a metallic clink. Handcuffs? His slow fingers prowled anxiously over my face and then began tugging weakly at the tape.